Lional “Brother El” Freeman
Lional Freeman aka ‘Brother El’ | Self Portrait
Lional 'Brother El' Freeman is a composer, multidisciplinary creative, and educator. He constantly pushes boundaries. Raised in the hip hop aesthetic and DIY movement, his creative practice is a convergence of arts, education and wellness. He is a recognized expert in the Live PA field (electronic music for live performance) and his purpose for music and visual arts is to express ideas while connecting people to a higher plane of consciousness. This grounding is the loci for holistic teaching and live performance that Brother El is innovating at HCL.
Artist in Residence 2021 | Lional Freeman aka Brother El| Photo credit: Spncer Gibbs
Image description: A black man stands over a DJ station on a long wooden table with metal legs. He is wearing a long grey outfit with a fitted color, button down, with a pocket on the right side. Around his neck is a long beaded black necklace with an ornate round pendant. He is focused on his work, his hands on his sound equipment. Behind him is a pixelated photograph with a colorful abstraction over a background photo of what looks like an outdoor scene in winter.
The Project
The experiment for the HCL residency is a workshop series produced as a live music set by Brother El. For each session he is inviting guest artists to cover different genres and styles of electronic music for performance. They broadcast digitally from HCL semi-monthly. The workshop focus is on electronic music composition and performances techniques of Live PA, for streaming and when allowable for in-person gatherings.
Brother El is developing the five-point curriculum to examine Spontaneous Composition, Sound Design, Performance Ergonomics, Stage Design, and Live Sound and Streaming. The format he is creating relies on highly interactive discussion, analysis, and exploration by participants, and it is scaled for different skill levels. For each session he concludes with a performance exhibiting the concepts workshopped over the eight weeks between the sets. In the interim he is active as composer-producer-engineer, creating material and process, recording, and promotion.
This visionary home base to develop and produce content to stream as workshops builds on Live PA Institute Day, a free one-day conference launched in 2018 by Brother El for electronic musicians to cultivate their craft and build community. Hosted at The University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts, his initiative has proved prescient for the surge in interest and need by the field to cultivate and support the genre today. Brother El and fellow artists are heavily engaged in electronic music performance and composition in Chicago and around the world.
Artist Bio
Lional Freeman aka Brother El has worked extensively in electronic music creation, performance technology, composition, production, audio engineering, photography and graphic design for more than twenty years. He is an expert in the Live PA field (electronic music for live performance) and runs The Beat Bank, the independent record label.
His original music sets often deploy sequencers, synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers to create fully improvised and live beat-making. He is a member of three groups: Makers Of Sense, the electronic experimental duo; The Present Elders, of prominence with pop up shows in culturally significant locations in Chicago; and Englewood Soweto Exchange, the collective of South African and Chicago musicians led by Ernest Dawkins, member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
He has been engaged widely including by The University of Chicago, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, The Oakland Museum of Contemporary Art, Knobcon, Loyola University, Chicago Public Schools- Urban Gateways, and Chicago Artist Partnerships in Education (CAPE). He is recipient of the 2020 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, Chicago Artist Coalition Spark Microgrant, and Chicago Park District Night Out in the Parks grant.
As an educator, Brother El is developing alternative teaching methods while expanding the role of an artist. He currently conducts virtual learning as a teaching artist at Walter H Dyett High School for the Arts in Electronic music production. He has created a multiple-subject curriculum for youth to learn electronic music, science, and wellness. His holistic classes focus on building music knowledge and ability alongside the life skills of teamwork, self-discipline, personal responsibility, confidence, and the value of commitment.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/brotherel
Instagram: @thebrothernamedel
Twitter: @brotherel
YouTube: www.youtube.com/ComposedbyEl