I wish music education were more encouraged, more accessible, and available to every child who wants to experience it.”

Beatrice Cabral

Recently, on a quiet morning at The Blue Kangaroo, I had the opportunity to sit down for a scheduled interview with Barrington resident, musician, saxophonist, musical mentor, and college-bound student Beatrice Cabral.

As we began, I was immediately struck by the elegance and passion with which she articulated her musings on life, learning and love of music. And when she spoke of her chosen instrument, the tenor saxophone, there was something almost spiritual in the way she described her connection to it.

As a young musician and student standing at the threshold of college and adulthood, she displayed maturity and depth far beyond her years. Her love of the saxophone seemed to carry with it a personal wisdom. For Cabral, music is clearly more than an interest or an accomplishment. It is a language, a source of identity, and a way of connecting with something larger than herself. Over a relaxed cup of coffee, Cabral shared her first remembrances of music.

“My earliest memory was when my mom would play a particular CD in the car. It was the soundtrack to the movie ‘Juno’,” said Cabral. “I was 3 years old. I would be with her and follow her all around when she was doing her errands. She was a stay-at-home mom when I was little, so I was with her all the time. It took me forever to finally watch the movie, but when I did, I knew all the songs.”

Why do you think that memory has stayed with you since you were 3 years old?

‘I’m not quite sure. I mean 3 is young, and especially to have memories that are still with me today. But it sticks with you. There have been so many studies done neurologically about the effects of music on children. I remember hearing a song from the soundtrack that we are talking about years later. I was walking and shopping in Target and it was playing and instantly I knew what it was. I was humming along and I could anticipate the lyrics and I hadn’t heard the songs for years.”

Cabral’s mom, Dawn, has played an important role in her daughter’s musical upbringing. Currently, Dawn Cabral is an active musician. She originally began playing piano before eventually switching to bass guitar and vocals. She has released original music and leads her own band, The Real Marie. With a wry smile, Beatrice says her mom was the one who “inspired” her to start playing music.

“It was my mom for sure. From the beginning she always played music and she always sang. I would listen to her play piano. She tried to get me to play piano but it didn’t stick. I would say my mom ‘inspired’ me to play music when she said, ‘you are going to do the school band’. It wasn’t a choice,” chuckled Cabral. “But then it turned into something that I have come to love. It brings me joy, and I would now choose it again and again.”

The sax just fit

Cabral played clarinet in the school band but switched to saxophone fairly quickly. I asked what prompted her to make the change.

“The saxophone is very similar to clarinet. It was an easy transition for me, but I think I ultimately picked it because it was going to open up so many more doors for me musically. It’s so much more flexible,” said Cabral. “The clarinet is a very traditional instrument. You’re playing concert bands, symphonies, mostly classical music. I remember at the time when I was going into seventh grade, I wanted to play jazz and join the jazz band. They didn’t offer clarinet, so I said the next best thing is to learn the saxophone, and once I picked it up, I didn’t want to put it down. I tried to play both for a little bit, but eventually just played sax.”

Cabral joined the school jazz band in middle school, playing alto sax, but by her junior year in high school, she turned to the tenor sax.

“Once I started playing jazz in school it was very much encouraged for us to listen to music of our choice and learn from what we were listening to. So that had me listening to jazz, which I was interested in but hadn’t really been listening to before,” said Cabral.

I asked Cabral which jazz musicians she was drawn to listening to.

‘’I started to listen to a lot of Roy Hargrove, and then for tenor saxophone specifically I listened to John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk and Sonny Rollins. Sonny Rollins was one of my favorites. He just passed away. I was heartbroken. I really loved his approach to playing. He had a song called ‘’I Want to Be Happy’’ and I played it a lot. I just loved his tone,” said Cabral. “Tone is something that I appreciate, especially on the tenor, which is what really threw me to switch from alto. It’s a much more mature sound. It’s richer. The way Sonny Rollins was able to bring it, it’s something I’ve always admired. And I wish that I could replicate it in the way he did. I’ve still got a long way to go.’’

It’s all about the tone

You mentioned tone and how important it is. Could you elaborate?

“Tone is how the instrument sings. How the musician can make it sound at its fullest. The most round sound you can achieve. It’s not about just hammering a note or playing the right one with the proper fingering, it’s how you can make it really sing and make the pitch take up space.”

“All good musicians have great tone. It’s so important,” said Cabral. “When people hear something that particularly catches their attention, like if they say ‘wow that person has a really good voice or instrumental presence’, they are usually talking about tone.”

Cabral explained that tone is not to be confused with soul. She said soul is what you bring to the music — the unique way you play, interpret, and express a song.

“Since every musician has their own style, no two people can play the same thing exactly alike. This individuality is what makes being a musician special, and it is also one of the things I love about jazz, especially the freedom and creativity of improvisation,” said Cabral. “Still now, improvising scares me a little bit because it’s just you out there as opposed to being a band member who plays in a unit.”

Mentoring others

While Cabral was still a student, she became a teacher, mentoring younger students.

“I started as a mentor in my freshman year. It was me and two of my other friends. We taught a group of clarinet students who were first year middle schoolers. We would come before school on a specific day and we would work with them as a group.

“We taught them how to practice, how to listen to music and how to warm up. At this point they had only just started to play their instrument. With that group it was mainly to teach them how to be independent with their instrument, and if they had a specific song they were working on, or parts that were difficult, we would focus on that with them.”

During Cabral’s second semester, the middle school band director reached out to ask whether she would tutor and mentor a particular alto saxophone student. Knowing that Cabral played both alto and tenor saxophone, the director thought she would be a good fit for the role. Cabral agreed to work individually with the student.

“He had just started playing saxophone so I was teaching him embouchure, (the technical term for how a saxophone player shapes their mouth, lips, and tongue around the mouthpiece to produce a sound), how to properly play the instrument, fingering scales, things like that, and I worked with him from the second semester to the end of that year.”

Cabral’s mom randomly ran into the young boy’s mom at a local function. Cabral recommended that the boy go to YouTube and utilize it as a resource to find tracks he could play along with. The boy’s mom said that he got so excited about the idea that he took on a whole new interest in playing the saxophone.

“It made me feel amazing. I didn’t really know what kind of impact I would have on him. I was hoping that whatever I was telling him was helping him. It seemed like it really had a positive effect on him,” said Cabral. “By the end of the year, he was playing the whole piece and he had more confidence in his playing and in his band. It made me realize that I had so much more to offer than I thought to people who are just starting in learning their instrument, even though I’m still learning myself.”

The intersection of art and science

Neuroscience and music may seem like polar opposites on the surface, but for Cabral, the two subjects are closely connected by her curiosity and passion for learning. Neuroscience is another field she is deeply interested in and plans to pursue in college. She discovered this interest later in her high school senior. For her senior project, she studied digital addiction in children, which sparked her curiosity about the brain and human behavior.

We also discussed the ways in which art and science intersect. Leonardo da Vinci was both an artist and a scientist. Albert Einstein also enjoyed music and was known to play his violin while he contemplated difficult equations.

“Everybody’s a scientist really. It’s just about asking questions. I mean everyone is a scientist in the way that we are all questioning what’s around us,” said Cabral. “You know, everything is an experiment. Every time you ask why, every-time you wonder, you are running a hypothesis and you’re trying to get to the bottom of it.”

I asked Cabral for any last thoughts.

“I wish more people understood how wide-ranging and profound the impact of music can be, especially for children. It’s not just about learning an instrument — music changes how you think, how you see the world, and even how you live. It plays a powerful role in how children learn and develop.”

“Too often, kids grow up thinking that being a musician means choosing one instrument, joining a band, and dedicating their lives to practicing. But music can be so much more,” said Cabral. “A songwriting class or simply learning how to truly listen to music can open countless doors. Music shouldn’t feel like a prestigious or untouchable profession reserved for those who are ‘good enough’ to pursue it.

"I wish music education were more encouraged, more accessible, and available to every child who wants to experience it.”

Michael Khouri is a Barrington resident writing occasionally about the Rhode Island music scene. Reach him at mkhouri@cox.net.