Nadine Shanti
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About
Nadine Shanti, born in 1953, grew up in New Orleans, LA, where she started performing from a young age at church, in musical theatre, and in operas. She got her Bachelor in Music Education from Xavier University of Louisiana, and then went on to receive her Master in Musicology from Southern Illinois University. Shanti moved to Seattle in 1980, propelled by her dreams of singing jazz, pop, and writing her own music. These dreams led her to singing at various cabarets all over the Pacific Northwest and overseas in Japan, Okinawa, and Indonesia. She has released two albums of original music titled “Down Home” and “Violet’s Lane”, which are a fusion of her jazz, pop, Latin, folk, theatre, and Afro-Cuban influences.
Since then, Shanti has taught workshops and presented concerts all throughout the U.S., namely with the Everett Symphony and the Wenatchee Valley Symphony. She has also written and performed “Tribute to Duke Ellington” and “Tribute to Cole Porter” at various jazz festivals, concerts, and cabarets throughout the U.S. and Australia, where she also teaches about composition, stories behind music, and performing, within the context of her shows. She was also a guest teacher at the American International School in Lagos where she taught music.
In 2010, Shanti returned from traveling and teaching abroad in Paris, Tanzania, and Nigeria, to teach at Washington State public schools as a music specialist. She has since retired from actively performing and teaching, and continues to compose and arrange music in Washington State.
–Uma Singh
“Nadine Shanti.” Omeka RSS, African Diaspora Music Project. Retrieved from http://africandiasporamusicproject.org/nadine_shanti
“Nadine Shanti.” 2020, The African American Art Song Alliance. Retrieved from: https://artsongalliance.org/composers/nadine-shanti
Related Information
African Diaspora Music Project
africandiasporamusicproject.org/compser/nadine-shantiThe African American Art Song Alliance
artsongalliance.org/composers/nadine-shantiSongs
Books
A New Anthology of Art Songs By Contemporary African American Composers
Margaret R. Simmons and Jeanine Wagner (selection)
Sheet Music
An Anthology of African and African Diaspora Songs – 60 Songs
Christmas Lullaby (H. Leslie Adams)
Sence You Went Away (H. Leslie Adams)
The Heart of a Woman (H. Leslie Adams)
The Alarm Clock (David N. Baker)
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Margaret Bonds)
Caring (Charles Brown)
Desire (Charles Brown)
Your Eyes So Deep (H. T. Burleigh)
Your Lips Are Wine (H. T. Burleigh)
Autumn (Valerie Capers)
Elëanore (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor)
The Willow Song (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor)
Minakesh (Arthur Cunningham)
Stars (Harriette Davison Watkins)
Out in the Fields (William Dawson)
The Refused (Mark Fax)
With Rue My Heart Is Laden (Bruce Forsythe)
Suspiro d’alma (Antônio Carlos Gomes)
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking (Adolphus Hailstork)
Longing (Adolphus Hailstork)
Loveliest of Trees (Adolphus Hailstork)
Dormi, Jesu (Jacqueline Hairston)
Gardé Piti Mulet Là (Maud Cuney Hare)
I’ll Not Forget (Jeraldine Herbison)
Little Elegy (Jonathan Holland)
In Time of Silver Rain (Sylvia Hollifield)
The Founding Fathers (Langston Hughes)
This is My Land (Langston Hughes)
L’il Gal (J. Rosamond Johnson)
Soliloquy (Thomas Kerr)
Amazing Grace (Lena McLin)
The Year’s at the Spring (Lena McLin)
I Am in Doubt (Undine Smith Moore)
I Want to Die While You Love Me (Undine Smith Moore)
For a Poet (Andre Myers)
Chere, Mo Lemmé Toi (Camille Nickerson)
Gué, Gué, Solingaie (Camille Nickerson)
Mshila (Fred Onovwerosuoke)
Entreaty (I Am the Rose of Sharon) (Eurydice Osterman)
Could I but Ride Indefinite (Robert Owens)
Die Nacht (Robert Owens)
From the Dark Tower (Robert Owens)
The Lynching (Robert Owens)
The Secret (Robert Owens)
Madrigal (Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson)
O Children of Men (Zenobia Powell Perry)
I Want to Die While You Love Me (Rosephanye Powell)
Spring (Florence Price)
The Sum (Florence Price)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Dave Ragland)
Mangez, Boulez (Eat, Drink, Be Merry) (Nadine Shanti)
Prayer (Carlos Simon)
Troubled Woman (Hale Smith)
Why Fades a Dream? (Irene Britton Smith)
Dream Variations (Brandon Spencer)
Spring Song (Hilbert Stewart)
One Day (Howard Swanson)
I Went to Heaven (George Walker)
Norris Swamp (Aurelia Young)