Vocalist and composer Odeya Nini (Music MFA 11) released her new solo vocal album ODE on Populist Records earlier this fall, celebrating the release with shows in Los Angeles and New York.
Nini performed as a part of LA’s Philosophical Research Society Floating series on Nov. 1, commemorating Dia de Los Muertos; the following week she performed alongside Chris Dingman at the Tenri Cultural Institute in New York.
In her album notes, Nini says ODE symbolizes many things:
“Ode to gratitude for the sense to feel vibration move through every pore and every cell in my being as the Voice. Gratitude for the voice that blurs the boundary between myself and the rocks and earth around us, that blurs the boundary between you and I. Ode to the boundless unknown that makes itself visible through the sound of our breath.”
The music in ODE comes entirely from Nini’s solo and overdubbed voice, an electric drone, and a crystal bowl. She describes her process of creating the album as mixing composition and improvisation, aiming to “stay in a state of discovery” while exploring pieces that are “essentially real-time excavations in sound and texture” guided by “movement, disorientation, dynamic play and expressive range…”
ODE marks Nini’s third album release, following Voice Bath and her debut album Vougheauxyice. The LA-based artist has performed both nationally and internationally at the Kaufman Music Center in New York, Resonant Bodies Festival in New York, The Broad Museum and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A., as well as Israel, Australia, Mongolia, Madagascar, and Vietnam.
Nini’s art practice encompasses a variety of vocal techniques, centering performance, gesture, textural harmony, tonal animation, and the illumination of minute sounds. Her vocal production ranges from silence to noise, tenderness to grandeur.
Before getting her MFA in composition from The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts, Nini earned her BFA from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. She leads vocal sound meditations, workshops, and retreats around the voice and has published multiple writings on spirituality and voice. Nini has collaborated with filmmakers, theater directors, visual artists, dancers, and ensembles such as Meredith Monk, Butch Morris, Lucy & Jorge Orta, Wild Up, and The Industry.
—Ishika Muchhal
