Artist Statement
I am a polyhedric musician and compose genre-fluid works, working with manifestos, open scores and inspired by psychic dander, somatic empathy and solastagia. I see artists as energy workers and carriers of archetypal memory, catalyzing our communities. I navigate dualities, as a polyglot, pianist and accordionist, performer and composer, vacillating between notated and improvised music worlds. My work looks both backwards and forwards through the lens of performance, learning and unlearning with the listener. My music lives in joyful chaos at the intersection of the familiar and avant-garde. Improvisation connects my body to writing, shapes emerge from being steeped in musical languages to be chiseled and mapped back onto myself and others. We live in a time where many people experience profound disconnect from their own bodies (and each other). Rooted deeply in somatic empathy, my music seeks to repair these wounds, resetting both audience and performers into their own bodies. Through the radical act of re-embodying, stitching back together spirit and physical body will also encourage listeners to sew themselves back into the world, and to see the environment as a place they belong, rather than as a resource to use.
Photo Credit Kitty Paranagua 2023
Bio
Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms. Educated at Oberlin and Tel Aviv University and joyfully de-educated at festivals and performances across Europe and the Americas, Simone has won grants, fellowships and residencies from Chamber Music America, South Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Hambidge Center, Sacatar Foundation, iPark, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Strathmore Foundation, ArtOMI, UMD, Avaloch Farm, the Banff Centre, and Spectrum Toronto. In 2016 Simone founded Arco Belo, a diasporic chamber music ensemble. Simone is a Victoria Artist and plays a Poeta XB Accordion, and is a founding member of the Boulanger Initiative.
simonebaron.com