Ellis Marsalis, Shostakovich, Coltane, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Roger Dickerson, Bach, Richard Bruce Nugent, Langston Hughes, Mahatma Ghandi, Meister Eckhart, St. Augustine, Schoenberg, The Transcendentalists, Wagner, Stravinsky, Harold Batiste, Earth, Wind, & Fire, The Bar-Kays, David Sanborn, Billy Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, Errollyn Wallen, Julia Perry, Mary Lou Williams, Meshell Ndegeocello, Brian Blade, Arvo Part, Wagner, & many, many more...
As a composer of orchestral music and jazz/groove-oriented music, my main instrument is piano and/or voice. I also play Bb clarinet and electric bass. Each composition dictates the instrumentation, so there is no specific group. As a Black Woman Composer, I want to continue in the lineage of those women before me who married the sounds of their culture with those of the orchestra, chamber ensembles, and now electronic music.
We are all trying to get to the same place. Music is the intangible art that moves us towards that place. It connects us all as it created all.
