Chamber Music Collective Collaborates With Award Winning Poet For Sound Healing Event

D-Composed. Photo by Seed Lynn.
D-Composed. Photo by Seed Lynn.

Chamber Music Collective Collaborates With Award Winning Poet For Sound Healing Event

By Tia Carol Jones

D-Composed is partnering with artist Jamila Woods for a sound healing event titled, the ‘listening field’. The event will take place from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sunday, April 27th, at Kehrein Center for the Arts, located at 5628 W. Washington Blvd.

D-Composed is a Black Chamber music collective that was founded in 2017. The mission of the organization is to uplift and empower society through the music of Black composers. Woods is a songwriter, poet and performing artist from the South side. She has worked with Corinne Bailey Rae, Chance the Rapper, Common and Brittany Howard. 

The first sound healing event D-Composed hosted was titled, D-Compressed. It was an experience designed to provide a space of healing and reflection, using the music of Black composers. It initially started with the organization working with yoga practitioners. The organization noticed that people wanted to just hear the music. Then, they evolved the concept to focus on meditation, which opened it up for more people to join them. Now they can welcome children, families and elders, and have them partake in the experience.

Kori Coleman, Founder Executive and Artistic Director of D-Composed, said the event is designed to create a space of healing , reflection and exploration of Black people’s relationship to the land. She said what is exciting about the collaboration with Jamila Woods is that they are working to create a space for the community on the West side, which she said Woods felt was a place that needed this kind of presence. 

“Oftentimes when we talk about serving communities, the South side gets a ton of love, so we really wanted to make sure we did our part to create a space for the West side,” Coleman said.

The ‘listening field’ will mark Wood’s first public presentation as a sound healing artist, utilizing sound bowls and poetry, with the accompaniment of D-Composed. Coleman said looking at the time and climate, it is important to create spaces for healing, where people could just be and freely express themselves, which she said has been monumental as an organization.

Coleman wants people to know that it is not a concert. It is intended to be a space for people to exist and have a space for healing. She said that sound healing is coming to the forefront because with the state of the world, sound healing gives people a way to reset and decompress.

 She said she can see more spaces being creatived to give people a moment to come down from the news cycle and the daily stressors of the world.

“I think my favorite thing about sound healing is that there’s really no expectations, there’s no movement you have to do, there’s no barrier to entry. You really just need to come in with an open mind and allow yourself to just be and allow yourself to just rest and take in the experience,” she said. She added that with sound healing, it really is just open to everyone. 

Last year, for Juneteenth, D-Composed collaborated with the Nap Ministry for Freedom Lullabies, where the revolutionary texts from Black authors was read while music from Black composers played. Coleman said through these events, the organization is giving the artists the space to create moments of what they think rest and healing mean to them, while D-Composed brings the story to life, using the music of Black composers.

Coleman hopes that people who attend the sessions have the freedom to just release. She said people who have attended the sessions have said that the events were the first time they felt like they could cry, or the first time they could really feel safe. Coleman said it is important to create an environment where people feel safe, heard, seen and they can exist, without having to justify their existence or presence.

“We want to create that moment where people could release all those worries and feelings they’re having in that moment. Because it is a rest experience and other people might have their eyes closed or in their own world, you don’t have to worry about what other people are doing around you, or feeling self-conscious in this environment,” she said.

For more information and to register, visit www.dcomposed.com. 


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