2019
Whispered Like the Wind calls attention to how memories are passed down through generations of women who may or may not be mothers but who are all someone’s daughter. Through this project, we celebrate ways of being that are multivariate and also similar. In producing this project, I seek to draw connections between generations of women in new and unexpected ways. By producing sound grounded in classical, jazz, gospel, archival sound, and electronic music, the audience hears both what is familiar and what is unfamiliar, creating a unique soundscape through which to share multiple narratives.
I am the youngest girl in my immediate family and I was raised in the Midwest, 830 miles away from my paternal grandparents and extended family. My maternal great grandmother died when I was 18 months old. This has left me feeling disconnected from memories, livelihoods, and stories, and even the sounds, scents, and embrace of women elders. I have found that writing music and singing allows me to find meaningful connection to these women who feel like a distant dream. Whispered Like the Wind is an attempt to materialize their lives and find reflection in my own.
Whispered... was presented in collaboration with The Union for Contemporary Art and The Omaha Symphony.
Composed by: Liz Gre
Soloist: Liz Gre
Conducted by: Ian Passmore
Featured Cellist: Maurisa Mansaray
Arrangement: Darren Pettit
2020
We invoke the Black. To Rest. is a collaborative performance by textile and performance artist Enam Gbewonyo and composer and sound artist Liz Gre. Presented at Tate Britain in response to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Fly In League With the Night. Gbewonyo and Gre fused sound and movement in an ode to Blackness and repose.
The electro-acoustic soundscape composition was developed through an ethnographic method and included distributed authorship amongst Tate Collective Producers; Afeni Payne-Bonnick, Emem Usanga, Haris Ashraf, Iman Datoo, and Jasmine Pierre.
Composed by: Liz Gre
Soloist: Liz Gre
Movement: Enam Gbewonyo
Featured Poet: Peju Oshin
2020
time now for ghosts is the exploration of traditional nature-centered spiritualities and realities as they are interpreted through the practices of Black artists working with an afrofuturist lens and hand.
Afrofuturism begs us to open the window at the meeting point of past, present, and future. This philosophy not only highlights the nuance within the global Black community, but it also celebrates the vastness of the diaspora. Within Afrofuturism, we are whole. As a creative in this context, I work in lock-step with my collaborators to explore the adventures, celebrations, and challenges of our mothers, grandmothers, and matriarchs. This work though, is undeniably personal- I’m haunted by thoughts of creating lines of communication across universes to more deeply understand the lives of my mother, both of my grandmothers, and the long line of matriarchs and mystics in my family.
I enter into this work bringing curiosity for the themes of the cultivation and nourishment of mysticism in Black life, mothering and daughtering; and the generational throughlines that connect our ancestors lives to ours.
Composed by: Liz Gre
Presented at: Center for Afrofuturist Studies, Iowa City, IA
2019
Alexandria Smith’s Monuments to an Effigy takes the histories of the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground and the Macedonia A.M.E. Church in Flushing, Queens as points of departure for an exhibition that evokes an altar. From the mid-late nineteenth century, the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground was a burial space for African-Americans and Native Americans. Parishioners of the nearby Macedonia A.M.E. Church, a landmark for Flushing’s historic African-American community, were among those interred at the burial ground. In the 1930s, the Parks Department paved over the site, building a playground in 1938. But--due to the tireless work of many--the site was recognized for its original purpose in 2006 and is now a meditative area that respects the hundreds still buried there.
Smith explores narrative, memory, and myth through the lens of the Black female form and psyche. For this exhibition, the artist responds to the stories of those who were buried at the site. Of the four marked gravestones discovered from the burial ground, only male members of the Bunn and Curry families are listed. Smith’s work honors the unnamed women laid to rest at the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground and those who participated in the Flushing Underground Railroad network which included the Macedonia A.M.E. Church.
A cornerstone of the exhibition is At Council; Found Peace, a composition by Liz Gré in collaboration with Smith. This piece for cello, soprano, and spoken voice combines the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks with gospel tonality and explores the process of seeking guidance from those who came before. As Smith’s work connects with the spiritual realm, her visions of Black women in moments of empathy, joy, and pain recognize the resilience and strength that will continue to shape history.
Composed by: Liz Gre
Soloist: Liz Gre
Featured Cellist: Maurisa Mansaray
Featured Poet: Alexandria Smith
2020
Click the image for a link to audio.
In this collaborative project for the 100 Years|100 Women Archive, I was commissioned by Zalika Azim to engage in a series of conversations considering African American suffragists, and the ongoing fight for women’s equality, To complete the sound component, Azim and I selected a conversational approach, as it mirrored the back-and-forth process undertaken in the Amy Matilda Cassey and Martina and Mary Ann Dickerson Albums: Azim recorded herself talking stream of consciousness; I then listened to those recordings, made two graphic scores in response – essentially mapping our exchange, before interpreting the scores through piano, electronics, and archival sound. The final composition consists of two movements and serves as a reflection on our conversation and research. Further, they highlight the domestic space (past, present, future) as a globally acknowledged historic site capable of supporting the wide breadth of organizing, community building, and creativity amongst women of color.
While the overarching project brings attention to the women of color who fought for our right to vote during the suffrage movement, this work also aims to encourage women currently extending the mission for equality to consider the spaces they may create collaboratively, and in spite of our current global circumstances.
The project was commissioned by: Park Avenue Armory, National Black Theatre, The Apollo Theater, The Juilliard School, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, The Laundromat Project, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of the Moving Image, National Sawdust, New York University (Department of Photography and Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts; Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity and Strategic Innovation, and Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture) and Urban Bush Women.
Composed by: Liz Gre in collaboration with Zalika Azim
2017
Mother King, a conceptual Black opera, premiered at Public Functionary in Northeast Minneapolis in July 2017. The opera interprets the story of Alberta Williams King, slain activist and mother of Martin Luther King, Jr. The libretto is based on a series of poems by Venessa Fuentes, one of 16 writers featured in A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2016). Award-winning composer Dameun Strange wrote the musical score.
Fuentes and Strange are behind OperaWorks 52, a music- and story-telling partnership that aims to highlight overlooked narratives, including the stories of individuals of color, Native people, women, LGBTQ people. Mother King is their first project, and is being produced through a partnership with Public Functionary. It is supported in part by the American Composers Forum through the 2015 Minnesota Emerging Composers Award, which is funded by the Jerome Foundation.
Six local vocalists, including Liz Gre in the title role, will bring a story of Black Birth, Black Resilience, and Black Joy to life along with a 12-member instrumental ensemble. Michael McDowell, Sarah Greer, Roland Hawkins, Kevin “Kaoz” Moore and Ava McFarland will join Gre on stage.
2020 and onward
Graphic notation began as a last ditch effort to pursue creativity when the pandemic and constant state of police-sanctioned violence stole every ounce of familiar music-making methods. It has now become an integral part of my artistic process. New compositions often begin with a visualisation through graphic notation.
All of these pieces are written for any instrumentation and duration.
All of the pieces shown below are currently under license. For more information, or if you’re interested in performing a new piece, send your inquiry to lizgremusic@gmail.com.
The stories we tell about our lives hold great power. They reveal our soul. They provoke laughter and tears. They pass on ideas and memories, and help us make meaning. Our stories are dramas, comedies, histories – just as in Shakespeare’s earliest printed collection of plays, known as the First Folio.
Laila, Safenez, Entisar, Selma, Huda, Rasha, Rola, Monteha and Samaher were forced to leave their homes in Syria, Kurdistan, Sudan and Palestine, and are now settled in Stratford-upon-Avon. They co-created this audio-visual work in a process led by composer Liz Gre, weaving together life stories collected from friends and family.
Three Gold Threads gives us unique access to fresh perspectives on the First Folio. As the Royal Shakespeare Company explores the ideas of power shifts, this project reflects Shakespeare’s own fascination with authority and influence in society: who holds power, whether that can change, and what would happen to the world if it did.
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“This work was meant to create a space of opacity. Where the stories of these women who faced incredible challenges could exist without the push and pull of anyone else’s influence or desire for translation or consumption. Not even mine. It was meant to honour these women and women across the globe, and even Anne Hathaway, who take on the role of family archive- holding, protecting their family history in their bones, in their hearts. Carrying them across countless miles of land, through danger and the unknown. Living archives. For their stories are exactly what they are: powerful, comedic, dramatic. They create a legacy that is yet to be seen, but is undoubtedly history as we live it.
Together, we sparked a sound archive rooted in the seeds of our lives - our experiences. The way our mothers told stories. The reasons we find resilience. The sounds that mark our childhoods and guide us now. The normal, everyday occurrences that tell us we have found a home in an unknown land. These seeds of the archive are the golden threads that allow us to see connection among strangers. And tether us to the larger folio of the human experience.
As a non-Arabic-speaking viewer, you may not understand exactly what is being said. You may have difficulty assessing who said what. I encourage you to settle in to what might be discomfort, and find appreciation for the generosity in being brought closer to what someone else deems meaningful, important and necessary.
Article from This Is Tomorrow by Amah-Rose Abrams http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/liz-gres-three-gold-threads
OPENING FEBRUARY 2024…
Embodied Cacophonies explores the (dis)organised noise of our genealogies and our future legacies within us. Through this exhibition, I ask how do we have an embodied experience of the cacophony of a place/time/existence? In what ways does our human experience reflect the movement of time, voice, and spirit in the socio-ecosystem in and around Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island?
Upon visiting Lindisfarne, I was immediately overwhelmed by the multitude of voices echoing in the place. The loud-quiet voice of the expansive sky at play with the tide and the North Sea; the still enwrapping voice of the wind as it curled around blades of grass and stone and caressed, kissed, coldly slapped my skin; the legacied voices of Holy Islanders humming like bees as we passed through the causeway; the bellowing murmurs of domestic memory superimposed upon spiritual memory held within the realised imagination of place created.
Shortly after the overwhelm set in, I experienced a sense of being at one with the cacophony. Just as Lindisfarne - the stone and brick building - serves as a container for all of the past-present-future voices that have walked its halls and Holy Island is a sort-of container for the simultaneous interaction of human and other-than human beings, our physical bodies are containers for simultaneous interaction of past-present-future. And it is this place that I would like to use as a departure point for a proposed exhibition at Lindisfarne February 2024 – October 2025.
My work finds its centering within methods of collaborative and ethnographic composition. As a research-based practitioner, I work towards the exploration and creation of endarkened acoustemologies – sets of hearing, listening, and sounding practices rooted in Black and Indigenous ways of making meaning and building knowledge against hegemony. This methodology is grounded in storytelling, interview, and reflection with community local to installation sites in aesthetic conversation with my own auto-ethnographic reflections of the process of working within community sometimes different than my own. The composition Embodied Cacophonies will include local community members' stories and writing from a creative author. To be considered- given the extensive collection available, I would also like to consider use of the collection as potential points to interact with the exhibition.
