Tomeka Reid facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tomeka Reid
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Tomeka Reid performs at the Deutsches Jazzfestival in 2015.
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| Born | 1977 (age 47–48) Washington, D.C., United States |
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| Instruments | Cello |
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Tomeka Reid (born 1977) is an American musician who is a composer, improviser, cellist, and teacher. She is known for her work in jazz and improvised music.
Reid has played and recorded with many famous groups and musicians. These include the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Nicole Mitchell, and Anthony Braxton. She leads her own group, the Tomeka Reid Quartet. She is also a co-leader of a trio called Hear In Now.
Tomeka Reid started the Chicago Jazz String Summit, which is now an annual festival. She was named a "Chicago Jazz Hero" in 2017. In 2019, she became a visiting professor at Mills College. She also received important awards like the United States Artists Fellow in 2021 and the MacArthur Fellow in 2022.
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Early Life and Music Training
Reid grew up near Washington, D.C.. She started playing the cello in the 4th grade at her elementary school in Silver Spring, Maryland. She went to a French immersion school, but she loved that music class allowed her to speak English.
She couldn't afford extra cello lessons until high school. She briefly attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Later, she received help for students from low-income families. This allowed her to study at the Levine School of Music in D.C.
College Studies and Mentors
After high school, Reid studied classical music at the University of Maryland. There, she met Saïs Kamalidiin again, a professor she knew from the Duke Ellington School. He introduced her to jazz and improvisation.
During a summer in Chicago, Reid also met Nicole Mitchell. Mitchell became an important mentor in improvised music. Reid later played on more than ten albums with Mitchell.
Reid continued to focus on classical music for several years. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree in 2000. Then, she moved to Chicago and continued her classical cello studies at DePaul University. She completed her Master of Music degree in 2002. After graduating, Reid taught at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools for seven years.
Career in Jazz Music
After moving to Chicago, Reid became more involved in the jazz community. In 2009, she decided to focus more on jazz. She began studying for her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Jazz Studies.
Key Performances and Recordings
In 2009, Reid performed with Mike Reed's Loose Assembly and Roscoe Mitchell. A recording of this show was later released as the album Empathetic Parts. In 2010, she also played at the Umbria Jazz Festival with the AACM Great Black Music Ensemble.
In 2011, Reid left her teaching job to focus on her music career. She joined the Tri-Centric Orchestra for the first studio recording of an Anthony Braxton opera, Trillium E. The next year, she released her first album with Hear In Now, her trio with Mazz Swift and Silvia Bolognesi.
Chicago Jazz String Summit
In 2013, Reid started the Chicago Jazz String Summit (CJSS). This is an international festival that features avant-garde string performances. After a short break, she has organized the CJSS every year since 2016. She even continued to run it when she lived in New York City. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 summits were streamed online.
Major Achievements and Awards
The Chicago Tribune named Reid Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz in 2015. That year, she released her first album of original works, Tomeka Reid Quartet. She also released Artifacts with Nicole Mitchell and Mike Reed. Both albums were highly praised and included in the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll.
In 2016, Reid performed at the Big Ears Festival and received a 3Arts Award. She earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in Jazz Studies in 2017. Her album Signaling, a duo with Nick Mazzarella, was named one of the best Chicago albums of the decade. She was also named a "Chicago Jazz Hero" by the Jazz Journalists Association.
In 2018, Reid performed her first orchestral composition with the Chicago Composers Orchestra. She also traveled to Ethiopia to study the masenqo, an East African string instrument. She appeared on several albums that year, including Ithra and Makaya McCraven's Universal Beings.
In 2019, Reid received a Grants to Artists award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. This helped her travel for tours and work. She was also appointed a visiting professor at Mills College. She won the "Miscellaneous Instrument" category in the DownBeat critics polls in 2019 and 2020.
In 2021, she became a United States Artists Fellow. In 2022, Reid received a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. She was also an "Improviser in residence" for the city of Moers, Germany. During the 2023–2024 school year, Reid was a "visiting scholar" at Dartmouth College. There, she developed a large music group called The Tomeka Reid Stringtet.
Personal Life
In 2020, Tomeka Reid moved back to Chicago after living in New York City. As of 2024, she lives in Chicago with her husband, David Brown. He is a professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Discography Highlights
Tomeka Reid has released many albums as a leader and co-leader. Here are a few:
As leader
- Tomeka Reid Quartet (Thirsty Ear, 2015)
- Old New (Cuneiform Records, 2019)
As co-leader
- Artifacts (with Nicole Mitchell and Mike Reed) (482 Music, 2015)
- Not Living In Fear (with Hear In Now) (International Anthem Recording Company, 2017)
- Signaling (with Nick Mazzarella) (Nessa Records, 2017)
