“Welcome the spring
The summer rain
Softly turned to sing again
Welcome the bud
The summer blooming flower
Welcome the child whose hand I hold
Welcome to you both young and old
We are ever new
We are ever new”
Week late on this one!
Thus far into the semester, I’ve been constantly listening to Beverly Glenn-Copeland – I figured in relation to various overarching themes, feelings, of Dark Princess’ Part IV, and with all the other readings of this semester (especially Lorde’s), it might be worth throwing his discography out there!
Copeland is an American-Canadian Black trans musician, among many other things, and from everything I’ve read, a really spectacular human being.
Making music for over four decades, Copeland’s work sounds somewhere between the labels of ambient, folk, jazz, classical, electronica, and even early Detroit techno, tying in influences from African, East and South Asian traditions. Copeland’s musical output – often created in isolation, with technological and sonic fusions beyond their time – went virtually unnoticed when released.
In the years before and between his sporadic and largely forgotten releases, Copeland became a classically trained singer and pianist at McGill University (being nearly expelled for having a relationship with woman), became a Buddhist, wrote for Sesame Street, composed and acted on Mr. Dressup, and worked as a psychotherapy co-counselor. His music has only recently found wider recognition and critical acclaim. As Copeland says, “I was making music for a generation that had yet to be born.”; he is now 74 years old.
Thinking in and around Dark Princess – through questions of intergenerational and cross-cultural/racial exchange, imaginaries and futurities, dreams, spirituality, the slippages of genre, technology, and so, so much more – Copeland’s philosophical approach and visionary music – rooted in love and hope – has felt like an appropriate soundtrack for reading this novel.
(No lie, I’m very serious about Copeland’s music sounding like what I’ve written above)
On an interesting but generally unrelated tangent of Afro-Asia encounters, Copeland’s recent resurgence was kickstarted by a Japanese record collector, who discovered and helped disseminate Copeland’s music to an entirely new generation.
https://beverlyglenncopeland.com/music
