Detroit's first composer laureate says he'll tell the city's story in music

This month, Detroit acquired its first composer laureate: Detroit native Patrick Prouty. He was selected by a panel of Detroit artists, musicians and scholars. The position is funded by the Ford Foundation. Prouty's appointment was announced Thursday by Deputy Mayor Todd Bettison at the Metropolitan Museum of Detroit Design. Below are Prouty's remarks. They have been lightly edited for style.

Thank you so much for this recognition and opportunity. I am truly humbled.

Thank you to Rochelle Riley, Mayor Mike Duggan, Deputy Mayor Todd Bettison and the Ford Foundation for this opportunity.

I am pleased to join luminaries Jamon Jordan, Detroit's official historian, and Detroit poet laureate Jessica Care Moore in enhancing the arts within our community, and inspiring the next generation of Detroiters to pursue careers in music right here in Detroit. I am very excited to be here with you all this evening.

This is truly an honor of a lifetime for me. I'm grateful to give back to the city of Detroit in this way — the city that raised me and helped shape the composer and musician I am today.

Artistically, I want to tell Detroit stories through music. Stories about where I am from and the people that formed me as a person and a musician.

A little background on how I got here: An early interest in my dad’s record collection led to piano lessons with my aunt and my first public performances. By the time I was a young adult, a career in music was all I could imagine. I enrolled in the jazz studies program at Wayne State University, where I found lifelong mentors. I performed and began writing music.

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I have been privileged to play and learn alongside many great Detroit musicians like Johnnie Bassett, Bill Heid, Alberta Adams and Bettye LaVette, including 25 European and Asian tours.

I released my first CD of all original music in 2007. CDs are these round silver discs people use to use to listen to music. That first record won the Detroit Music Award for Best Jazz Recording in 2008 — the first of 5 Detroit Music Awards. My music has been feature on TV and film, including "Nurse Jackie," "The Good Place," "Brooklyn 99" and "Breaking Bad." Last year, I received a lifetime achievement award for the Michigan Music Hall of Fame.

I have been a music educator for over 30 years, and I love teaching, and seeing my students push themselves to achieve more than they thought they could.

While Detroit was putting the world on wheels, it was also reinventing American music.

If you ask Siri to shuffle your songs, every tune that comes out of the speakers will have been shaped in some way by Detroit musicians.

Motown’s beloved Funk Brothers played on more hits than the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Beach Boys combined.

Detroit announces bassist and composer Patrick Prouty as city's new composer laureate

John Lee Hooker put Chicago on notice with his primal, ferocious, one-chord blues.

In the 1950 and 60s, Detroit-area jazz bassists Paul Chambers and Ron Carter redefined the role of the bass is modern jazz. Ron Carter is the most recorded bassist in the history. He’s actually from Ferndale, but that’s close enough.

Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Eddie Fowlkes and Derrick May invented techno. These pioneers forever changed the way dance music is created.

Stevie Wonder. Our team has Stevie Wonder.

Aretha. Yeah, our team has Aretha too.

Every artist and producer owes debt to the musical legacy of Detroit.

I have been the orchestra and choir director at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy for the last five years, and I see the young talent in our city close up everyday. The next Smokey, Diana, Bettye Lavette, J-Dilla, Anita Baker, Eminem, Jack White are among us now, learning their craft and building their musical dreams.

In my role as the first Detroit Composer Laureate I will look for ways to mentor students and create opportunities for these young people on their unfolding musical journeys I will endeavor to compose music that celebrates America’s most musical city, Detroit.

Patrick Prouty is Detroit's first composer laureate. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters and we may publish it online and in print.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: First Detroit composer laureate celebrates city's musical tradition