Jamila Woods, D-Composed Bring ‘Listening Field’ Experience To Austin This Weekend
- Apr 22, 2025
- 3 min read
The sold-out “sound journey” will focus on meditation, poetry, nature and healing while featuring classical music from a local all-Black string ensemble.
 | April 23, 2025 |
AUSTIN — South Side native and world-renowned singer and poet Jamila Woods is bringing a listening experience to Austin next week alongside an all-Black string ensemble.
The Listening Field: An Evening of Rest will take place 6-7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Kehrein Center for the Arts, 5628 W. Washington Blvd. Billed as a music and sound healing experience, Woods is partnering with D-Composed, a Chicago-based ensemble focused on rewriting the narrative of classical music.
Organizers emphasized that the performance “is not a concert” and Woods said that fans should expect to experience her voice “in a different way than you’ve heard before.” Registration is already full for this free event but a waiting list is available.
Woods, who grew up in Beverly, said the idea for The Listening Field was inspired by her relationship with nature, Black ancestry and curiosity for sound healing.
“[The show] blossomed into this collage that’s blending a classical music concert with a poetry reading, sound journey and meditation,” Woods said.
Woods said she had a strong love of nature as child, building “fairy houses” out of sticks and leaves with her siblings, enjoying trips to the beach and other memorable experiences outdoors while growing up. After reaching artistic success and critical acclaim decades later, the singer said pandemic-era lockdowns made her realize the health benefits of being in nature.
“I had become very busy. I was always traveling and [the pandemic] was the first time in several years that I had sat in one spot and started getting to know the local parks around my neighborhood,” Woods said. “It’s been a more recent intention of mine to build a better relationship with the land around me.”
Woods said this venture into sound healing is a natural progression of her vocal talents. She started attending sound baths, an immersive meditative practice including instruments such as singing bowls, and began what she describes as her sound journey.
“As a singer, I always think about, when I’m performing music, how the songs, the words that I’m singing — my voice — can transform a space,” Woods said. “That’s my favorite part about performing, so I think it’s a natural extension from there.”
Woods said for attendees to expect the Listening Field to “disrupt the typical relationship you think you have to an event.” Participants are encouraged to bring a blanket or yoga mat so they can spread out and lay down for this nontraditional musical experience.
D-Composed, the string ensemble that will accompany Woods, was started in 2017 by marketing professional and Gurnee native Kori Coleman with the goal of highlighting Black composers, musicians and creatives. The name of the group, a play on the word decomposed, represents “the breaking down of preconceived notions of what people think classical music is to really re-imagining a new future to what it could be,” according to the group’s website.
“Oftentimes when we hear classical music, the first image that comes to mind might be an all-white orchestra, white composers and white audiences,” Coleman said. “D-Composed completely flips that image on its head with all of our programming by centering on Black people and Black culture and everything that we do, breaking down that institution and just building and imagining a new possibility.”
Music performed by the D-Composed ensemble range from classical composers such as Florence Price, Chicago resident and the first Black woman recognized as a symphonic composer, to modern musicians like Beyoncé and Solange Knowles. The ensemble has previously collaborated with Chicago creatives including poet and Nap Ministry founder Tricia Hersey and poet laureate avery r. young. D-Composed previously collaborated with Woods for a performance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” as well as in her poetry works.
Coleman said she wants eventgoers to be ready for the sound healing journey of The Listening Field.
“The audience is going to start that journey with us as a seed. We will water you, you will grow, you will experience the light,” Coleman said. “We want you to really feel all of these emotions and things as you are going through this experience with us. Our hope is that you walk away feeling renewed, refreshed [and] a sense of surrender as you are taking part of this experience with us.”
