At 33, New York-based composer Shelley Washington, a Kansas City native, is shaking the foundations of classical music, creating layered pieces tinged with jazz, folk, and funk that interweave disparate instruments, voices, and poetry. With her music, Washington seeks to shake the table with social justice messages and, above all, make “lots and lots of noise,” she says.
Born in Tulsa, Washington’s family moved to Kansas City’s Northland when she was in kindergarten. She attended Barry Elementary School and graduated from Platte County High School. After earning a BA in music and MA in education at Truman State University, she earned a master’s in music composition at New York University Steinhardt. Washington is on the faculty at New York University Steinhardt and is completing her PhD in music composition at Princeton University.
Washington’s works have been presented by leading ensembles, including the Long Beach Opera, Boston Lyric Opera company, and the Kansas City Symphony, which performed her string quartet Middleground. Washington cofounded Kinds of Kings, a composer collective, and performs in the Los Angeles-based ensemble Wild Up and her Brooklyn-based band, Good Looking Friends. Her music can be found on her website and Spotify. Current projects include an opera that will premiere in Los Angeles. She lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Rodeo.
IN Kansas City caught up with Washington by phone from her parents’ home in the Northland, where she was relaxing with Rodeo and excited about seeing a Monarchs game.
What was the first song that really grabbed you?
Seal’s Kiss From a Rose when I was about four.
Where did you hear it?
On the radio. We are a radio family. There is always a radio on somewhere in the house or in the car. I still love that song. It’s really orchestral, so beautiful and lush, and that oboe solo—ahh! It’s fantastic.
What did your 4-year-old self love about that song?
The melody. It’s very singable, and it feels really expansive with all these big sweeping elements. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded cool and that was enough.
What role did music play in your life in childhood and as a teenager?
It’s always been very present. My mom is a professional handbell musician and is one of the founding members of the Rezound Handbell Ensemble in Kansas City. I grew up playing handbells in church and singing in the children’s choir and in band. I started playing saxophone in 6th grade, so music was always interwoven into all the corners of my life. Alt 96.5 FM was my favorite radio station growing up, and I still listen to it when I’m here.
I also took piano lessons growing up, and that’s when my compositional career began.
You learned composing in your piano lessons?
[Laughs] I hated practicing, but I realized if I made up a little song I could razzle-dazzle my teacher and distract her from the music I didn’t practice. At the time I didn’t think of it that way, I just made up a song. But now in my mind, I realize—that’s composing.
Who recognized your musical gifts first?
My parents. They always silently encouraged pursuing any corner of music. When I gave up on piano lessons and wanted to be a rock star, I wanted to take guitar lessons, and they took me to classical guitar lessons. Then I wanted bass guitar lessons, then electric guitar lessons, and I’m still playing saxophone. My mom has a couple of flutes that belonged to other family members, so I picked that up. In high school, I played in the pit for the musicals. Taking those extra lessons and buying those instruments, that’s an investment! And they never pressured me about practice or that I had to be the best. They just let me be independent and encouraged me with very gentle pushing and leading by example—my mom is a musician, and my dad is a huge music lover.
Your compositions draw from many styles. Who is one classical composer that has influenced and how?
Definitely Julia Wolfe. A friend gave me Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer album. I love that piece. I have the whole thing memorized. It was such an awakening.
What did you love about it?
It was the first major contemporary piece that I ever found, so it was special in that way. Also, it draws from a lot of folk elements and rock elements, and you could sing along with it. It has so much groove to it. I didn’t know you could do that in classical music. That gave me permission.
One of my professors at Truman was like, “You can do this. This is something that you should explore.” I went to New York for two weeks, which is a long time to be skipping out on classes, but I emailed a bunch of composers and a bunch of different schools. I think I visited eight or nine schools. I was like, “Here’s my dumb little portfolio from my Intro to Composition class and a fun little musical that I wrote, and I know nothing about composition, but I would like to try it.” When I went for my visit at NYU, I met Julia, who is one of the most kind and encouraging people. The music she writes—the way that she puts the instruments together with the voices, how she stacks the voices, and the poetry she creates with text—has been influential for me in a lot of ways.
When you compose, how do you balance artistic freedom and creativity with commercial considerations?
[Laughs] Oh, I don’t care if people like my music. It’s convenient if they do; it’s really nice. But I write the music that I like. I know not everyone is going to like it, but you don’t have to like every single thing you hear. The music I write that gets shared with the world, I’m really proud of it.
With commissions, of course they give you some parameters, like here are the instruments you can use, or we don’t want anything longer than 15 minutes. But within that I have complete creative control.
Your compositions often grapple with social injustice. Do you also do advocacy outside of arts platforms?
Not in a formal way. I’ve worked with New Music USA quite a bit and the Amplifying Voices program they started. When I talk to orchestras that perform my pieces, I talk about how we are intentionally expanding diversity in the field, and it is important to be conscious about that. When I am present with other people, it inevitably comes up.
What are the social issues you are focused on?
In the musical field, we have hundreds and hundreds of years of history where it was a very tight-knit, old-boys club and we are still contending with that, but we shouldn’t have to and don’t have to.
As a biracial person, how do you feel about the fact that in America if one parent is black and one is white, you are automatically considered black?
I think it goes back to the one drop rule, and we’ve never been able to filter that out. But yeah, not a lot of people know I’m biracial. I’m viewed as being African American and not that my mother is German-Irish. There’s a lot of other nuances that go into that as well. It is interesting, contending with the history fully outside the realm of music, like socially, things can get very complicated, so I’m always very aware.
From your personal perspective, where do you think we are as a country in 2024 in dealing with race? What gains have you seen in your lifetime and what is the most glaring remaining problem you see?
Good grief, that’s just politics, and it’s incredibly frustrating. In my lifetime, the internet has become the great equalizer in terms of communication and community building, which is a good thing. People are able to reach out and find their community in different states and different cities all over the world that you wouldn’t have immediate access to without the tool of the internet. It also means that we have been able to witness different pockets of racism. I don’t think it’s really gone away and now it’s easier to see how prominent it is.
Some people feel like it’s getting worse, but when you talk to people in marginalized, non-white-cis communities, they are like, “We have been telling you it has been this way, but you have not believed us because you haven’t witnessed it.”
So, pro: It’s visible. Con: Oh. My. Gosh. I’m not thrilled. Not happy. Much remains to be done.
What is your response to people who complain about music and the arts becoming too woke?
I would ask, have the arts and music not always commented on society and politics and forms of protest? It has always been present. But you know these composers of capital “C” classical music in Vienna and Germany might have been hiding their messages in a way you just might not be aware of. But it has always, always been there.
What challenges and opportunities does the internet present to classical composers like you?
When I was a kid, we had the Encyclopedia Britannica and Ask Jeeves. Now, in ten seconds I can do an internet search and pull up music from Ghana, for example. Within that, as composers, we have the ability to tell people, I wrote this piece of music, and it is about this socio-political topic, and people are able to immediately access that by search or just stumble upon it. That’s amazing.
At the same time, going to the symphony has been traditionally seen as this super-fancy thing because of the history behind it. And tickets can be really expensive. Some people might feel that since they can’t afford the tickets or they don’t have a fancy ball gown, they don’t belong there. Finding ways to share live classical music with more people is hard. I think about that a lot.
I have the opportunity to write pieces of music that are being performed in major institutions, and it’s very exciting. When I get the chance to talk to the people who are hosting the music, I ask how we can reach more people, like, “Can we do a special ticket price? Can we livestream? Can we broadcast it?” But you’re contending with history. You’re contending with, “Well, this is the system we’ve already had in place that’s been working for however long.” Change is difficult, especially when arts funding is already quite limited. That’s when you have to start thinking about commercialism versus art. That’s tough to answer, and it’s going to be an ongoing discussion.
‘‘Oh, I’m a Midwest girl forever. You can take the Midwesterner out of the Midwest, but it’s never going to leave you. I grew up here. My family is here. I have the same group of friends that has known each other since we were five. . . This is my home forever, and I feel like I can always come back, and you can make eye contact with people here and smile and say, “Good morning.” You can do that in some places in New York, but it’s not the same.”
After living so long on the East Coast, do you still consider yourself a Kansas Citian?
Oh, I’m a Midwest girl forever. You can take the Midwesterner out of the Midwest, but it’s never going to leave you. I grew up here. My family is here. I have the same group of friends that has known each other since we were five. They are married with kids now, and we are still hanging out and texting every day. This is my home forever, and I feel like I can always come back, and you can make eye contact with people here and smile and say, “Good morning.” You can do that in some places in New York, but it’s not the same.
I still have my 816 phone number. I’m never giving it up.
What does your dog, Rodeo, think of Kansas City?
Rodeo is thoroughly a city dog—I adopted him from a shelter in Harlem. But he does get excited about grass. He’s met horses, he’s met cows; wasn’t sure what to do with them. We do our big biannual road trip from New York to Kansas City once in winter and once in summer. He’s currently looking out the window hunting for squirrels.
Does your Midwestern identity influence your compositions?
I feel like it pops up in my music quite a bit. One of my most performed pieces, Middleground, is about the Flint Hills in Kansas, where my mother’s family is from in Emporia and Manhattan. My friend Tyler Kline is a composer and has a podcast called Modern Notebook where he programs contemporary classical music and another one called Looseleaf Transitions where he asks different makers, composers, and artists how they do what they do. He interviewed me, and I don’t know exactly how to describe my music, it’s kind of a mystery to me, but he said, “Your music has a lot of expansiveness. It has a sweeping quality, an openness.” And I said, “Well, I identify with my big childhood spent between Kansas and Missouri. I spent a lot of time outside and in the woods and on the prairie, riding bikes around and doing big stuff. I had a really beautiful, golden childhood.”
Interview condensed and minimally edited for clarity.