Three Incoming First-Years Who Explored Their Passion For Music During The Pandemic

Upper West Side NY

28 August, 2021

6:03 PM

Description

Columbia Daily Spectator BY NOAH BULLWINKLE AUGUST 27, 2021 Columbia's incoming first-years have made their grand arrival, and many talented, multi-dimensional musicians are among them. Spectator interviewed three of these artists: Mavis Simpson-Ernst, CC '25, who combines singer-songwriter music with a post-punk sound; Josh Black, CC '25, who sings and plays three instruments; and Luke Xue, CC '25, an alto saxophone player who loves jazz. Mavis Simpson-Ernst When they write lyrics, Simpson-Ernst likes to parse the emotions they feel into a form of poetic fiction. This is not the kind of page-turner fiction that ends up in 12-point Times New Roman font, though. Simpson-Ernst instead prefers the words of their ink-stained notebooks to be paired with the backing of a bass guitar. In high school, Simpson-Ernst became interested in the New York City "Do It Yourself" music scene, which promotes and holds small concerts—held mainly in Bushwick and Ridgewood—for up-and-coming bands. Simpson-Ernst met their future two bandmates at one of the DIY's concerts, with the trio later naming itself "Big Pity"and releasing a self-titled album in September 2019. Though the physical distance necessitated by the pandemic caused "Big Pity" to break up, Simpson-Ernst has spent their summer collaborating virtually with other musicians while also working on post-punk and singer-songwriter music. They believe that women artists are underrepresented in the post-punk genre, a problem that Simpson-Ernst's work is helping to ameliorate. Simpson-Ernst has spent painstaking hours working on their new solo music, attempting to write the best rhymes and lyrics to tell stories that properly convey their emotions. Now that live shows are returning to the city, they anticipate releasing fresh material to music-hungry crowds. Josh Black Black first began playing for an audience at his church at age 10. Over the years, Black's musical repertoire snowballed into an avalanche of different instruments. Black first learned how to play the bass guitar, then moved on to the drums, then the piano, and he eventually ended up singing in his church's choir. At church, he and other members play a little bit of everything with a "worshipful" spin, mainly focusing on gospel and the wide genre of Christian contemporary music. His primary genre being R&B, Black's solo work and the music he plays at church have a reciprocal relationship, drawing inspiration from one another. With the trained ear of a multi-instrumentalist and a capella singer, Black enjoys arranging performances in concert with other musicians, deploying his musical repertoire as needed to coordinate the entire show. During the pandemic, Black and his fellow churchgoers put together the closest thing to a regular concert they could, creating music videos for others to listen to on Zoom. For Black, performing music—whether his own composition or those of others—is about communication. He intuitively understands how to create the emotional connection between performers and their audience, an act that is easy to comprehend yet much more difficult to execute. Black's ability to direct his audience's emotions is displayed in full force in a video he posted on his Instagram, pairing "I, Too" by Langston Hughes with "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke. When asked what he wants to convey with his music, Black said, "Everything. I love music. And so whenever I'm performing for people, [I want them] to see how in love with music that I am." Luke Xue Originally trained as a classical musician, Xue once felt confined to the notes he read on the page. But when jazz opened his eyes to improvisation, the music began to take hold of him. Now when Xue goes off-key, he sees it as an opportunity rather than a mistake. When the pandemic ushered in a flurry of concert cancellations, Xue found himself stitching together the individual parts of multiple instruments for videos he posted on YouTube. Though Xue loves performing with others, isolating his own sound was still an educational experience. Xue recently played his first live show since the start of the pandemic. Though live performances will certainly be an adjustment for him, Xue is excited to be back in a setting where musicians perform together and draw inspiration from one another. At Columbia, Xue plans to attend shows at New York City's exalted jazz clubs and sit in on some casual jam sessions. He also hopes to join Columbia's Wind Ensemble and the music performance program's jazz sect. Staff writer Noah Bullwinkle can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.