Conversations: Sarah Elizabeth Charles
Music
What does your music represent for you?
Music generally represents an outlet for me to share a part of myself that I’m not able to share or communicate otherwise. Whenever I am performing other people’s music or writing and performing music of my own, there is a space in me that I’m able to occupy that I can’t in other moments. It’s pretty amazing and hard to explain. My music represents both that outlet for myself and a mode of communication with my audience. When I perform, I am lucky enough to have the attention of others. Because of this, I intensely consider how I use that time, the message that I’m sharing and the way in which I go about sharing it. It’s a privilege to have the time to musically communicate with others so I try to share as openly and honestly as possible.
What inspires your writing and music?
My experiences of learning, making mistakes, and growing in the world inspire my writing and music. When I write songs, I get to shape and reflect on moments that I experience or stories that I want to tell. I get to color these experiences and stories with sounds and moods and landscapes. And each of these experiences or stories are snapshots of moments in time. I love being able to capture moments like this. And it’s a cyclical process too. What I mean is that I have a moment, I am inspired to write a song, I write the song, I rehearse the song, I perform the song and I get to reflect on that moment as time passes and as I grow in life. That moment, therefore, has the potential to change in itself too because I’m changing and so is my relationship to it. I am so grateful that I get to see my movement forward as a human by documenting life through this creative medium.
How does your music express the diaspora of the black experience?
As a multiracial woman of color, both of my parent’s backgrounds (Haitian and American/French Canadian) have contributed immensely to my identity and experience as a human being and as an artist. My father is originally from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He moved to Brooklyn, NY when he was 15 and I am now an artist/multiracial woman living not far from where he lived when he first arrived here. After moving to New York, my musical journey became more closely connected to my father’s country when I began to meet more Haitian musicians. I was encouraged to sing in Haitian Kreyol and explore Haitian musical traditions more deeply. This has resulted in my arranging of Haitian folkloric material and to the shifting of rhythmic sensibilities in my writing. As a member of the Haitian diaspora, traveling to Haiti has also been an essential part of getting to know and getting in touch with the parts of my artistry that originate from my ancestors. I continue to travel there each year so that I can remain in closer touch with that part of myself and express it through the music that I write and arrange. This is a part of me that I wasn’t as in touch with growing up and getting to know this part has been life changing. I believe that (especially as an artist) you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. To me, that “you” is larger than just the individual and extends back generations. So getting to know my history on both sides of my family has been a crucial part of my creative journey. My specific experience as a multiracial woman of color is something that I hold close and find cathartic to communicate via my modes of expression.
How does your music reflect your own experiences?
I write what I know and what I know are the things that I experience or have witnessed in my life. As a singer songwriter, I love being able to freeze a moment in time and make it musical. It can be such a therapeutic and fun process. So I have songs about curiosities and confusions, about love and heartbreak, about sickness and self exploration, about loss and growth and so much more. One of the things that is most amazing to me about life is that any moment has the potential to be inspiring. Do you feel your music pays respect to those that came before you and is that important to you? Some of the musicians that I’ve been the most inspired by have been those who have learned from those who came before them, made this music their own and created something new out of it. Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, Nina Simone, Mary Lou Williams…these are all musicians who studied the art form of jazz and to a journey toward discovering their own voice within it. Many of my heroes in pop, R&B, soul and rock have done the same. I think that when people hear my music, they can hear many different influences and styles. Jazz is my foundation. I also loved listening to the radio growing up which involved being exposed to all of these other genres as well. I don’t think that at this point I could write a musical phrase without paying homage to one of my heroes. It’s very much a part of me and I hope that I’ll continue to be able to pay respect to these people while at the same time continuing the journey of finding my own individual musical voice.
Anything else you would like to share about yourself and your work?
The only other thing that I haven’t mentioned which is a huge part of my creative journey is my work as a teaching artist. I’m currently working as a teaching artist in three different realms. The first is with Carnegie Hall, co-leading music development and songwriting projects at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and with the Future Music Project. The second is with Rise2Shine, a non-profit organization based in Fond Parisien, Haiti that specializes in early childhood development and education. And the third is with The New School, teaching private lessons and a class called Jazz and Gender that I designed a few years ago and co-teach with Caroline Davis. Working in all of these spaces in addition to writing, recording and touring helps to complete my picture as a creative person. My teaching has become a huge source of fearlessness and learning for me and is indispensable when I think of my identity as an artist.