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Daniel Bernard Roumain: New York-based composer and Violin Virtuoso

New York-based composer and violin virtuoso Daniel Bernard Roumain is often described as America's classical-urban ambassador, frequently fuses string compositions with hip-hop beats and conventions. His latest project, a series of string quartets titled A Civil Rights Reader, celebrates the messages of major figures in the American civil-rights movement.

"I am about two things, musically," explains New York-based composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain. "Boil it all down, strip away whatever you see with my appearance, my dreadlocks, the color of my skin, and all of that, and what my music is, what you will hear in my music, is strings . . . and beats. Strings and beats, sometimes all you hear is the strings, as in my string quartets-when they are performed alone-but the beats are there, it's a part of my music because it's a part of who I am."

Roumain, a magnetic violin virtuoso known to many of his fans simply as DBR, is often described as America's classical-urban ambassador to the next generation of music lovers and players. Classically trained but aggressively dedicated to breaking perceived barriers within musical genres, he frequently fuses string compositions with hip-hop beats and conventions, performing as easily on electric violin as on acoustic, as at home at a SoHo dance club as on a concert-hall stage. He often appears in concert with audio artist Chris Davis (aka DJ Scientific), and his compositions run the gamut from traditional string, chamber, and orchestra arrangements (Voodoo Violin Concerto No. 1, Haitian Essay for Orchestra) to the audaciously non-traditional (Call Them All: Fantasy Projections for Laptop, Turntables, Film, and Orchestra: Concerto for Laptop, Narrator, and Chamber Orchestra). His ground-breaking Hip-Hop Studies and Etudes does for hip-hop music what Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier did for the fugue, and has become a popular performance piece, which Roumain performs in concert with the title 24 Bits: Hip-Hop Studies and Etudes Book 1.

As assistant composer-in-residence at New York's acclaimed Orchestra of St. Luke's, he's produced an astonishing number of compositions that continue to entertain, shake people up, push the limits, and challenge expectations.

His latest project, a series of string quartets collected under the title A Civil Rights Reader, is one of his most ambitious efforts yet, and will perhaps end up ranking among his farthest-reaching works - artistically, musically, and socially.

"When I first began composing these quartets," says Roumain, "when I knew I was going to do that, I knew I wanted to do something more than just write a piece of music for viola, violin, and cello. I set out to write music that had a message, music that mattered, that had something to say that was important, music with a soul."

No stranger to unorthodoxy, he decided to write a quartet cycle that would celebrate and illustrate the lives and messages of major figures in the American civil-rights movement.

"I could have named my quartets String Quartet No. 1, String Quartet No.2," he laughs. "But I knew I could do something more significant than that."

He has since composed five of a planned half dozen string quartets, bearing the names and inspirations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Adam clayton Powell, Jr., and Malcolm X. Alternately fiery and lyrical, full of emotion and edge, all of them recognizably, quintessentially American, each piece reflects, in clever ways, the thoughts, speeches, and philosophies of its subject.

While it might seem a no-brainer to have incorporated samplings of the subject's voices, orating the most famous bits and pieces of their numerous public addresses, Roumain chose to go in a different direction.

"That was one obvious choice, to use the voices, but with these quartets I wanted to suggest those voices musically, to transmit those messages musically and tell something about their lives musically, rather than to compose music as a soundtrack to some famous speeches."

The first to be written was the Malcolm X piece, logically titled X String Quartet. It's among the shortest of the quartets, running under 15 minutes, and is undeniably, electrifyingly emotional. "I had just read The Autobiography of Malcolm X," says Roumain, "and as a Black man, I was angry, and Malcolm, of course, was angry, so the X String Quartet is an angry piece of music."

In contrast, the next piece, the King String Quartet, is both epic in sound and length, and richly layered with musical Americana. It runs more than 45 minutes. Less angry sounding than the X Quartet, but no less energetic, it is viscerally exciting, raw, hypnotic, and stunningly dramatic.

"It's been accused of not being appropriately respectful of Dr. King," says Roumain. "But the Black civilrights movement was not powered by saints; it was brought about by human beings, men and women with strengths and frailties. I wanted these pieces to reflect the full humanity of each person, not some idealized version of who they were."

For that reason, the piece composed for the late Rosa Parks does not musically recreate the famous 1955 bus ride in Montomery, Alabama, the act of civil disobedience that sparked the modern civil-rights movement, or Parks' subsequent arrest.

"She was a shy person," Roumain says, "not a superhero, but a quiet woman put into a situation that made her a symbol."

Roumain touches on Parks' religious faith by incorporating hand-clapping into the composition, a reflection of the hand-clapping that underscored the gospel singing in Parks' church.

This winter, Roumain will launch A Civil Rights Reader tour, visiting communities from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and St. Louis, Missouri, to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Lawrence, Kansas, culminating in a huge Black-History-Month celebration and performance in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institution. For the tour performances, a kind of accelerated version of the original quartet cycle, Roumain will accompany the Del Sol String Quartet on electric violin and laptop computer, with additional beats and turntable effects provided by DJ Scientific.

Asked if the compositions that make up A Civil Rights Reader can do more than merely entertain and move an audience, maybe even change the world, Roumain is adamant. "With strings and beats," he says, "we are telling the stories that changed the world."