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Describing Black folks’ hair, writer and philosopher bell hooks once said, “our hair feels like flower petals.” She was discussing language and its power to liberate — its power to generate narratives around Black identity that communicate beauty within a society where minstrel images and racial stereotypes run rampant. When Steph Davis heard her say “our hair feels like flower petals,”  they reached up to touch their own hair. Running their fingers through their 4C coils, they smiled when they agreed with her; our hair feels like flower petals. Internalizing this powerful description helped to shift how they view themself.

like flower petals... aims to shift how some people view the marimba. Though the marimba has a rich history rooted on the African continent, much of the marimba repertoire in the West emphasizes white Euro-American contributions while simultaneously ignoring the music of African-descended people and cultures. Combining arrangements of 1) traditional and contemporary West African gyil music, 2) African American spirituals and the Hush Arbor tradition, and 3) contemporary classical works by Black composers, this program engages Africanity as a lens through which to conceptualize and listen to the marimba.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Steph Davis is a marimbist, composer, Africana studies scholar, and cultural activist. Their music engages traditions, epistemologies, and aesthetics from the African diaspora as means for uncovering truthful historiographies, finding creative self-actualization, and reaching for collective liberation. 

Hailed by The Washington Post as a "captivating" performer who brings “bright humanity and expressive depth” to contemporary music, Steph is marimba soloist, chamber musician, and collaborator. Integrating African American, West African, and Western classical musical traditions, their performances explore the historiography of African American culture and freedom movements from an Africana womanist, Afrofuturist, and decolonial perspective. Through their arrangements and commissions, Steph has contributed over 20 works by Black composers to the marimba's repertoire. Steph is a Marimba One Premier Artist. 

Steph has been awarded residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute and Boston Center for the Arts and artist fellowships with the Antenna Cloud Farm Experimental Institute and Music for Food. They were semifinalist in the Southern California Marimba International Artist Competition and a finalist in the Boston Conservatory Concerto Competition. 

In addition to their performance career, Steph is a teaching artist with Castle of our Skins, a Black arts institution, and instructor of music theory at the Boston Conservatory. They are a co-founder of Modern Marimba and chair of the board of directors at Castle of our Skins. 

Steph received their Master of Music in marimba performance and Bachelor of Music in percussion performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where they studied with Nancy Zeltsman. 

Steph resides on unceded land of the Neponset band of the Massachusett tribe, bordertown Boston, MA.

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Marimbist Steph Davis' like flower petals...

Mayo Street Arts

Marimbist Steph Davis' like flower petals...

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