MUSICAL INSIGHT
Caribbean L 36 ife, October 16-22, 2020
globe.
And while the eventual
winner of the competition —
announced on Sept. 21 — was
Victoria Korth’s Harlem Valley
Psychiatric Center, deGannes
is excited about what the honor
means for her writing career
and for the launch of her forthcoming
full length book of
poetry “Music for Exile,” which
will be published by Tupelo
Press in February of 2021.
“To have been shortlisted
for the Montreal International
Poetry Prize was a huge honor,”
she says, “And the timing of it
has been so fortuitous, coming
now, just a few months before
my first book length collection
of poems ‘Music for Exile’ is
released next year. I’ve spent
a great deal of time in recent
years working as an actor, but
what many people who may
know me primarily through
the world of theatre may not
know is that I started out as a
writer. My love for and interest
in acting emanated from that.”
Born in Trinidad and Tobago
into a family with roots in
Grenada, Guyana, St. Vincent
and Dominica, deGannes was
raised primarily in Canada. She
earned her Bachelor of Arts
degree in English Literature
from McGill University and
went on to pursue her MA in
African American Studies at
Temple as well as an MFA in
Literary Arts at Brown.
Her career trajectory would
change dramatically when,
while at Brown, she found herself
consistently pursued by
several of her MFA colleagues in
the playwright’s program to act
in their productions. This lead
to performances on Brown’s
main stage, a newly discovered
passion for acting and eventual
enrollment in Trinity Rep’s
Conservatory Graduate Acting
Program where she trained for
three years.
Since then, deGannes has
performed Off Broadway,
regionally and internationally
at some of the most prestigious
theatres in the Americas, in the
works of many of literature’s
most esteemed playwrights.
asms,” Alarm Will Sound said
Sorey uses his unique language
of visual gestures, text directives
and autonomous prompts
to collaboratively create a piece
in real time.
“I always think compositionally,”
Sorey said. “Much of
what I do is craft even when
I spontaneously create something.
“The performers must do
the same, and they’re equally
responsible for the result,” he
added. “At no point can one
performer take this process of
making music for granted.”
Alarm Will Sound said it
intends to commission more
composers to partake in “Video
Chat Variations” as time
progresses.
Following Meredith Monk
and Sorey will be David Lang,
as well as emerging voices in
experimental classical music.
Alarm Will Sound said composer
and multi-instrumentalist
Sorey is celebrated for
his “incomparable virtuosity,
effortless mastery and memorization
of highly complex
scores, and an extraordinary
ability to blend composition
and improvisation in his work.
“He has performed widely
with his own ensembles as
well as other internationally
renowned artist,” it said.
Named a 2017 MacArthur
fellow, Sorey has received commissions
from numerous artists,
orchestras and ensembles,
including JACK Quartet, Ojai
Music Festival, Los Angeles
Philharmonic, Opera Philadelphia,
McGill-McHale trio,
International Contemporary
Ensemble, Seattle Symphony
Orchestra, and Alarm Will
Sound, among many others.
Sorey has taught and lectured
on composition and
improvisation at Wesleyan University,
New England Conservatory,
The University of Michigan,
Columbia University, The
Banff Centre, Hochschule für
Musik Köln, University of California
in Berkeley, Harvard
University and The Danish
Rhythmic Conservatory.
He has been recently
appointed the presidential
assistant professor of Music at
the University of Pennsylvania
.L
ed by artistic director and
conductor Alan Pierson, Alarm
Will Sound is a 20-member
band committed to innovative
performances and recordings
of today’s music.
The band has established
a reputation for performing
demanding music with “equal
parts exuberance, nonchalance
and virtuosity,” according to
the Financial Times.
With classical skill and
unlimited curiosity, Alarm Will
Sound takes on music from a
wide variety of styles.
“Stylistically omnivorous
and physically versatile” (The
Log Journal), its repertoire
comes from around the world,
and ranges from the arch-modernist
to the pop-influenced.
Since its inception, Alarm
Will Sound said it has been
associated with composers at
the forefront of contemporary
music.
The group itself includes
many composer-performers,
which allows for an unusual
degree of insight into the creation
and performance of new
work.
Alarm Will Sound is the
resident ensemble at the Mizzou
International Composers
Festival.
Held each July at the University
of Missouri in Columbia,
the festival features eight
world premieres by early-career
composers.
Continued from Page 35
Continued from Page 35
Express said.
It also said that US-based,
Haitian-born author Edwidge
Danticat was presented with
the OCM Bocas Prize Fiction
for her novel “Everything
Inside.”
Danticat called the OCM
prize “a most incredible honor”
before quoting late American
author Toni Morrison to
issue a challenge to her fellow
awardees and writers across
the region to continue to do
their part to lift the spirits of
the peoples of the Caribbean,
according to the Express.
“For our writers and creators,
as the great Toni Morrison
once said: ‘this is exactly
when we go to work.’
“To quote Ms Morrison:
‘there is no time for despair,
no place for self-pity, no need
for silence, no room for fear;
we speak, we write, we do language,
that is how civilizations
heal,’” Danticat said.
The Express said Georges
“looked genuinely stunned”
during his acceptance video of
the award.
It said his 2019 novel “takes
a revealing post-catastrophe
look into life in the British
Virgin Islands, where he was
raised, after the devastating
effects of Hurricane Irma in
2017.”
Georges has been on the
Bocas Lit radar for the past
three years, the Express said,
adding that his 2017 book,
“Make Us All Islands,” was
short-listed for the Forward
Prize for Best First Collection.
His second book, “Giant
(2018)”, was “highly commended
by the Forward Prize judges
and long-listed for the OCM
Bocas Prize,” the Express said.
It said McWatt dedicated
her OCM Bocas Non-Fiction
prize for “Shame on Me” to her
mother.
Raised in Canada, McWatt,
a professor of Creative Writing
at the University of East Anglia
(UEA), in Norwich, England,
“explores identity, race and
belonging from the perspective
of a writer who has endured
decades of racism and bigotry,”
the Express said.
“I would like to thank my
family, my extended family
and my immediate family for
going with me on a journey
as I researched and wrote, and
experienced this book both
before it came into the world
and since it’s been out in the
world,” the Express quoted
McWatt as saying. “The book
would not exist without my
parents.
“My late father would be very
proud, and I’d like to thank
my mother whose stories and
whose love form the spine of
this book,” she added. “I would
like to give this award to her, so
thanks, mom.”
Continued from Page 35
In this photo of March 30, 2016, composer Vijay Iyer, right, The Met Breuer museum’s performance
artist in residence, plays piano accompanied by Steve Lehman, center, on saxophone
and Tyshawn Sorey, left, on drums at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new
modern and contemporary art outpost, The Met Breuer, in New York. Associated Press /
Barbara Woike, File
Bocas Prize winners Trini poet celebrates
Haitian author Edwidge
Danticat. Edwidge Danticut/FB