Written by Mackenzie Manley, Content Specialist, Downtown Main Library
This post is part of a larger series that spotlights local music acts performing at the Meet Me at Main Music Festival. Check out our website for more interviews with performers leading up to Saturday, July 11.
Nine music acts will take over the Downtown Main Library on Saturday, July 11 for the inaugural Meet Me at Main Music Festival: a family-friendly, multi-stage, multi-genre showcase of local music, including two after-hours performances, that coincides with the second anniversary of Downtown Main Library’s reopening.
The Library is how the public can experience live music and connect with local musicians in ways not every venue can offer. Come out, kick back, and take in music all day into the night. See the full lineup.
We caught up with one of the festival’s featured artists to chat about their writing process, love of libraries, and more.
Catching up With Brandon Coleman
Brandon Coleman is a Cincinnati-based artist composing music that is “intricate, personal, and cinematic,” according to his bio. He has performed with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, concert:nova, Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and many more. An educator, Brandon has taught masterclasses at universities across the Americas.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Mackenzie: In your bio, you cite everything from Zappa to Coltrane as having influenced your work. How do you fold those inspirations into your approach to composing songs?
Brandon: One of the biggest things I take from the wide range of music I love is an openness to the idea of what a song can be. Zappa and Coltrane really do represent two ends of that spectrum. Zappa would pair sprawling, expansive guitar improvisation with incredibly dense ensemble passages that demanded real precision and musicality to pull off. Coltrane, especially in his later period, was spinning out free, spiritual improvisations over the simplest of song forms, or sometimes just a drone, drawing heavily from Indian classical music. What those two share, for all their differences, is an absolute refusal to stay in a lane. That's the approach I try to carry into my own work... a genuine invitation to push any given idea as far as it wants to go.
Mackenzie: You've performed with bands and orchestras alike, as well as solo. Can you speak to the differing experiences of performing with or without others?
Brandon: Every situation asks something a little different from you. In an orchestral context, playing a modern opera for instance, I'm filling a very specific role within a very specific written part, and the focus is on serving that with as much musicality as I can bring to it. With a band, your individual voice gets to meld with everyone else's, and something beautiful comes out of that.
Mackenzie: Has teaching influenced your approach to crafting music?
Brandon: Absolutely. When students ask me specific questions, sometimes questions I've never been asked before, it forces a kind of introspection I don't think I'd arrive at on my own. The more that happens, the more self-searching I have to do, and that process deepens my relationship with the craft.
Mackenzie: To you, what part does the Library play in the larger local music scene?
Brandon: A significant one. Events like Meet Me at Main give local musicians a real opportunity to reach the public of Cincinnati in a way that not every venue can offer. And the Library's commitment to the music community goes well beyond performance space. The Social Stairs at the Downtown Main Library is a remarkable thing: nearly five stories of Cincinnati musical history, spanning from 1945 to the present, with over 1,600 songs listed by artist, title, and year, and 31 color-coded genres woven throughout. My name is on that staircase for one of my jazz albums, and I find that genuinely moving. It's the kind of institutional support for local music that I hope only continues to grow.
Catch Brandon’s performance on the South Plaza on July 11, at 3:30 p.m., which he says will honor one of his all-time guitar heroes: Sonny Sharrock, an avant-garde jazz-rock guitarist. Along with Josh Kline on saxophone, Josiah Wolf on drums, and Justin Dawson on bass, Brandon will perform selections from Sonny’s album Ask the Ages.
Meet Me at Main Music Festival is made possible by The Johnson Foundation and The Thomas W. Jones Fund of the Library Foundation.
Mackenzie Manley is currently reading "Fantasticland" by Mike Bockoven.
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