Sanctuary, Episode 2: “Colascione/In The Winter”

My name is Maz Swift.

I am a violinist and singer with the Silk Road Ensemble.

The way I like to make music is I've always been kind of omnivorous.

All of the things I do kind of bleeds its way into my creative process, which means I'm very interested in folk music, particularly.

I mean, I've spent a lot of time playing Irish music because it's really fun.

I'm really interested in the role that the fiddle has played in the African-American experience.

Also, I am classically trained.

And so that works its way in.

I've played a lot of jazz over the years and I do a lot of improvisation.

And that's kind of where I've landed as like my home musically.

I try to weave all of these things in together, including pre-made material, folk songs and slave songs and protest songs of African-American music together with improvisational moments to kind of bring it into that here and now and into the future.

Lately I've been taking more of a role of saying my style is Afrofuturist because I really like electronics as well.

Maz sounds completely at ease, freely drawing from disparate musical sources, following their own creative instincts to a unique style that they get to define.

But getting to this point wasn't easy.

Considering my experience as a classically trained musician, assigned female at birth, neurodivergent AF, Black person, super queer, super unaware of all the things that are going on with me and trying to navigate this classical music world that is rife with patriarchy and white supremacy.

I didn't find it to be a very safe place.

And I loved music so much.

And I loved the violin so much.

And it kind of ruined me on both for a long time.

So coming out of that, like I had to fight back to the love of the music and the way that it made me feel and how actually regulating it is for me.

What I would want is to know that people are free to explore learning and learning not just how to play an instrument, but to express themselves through the instrument, like learning what it means to be a person who makes music.

So when I think about music as sanctuary, I think about creating spaces that make people feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable to truly find out about themselves and each other.

For Maz and for all of us at Silk Road, improvising is where we have that creative conversation.

We listen to and honor what each of us brings, and we build on that together.

So at Silk Road's engagements with communities on our tour, we invite others to have that conversation too.