Tuesday, March 20, 2018

John Malveaux: Music of Zanaida Robles in "Silenced Women" Concert Saturday, 7 PM, St. John's Cathedral, L.A., CA

Zanaida Robles

John Malveaux of 
writes:

Sat 7 PM · St. John's Cathedral · Los Angeles, California

Please read what amazing composer, Zanaida Robles, has to

say about her composition based on text from Ntozake
  
Shange  play "For Colored Girls" included during 


"I was glad to give voice to poetry about one of the most 
painful experiences a woman can face. It is not an 
experience with which I am personally acquainted. But 
Shange's words about abortion tapped a deep resonance 
within me. I was 16 years old when I first read these words.  
At the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts my 
friend and classmate Gloria Williams felt compelled to dance 
this poetry to life. She asked me to compose the music. The 
music came to me instantaneously, as if a desperate woman 
was singing this song right into my ear. The words, "and 
nobody came, cuz nobody knew" still strike me. The 
physical pain, the blood, the intense fear, the profound 
loneliness in a keeping such an unbearable secret: this is a 
trauma that maybe never heals. Like I said, it's not an 
experience with which I am personally acquainted. But it 
resonates deeply for me, not just because I'm a woman, but  
because I'm a human being" - Zanaida Robles

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