Harmonies of Humanity
FELIPE SALLES BRINGS “THE NEW IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE” TO THE COLONIAL THEATRE
By Benjamin Lerner
Virtuosic musician, composer, arranger, and educator, Felipe Salles.
ADAN SILVA
In the heart of the Berkshires, an event is set to unfold at The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield on Saturday, October 21. Musician, composer, conductor, arranger, and educator Felipe Salles will conduct a rendition of his moving musical masterwork, “The New Immigrant Experience.” The music will be brought to life by his 19-piece band, the Interconnections Ensemble, through a compelling multimedia performance. The event is a collaboration between Salles, the West Stockbridge Historical Society, the Berkshire Immigrant Center, and the Berkshire Theatre Group. Integrating music and powerful audiovisual excerpts from interviews with DACA recipients, Salles’s heartfelt opus serves as a statement on immigration, human resilience, and artistic expression.
A Powerful Vision
Originally released in 2020 through CD, DVD, and streaming services, the multimedia epic “The New Immigrant Experience” has been performed a handful of times before live audiences. One such performance took place at UMass Amherst this past April, where Salles is professor of Jazz and African American Studies. He is also a saxophonist and flutist. Through his mesmerizing music, he weaves together the melodies of various cultures, blending artistic and conceptual boundaries.
For Salles, the composition of this soul-stirring music was not merely an artistic endeavor. Although Salles is not a DACA recipient himself, the composition still holds a deeply emotional and personal connection to his own immigrant experience. Drawing on the numerous challenges that he faced on the road to becoming a United States citizen after moving from Brazil, Salles infuses every note with the raw emotions of joy, struggle, hope, and resilience that define the immigrant narrative. The piece was commissioned by a Guggenheim Fellowship grant, awarded to artists that demonstrate exceptional creative ability.
To breathe life into the stories of other immigrants, Salles embarked on a quest to capture their voices authentically. He filmed multiple interviews with DACA recipient immigrants from diverse backgrounds in New York City and gave them a platform to share their stories of courage and determination. Nine of those interviews became the foundation upon which the musical trajectory of the piece was built. Salles worked with filmmaker Fernanda Faya to craft an audiovisual experience that transcended language and culture. It wove together the heartbeats of individuals who share a common struggle, creating a rich tapestry of sonic and visual expression.
“All of the music was written based on the interviews, and the interviews affected the music in different ways,” says Salles. He found inspiration not only in the interviewees’ stories, but also in the nuances of their speech. As he composed the piece, Salles connected words with musical pitches, giving birth to melodies that mirrored the essence of their experiences. He also detected the hidden melodies and rhythmic patterns embedded within the interviewees’ words. The way they articulated phrases, the cadence of their speech, and their subtle inflections all became musical motifs that found their place in his composition. This unique approach infused the life journeys of the interviewees into the music, blurring the lines between speech and song. The influence of various genres can be heard throughout the performance, including elements of jazz, contemporary classical, and Brazilian music. The 11-movement composition offers haunting- ly introspective harmonies that reflect the joys of potential new beginnings and the echoes of past struggles.
Salles recalls that when he took the piece to rehearsal with his band for the first time, he was engulfed by an overwhelming surge of emotion. “I started to cry because I knew that this was probably the most important project of my life,” he says. Salles invites the audience to take part in a shared journey that spans borders, transcends boundaries, and embraces the true perseverance and strength of humanity.
Collaborative Spirit
To bring this performance to the Berkshires, Salles collaborated with organizations that shared his passion for musical advocacy and culturally conscious artistry. Enter the Berkshire Theatre Group, the West Stockbridge Historical Society, and the Berkshire Immigrant Center—three pillars of the Berkshire community. Together, they created an event that will not only showcase Salles’s artistry, but also serve as a platform to catalyze important conversations about immigration.
Felipe Salles conducts the Interconnections Ensemble during a riveting sequence of his multimedia musical epic, “The New Immigrant Experience.”
JILL STEINBERG
The idea to feature Salles’s work originally came as a result of a conversation between Jeff Nestel-Patt, director of West Stockbridge Historical Society’s Jazz Series, and bassist Rick McLaughlin. McLaughlin had previously performed with his trio as a featured artist in one of the historical society’s jazz concerts in September 2022 at the Old Town Hall in West Stockbridge. McLaughlin told Nestel-Patt that he should get a hold of Salles, who has a wonderful body of work. Nestel-Patt reached out to Salles, and the conversation evolved; the two saw the opportunity to integrate the powerful narrative with the historical society’s established jazz series—as well as the work that the Berkshire Immigrant Center is doing to help immigrants in the area. “The New Immigrant Experience” required a bigger stage than the charming Old Town Hall, home of the West Stockbridge Historical Society’s jazz series. To truly immerse the audience in the full scope of the composition’s emotional depth and artistic brilliance, a theater setting with the capacity to accommodate the full band and multimedia elements was needed. The team recognized the Berkshire Theatre Group as the ideal partner to host this event at The Colonial Theatre.
The connection between the West Stockbridge Historical Society and the Berkshire Immigrant Center added new levels of dimension and cultural import to the collaboration. The shared intention to honor and uplift the local immigrant community, coupled with the desire to foster collective understanding and compassion, solidified the Berkshire Immigrant Center’s role in the triad of institutional collaborators.
The team embraced the challenge of bringing together ideas and objectives. Bob Salerno, president of the West Stockbridge Historical Society, notes that immigration is an issue that has held considerable historic weight in the Berkshires for centuries. “As far back as the 19th century, there was active discrimination against Irish and Italian immigrants in West Stockbridge,” he says. “There’s a great quote about history: ‘History is always written about the past, but lives in the present and future.’ While ‘The New Immigrant Experience’ focuses on the plight of DACA recipients today, we believe that it is also important to highlight the larger historic context, as well as the challenges that countless immigrants have faced here in the United States and in the Berkshires over the past several centuries.”
By contextualizing the enduring cultural significance of immigration throughout U.S. history, this collaboration honors the diverse immigrant heritage of the country. It also serves as a necessary reminder of the challenges that immigrants still face. Berkshire Immigrant Center’s involvement in this event serves as a testament to the fact that stories of immigration are not confined to big cities; they are also found within smaller communities, like the Berkshires, where diverse narratives enrich the region’s cultural framework.
Berkshire Theatre Group Associate Artistic Director of Programming Tor Krautter echoes the importance of including diverse perspectives in artistic performances. “Berkshire Theatre Group strives to serve our community at large, and as the person who handles the programming for BTG’s concerts, I’m always conscious of diversity. We endeavor to implement diversity in our programming whenever possible.”
Krautter sees the performance of “The New Immigrant Experience” as a learn- ing experience for every organization involved, as well as an opportunity to promote true stories of immigration through an artistic platform. “I’m looking forward to continuing this dialogue in an artistic context through future programming, and also working with Berkshire Immigrant Center in the future through other potential collaborations.”
Berkshire Immigrant Center is well- known for its unwavering advocacy for immigrants’ rights and well-being. Executive Director Melissa Canavan, a proud daughter of immigrants, brought her deep knowledge of the challenges faced by immigrant communities to the table. She also has facilitated access to the event, providing tickets to immigrant community members so that they could attend the performance. For those who wish to learn more about the struggles that immigrants face in the Berkshires and beyond, Berkshire Immigrant Center offers resources and workshops to empower attendees with valuable information, Canavan says. She emphasizes the importance of this latest partnership: “This event offers the audience a chance to learn and consider how immigrants are not so different from those born here. These powerful stories remind us that we all want the same things: safety, housing, and food security, among other things.”
Amidst the captivating melody and poignant narratives of “The New Immigrant Experience,” there lies an inspiring undercurrent that speaks to the essence of creative collaboration and building a stronger community. Nestel-Patt shares, “We build community by building bridges between people, between organizations, and between different populations. I think that’s an overarching goal here, as well.” Indeed, the collaboration between the Berkshire Theatre Group, the West Stockbridge Historical Society, and the Berkshire Immigrant Center goes beyond their individual missions, converging to form a greater vision of empathy and understanding. Their collaboration unlocks possibilities for future interdisciplinary creative efforts in the Berkshires.
“Next time, it could be a different combination of organizations here in Berkshire County,” says Nestel-Patt. “They could create another really interesting and profound artistic experience focused on something else entirely.”
He believes that the creative synergies manifested through “The New Immigrant Experience” will extend beyond the performance, spurring a ripple effect that enriches the Berkshires region with a deeper understanding of its diverse communities.