Must a beauty queen be shallow? As a pianist and a crusader for Classical music among urban youth, concerts for autistic audiences and teen suicide prevention, Jade Simmons is just getting started.

Is there life after
the Miss America pageant?

As a girl in western Canada, I used to watch beauty pageants on TV. The fun was in the critiquing: This girl was pretty, that one not so much. Another looked good in a swimsuit, another, not very. As trained musicians, my family was especially hard on the entrants in the talent competition. Why we expected physically attractive women who were also capable of thinking on their feet under pressure to possess outstanding musical talent as well, I don’t know. But such is the scrutiny imposed upon pageant competitors.

I’ve forgotten most of those contestants, but one Miss America entrant who stayed in my mind was a first runner-up (in 2000) named Jade Simmons, an African-American pianist like me who, much to my delight, could really play. I even remember the piece: Chopin’s Etude in C Sharp Minor.

Although her mother played the piano, Jade came to the instrument relatively late, when she was eight or nine. She loved to practice and especially preferred pieces in minor keys because they sounded “darker.” She played viola in a youth symphony and clarinet in her school band and also studied ballet— three instruments that exposed her to music outside the popular realm. She continues to listen to a wide variety of music, although her classical collection consists almost entirely of works for piano, and she never attends symphonic concerts unless the program includes a piano concerto.

Why be pigeonholed?

Jade has since become one of my Myspace friends. Recently I learned, via the Internet, that she was putting out her first CD, Revolutionary Rhythm, due in stores this month. This first CD in what Jade hopes will be a series is dedicated to music by American composers, such as Samuel Barber, John Corigliano and DBR (Daniel Bernard Roumain— he’s Haitian American, but it counts).

“Since I grew up listening to all types of music, and still do,” she added, “and since I have a fantasy of being Missy Elliott, adding the Hip-Hop component was natural and not at all gimmicky for me.”

Jade Simmons’s Myspace message mentioned a desire to see Revolutionary Rhythm on something other than the Classical charts. To achieve this aim, she is marketing herself on Youtube and has mailed press kits to mainstream black radio stations in Houston, where she lives. Her aim is something more than a platinum record, however. Her real mission is to open minds, particularly those of African Americans, to a wider range of musical expression, one that includes Classical music.

Jade perceives (as I do) that young people— especially urban young people— tend to put themselves in boxes. The wider our horizons, the more choices we allow ourselves, the greater the chance of realizing one’s potential— and that notion applies to music too. In my own lecture/recitals to urban kids I stress that music is language, and Classical music is merely a form of expression that happens to be different than what most of them listen to.

Exploiting her pageant past

Jade voices no regrets about competing in Miss America:  It provided her with a showcase before an audience of millions, and it also enabled her to speak across the country (including testimony before Congress) about teen suicide prevention. And it doesn’t hurt as a marketing angle for her solo piano concerts.

On the other hand, Jade must constantly battle the widespread perception that beauty queens must necessarily be shallow. (Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy probably didn’t help.) When speaking to young people she makes a practice of challenging the boys to a free-throw contest (she played basketball in high school) and all comers to arm-wrestle. In the best of all worlds, Jade’s musical talent, articulate delivery and warm approachable personality would render such stunts unnecessary.  Still, shooting free throws is a cool way to break the ice.

A hectic schedule

This year Jade will perform about 50 concerts, sometimes traveling by herself, and sometimes with her husband, mother, and/or 16-month-old son in tow. In Houston she plays annually at a facility that houses patients with every condition imaginable— severe physical and mental illness as well as highly functioning adult clients with autism. That has led to her involvement with a group called Music For Autism that provides autism-friendly concerts— “not because these amazing people don’t belong in ‘mainstream’ concert audiences,” she says, “but because I want them to have the freedom to express themselves without shame and embarrassment.”

If you watch Jade’s Youtube promo, you’ll see a lovely, confident, determined young woman who possesses great vision as well as great gifts. Many people aspire to careers in the performing arts. Of those who make it, many are poor role models. How refreshing to meet someone who seems so well prepared for her close-up. ◆


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