For those unaware, a native from Lisboa, Portuguese Sara Serpa is a singer, composer, improviser, who through her practice and performance, explores the use of the voice as an instrument.

Serpa has been working in the field of jazz, improvised and experimental music, since moving to New York in 2008. Literature, film, visual arts, nature and history inspire Serpa in the creative process and development of her music.

Described by the New York Times as “a singer of silvery poise and cosmopolitan outlook,” and by the JazzTimes magazine as “a master of wordless landscapes,” Serpa started her recording and performing career with jazz luminaries such as Grammy-nominated pianist, Danilo Perez, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow pianist, Ran Blake, and Greg Osby.

Her ethereal music draws from a broad variety of inspirations including literature, film, visual arts as well as history and nature. As a leader, she has produced and released eleven albums, the latest being Intimate Strangers (2021) and Recognition (2020), her brand new one Encounters & Collisions out now here in 2024.

Encounters and Collisions is a new work by Sara Serpa portraying episodes from her life since moving from Portugal to the US. It explores themes such as traveling, assimilation, identity, motherhood, loneliness and language and features Serpa’s long-time collaborators Ingrid Laubrock, Erik Friedlander and Angelica Sanchez.

1. Story 1
2. Language
3. Story 2
4. Visa
5. Story 3
6. Things Must Move Quickly
7. Story 4
8. Between Worlds
9. Story 5
10. Labor
11. Story 6
12. A Mother’s Heart
13. Story 7
14. The Phone Call
15. Story 8
16. Music Makes Me Who I Am
17. Story 9
18. Two Cities, Many Homes

This thoroughly impassioned, dutifully heartfelt new recording opens on Sara’s vocal introduction (a running theme) to arriving here to the United States [Story 1] and the inquisitive Language, and then we get her need for a Visa [Story 2] and the distinction between Alien, not Resident within the track Visa, before we are introduced to the transactional values of America [Story 3] and the playful, yet stressful ebb that flows through Things Must Move Quickly, a Fall Semester summary [Story 4] and the aching yearn of Between Worlds, with the pain of labor in 2014 recalled within Story 5, followed by the all-embracing Labor along next.

Up next, Sara talks about the women in her family within Story 6, the dutifully heartfelt homage A Mother’s Heart along thereafter, and they are themselves backed seamlessly by the recounting of the day she got a dire phone call from her mother about her dying father [Story 7] and the stoically-sculpted The Phone Call, the music school she loved within Story 8 and the melodiously rhythmic Music Makes Me Who I Am, these marvelously creative pieces culminating with the introduction of Spring after so many Winter mornings [Story 9] and the bluesy-hued jazz notes that thread through Two Cities, Many Homes.

“I think so many times about how we deal with change and loss. From moving to another country, to giving birth or grieving a loved one, my different reactions have often surprised me. And yet, life is change in itself. Sometimes drastic, most of the times subtle, we all go and move through constant change. We lose ourselves, countries, landscapes and cities, loved ones, thoughts and emotions. I wrote this music for someone elses story only to realize I was writing my own story.” – Sara Serpa.

Musicians:
Sara Serpa voice/composition
Ingrid Laubrock saxophones
Angelica Sanchez piano
Erik Friedlander cello

Official Website

Sara Serpa @ Bandcamp