Wadada Leo Smith is an internationally acclaimed composer and trumpeter, whose work has been described as a "cosmology" and a "spiritual meditation about creation in the grand intergalactic sense." Transcending the bounds of genre or idiom, he distinctly defines his music as "Creative Music."
In this conversation with UCLA musicologist Nina Eidsheim, Smith discusses his compositional language Ankhrasmation, a symbolic language for creative musicians. While the language is extremely precise in terms of the relationship between discrete musical events, performers are invited to research the meaning of the various symbols and colors.
Smith’s scores are considered works of art and have been exhibited at UCLA's own Hammer Museum, The Museum of Rhythm, Museum Sztuki in Łódź, Poland, the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, and the Kalamazoo Institute Art Museum, in Kalamazoo MI, and Kadist San Francisco.
Reception immediately follows in the the Fowler courtyard.
Presented by the UCLA Center for Musical Humanities, with support from the R. U. Nelson Fund.