In my last post, I provided a brief introduction to the delightful voice that is Jessika Kenney. As I mentioned, I had the opportunity to meet her, albeit briefly, after the concert, and she invited me to visit her website and begin a "dialogue" with her.
I was most of all interested in her musical background and influences in her education. These details are fairly straightforwardly presented in her bio, but she was happy to give me more information as well. Kenney studied voice at the Cornish College of the Arts, where her interest in Persian and East Asian music was augmented by exposure to vocalists Diamanda Galas and Jay Clayton. When asked about what in her musical education really stood out to her and shaped her course as a musician, she answered,
"One of the best things that happened in my early years at Cornish was meeting Jarrad Powell, composer and director of Gamelan Pacifica. The discussion on improvisation, vocal technique, and on the sung text really opened up for me after that."
Concerning her love for these ethnic styles, she says she spent time in Central Java, performing alongside distinguished artists of traditional shadow puppet shows. Her compositions often incorporate elements of these styles in addition to her own unique experimentation, utilizing fluid and multi-faceted techniques which, although audible to the Western ear, are sometimes intangible. About what stands out to her about music from these countries, she said,
"Javanese and Persian vocal traditions both have incredibly subtle elements, and are genuinely refined traditions which encourage the development of fine sensitivities. Without a context to recognize that a certain level of perception is real, valuable, and can be used for communication, those perceptions have the danger of turning in on themselves and becoming an obstacle. That tension, between acknowledgement/development of the subtle ear, and the reality of shifting contexts, really motivates my work."
I then asked her about her collaboration with the Trimpin work that was debuted at the Symphony last weekend: Above, Below and In Between, where the singer has a central role in shaping several of the movements and seemed like an improvised endeavor to some audience members. She says that
"It was a true collaboration, where first I came into Trimpin's studio, improvised with his mechanized piano. Later he wrote a graphic notation for the vocal and sang his own concept of what it would sound like for me. It happened within a few meetings but felt like a really interesting conversational process."
and furthermore, considering the 'improvisatory' quality,
"The graphic notation could have been interpreted in so many ways, but I tried to keep my sounds close to the relationship between Trimpin's visual aesthetic in the notation and his own vocalizations, which were such a delight."
To add to her knowledge and creativity, Kenney is studying Persian language and literature at UW, as well as radif, a collection of ancient Persian melodies organized in different tonal spaces.
The breadth of her explorations and depth of her focused studies is astonishing: for example, her work "Anchor Zero" centers layers of harmonic color around a steady tone and plays with breath, pulse and 'emptying out'. This intense pursuit of musical mastery has won her the 2014 Artist Trust James W Ray Distinguished Artist Award and the 2013 Stranger Genius Award in Music, alongside her husband, composer/violist Eyvind Kang.
There is far more than meets the eye or ear to this lovely singer, and I'm looking forward to hearing more of her future performances in person.
Cheers!
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