Yasmine Azaiez “Freedom Day au Courant”

For this concert in honor of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, I wanted to create a ‘planned’ improvisation based on the song “Freedom Day” from Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite” to represent the suffering that is sadly taking place in multiple parts of the world. I was not only thinking about the suppression of music and musicians in Afghanistan, but my own country Tunisia, which like Afganistan, also has so many talented musicians who find it challenging to be nutured in their desired passion. I attempted to represent the melody in the middle in the rawest form possible, because in my opinion, it speaks for itself without an explanation of the meaning. In general, this piece uses extended techniques i have been working on to change the recognisable sound of my instrument. I used specific notes from the melody of ‘Freedom Day’ to form a cyclical, rising sense of desperation. — Yasmine Azaiez Yasmine Azaiez, a student in the Contemporary Improvisation (CI) department at New England Conservatory, performs at the Lily Pad in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yasmine was performing as part of “Music From the Front Pages,” a fundraising benefit for the Afghanistan National Institute of Music organized by CI Assistant Chair Tanya Kalmanovitch, on 18 July 2011.