Tomeka Reid, Alix Raspé Gray, Raegan Padula '24 Join Music Department

The Department of Music welcomes three musicians to its faculty and staff for the 2024–2025 academic year: jazz cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, harpist Alix Raspé Gray, and composer-DJ-sound artist Raegan Padula '24. As the music department's artist-in-residence, Reid will curate events and teach courses in contemporary music and improvisation. As a lecturer, Raspé Gray will teach Individual Instruction Program (IIP) courses in harp. As the post-baccalaureate intern, Padula will support sound technology in the department and its graduate program in sonic practice and will be a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses.

Raegan Padula is a composer, instrumentalist and sound organizer whose ears are moving as microphone and speaker. Right now, she's investigating sympathetic resonance, sonic collage and the disruption of memory-time, body-space, and self-other. She feels fulfillment from creating and studying queer art spaces in the underground and how they heal communities. As an organizer and DJ (alias RGN), they educate others on deejaying practices, history and community. Their work has been performed live and recorded by ensembles in New York City, London, and Hanover, New Hampshire. She also spends some time producing and mixing in the studio.

Alix Raspé Gray is an award-winning solo and orchestral harpist, chamber musician, educator and musical entrepreneur. Ms. Raspé Gray currently serves as adjunct harp professor at Phillips Academy Andover, as harp professor at Governor's Academy and as a substitute harpist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Formerly, Ms. Raspé Gray has served as guest adjunct harp instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy and guest harp instructor for the Groton School. Ms. Raspé Gray was recently elected vice president of the American Harp Society's Boston Chapter. Ms. Raspé Gray is the founder and director of the Dorset Harp Colony, an intensive for harpists in Dorset, Vt. In addition, Ms. Raspé Gray teaches for the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and Summer at Andover. Recently, Ms. Raspé Gray published her first book, The Musician's Guide to Mindful Practice: The Journal (available on Amazon), offering practical guidance on approaching your instrument with more awareness, ease and artistic expression.

Formerly in residence in Ohio, Ms. Raspe Gray served as an associate harpist for the Columbus Symphony from 2017 to 2023 and as principal harpist of the Lima Symphony Orchestra from 2021 to 2023. From 2017 to 2018, Ms. Raspé Gray served as associate harpist for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Described as a "new jazz power source" by the New York Times, cellist and composer Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago's bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. Her distinctive melodic sensibility, always rooted in a strong sense of groove, has been featured in many distinguished ensembles over the years.  

Reid grew up outside of Washington, D.C., but her musical career began after moving to Chicago in 2000. Her work with Nicole Mitchell and various Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians-related groups proved influential. By focusing on developing her craft in countless improvisational contexts, Reid has achieved a stunning musical fluency. She is a Foundation of the Arts (2019) and 3Arts awardee (2016), and received her doctorate in music from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2017.  

Reid released her debut recording as a bandleader in 2015 with the Tomeka Reid Quartet, a vibrant showcase for the cellist's improvisational acumen as well as her dynamic arrangements and compositional ability. The quartet's second album, Old New, released in Oct. 2019 on Cuneiform Records, has been described as "fresh and transformative--its songs striking out in bold, lyrical directions with plenty of Reid's singularly elegant yet energetic and sharp-edged bow work." Another reviewer noted that "while Reid's compositional and technical gifts transcend jazz, they exemplify the tradition wondrously."

Reid has been a key member of ensembles led by legendary reedists like Anthony Braxton (ZIM SEXTET) and Roscoe Mitchell (ROSCOE MITCHELL QUARTET, ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO), as well as a younger generation of visionaries including flutist Nicole Mitchell (BLACK EARTH ENSEMBLE, ARTIFACTS), vocalist Dee Alexander (EVOLUTION ENSEMBLE), and drummer Mike Reed (LOOSE ASSEMBLY, LIVING BY LANTERNS, ARTIFACTS). She co-leads the adventurous string trio HEAR IN NOW, with violinist Mazz Swift and bassist Silvia Bolognesi, and in 2013 launched the first Chicago Jazz String Summit, a semi-annual three-day international festival of cutting edge string players held in Chicago. In the Fall of 2019 Tomeka Reid received a teaching appointment at Mills College as the Darius Milhaud chair in composition.