WRITINGS
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DBR International Airport? An unlikely prospect. In spite of having been endowed by his creators with a fairly presidential-sounding set of initials reminiscent of FDR and JFK, and although he professes to be an avid follower of politics and current affairs, Daniel Bernard Roumain’s political ambitions do not rise beyond a lifelong ambassadorship of music. Politics, for him, is food for thought, and thought is the primary food for his craft.
Unlike other composers, who first hear the music in their heads and then set about extracting its message, DBR generally starts out with an intellectual concept and subsequently proceeds to convert it into audible emotion using his expansive skill kit, which not only includes a doctorate in musical composition and a facility with some 25 instruments on top of his spellbinding command of the violin, but also a knack for 21st century technology and a refreshing disregard for artistic conventions. He’ll toss a scratching and beat-juggling techno DJ into a classical chamber ensemble with the insouciance of a school girl pouring milk over her Cheerios.
The title of his 2007 debut CD etudes4violin&electronix ingeniously encapsulates the genre-busting proclivities of its bow-wielding mastermind. Indeed, given his predilection for amplification, effect pedals, and intermittent percussive slapping of his instrument, the dreadlocked 37-year-old “hip-hop violinist” has rightfully been accused of doing for violin what Jimi Hendrix had done for electric guitar, although—other than figuratively via his impassioned style of play—he always stops short of literally setting it on fire. After all, DBR harbors no aggression whatsoever towards his trusty wooden companion, for aside from his immediate family, playing the violin has been “the only thing in my life that I’ve known since I was five years old.”
In fact, born in Chicago and being of Haitian descent, the eloquent and soft-spoken musician credits music with saving his life. Although very proud to be an American, he points out that his success was not a foregone conclusion and that without the stabilizing influence of his violin, he may have chosen a less wholesome path in a country where equal opportunity for all remains a work in progress. Thus, the notion of freedom has always loomed large in his mind, having found musical expression in his latest orchestral epic Darwin’s Meditation for The People of Lincoln.
The nexus between the famed English naturalist and the 16th U.S. President may not be apparent at first blush, but while researching the writings of Abraham Lincoln for the purpose of setting some of his words to music for the upcoming bicentennial of his birth, DBR had come across the curious fact that Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the very same day in 1809. From the serendipitous convergence of these two giants of history emerged an imagined conversation between the men, who not only shared a birthday and an unremitting aversion to slavery as viewed from either side of the Atlantic, but also, as it turns out, quite a few additional biographical similarities. Laced with musical impressions of Haiti to invoke its own struggle for liberty and punctuated by words compiled and recited by Obie Award winning playwright and actor Daniel Beaty, DBR has seamlessly merged two historical figures who never met plus an island where neither had ever been into one homogenous sonic vision of freedom.
Presently, among a slew of other projects, DBR is working on the score for Makandal, an opera about the eponymous Haitian freedom fighter. In addition, he conducts frequent workshops for kids in various communities, honoring his principle of “recycling of compassion” and giving back to society. He has also actively albeit perhaps inadvertently been supporting the shampoo industry for many years, as lathering up his waist-long tresses requires him to polish off an entire bottle per session. No word on what brand he uses, but the company which produces it won’t go belly-up anytime soon, recession or no recession.
On 12 February 2009, Lincoln’s and Darwin’s 200th birthday, a special bicentennial performance of Darwin's Meditation for The People of Lincoln will be held at the Jorgenson Center of the Performing Arts at the University of Connecticut.
For updates and more information on this extraordinary artist, visit www.dbrmusic.com.
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