Healing the Community Through the Creative Soul of PaviElle French
PaviElle French is more than a singer; she is a St. Paul powerhouse. Deeply influenced by her Rondo upbringing and a lineage of artists, French has transitioned from a child performer to an Emmy-winning interdisciplinary creator. Today, she is using her music—including albums like "SOVEREIGN"—and a new 100-page curriculum to help the Twin Cities community process trauma through the arts.
PaviElle French started singing at age 5 in 1989 under the direction of a teacher at Maxfield Elementary School, who also served as musical director at Pilgrim Baptist Church. The Rondo native received vocal and piano lessons at Walker West Music Academy and sang under Robert Robinson with City Songs.
Around age 10, City Songs had the opportunity to perform as the choir at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at St. Mary’s Basilica, where Maya Angelou headlined. After performing alongside Angelou, French recalls the esteemed poet turning around and blowing her a kiss.
“Watching her perform and watching her piece that she wrote for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. really sealed the deal for me,” French said.
French attended Mississippi Creative Arts School, where she received training in dance, acting and musical theater. She later trained at Penumbra Theater and Stepping Stone Theatre.
“I’ve been a child actor, performer, singer, dancer, all of that, all into my older age here,” she said. “I’ve never stopped.”
French comes from a family of artists. Her uncle played saxophone in the band Haze, led by Sonny Knight. A second cousin was a foundational company member of Penumbra and wrote music for an August Wilson show.
“I always had the representation and people always showed me that I could do this… that I could live my life in my imagination and carry that through into my adulthood and allow me to make a living off of it,” French said. “It was always something that I could see that I could do.”
“Art is always gonna be the No. 1 point of my life.”
French released her first album, “Fear Not,” in 2014, in honor of her late mother and father. Music, she said, helps process grief. In 2021, she released “SOVEREIGN,” a response to the murder of George Floyd.
“I don’t make music for other people to like me,” French said. “I make music to speak the truth and to talk about the things that are happening in community.”
As an interdisciplinary artist, French has performed at many theaters, winning a Sage Cowles Award for Dance and Choreography and an Emmy Award for a documentary about her life and career.
She is now working with the Capri Theater in North Minneapolis.
“I have always loved the north side as somebody from Rondo,” she said. “I always feel like we’re twins… being two Black neighborhoods that have fostered so much love and connectedness and culture over the years and we’re always going back and forth with each other.”
French wants to continue fostering community work through her music and mentorship of youth. She recently completed a 100-page curriculum based on her work with the American Composers Forum, Schubert Club, TruArtSpeaks, Walker West, Purple Playground and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
The curriculum grew from work she did in response to the murder of Floyd and the subsequent racial reckoning. She worked with three music educators to develop the project. She plans to pilot the curriculum with young people and adults to help them process trauma through art. Work she hopes will one day become a school.
To learn more or contact PaviElle French, visit paviellefrench.com or follow her on Instagram @pavielle_music and on Facebook at pavielle.french.
Damenica Ellis welcomes reader responses at dellis@spokesman-recorder.com.