Short Talks: Community Partnerships Through Music
This episode of Short Talks from the Hill features Lia Uribe, professor of music and associate dean of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Hear more about her research on building community partnerships and relationships, which she has accomplished through two initiatives — RefleXions, a music series, and Sound Perimeter, a podcast featured on KUAF.
Jennifer Holland: Welcome to Short Talks from the Hill, a podcast from the University of Arkansas. I’m Jennifer Holland. With us today is Lia Uribe, who is the associate dean of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Most recently, Lia was chair of the Department of Music from January to July 2023. She joined the university in 2013 and is the second woman and first person of Latin heritage to chair the department. Lia is an international bassoonist, chamber musician, orchestral player and teaching artist. Her research is centered on Latin-American and historically marginalized and underrepresented music and composers, and she is especially passionate about building community partnerships and relationships. Lia, welcome to Short Talks.
Lia Uribe: Thank you so much, Jennifer. It is such a great pleasure and honor to be here with you.
JH: First off, tell me about your research. What are you currently working on and why is it important to you?
LU: So, it’s been an interesting thing, the development of my research. It started as an academic endeavor looking for composers from Colombia or South America for my dissertation, and it was really hard to find those composers. So, I started commissioning some pieces, which is when you connect with the composers and ask them to write for you. And since then, and because of that, I realized that we didn’t have those many pieces available for us to play. And I was interested in revealing my identities when I was performing. In the world of classical music, it’s very much centered around European, white, dead composers that wrote beautiful music, but it’s not the only music that is out there. So since then, I’ve been very intentional about programming and commissioning and connecting with those composers and bringing their music to different stages, wherever I am or recordings, conferences, my own curriculum when I teach. So that’s basically what I do: connect with composers, get some new pieces, and then make them available for my peers in the world of bassoon or music.
JH: And so how does your research influence your performances then, as a musician?
LU: Those processes are very interesting, because most likely what I play these days is music by composers that are still alive. So that is a very beautiful collaborative process. I reach out to composers, or they reach out to me. We work together. We talk about what is possible. Some of them may have experience with the bassoon or not. So, we talk about what is technically available in the instrument. Some of them are interested in extended techniques, which is different ways of making sound with the bassoon that are not traditional. So, we talk about how to make that happen. So, it’s a very collaborative process. It creates, you know, a special relationship between the composers and me or whoever else is performing with me. So, it’s very different than just getting a piece from the 1800s or 1500s and trying to make sense of it.
JH: And in 2019, you founded the RefleXions music series. Tell me a little more about that.
LU: So, RefleXions was a really beautiful project. It still is around in some sort of shape, and the whole idea is to bring music to the forefront. Beautiful music, different music and musicians, but with the intention to have a conversation around it. So, our guests have been here either virtually, because some of this project happened during the pandemic, or in person. And what we do is create an environment for them to play for a lot of people, to wow them with their amazing technical and emotional abilities, to just move and transform through the power of music, and then talk about what are their choices in terms of repertoire or messages that you want to deliver, or what other ancillary work they do with communities or in their own environments. So, it’s all to say that music plays a much bigger role than just the concert itself. It has the power to bring people together, to democratize those stages by bringing identities that are not usually centered. Also, the ability to reach out to many more people than initially thought of, by means of education or public spaces. It has the power to be an advocate for justice and for equality, and for many, many other social processes. So that’s what we do with RefleXions.
JH: And there’s a statement on the RefleXions website that says, “Music and the arts are spaces for social innovation.” And there’s another on there that says, “Music and the arts rebalance society.” Explain what you mean by those.
LU: I think back to my previous comment. You know, when you’re in a concert or the concerts that we put together anyway, we want those spaces to be democratic, to be accessible to all. So, there’s a tradition, especially with classical music, that you have to cross many doors in order to get to those stages. You have to dress in a certain way. You have to pay a certain amount of money. You have to know the context of the music in order to know when to clap or not to clap, what to enjoy, not to fall asleep. All of those things. But with our concept and our approach, we want this music to be available for all, in spaces that are more freeing, if you will, spaces in which you can just bring yourself as you are, in which you can establish communication with people by you. You can move around, you can dance. You can clap. You can smile. You have to follow those protocols because, it’s a place of, really, connection with the artist. And again, with the conversations we have that completes the process in which we put the artist at the same level, because we all carry art in our lives. We’re all creative creatures. We all want to have sensitivities, to be able to transform ourselves with our thoughts and our expressions. So that’s kind of the whole idea of democratizing and innovating can also bring music down to earth, to a live experience, to the moment and available for all.
JH: I do want to touch too on Sound Perimeter, because Short Talks is not your first podcast. You’re very experienced with podcasts.
LU: RefleXions, by the way, has some podcast episodes as well, because that’s part of what we do. And that was a result of the pandemic. We didn’t have access to audiences, but we had access to KUAF, our local NPR affiliate. So, we started talking about these issues for the larger community in Northwest Arkansas, and that was very successful during the pandemic and afterwards. But because of that, also Sound Perimeter was created, which is a short segment that airs during Ozarks at Large on Thursdays, but also exists as an NPR podcast by itself. And those are spaces that I thought were important. Again, just to expand our musical boundaries, and that’s the slogan anyways, which is let’s depart from this idea that the only good composers were the three B’s as we know in classical music, Brahms, Beethoven and Bach, and bring some more music and names and instruments and genres. And it’s a way just to enjoy music and to provide some context, because again, people are really hesitant sometimes to connect with what we consider classical music because they don’t have knowledge. So, I provide a bit of information. If I bring a piece from those, you know, composers, from Brahms, I talk about, what it meant at the time, what to listen for. And these are little excerpts. They’re not pieces in their totality. And then contrast that with a piece by a Cuban musician with Latin American rhythms or somebody playing pipa from China or maybe some rap and hip hop, because I think, and we think, that those musics can coexist in the same space and bring connections from people from what they are thinking, where they’re from. So, it’s a very fun thing for me to do. It really is a space for my creativity, but also like I do in many of my spaces, trying to really bring balance and bring voices and making sure that we all have a space to be and to find ourselves a window and a mirror to encounter expressions through music.
JH: So if you wanted people to hear the best example or distillation of what a bassoonist does, what would you suggest they listen to?
LU: The bassoon is such a beautiful instrument. Unfortunately, for the longest time, it’s been reserved only for the symphony orchestra. So, even if you go to the symphony orchestra, the bassoon is so far removed from the front that you only see the little bell over there. But, I think with time, especially since the, you know, 20th century and especially these days, there’s a great interest to promote the instrument, to cross boundaries of genres. So, searching YouTube for bassoon and jazz would be really productive. Jazz and Bossa nova, Brazilian, Latin American bassoon. You’ll find a lot of new expressions. And of course, there’s the most important concerto we play is the Mozart Bassoon Concerto, which is a very dear piece to our hearts. It is also asked that we play it in every audition, and to join an orchestra, or to join a new job, or anything in music. So, baroque music was really a good place for the instrument. Vivaldi wrote like 40 pieces for bassoon, so there’s a lot to explore right there. Of course, you can follow me on my social media, and I have lots of examples of pieces that I have commissioned by composers that I just admire very much: Mario Lavista, Noelia Escalzo, Carolina Noguera. Just a few examples of people that I am working with at the moment. I’m getting ready to bring their music to conferences and just amazing music. Beautiful music for bassoon.
JH: So, before we end, I just want to note that our intro and outro today are snippets from one of your own recordings. Can you tell us a little more about what we’re listening to?
LU: The movement is called “Ojo the Tormentor” from the piece Suite Argentina, para Jugar con Andrea by Argentinian composer Jorge Mockert. It is a really fun piece that explores different dances from Argentina, which we in Latin America connect in many ways with those traditions of Spanish music, African music and Indigenous music. In this recording, I am accompanied by Miroslava Panayotova on piano and Fernando Valencia on percussion, and this is part of a recording project that we did at the music department a few years ago at Haxton Road Studios in Bentonville.
JH: Well, thank you so much for allowing us to include those and thank you for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure.
LU: Thank you so much, Jennifer and everybody. And please listen to and follow Sound Perimeter.
Matt McGowan: Short Talks from the Hill is now available wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, and additional podcasts, visit ArkansasResearch.uark.edu, the home of research and economic development news at the University of Arkansas.
A version of this story also appeared in the University of Arkansas’ Arkansas Research publication.