Hey Homegoings Fam.

I'm Myra Flynn, creator of Homegoings the Vermont Public Podcast, featuring candid conversations about race with artists of color.

The artists I interview are so prolific and so talented that for a second year in a row we've staged a live performance with them for a heartfelt night of music, dancing, storytelling, and even some art that's hard to describe.

-[Tonal Humming] In the Homegoings tradition, we topped off the evening with a Q&A session.

Vulnerability personified.

This is Homegoings.

Welcome home.

Matthew Evan Taylor, have you heard of him?

He was featured on our episode, - "Classical music: -Whos allowed in?

And as you're about to hear, Matthew is more than allowed anywhere.

If there is a door or a barrier to classical music, he has just busted that thing wide open long ago.

As a composer, as a musician, and as a professor at Middlebury College, Matthew reminds us that we don't have to wait to be invited to spaces that we already own.

Matthew Evan Taylor.

[Applause] Thank you all.

A little crowd participation.

I'd like for you all to breathe with me.

Okay.

And in order to do that, there's a gesture.

I want you to draw the air in - -[Breathes in] and let it out.

-[Breathes out] One more time.

-[Breathes in] -[Breathes out] [Tonal Humming] -[Layers of recorded Humming] [Layers of recorded Humming] [With Flute] [Layers of Humming, Flute] [With Clarinet] My father was a DJ in college.

Herman Taylor.

his nickname - he's going to hate me if he ever sees this - but his nickname was the Funky Worm.

And, yeah, so he grew up a huge jazz fan.

He was an All-State clarinetist.

Ended up leaving it all and slumming it as a cardiologist, you know.

But he never lost that love of music.

Some of my most vivid memories with him are like getting out his Michael Jackson's Thriller vinyl and seeing him brush it and take care of it.

And then him showing me how to properly put the record -- at five years old - how to properly put the record onto the spindle.

How not to scratch it, how not to scratch it, how not to scratch it.

And then later he would play something like Grover Washington Jr and like would quiz me on which saxophone Grover Washington Jr. was playing and it took me a couple of decades, but I realized he had brainwashed me.

Because he hated - well, he doesn't hate the clarinet, but he also was like, you know, saxophone is not as nerdy as the clarinet, so my son will play saxophone.

And so, yeah, that was my journey.

But then, I just - I engage with the world through sound.

I imitate voices, I drum on things - I have a real connection to sound and to just the power of, like, hearing your mother's voice.

There's no voice like it, right?

The vibration is very particular.

People can be close to it.

But it's like I've known that voice since the womb.

And so, like, it's just it's a profound thing for me.

And it does stem from growing up with the father I had.

-[Clarinet] -[Clarinet and Saxophone] My dear grandmother passed away in 2017.

And I still miss her.

I still think about her.

I think probably all the music I've written since 2017 is in some way addressing that grief, even though now it's a very abstract thought.

I actually have early on had to figure out, like, okay, that drought in inspiration comes, and especially when you're grieving and you just have to be kind about it.

It's just like, okay, I'm not supposed to be writing right now.

And then trusting that when I do write, when I do perform - that spark is going to be there right when you need it, right?

It's faith in a way, right?

And so - for me, it's I need for my practice to never be as tumultuous as whatever the external trauma or grief is.

Because that's where I'm turning for solace.

And so, you know, it's I mean, it's never any less visceral, but its something that in a way, that grief is also the way that I remember, that I get to keep her with me, right?

And so it's a comfort as well.

[Saxophone] [Layers of Saxophone] [Layers of Saxophone] [with tonal Humming] [Applause] Anybody elses mind blown?

All the way blown, all the way blown.

I just wanted to ask you one question before you left, because I know the answer from the episode you did with us.

But what's with the breath work?

Oh, it's a new path to liberation.

For the past two years, I've been developing this new way of composition for myself.

It has a artsy fartsy name: AfroPneumaism means "Black breath and the idea is that to remind everybody that no matter your amount of privilege or lack of privilege, you have the right to breathe.

You have the right to take up space.

We're used to other cultures telling us how to breathe, right?

We're used to people saying things that, you know, if you actually think about it, they're telling us not to breathe.

And so this is my way towards liberating my mind, liberating my music, and hopefully bringing some people along with me.

Matthew Evan Taylor.

Thanks so much for joining us.

If you want to continue to be a part of the Homegoings family, stay in touch at Homegoings.co and subscribe to the Homegoings podcast wherever you listen.

Take good care.