Veteran St. Paul soul singer PaviElle has been uplifting the community with her voice ever since she was a child. And now she is using her platform to give back to today’s youth. This Sunday, she will take the stage at Fitzgerald Theater alongside Walker West Music Academy’s string ensemble and her own 6-piece band.  

Once a student at Walker West, PaviElle understands the impact of giving valuable experiences to children whose talents are often underrepresented in the community. Because of her experiences growing up around powerful community leaders, today PaviElle has gone on to earn several prestigious accolades and honors, including performing alongside national orchestras and winning both the Jerome and McKnight Fellowships.  

PaviElle’s interview with Local Show host Diane uncovers her excitement, joy and passion for engaging with the community in bigger ways than ever before.  

PaviElle's latest endeavors 

Where do I start? There's so much good stuff happening. So, this is my life right now, which is wonderful. I'm just at the happiest I've ever been in my life, because everything is aligned.  

I had some talks with ACF (American Composers Forum), Schubert Club and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra about a year ago, and we decided to collaborate. And ACF allowed me to launch a residency focused in St. Paul, mainly, and with the youth, especially after the murder of George Floyd and all the continuation of things that have been happening in our country, our world, and in our state … Amir Lock, and just with all these things that have been happening; and me writing "Sovereign", the album, and releasing it, I've been thinking more about my artistry, and aligning that even more so with my activism and the things that I would like to speak on as a human being in this country.  

And in order to gauge that, and to be able to give young folks a platform to speak upon, I wanted to leverage my power as an artist and the things that I'm doing and use this platform to extend to them and say, I want to be able to lift you up. And I want to be able to ask you, engage you, on what you feel liberation is, especially for marginalized, BIPOC and black children. And what do you feel as your truth, and being able to spotlight that, being able to spend time with them at Walker West, Purple Playground and TruArtSpeaks, and just let them do them. Let them have the panel discussions at the ACF Summit. Let them speak their minds and in an artistic way. 

I want to support the leaders of these organizations and all the work that they do on the ground because these are the people that are doing the real work with our babies; and that have been for eons, really doing the work. And it's not about these organizations, it is specifically these white institutions that want to come in and do one-offs and all these other things. It's about building relationship and establishing relationship with these organizations that are doing the work, finding ways to resource them, and finding ways to collaborate with them, and finding ways to provide finance for them, so that they can continue to do the wonderful work that they are doing in our community, specifically, the Rondo, south side, north side communities of the Twin Cities. 

I was really curious about what the youth had to say, because there's so many people talking. It's like a cacophony of noise, with everybody having their opinions and all the adult generations having these opinions. And I'm really interested because we are moving into the future so fast. And so many things are happening with our world, in climate, in racial, social, all these upheavals of things happening. What are the babies thinking? What are the youth and young people from grade school on to under 25 – what are these people thinking? And what is their trajectory for a future that they see? 

Experiences as a child in music and community 

My mother and father were both community activists and advocates. And specifically, I was always on my mother's hip, everywhere. She was on various boards – Summit University Planning Council, Summit University Weed and Seed, Selby Area Garden Enthusiasts, Rondo Community Land Trust – she was board president for a couple of years. And she was an educator, and she was a Girl Scout leader, and she was all these different things. And my dad, he was a lobbyist, he worked with Paul Wellstone, and he worked for Ramsey Action Programs. And he and Ike Wellborn were two men that came up with a program called Men of Color back in the late 80s, early 90s, which was focusing on the inner city and black males ... They had a program set up with the hub center to get them GEDs, and then job placement … So, that's what I had seen as a kid, and I was always actively with them when they were in the communities.  

And I was always around Penumbra Theatre. So, I had a blessed life to be able to be around some of the country's most premier black actors and be around people like Claude Purdy, Lou Bellamy, August Wilson, James Austin Williams, Jim Craven, just all of these wonderful people, Laurie Carlos, my favorite. And that really lifted me up and seeing what it was that I had. And from my mother to every circle that I was around, it was encouraged – that I could do more, I could be more. And even though we were living in the hood, and things weren't always so great in the way that it was growing up, I still had this wonderful blessing to see the examples of people doing what I wanted to do. And it made it so feasible to me. It made it so real to me. And it was almost like the whole community was behind me pushing me. They still are. I'm still guided. My parents are gone. And a lot of my predecessors are gone, but I still feel them. And even being in this work right now, I've never felt so more interconnected with them, by the things that I'm doing, because I know it's an affirmation to say that this is the right way to go. It's about holistic life. This is what we are. We are human beings, and we have to meet the babies at a human level … And they get it. Kids are so brilliant, and sometimes even more so than us. And that was the thing. It's like, I had those people that understood and listened. And I want to be able to listen and pay forward. 

Upcoming performance at Fitzgerald Theater 

This performance is one of three commissions. So, it's this commission for the Schubert (Club), the commission "Sands of Time" with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. And then I'll have another commission to capture and encapsulate my entire experience with this, which will probably be a musical piece, and I'll do some other stuff with them, a writing piece.  

But this piece, in particular, the Sovereign Suite, is the Schubert commission. And I worked on it for about nine months. And it is one of the greatest things that I've ever done in my life. It's like a piece that I wrote that I'm still learning about every day that I listen to it to practice. It's teaching me so much more about myself and about the world. I've never created a piece where I've looked back at it and was like, who wrote that? Where did that come from? Where did you go? You know, because I went somewhere else. And so, I ended up writing it for almost 22 people ... It's a big, big piece. And I gathered people that I've been playing with, because I was a child artist. So, growing up, I've played with so many people throughout the city ... I've wanted to create this ensemble since I was a teenager, early 20s, just from the experiences I had with them, how they play their style.  

So, when I sat down and wrote this piece, I wrote it with each and every one of these people in mind, including the Walker West Music Academy String Ensemble, the Kamoinge Ensemble. They're so amazing, I went to go play with them last Friday, sidebar. They were just so beautiful. It made me cry, because it was just like, whoa, they're so professional and so alive ... And that was what I wanted to do with Walker West. And that's how I'm working with them is to bring them in and have them play a piece with us professionally for a premiere. And they'll be able to have that experience. Because that's one of my experiences. I used to sing with Robert Robinson's kid choir as a child. And we did shows with Maya Angelou and all kinds of things. I was 10-12 years old, and I remember those experiences – Maya Angelou blowing a kiss to you stays forever. My mom was there and everything, and we both froze with big smiles. Like, she did not just do that ... I was a "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" kid. I used to watch that movie, I was probably like four or five years old when I started watching it. 

It's like, this whole thing is me, seeing myself in them, and remembering and coming full circle, and bringing it home to a place like Fitzgerald that I have such a great relationship with. Because all of the shows that I've done there have always been these kinds of stepping-out-on-my-own shows. Really brilliant, good experiences. I played with Preservation Hall Jazz Band there. We did Andrea Swensson's book there with Andre Cymone, and Wanda (Davis), and all those people ... The show that I did with Jayanthi Kyle and Sarah Weitz was there. It was just every feeling that I've had, you know, performing in my life has been there and that's why I chose to have it there. Just because I feel like it's gonna bring a certain level of spirit and a certain level of like, we can debrief from what happened... and having that a safe space to really take a collective breath after everything that we've been through. 

"Sovereign Suite" 

I really sat down and wrote this thing from scratch. It expounds on "Sovereign," and some of the ideas because I just kind of touched the surface in the album, I was feeling personally. I think it was cool. Like, it explains everything. But I just think I touched the surface in that I could say more and expound on more about my ideals of what liberation means to me, and what sovereignty means to me, and what having full and complete autonomy means to me – how important that is. And I kind of wrote the piece, in a way where it was starting in the present, and all of the things going on, that are just becoming too much. And then my way of forging through that, and actually thinking my thoughts, actually saying them out loud. Asking questions that I was always afraid to ask myself, before I started my journey of inner work and healing. Just being able to put all of that out there. And it's just like this walking on to freedom, and me seeing myself and envisioning my future of what I'm planning to do. So that's why it kind of freaks me out a little bit. Because it's like, obviously, this is cosmic, and these were directions that I brought back for myself. And as I'm learning this piece and understanding it, I'm going oh, that's what that means. It's like linking it all to the steps that I'm making for it.  

So, it's a wild piece, and I am so in love with it – happily in love with it. It tongue ties me with explaining how freeing it is just to speak this and sing this with other singers, where I have them as extensions of my mind and extensions of the thoughts in my mind and the fear, and all these different things. We're doing all this on a high vibration. I was like, I hope I don't freak the kids out and lose my mind and just be feeling it and just be in the zone and really click off like that. I feel like it's exercise or something. And whatever it's exercising, it's trying to bring through my full self so that I can really walk this path, this divine path. 

 
Working with the band 

It's my first time, number one, putting music on other singers. Which is really awesome because it's like me stepping into opera work. Because I do a lot of libretto work, orator work now, like with a "Requiem for Zula" and "Sands of Time". But now I want to start putting stuff on other people in doing a lot of harmonies and choral work and working with more bands, instruments outside of the orchestra too, but adding string ensemble to have those layers in there.  

1147 bars, 30 pages of music. One hour, two minutes … I keep telling myself I asked for this, I prayed for this, I worked for this. So, no matter how hard it is, my positivity in my life will keep me going. And I'm working and resting. So that's also good, too. I'm resting the amount of time that I work. 

Playing clubs versus playing auditoriums  

What I really liked about the gig shows is the way in which the audience is with you and how they show it. Because it's such a stark difference from being at SPCO versus being at Icehouse. But even at SPCO, when my people are in there, I hear them and they're there with me. So that's been great. Like, the more that I am pushing the boundaries there, because it's going to change that too, hopefully. And that's what I'm hoping for, because my shows shouldn't be quiet.  

But I really do like how people are with you in how they will show you, and you can feel the vibration. Whereas, like I said, with SPCO or just playing the orchestra or theater, sometimes it's starkly different, because it's a different culture in the audience, and they just usually react in a different way. But either way, I feel it and I think there's something to be said, if people are calling and responding with me, culturally, it just amps me up more. And I just fly ... so it's a certain level of us getting together and having a good time, too. I don't think a lot of people realize that we're up there bonding while we're doing that, and it's a party for us just as much as a party for them.  

It's okay to play to quiet audiences, because they always show you at the end that they loved it. But it's interesting how you have to throw yourself into the music. Like it's a whole different process, now that you ask that. I'm glad you asked that. Because it helps me see that, that it is like I have to throw myself into the symphony, and just be in that, as opposed to riding off the wavelength that we're all making right now. Because we're just doing some improv stuff. And we're all having fun. Like, it's a whole different thing. And I'm just really focused on flying through the piece when I'm up there at the piano.