Modlin Center for the Arts - Midori

Resonances of spirit

Che Buford (b. 2000)

Che Buford (he, they) is an NYC-based artist originally from Brooklyn whose work explores creating new narratives within the world of music while engaging in themes of memory and place.

Che performs as a violinist in various musical settings such as traditional orchestras, chamber music, solo, improvisational performance, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Their own work explores the possibilities of timbre and acoustical phenomena and connects them to elements of place, memory, poetry, and the quotidian. Che has had the privilege of creating with artists such as Longleash, The Rhythm Method, the New York Philharmonic, Castle of our Skins, mal sounds, Steph Davis, Adama Delphine Fawundu, and Deborah Jack. Their work has been presented and performed in spaces that include Roulette, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Joe’s Pub, Antenna Cloud Farm, The DiMenna Center, and David Geffen Hall.

Che holds a degree from Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where he was a Presidential Scholar in violin performance and studied with Rictor Noren. They began playing the violin when they were ten, and were self-taught for three years until they began taking violin lessons at the Mozart Academy in New York. They are studying for a DMA in composition at Columbia University.

Buford began composing in their junior year of high school and has written solo, chamber, and orchestral music. They created a chamber adaptation of their art song “We Lived Happily During the War,” which premiered at the American Composers Orchestra Gala in 2019. Their orchestral piece If We Must Die, inspired by Claude McKay, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic at a Very Young Composers concert.

Che Buford's new piece for violin and electronics, Resonances of spirit, features the sounds of water, wind, drones, sine tones, and whispers of Yoruba prayer. Buford has written a note about composing Resonances of spirit: “When Midori asked me to create a piece based on Negro spirituals—focusing on the violin’s capacity to express pain and sorrow and fitting into a program that explores diverse spiritual influences—I was immediately intrigued. However, I spent time reflecting on how I could approach this in a new, personal way. I have always been deeply moved by the way Negro spirituals express profound sorrow and pain, but also resilience and joy. Yet, rather than referencing them in a literal or transparent way, I wanted to capture their emotional essence and transform it through my own musical language that includes incorporating electronic elements and my own improvisational practice as a performer.

“As I started this process, I found myself drawn to spiritual methodologies from the African diaspora, particularly Yoruba practices. I began asking: What recurring themes exist between Yoruba spiritual traditions and the messages conveyed in these songs? How broadly can ‘spirituals’ be interpreted in the context of sound as a vehicle for spirituality? This led me to explore concepts of ancestral memory and the ways memory is embedded in nature.

“The piece contains sounds of water, wind, deep vibrating sine tones, electronic drones, whispers of Yoruba prayer, and my own humming and singing within the electronics. The violin blends with these elements, enhancing the atmosphere through exploration of texture and timbre, while remaining fragmented and lyrical.

“Resonances of spirit is part of a multipiece project that continues to explore these themes of memory, spirituality, and nature. This piece for solo violin and electronics, written for Midori, is Volume 1 of the series.”