Meet Suzzette: Behind the scenes with Eight Eight Time

Journey Arts’ executive director sat down with each of the composers of Eight Eight Time to learn more about the spark for their compositional work. Read on to hear more from Suzzette Ortiz, one of the pianist-composers pouring her creative talents into Eight Eight Time!

CRS: When Kendrah Butler-Waters first told you about Eight Eight Time, what was your first reaction?

SO: I didn’t let her finish saying the names and ideas until I started saying yes! Kendrah is a musician I have respected for years. We were both selected to be in the 2017 Jazz Bridge calendar, and I made it a point to meet the people in the calendar because I felt honored to be part of it—but Kendrah and I had only been able to talk on the phone before this project.

Suzzette Ortiz. Photo: Tshay Williams.

Whatever Kendrah was thinking, I knew it would be a good thing. And when she told me about all of the people that were part of the project, they were people who were dear to me—I’ve known and respected Sumi and Terry for a long time.

We can’t get better than this—to work with excellent musicians and beautiful beings. That’s what I’m looking for nowadays, and I knew in my heart this project was a good thing.

CRS: When Kendrah asked you to explore a social justice area, did you know immediately what you were going to investigate?

SO: I started with the idea about writing a piece about the environment. I had composed a piece entitled La Bahia Fosforecente (The Bioluminescent Bay)—a prayer for us to preserve the Bay in the Island of Vieques, Puerto Rico as well as the natural wonders of the world. My latest piece was dedicated to the Taino god, Yukiyu, the god of the national forest called  El Yunque. The forest was destroyed  during the hurricane but it was the thickness of the forest that helped break the strong winds of the hurricane.

But as I was thinking this through, I was watching my mother’s neurological condition become really, really difficult. I was speaking with a friend of mine about this project and my mother’s condition, and she said—I think you need to write about your mom—what you’re going through, and to help people know they’re not alone. If you create music not only for them, it’s going to be healing for you too.

My mother was always very strong willed, smart, and accomplished. As my sisters and I were growing up, we noticed weird behavior, and after years of counseling, my sisters and I began to understand that the behaviors we’d seen were showing a bigger neurological problem that had been years in emerging. After Hurricane Maria, my mother moved in with me, and I started noticing she repeated herself, was paranoid, afraid of the dark, and didn’t want to sleep alone.

Our relationship became more like I was a mother. I would try to reason with her, but couldn’t have a conversation. She was in a world that I couldn’t get to and she couldn’t see my world—and I had to learn to redirect her. The only thing I could do was play music. I would play harp or piano, and that’s how I kept her busy—instead of me arguing with her. I knew that I was not the only person caring for a parent, and I felt that I could help create community around this if I focused my part of Eight Eight Time here. 

CRS: And how did you use community and the story circles to explore these ideas?

SO: I made a lesson plan! I’m a teacher, you know. There was an open sentence, then a development of that topic, then a climax, then open ended discussion. In the story circle, everyone shared for 5 minutes, and everyone listened, no one said anything. And then we talked about when they noticed, shared what happened, how they sought help and respite. Then, we remembered the good moments, and asked ourselves: how are we moving forward with this? What are we doing to take care of ourselves and our loved ones? And now that we know, out of all these horrible things, can we name things that are good memories? 

They shared incredible stories, and in the end, we gave hope to each other. I wanted people to feel that no matter how crazy things will get, there is hope. You will always find someone to listen to, and you are not alone. 

CRS: How does your music reflect your experiences and what you learned in the story circles?

SO: I wrote every emotion that they told me and that’s how I started creating. For me, this topic was easiest to demonstrate with harmonies and modes. Modes evoke feelings inside of you—scared, sad, relief, confusion, happiness. You can hear clusters of major and minor chords at the same time, reflecting all of the mixed feelings around caregiving and our loved ones. 

In my first piece, The Abyss, I created melodies that move through all the modes. It starts dark, and little by little, moves to that lighter mode. It reflects that things can get dark but never stagnant, and that it will get better.

In another piece, Danza para Mamita, I’m creating for my mother. She was and still is very patriotic and she loved danza—a very sophisticated style. The middle section of the piece was conceived one day while we were driving, and she was being the worst kind of backseat driver. The car started beeping to alert me that I could not change lanes even though she was telling me to change lanes, so I started singing—and I liked it and so I recorded it. The beep—that steady ostinato—reminded me of the repetitive frustration that can come with caring for her. And out of that frustration, I came up with a melody that soothed both of us. 

I have given permission to myself to create out of the pain and agony and happiness—it fills me with joy to see her dance. I will play the danza, and instead of fighting, we are dancing. 

CRS: What are you excited for audiences to hear?

SO: I really see myself connected to the women—even though we have four different topics, I feel very connected to each of them. What excites me more is for the audience to see how you could get your feelings and situations and put them into music—how they can transform into masterpieces. It’s very personal.

I’m also excited to see how this music touches the audience—whether they feel the tension, or relate to other people that went through similar things—the feeling of you’re not alone. The music is just wrapping us up together.

Find your tickets here and join us for Eight Eight Time on April 3, 4, and 5!