18 June 1 - 7, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Making the Future Jess Garland’s Lumi- nescence sheds light on racial inequity with a laser harp show. BY AVA THOMPSON J ess Garland has moved through the Dallas music community for decades — on its margins and at its roots. She has worked the box office at the Dallas Symphony Or- chestra and has taught music in Park Cities, the White Rock Lake area, Oak Cliff and South Dallas. She’s grown with the Arts Dis- trict downtown, which was born in the same decade as Garland herself. Now, the multi- instrumentalist and songwriter is taking the stage at Wyly Theatre to present her show, Luminescence, where she will debut a 20-string laser harp with an all-Black cast of musicians. Her story starts with classical guitar, her primary instrument when growing up. But she came to love others, including the clari- net, and later began to play the harp. “When I started playing the harp, I didn’t really go the classical route,” she says. “I just did what came natural to me.” While taking more classically oriented gigs, Garland also started hanging around musicians in the Deep Ellum community. “I became a one-woman band from that, just using harp and guitar,” she says. “Only recently I started performing with a band with my set.” Today, classical undertones can be heard in her shows, but she also explores avant- garde and free jazz. Garland’s personal musical story is steeped in a broader, social one, too. Teach- ing guitar in Dallas for 17 years, Garland worked at a nonprofit called La Rondalla in Oak Cliff, which provided free music educa- tion to young students. “Most of those students at La Rondalla were brown,” she says. “They were Latino students. We could just understand each other through language, not even through Spanish, but just an understanding of the neighborhood and where we have that con- nection in the neighborhood.” Teaching across a vast spectrum from Park Cities to South Oak Cliff compelled Garland to confront the dynamic social environ- ments of each neighborhood in her music — especially follow- ing the shooting of the 16-year- old Black music student Ralph Yarl last month after he rang the wrong doorbell in Kansas City, Missouri. “[I was] teaching between two different neighborhoods, and thinking about that with the recent at- tack on Ralph Yarl’s life and how he was a young Black music student,” she says. “And I’m driving down Mockingbird [Lane] on my way to Westmoreland [Heights] to go teach a completely different group of stu- dents who were all Black and [thinking about] how their thought process in that moment is very different. You know, we’re all in Dallas, but we live very different lives and have different concerns.” Luminescence looks at themes, including racial representation for students such as the ones Garland teaches, but it also grap- ples with the racial history of the Arts Dis- trict specifically. “I want people to remember how young the Arts District is — like the DMA [Dallas Museum of Art] actually opened in 1984, which was the year I was born — and think about the history of the Arts District as well. Booker T. Washington was the first Black high school in Dal- las.” But the Black history of the Arts District isn’t as palpable today. “I’m not saying there is no Black culture in the Arts District,” Garland says. “I’m say- ing there is not enough.” Garland saw this reality firsthand. “When I was furloughed and then termi- nated from the [Dallas Symphony Orches- tra] during Black Lives Matter and COVID, all I could think about was how I was treated when I was working in those institutions, and how all my colleagues were treated,” she says. Luminescence represents Garland creat- ing a path for herself in these places. “I was working in a space where many people thought that it was not a possibility, and this [show] is my opportunity to cele- brate myself, celebrate my journey, cele- brate Blackness,” she says, “because most of those musicians that are on the stage with me did go to Booker T., but they didn’t have the same opportunities as the others within the Arts District.” The show explores all of these themes through her artistry and her laser harp. The unique instrument is a 3D sculpture that uses lasers for strings. “It’s red, and it is just like a symbol of love, and hate as well, too, a color of action as well, too, which is what I want people to pay attention to in this performance,” Gar- land says. She and longtime collaborator Eric Trich have been working on the laser harp idea since long before this upcoming debut. Pro- grammed by James Talambas, the lasers trigger a sound when Garland “strikes” the beam. “I’m a multi-instrumentalist, so it’s an- other tool for me to express myself,” Gar- land says. Listeners can look forward to experi- mental covers and original songs with influ- ences in soul, jazz and classical music by a multi-harp ensemble. “The set list is a journey through my per- sonal experience as a Black woman, to be honest — my personal journey, my personal transformation in growing into this person,” Garland says. “From working in corporate spaces, you know, and teaching, and denying myself because I don’t feel like I am really in a society that is being supportive of someone like me to do what I’m doing.” Luminescence reigns larger than Garland herself. She hopes the show serves as an ex- ample to other musicians in the Arts Dis- trict. “You can go to the symphony and, I don’t know if you are going to see anyone that looks like me on stage,” she says. “However, all the students we’ve had over there do look like me ... That’s why this concert is so important to me. I want to show my students that there is a space for you here and this is how you create your own lane for yourself because it doesn’t have to be there [already].” ATT Performing Arts Center Jess Garland performs Luminescense. ▼ Music “WE’RE ALL IN DALLAS, BUT WE LIVE VERY DIFFERENT LIVES AND HAVE DIFFERENT CONCERNS.” - JESS GARLAND ENTER TO WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS SCAN HERE
