Carlos Simon is a Grammy-nominated composer and artist-in-residence at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. He has risen to prominence with his eclectic blend of genres and platforms.

Simon’s work often addresses injustices faced by African Americans, including the transatlantic slave trade and all the ways that oppression continues to manifest today. In 2015, he released the string-quartet piece “Elegy,” dedicated to Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown. In 2022, Simon combined music with spoken word in “Requiem for the Enslaved,” which honored the men, women and children who were owned and sold by Georgetown University.

This week marks the World Premiere of Simon’s latest work, “Good News Mass.” The work features music performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Sunday Service Collective, vocal performances from Kierra Sheard, Samoht, and Zebulon Ellis, spoken word from Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and visuals from filmmaker Melina Matsoukas.

Simon describes “Good News Mass” as “a celebratory homage to Black joy, spiritual discovery, and the power of faith. It navigates themes of loss, gratitude, hope, and resilience using multiple genres as a musical resource.”

I recently visited with Simon about his Pentecostal roots, what he hopes to accomplish with his music, and what brings him joy during difficult times for artists. This interview has been edited for clarity.


Craig Nash: Could you share about your upbringing in the Pentecostal church and your journey from that world to the world of classical music?

Carlos Simon: Growing up in church was very formative. It was training in many ways, such as just being at the church almost every day during the week.

Did it feel good at the moment? No. I often asked, “Why am I here?” But seeing that level of service to a community has served me and informed my duty as a composer and as a person.

We all have an obligation to serve our communities in whatever way is best for us. For me, it’s music, but for my father and my great-grandfather, it was preaching. Even though my mom was a homemaker, she did things for the church. She still makes dresses and hats. She’s an excellent milliner.

Everything was always in service to others. And the thing about music is, again, it’s helping. It’s helping people come every single week to get something, some kind of nourishment, spiritual nourishment. And that may come through the Word, the message or a sermon, but it may come through song or music.

The medium was gospel music, which was the only thing we could really listen to in my parents’ house. We couldn’t listen to rap, we couldn’t listen to hip hop, we could barely listen to jazz. But there was a time when classical music seeped in there. It felt like it called me. I don’t know what the piece was, but I leaned in [and asked,] “What is that?”

It happened when I was watching movies and hearing the orchestra, and I remember how it made me feel. That led me down the path of trying to find out what the instruments were and who was writing the music. I discovered it was John Williams, and then I had to find out who John Williams was. Who was he inspired by? That led me to Erich Korngold and Alfred Newman, which led me to the Austrian composers. I just had to keep digging down. Curiosity led me down this long trail.

My love for gospel and classical music has been in battle for a while. What I am attempting to do in this piece (“Good News Mass”) is bring them together.

CN: You once said in another interview that music is your pulpit. I often joke that every preacher really only has one sermon, they just keep finding different ways to preach it. If that’s true, what would you say your one “musical sermon” is?

CS: I believe it’s that art should reflect life. If the music is sort of holding up a mirror or reflecting what’s out there, then the goal that for me in every piece I write, is for someone else find themselves in it. Oftentimes it’s around a subject matter like, you know, Good News, or George Floyd, but the idea is that I want people to find their own sense of duty and service, to be inspired through the work.

One of the greatest joys that I get is when people come up to me after the performance and say, “I thought about my grandmother, who I would spend Sunday afternoons with and she would always make this apple pie, and play classical music. And it, she just died two weeks ago, and hearing your piece of music really helped me. And now I’m going to do the same thing for my grandkids.”

Wow! How can you plan that? So I love the reflection they get out of it, even though the piece, piece may have been about Romare Bearden, who is an African American visual artist. My plan is often one thing, but it takes on something different in the reflection.

CN: What inspired you to create “Good News Mass?”

CS: I wrote the piece wanting to show God’s love, which is the good news. I’m not a preacher, but I did see it every Sunday, and I’ve known God’s love. It’s been real to me.

I realize that everybody’s not religious, and everyone doesn’t necessarily believe in God in that way. But I believe that God is love, and love shows up in so many different ways in our world. So I wanted to embed that into the work as much as possible, so it will feel like a church service.

I want people to think, “Wow, it feels good in here!”

CN: As the composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center, you wrote in February a little about the unsettling times artists are experiencing. Despite all that, what is giving you hope right now?

CS: What has given me hope is seeing other artists be unapologetic about what they’re saying through the art–particularly younger composers and younger Black composers who are doing the thing.

When I was in graduate school, there were only a handful of us Black composers. And now, I left a conference last week in Montgomery, and there were so many. That gives me so much hope. And they’re all doing different things and there were more who weren’t there.

CN: At the risk of getting you in trouble with them, can you share the names of a few we should be listening to?

CS: Sure. There is Charles Lamar and Catherine Black. Gosh, there’s Jasmine Barnes. There is Dave Ragland, Jessie Montgomery. There’s so many, and again, everybody’s doing their own thing. They have a special superpower.

CN: That was going to be my last question, but now I’m curious. Do you believe there is something special causing this renaissance in Black composers?

CS: Oh, I like that you used the word “renaissance,” because we are in the middle of the 100-year anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance.  But has something sparked this?

We’ve always been here, but there’s been in classical music, there has been such a large spark of new commissioning, new music that has come about, yeah. I think people just want to hear new music, and it’s all really just happening here in America.

Talking to my colleagues in Europe, they’re kind of stuck in the old way of Beethoven and Bach, which is great. But to really push the envelope and push the medium forward, that comes with funding, which we are seeing. So that is another thing I’m hopeful about.


Editor’s Note: Those in Southern California can purchase tickets to the World Premier of Good News Mass here.