2011: Esperanza Spalding poses backstage with the award for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards. At age five she was playing with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon. The Portland community provided a number of opportunities for young people to participate in music ensembles and young Esperanza took advantage of them all. Her progress on her first instrument was extraordinary. After a few violin lessons she was able to practice and study on her own. Too small to hold the cello, she took up the violin. Despite the family’s limited resources, Esperanza’s mother encouraged free thinking and creative expression for her children and exposed them to a variety of cultural influences.Įsperanza fell in love with music at age four, after seeing the classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma perform on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Her parents separated when she was very young, and her mother raised Esperanza and her brother on her own in King, a Portland neighborhood that suffered from poverty and violence in the years when Esperanza was growing up. OctoGrammy Award-winning composer, bass player and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, incandescent onstage and off.Įsperanza Spalding was born in Portland, Oregon.
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