Article: Variation Techniques in Four West African Lead Drum Examples
Composers Now IMPACT
July 9th, 2024
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Composition
The time that Jeryl has spent in th Euro-classic, jazz and Afro-Cuban musical traditions has resulted in a compositional style that melds the vocabularies of African-diasporic and Euro-classic vocabularies for instrumentations ranging from big band to Afro-Cuban güiro and bata ensembles to salsa to jazz combos to piano quintet and full orchestra. Jeryl is the musical director and composer for the group “Yanine.”
Performance
Having begun as a classical pianist, Jeryl found that it was impossible not to branch out. She spent a number of years focusing almost exclusively on Salsa and Latin jazz performing regularly in these genres in Los Angeles, New York and the Pacific North West. Jeryl currently performs as a pianist across many traditions including jazz, classical and Latin. She is also an Alto choral singer, performing with the Manhattan based choral collective “C4.”
Research
During that past several years, Jeryl has developed research interests in the areas of music notation, West-African and diasporic timeline music, and women-plus in Afro-Cuban music in New York City. To date she has published in the Journals Analytical Approaches to World Music, and American Music Review.
Pedagogy
Jeryl’s years of teaching experience in the areas of piano, music theory, composition and arranging, in many musical traditions and evironments in which she has taught elementary, high-school, collegiate level and other adult students, have fostered an approach that strives for inclusivity and progress toward the goals that students have set for themselves. Currently Jeryl is on the music faculty at Brooklyn College, CUNY.