Matana Roberts, mixed media composer and sound experimentalist
A dynamic saxophonist, composer, improviser, and mixed media sound conceptualist, Roberts's acclaimed artistic practice aims to expose the mystical roots and the intuitive spirit-raising traditions of American creative expression in her music and art. Her innovative work has forged new conceptual approaches to considering narrativity, history, and political expression within improvisatory structures.
In dealing with her love of narrative, Matana Roberts is currently developing one of her most wide-ranging projects Coin Coin. Coin Coin is a sound monument to the human experience, centered around her love of American History,spanning centuries. Roberts envisions history moving through an array of sociopolitical storylines kaleidoscopically moving through a synesthesia array of artistic ideas. In addition to twelve concept albums within this project, four of have already been released.These concept albums typically feature a combination of western and graphic notation, forming collage-like structures, which Roberts calls P.S.Q.( Panoramic Sound Quilting) and has steered into performances and recordings that transcend genre – as for instance in the COIN COIN recordings : Mississippi Moonchile and Gens de Couleur Libre, River Run Thee, Memphis.
Roberts is also a documented visual artist having had participated in solo and group exhibitions as artist and performer at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the ICA (Chicago and Philadelphia) Bergen Kunstall (Norway) DAAD Gallerie (Berlin); MOMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Fridman Gallery (NYC) and most recently The Luhring Augustine Gallery (NYC).
Beyond the experimental combination of sound, image, prose, song, film, objects, musical improvisation and western notation, these works illuminate history and sociopolitical topoi – multiple narratives, historical consciousness and political emphases encounter both preset and improvised structures. The expressivity of her work continues to be the basis for her numerous immersive concerts and performances regardless of project.
While performing as a musician or as a visual artist, or composer, Roberts almost always simultaneously acts as an ethnographer, a storyteller and a politically engaged artist.