ArtLab was the venue for esperanza spalding’s Songwrights Apothecary Lab (S.A.L.), a Harvard Music Department course, in Spring 2022. This transdisciplinary class will draw upon archival research into the healing arts and various music-based creative and therapeutic practices. Half songwriting workshop and half guided research practice, the S.A.L. seeks to develop a structure for the collaborative development of new compositions designed to offer to heal to listeners.
esperanza spalding is a Harvard Music Department Professor of the Practice. She is a jazz bassist, singer, songwriter, and composer. She has won four Grammy Awards, a Soul Train Music Award. A native of Portland, Oregon, she attended and taught at Berklee College of Music and in 2017 was appointed professor of the Practice of Music at Harvard University.
See the Songwrights’ Apothecary Lab Student Performances event at ArtLab.
Read esperanza spalding’s New York Times profile piece: Esperanza Spalding’s Quest to Find Healing in Music