VOL. 23, NO. 24	JUNE 12, 1998

Aimée Sims, center, with Yoko Ono, right, who presented Sims with the first annual John Lennon Songwriting Award. Record Photo by Jerry Speier.

“With A Song In My Heart,” the 1929 Rodgers and Hart standby, aptly describes the life of Barnard senior Aimée Sims.

  This musical talent who grew up in East Harlem has been composing songs since she was 14. One of them—“A Place To Belong”—recently won the $5,000 top prize in the first annual John Lennon Songwriting Contest, besting 30 entries from music schools, youth orchestras and conservatories throughout the country.

  An urban affairs major with a political science concentration, Sims received the award in April from Yoko Ono, Lennon’s widow, but it was days later before she felt the impact of the occasion. “It’s an honor to be even vaguely associated with his family and legacy. I feel like I’m part of something big, especially being the first winner,” she said.

  “A Place To Belong” was written during Sims’ first year at Barnard, and the song grew out of her quest for answers to life’s questions. “I wondered about my beliefs and values,” said Sims.

  Music is a natural outlet for Sims because it has been one of the dominant themes in her life since childhood. Her mother is a songwriter and a graduate of the High School for Music and Art, now Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of the Arts, the premier New York City public school for the visual and performing arts. Her grandmother is a graduate of the Juilliard School and has run Manna House Workshops, a music school in East Harlem she founded in 1967.

  It was at Manna House that Sims launched her music career. She began violin lessons at age 6, followed by the piano months later. At 9, she learned the saxophone and played the instrument in a small jazz band. She also plays the flute and bass, has dabbled with the drums and oboe and taught herself the guitar.

  When it came time to selecting a high school, Sims’ love for music came to the fore. Leaving behind the Brearley School, where she spent her junior high years, she auditioned and was accepted at her mother’s alma mater, LaGuardia.

  Sims played piano and flute at her tryout, even though she had first picked up a flute just two weeks earlier. During her four years at LaGuardia she studied oboe and played flute in the school’s top orchestra.

  Sims chose Barnard because she wanted top-notch academics, a diverse student body and New York City. A women’s college wasn’t a high priority then, but four years later, she’s glad she selected Barnard. “It gives you a different lens through which to view the world, and at Barnard, no matter your viewpoint, people will listen to you, at least for a little while.”

  People have not only listened to Sims’ ideas in class, but they’ve heard the strains of her band, Rhythms of Aqua. Sims describes the sound of the three-women trio as a blend of “Spanish, urban, folk and pop,” and labels the music “political. I hope our music speaks to whatever issue we can put our minds to.”

  The group opened for a Suzanne Vega concert at Barnard and has performed at Springfest, at campus fundraisers and in New York’s ubiquitous, free concert hall—the subway. The 96th Street station on the Broadway line and the IRT 14th Street stop provide the most appreciative audiences, she said.

  After graduation, Sims and Rhythms of Aqua are off to make music in California and Haiti. Come the fall, Sims hopes to continue her education at journalism school—she served a stint as features editor of the Barnard Bulletin.

  Beyond this, she dreams of a career that combines music, “my top love, and writing. I suppose I’m a typical Barnard woman, I want to do both.”