We recently connected with Amanda Ekery and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Árabe is about Syrian and Mexican shared history and culture in the borderland and covers everything from food, gambling, and evil eyes, to immigration law, biracial identify, and the fraught relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and workers’ rights. Árabe has been a five-year genealogy composition and research project that I’m excited to release this Spring 2025.

This project has been so meaningful to me because it’s involved my family and allowed me to invite others into the creative process while learning about my personal identity and hometown history. Over the past 5 years, I’ve interviewed members of the El Paso Syrian Ladies Club, gathered oral histories from community members, worked with SWANA scholars and the Arab American National Museum to conduct extensive research to compose music and write essays that highlights the stories of Mexican and Syrian identities present in the United States. I’ve written 12 originals songs and accompanying essays with the history and personal stories that inspired each song that will be included as liner notes. The songs feature elements of jazz, creative improvised, and pop music styles.

The music has been recorded, the essays are written, and the next step is to share this music with the people who helped make it all happen starting in Spring 2025! The project will be presented as the Árabe Mahrajan Tour (Mahrajans were part of Syrian homeland culture, similar to block parties used for community formation) with performances and readings of Árabe, community-sourced contributions, food trucks, and cultural activities where this history lives.

My work as an artist is rooted in collaboration with communities, focusing on storytelling and current issues. I’ve composed operas with pre-K students, written lyrics based on interviews with fellow female jazz musicians, and organized songwriting workshops for teens in psychiatric care. Árabe is culmination my artistic process and I’m so excited to begin the next phase of the project with the Mahrajan Tour. Hope to see you there!

Amanda, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and composer who creates music filled with imagery and strong narratives. My work spans Off-Broadway theater, film, multiple studio recordings, and educational initiatives. I’ve performed at the Panama Jazz Festival, Portland Jazz Festival, and the Kennedy Center. I’ve been supported by the Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America, New Music USA, and was awarded the 2022 Jazz Hero Award from the Jazz Journalist Association for my dedication to the “growth, evolution and advancement of gender equality within jazz’s national and international communities.”

I am constantly thinking about how to connect my artistry with where I come from, who has access to art making, and what world I want to live in. This manifests itself in new compositions, research projects, and education initiatives. My 2018 album, Keys With No Purpose, was written was a reaction to the sexist culture women continue to face in jazz, and was informed by research about the pushout of females in jazz education now published in the 2024 Routledge Companion to Women and Musical Leadership. I co-led The Lomax Folk Project with musicologist Hannah Grantham to reimagine folk songs recorded by the Lomaxes in the historical context in which they were written. We released an album in 2017 and went on tour to communities where the music was originally recorded sharing the history behind our arrangements. My forthcoming album Árabe involves interviews with Syrian immigrants, working with a SWANA scholar at Yale University, collaborating on materials with a food anthropologist, and culminating in interactive performances sharing research, food, essays I’ve written, and original music. In 2018 I also founded El Paso Jazz Girls a non profit organization for young female musicians to learn about jazz, write their own music, and build a support system all at no cost to participants. We have served over 200 girls in borderland since our inception and serve as a direct intervention for gender equity in my hometown.

Research and collaboration are essential to my artistic practice and I enjoy working with people from all backgrounds to creatively come up with projects that serve a need, answer a question, and/or that have purpose for others.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I truly think that everyone is an artist/possess creative artistic instinct. I make an effort to bring others into the creative process, explaining my thought processes, and coming up with projects that are accessible on multiple levels. If you struggle to understand how a song is written, how you can express yourself through music, want to know more about the process behind art, or how art and another field (health care, tech, sanitation, etc) can strengthen a project – I encourage you to ask. Not everyone is able to articulate their process or adapt it to fit others’ needs, but some like me are, and are eager to invite you to the table to create something together.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Grants have been a game changer for my artistic pursuits. I’ve been able to fund album recordings, tours, research travel, and El Paso Jazz Girls through grant writing. Learning how to talk about your work, budget what you need to make it happen, and why someone should care about it as much as you do, are all skills I’ve learned from grant writing.

Grant writing is a muscle, the more you do it the easier it gets and don’t get discouraged if you don’t get one. Ask for feedback if the grant offers it and reapply again next year. To find grants, look at other artist’s websites! Who is funding their projects? Also sign up for newsletters that share artist opportunities. Here are some of my favorite granting organizations/mailing lists:
New Music USA
Jerome Foundation
Mid America Arts Alliance
Creative Capital
National Performance Network
Pathways to Jazz
Jazz Education Network

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aekerymusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ae_eeeeee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaEkery
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@aekerymusic
• Other: https://www.epjazzgirls.org/

Image Credits

Personal Photo: Chelcie Parry
Headshot: Chelcie Parry
Teaching Profile: Luciene Ortega
Live Artist Residency at Univeristy of Houston: Chris Dunn Courtesy of Asia Society Texas