After thirteen years in the City of Brotherly Love, I have relocated to Baltimore, where I am teaching at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. I am especially excited to be connected with UMBC because of its new music focus, which includes the faculty ensemble, Ruckus, and an annual contemporary music concert series, Livewire. Beyond the UMBC campus, Baltimore is home to the Peabody Conservatory, Lunar Ensemble, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among many other musical institutions. I feel very fortunate to be making my home in this rich, diverse, artistic environment.
JACK in Ottawa
While in Ottawa I was happy to attend a performance by the JACK Quartet as part of the Ottawa Chamberfest. The JACK Quartet is close to my heart, first because its members were my Eastman undergraduate colleagues, and second because I am writing them a new quartet called Witness. I started the quartet while in residence at the Camargo Foundation in France, hit the pause button to compose two Sandburg Songs, and am ready to resume the composition with renewed inspiration from this excellent Ottawa performance.
The concert began with a performance of Berlin-based composer Marc Sabat’s 2011 work, Euler Lattice Spirals Scenery. Sabat’s exploration of microtones led to some interesting colors and sound transformations over the course of the work’s five interconnected movements. For example, in the opening movement the sound gradually morphed from the clear resonance of open strings to a somewhat darker, hazier timbre through precise retuning of the instruments’ open strings. It was as if a translucent cotton veil was gradually drawn over the performers. In a later movement Sabat relied on harmonics to create a silvery sheen. Most striking were the stratospherically high artificial harmonics in the violins, which, combined with certain rhythmic patterns and the homophonic texture, gave an almost Renaissance music quality to the piece.
John Zorn’s The Alchemist offered a great contrast to Sabat’s work, and it was smart programming to pair these two pieces. If Sabat’s music was interested in process and evolution, Zorn’s was about collage, interruption, quotation, splicing, overlay, and humor. I would say a lot of humor. The net effect of the piece was something like looking into a kaleidoscope (Remember those?) and randomly turning it to produce a series of vague memories from your life experience. Wile E. Coyote was falling off a cliff but instead would land inside a great gothic cathedral with a quiet organ prelude emerging from the balcony. This is music that keeps the listeners on their toes. And the performers? Well, they were busy throughout with fantastic spiky pizzicati and daring rhythmic flourishes. It was an entertaining, mind-cleansing experience.
There was a decent sized audience for this performance, but I was dismayed that a couple people decided to walk out early in the performance or—as was the case with the woman in front of me—to read a book. They missed out by not sticking around. Not all pieces develop at the same pace, and not all pieces can be listened to in the same way. But it has been very rare for me to have heard an entire work and found it to have no interesting, beautiful, or thoughtful moments.
Seeing Sandburg Songs
I have received a video from my Sandburg Songs premiere at the SoundSCAPE Festival in Italy. Watching this video gives a different perspective on the performance and allows the viewer (listener) to see (hear) the fantastic musicians of Eastman BroadBand as they count, breath, and bring the music to life. There are three more songs to come in this cycle, and watching this performance inspires me to get back to work. There are still more stories to tell.
Many thanks to Tina Tallon for her excellent, musically-informed, videography.
Sandburg Songs Recording
I’m very happy to share the recordings from the premiere performance of my two Sandburg Songs. These are two of what I expect will be a larger song cycle on texts from Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems. The premiere took place on July 7 at the SoundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy. Tony Arnold, soprano, was joined by musicians from Eastman BroadBand under the direction of conductor Tim Weiss.
Sandburg Songs Premiere
Last night I enjoyed one of the best performances of my music to date here at the SoundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy. Tony Arnold sang my Sandburg Songs with Eastman BroadBand, conducted by Tim Weiss, in a performance that offered everything a composer could want in a performance. The BroadBand under Tim’s direction plays with a kind of telekinetic sense of ensemble, which allowed them to easily shift tempi in “Lost” while also giving the most streamlined dovetailing of scurrying lines and micro-dynamics in the doomed train ride of “Limited.” From her first entrance, intoning the word “De-so-late”, Tony Arnold didn’t just sing, she told a story and led the audience on an emotional journey. The journey led us from points of despair in the first movement (“in tears and trouble”), to torment (“shall pass to ashes”) and humor (“Omaha”) in the second. There was an electric intensity to the performance, particularly in the fast second movement, and I could sense a palpable interest and focus from the audience. It sometimes gets lost in all our technical discussion of notes and chords and theories that the first duty of a composer is to give an audience clear and meaningful emotional experiences, and that is what Tony Arnold, the performers of Eastman BroadBand, and conductor Tim Weiss gave us last night. It was a real privilege.
Feldman in Berlin
On my way to the SoundSCAPE Festival in Italy, where I’m excited to hear the premiere of my new Sandburg Songs for Tony Arnold and Eastman BroadBand, I’ve made a detour to Berlin, a city that has a special place in my heart as the destination of my first flight (at age 21) and my home for three summers in the International Summer University at the Freie Universität Berlin. It was in Berlin, more than anyplace else, that I experienced the thrills of public transit, understood the true meaning of nightlife, and learned how being in a different place makes us different people. Berlin is also where I studied German, New German Cinema, and later Composition with Samuel Adler. This is Sam’s eleventh and final year teaching students from around the world, and I was happy to meet with him and see that he is as energetic, opinionated, supportive, and wise as ever.
It’s been nine years since I was last here, and the city has changed a lot. The Ostkreuz of my memory—its dark, rusting, haunting presence—is now a modern train station with a huge McDonald’s on one end. The big brand names all have their own stores here now, too, so if I have an emergency and need to buy some Timberlands I can do it in Berlin as well! Everywhere you walk, you hear English being spoken, and there are Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean restaurants that I never saw before.
One thing that remains the same, however, (in addition to my favorite Eisstand) is the abundance of music being performed, including at the city’s three opera houses. I was pleased to attend a performance of Morton Feldman’s opera, Neither, at the Staatsoper during my visit. I first became familiar with Feldman’s music through my participation in the June in Buffalo festival at SUNY Buffalo in 2009 and 2012, and he is a composer whose music interests me more the more I hear it. I am interested in the ways in which Feldman seems to suspend time through repetition, slight variations, and silence.
Neither, is a kind of anti-opera, lasting only 50 minutes—short by operatic and especially short by Feldman standards, and with only one vocal soloist and a large orchestra. The soprano sings a short text by Samuel Beckett, which is presented with frequent pauses and always in the very highest register. Because of this the vocal part emerges as a kind of additional instrument, a special coloristic veil over the changing textures of the orchestra.
The music develops by moving from one texture or gesture type to another with timespans that often lull the listener into a kind of trance. The trance is only one aspect of the experience, however, for there is also the choice of sequence—of how to move from one element or emphasis to another. Sometimes the change is a slight shift; in other cases, there is a sudden break to something completely new. These successions, like a very slow-motion Stravinsky score, create the real drama in Feldman’s music.
In the Staatsoper production, Neither was preceded by Samuel Beckett’s short play, “Footfalls.” This work, in which a woman paces back-and-forth in a series of nine steps, while having an inner conversation with her mother and with herself, provided a nice compliment to Feldman’s opera. One of the most striking moments of the evening was when Beckett’s play ended and Feldman’s opera began without pause. The back curtain rose with Neither’s opening chord to reveal an increasingly deep stage, in which a single woman pacing with one door on either side eventually became nine women pacing and twelve open doors casting light and shadow across the stage. The choreography of these anonymous women walking in varied patterns across the stage was especially effective in helping to delineate different sections in Feldman’s score. Like an additional layer to his broken treatment of the text, this physical movement offered a visual metaphor for Beckett’s opening words: “to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow….”
Sandburg Songs
I am happy to report the completion of two new Sandburg Songs for soprano and ensemble. These songs were commissioned by the SoundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy and are dedicated to Tony Arnold, who will give the premiere this July with Eastman BroadBand and conductor Tim Weiss. It is an honor to write for such compelling and fearless artists, and I am eager to hear the premiere in Italy next month.
In choosing texts I was drawn again to Carl Sandburg’s fantastic and evocative Chicago Poems (1916). I hope that these two songs will be part of a larger cycle. For now I selected two poems that offered me the opportunity to pursue great narrative and musical contrast.
I. LOST
DESOLATE and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor’s breast
And the harbor’s eyes.
II. LIMITED
I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains
of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air
go fifteen all-‐‑steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men
and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he
answers: “Omaha.”
Both these poems have been set previously, including a dark and haunting setting of “Lost” by Mario Davidovsky. What strikes me most about Sandburg is his distinct cadence and searing, vivid imagery. There is an immediacy to his words that brings the stories and souls of the past to our present day. It has been wonderful to spend time inside these compact, giant worlds of words.
On a somewhat different note, here are some photographs of Sandburg and Marilyn Monroe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiJWByhwU-Q
Rzewski at a Fish Market
Under the category of “Only in Pittsburgh” I’ve received word that Frederic Rzewski will be playing his epic The People United Will Never Be Defeated! at Wholey’s, the famous fish market in the Strip. The performance will take place at 2pm this Saturday, April 18, in the upstairs dining room. The performance is free. What this means is that you can get enjoy the best fish sandwich anywhere while listening to one of the finest composer-pianists out there. Mind the model railroad running above your head as you make your way up the stairs!
I’ve written previously about Rzewski’s performance at the Pittsburgh Festival of New Music here. I expect Saturday’s Wholey’s performance will have added layers of meaning given the location.
Sneak preview the event from this live performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_mQiL19XmI
Relistening to Berio
As a conclusion to their time at Camargo, film maker Jorge Leon, actress Isabelle Dumont, and violinist and composer George van Dam spoke about their current film project on Wednesday evening. George, who performs with the Brussels-based contemporary music ensemble, Ictus, is a champion of new music, and he offered an exciting performance of Berio to start the evening.
The Sequenzas remain a singular and fascinating contribution to modern music, simultaneously extending compositional process and instrumental technique in a series of works that captivate the listener with an immediacy of expression. I’ve always been interested in how Berio recast his material in multiple compositions, for example the relationships between his Sequenza VI for solo viola (on which I wrote my Ph.D. essay) and the Chemins series of works. Therefore, it was interesting to hear George perform not the Sequenza VII for solo violin but the solo violin part of Corale, the ensemble work derived from the violin sequenza. George reveled in the shifting tension and timbres of the opening double stops and was especially effective in the moto perpetuo ending section. I was reminded again of the skill with which Berio maintains the listener’s attention through the subtlest reordering of pitches, as well as the ease with which he spins out multiple musical trajectories at once. It was a lovely way to start the evening.
Hearing this intimate performance brought back fond memories for me of the Berio Festival at Eastman in 2003, my final year as an undergraduate composer and violinist. Over a span of weeks, the halls, stairwells, and, indeed, elevators of the school were filled with his intricate textures and luxurious harmonies. I believe all the Sequenzas were performed, and all by students. I personally had the thrill of playing in the ensemble for Corale and in the orchestra for the complete Sinfonia. Both performances were led by Brad Lubman, one of the most dynamic contemporary music conductors I know. How many violinists, let alone undergraduates, can say they played Sinfonia? I treasure these experiences even more in hindsight. If you want to know something about a composer’s work, there is certainly no replacement for studying it and performing it in concert.
Bill T. Jones on Art
https://soundcloud.com/whyy-public-media/bill-t-jones-storytime-the-life-of-an-idea
I really enjoyed listening to this interview with renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones on his book STORY/TIME: The Life of an Idea. Rarely have I heard so many brilliant statements in such a short time frame. Here’s just one:
“Art making is participation in the world of ideas.”
For a look at some of his compelling art, take a look at this:
Camargo Lecture
This Wednesday at 5pm I’ll be presenting a talk on my music at the Camargo Foundation. Unlike the artist colonies I’ve had the privilege of attending (Yaddo, VCCA, Kimmel Harding Nelson), Camargo Fellows come from both the arts and the humanities. Despite–or perhaps because of–our seemingly disparate research and creative pursuits, the presentations by my fellow fellows have been among the highlights of this fellowship so far. Fascinating questions and discussions by very informed and deeply thoughtful colleagues make this time together very special.
A fellow composer once told me that at their first meeting Milton Babbitt said, “Tell me everything about yourself–from the moment you were born. Musically speaking.”
That is rather what I intend to do this week, starting from my first musical experiences and working my way forward to my current project for the JACK Quartet. Here are some of the questions and topics I plan to discuss:
Big Questions
1. Why do I write music?
2. What does music do?
3. What is the experience of composing like?
Recent Works
1. In Search of Planet X: the stories behind music, my need for syncopation, expecting the unexpected
2. Noticing: the influence of traditional Asian music on my works, doing a lot with a little, going in and out of focus
3. Clarinet Sonata: different musics coming together, atmosphere and texture, our endless need for beauty
Current Camargo Fellowship Project
Witness, a new string quartet for the JACK Quartet
Lorin Maazel (1930-2014)
I think most of us are aware of our hometown heroes, and as a kid growing up in Pittsburgh Lorin Maazel’s presence was huge. Starting in fifth grade I attended a free Saturday music school for public school students called “Centers for the Musically Talented” that took me every week to Peabody High School in East Liberty, from which Maazel had graduated decades earlier. His mother, Marie Maazel, helped to reorganize the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s. I played in PYSO during high school at Heinz Hall (where I also ushered three to six days a week for three years). Following his child prodigy conducting years (We’re talking conducting the NBC Symphony while still in the single digits.), Maazel attended Pitt, a place I called home from 1998-1999. Many critics have noted that Maazel played second violin in the Pittsburgh Symphony while he attended Pitt, but none of the recent obits I’ve come across have mentioned that the conductor of Pittsburgh in the 1940s was none other than Fritz Reiner. And we wonder where some of Maazel’s immaculate technique came from! Maazel returned to his Pittsburgh roots, leading the Pittsburgh Symphony (with various titles) from 1984 to 1996, culminating in its centennial world tour. And just in case the hometown connection was not clear enough, the block of Sixth Street in front of Heinz Hall is also named Lorin Maazel Square.
It seems every discussion of Lorin Maazel must include examples of his “distant” or “mercurial” demeanor and his “perfectionistic” and “demanding” style. In Pittsburgh we were certainly aware of his hiring of 37 new PSO musicians, and there was lore about his personal Maazel-only elevator backstage. But as young musicians some of these stories took on lives of their own. Did he really shout out “Silence!” from the stage when one of his grandchildren made noise during a rehearsal of the Mother Goose Suite? Certainly he didn’t really have a red telephone in his sixth floor suite with a direct line to Moscow…. (Or did he?)
Maazel has left us with an incredible discography (including his own compositions) from the world’s greatest orchestras and opera companies spanning a lifetime of music making around the globe. For my part I will recommend his cycle of Sibelius symphonies with the PSO. Maazel was all about instrumental balance and building drama through the large-scale architecture of the piece, and these are qualities that work especially well for Sibelius’s unique forms and characteristic orchestrations. In these recordings you will hear not just Sibelius, but Lorin Maazel’s Sibelius. And you will hear everything very, very clearly. Bravo, Maestro!
Here he is conducing the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Mahler 5.
Motown at Melting Point
I had a great time last night listening (and dancing) to the soulful sounds of Dwight Wilson & The Classic City Soul Band at The Melting Point in Athens, GA. This was the first concert in their Motown Downtown series, and it didn’t disappoint. Great music, rich voices with a lifetime of experience, and a relaxed and diverse crowd. Who can resist this positive and expressive music? We need more of that today! I’m looking forward to more good times at this venue.
Rzewski in Pittsburgh
While visiting Pittsburgh I was delighted to learn that the Pittsburgh Festival of New Music was taking place during my stay. I had the chance to hear Frederic Rzewski play his recently premiered Dreams, Part I (2012-2013) and his 1977 work, Four Pieces, plus an encore memorial piece for Milton Babbitt. This was my second time hearing Rzewski perform his own work, having met him in 2009 at the MusicX Festival at the Hindemith Foundation in beautiful Blonay, Switzerland. Continue reading “Rzewski in Pittsburgh”
Camargo Foundation Fellowship
On the good news front: I am honored to have received a fellowship to the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France!
I’ve had the pleasure of attending a number of artist colonies (Yaddo, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center) in the last couple years and have always been impressed with the people I’ve met and the level of concentration I’ve achieved while in residence. There’s something about going to a beautiful and isolated new place, surrounded by talented and creative people, that seems to get the compositional juices flowing. It may also have something to do with the excellent food these colonies tend to have! In any case, I am certainly looking forward to my time in France. Time for a crash course in French language…or at least French cuisine….
Leonard Meyer Lives!
It is with both “emotion and meaning” that I spread the good news of the Leonard B. Meyer papers at Penn. This fascinating collection, housed at Penn’s Special Collections Center, is now complete and ready for all manner of researchers and thinkers. Between 2008 and 2010 I read, identified, and organized a vast trove (about a dozen boxes of correspondence, writings, teaching materials, original compositions, and memorabilia) of Meyer’s materials. My efforts have now been summarized in a concise finding aid by Ben Rosen.
Meyer, who taught at Chicago and Penn, is best known for his seminal 1961 book, Emotion and Meaning in Music. His work, which combines music theory, aesthetics, philosophy, history, and science–among other fields–stands as an example of what interdisciplinary discourse can achieve when the thinker can weave together diverse methodologies in a meaningful way.
It was very special for me to be enveloped by Meyer’s words in such a direct and personal way, particularly through his beautiful letters to colleagues. I got the feeling that I had taken a course with him or joined him for lunch after spending so much time with his words and ideas. One of the things that most impressed me was seeing multiple drafts for articles and book chapters side by side; this allowed for a clear understanding of the development of his thinking in a highly nuanced way. It was also great to see some of his original compositions (Meyer studied with Wolpe and Copland, among others.). I suspect these works may turn out to be some of the most fruitful materials in this collection.
pennrare.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/leonard-b-meyer-papers-1935-2008/#more-1799
In Bloom in Athens
I’ve had a great time exploring Athens, OH and taking in some of the 2014 Athens International Film and Video Festival. In Bloom, the 2013 film by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß, was a highlight. The film takes place in Tbilisi in 1992 and explores two young women coming of age amid unsettled political change. This was a film that gave me the distinct sense of being in its setting as opposed to on a set. The gray buildings, pale blue tile interiors, narrow winding streets, and stonework all contributed to the underlying seriousness and realism that made this film so affecting.
Kinetic Attractions Premiere
The performers of NOBROW.collective, led by Aaron Butler, gave a thrilling premiere performance of my percussion quartet, Kinetic Attractions, last night as part of the Athens International Film and Video Festival. They played with energy and clearly enjoyed making the most of the work’s playful and more aggressive sections. The work began without pause following a screening of Melissa Haviland and David Colagiovanni’s Dinner Music. It was especially enjoyable to see their work on a larger screen, and the back-to-back pairing of film screening and musical performance highlighted connections between the works that would otherwise have gone unnoticed: timbral links between the quiet gongs in my music and the slowed image of small cups bouncing from a hard surface; textural links between the sparse quiet rhythm of cymbals, wood blocks, and buzzing shaker recalling the slow motion shards of ceramic pulsing on the screen.
The concert concluded with the premiere of Matthew Burtner’s Deep Earth. A large-scale multi-media work lasting 40 minutes, it combined a grand assortment of acoustic and electronic instruments–including unusual sound sources like gravel and dragged concrete slabs–with video. Burtner favored large scale shapes that grew through an accumulation of instruments to large masses of sound. The most striking movement (pun irresistibly intended) was the finale, in which tuned stones offered a memorable rhythmic dance against historic documentary footage. Its straight-forward melodic approach was a welcome contrast to the earlier swell/release-based structures.
There was a real feeling of involvement and attention from the large-turn-out audience at this concert, and I felt everything was paced well with the right amount of sound versus visuals and a good contrast among the selections. There is much exploration of multi-media in new music concerts of late, and this performance showed what is possible with smart programming.
immaus in Fargo
For the second weekend in a row I’ve had the great fortune of hearing my solo violin work, immaus, performed at a regional conference of the College Music Society. Last week it was Lina Bahn in Denver, and this week I heard Kia-Hui Tan in Fargo at the Great Lakes Regional Chapter Conference of the College Music Society. I first met Kia-Hui, a member of the faculty at Ohio State University, at the CMS International Conference in Seoul in 2011, and we have run into each other a few times recently. In October she gave a fantastic solo recital at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where I teach; later that month we were both at the CMS National Conference in Cambridge, MA. So I was thrilled to finally hear put her bow to the strings (plus some left hand pizz) in the service of my work.
Kia-Hui’s performance was excellent. Her interpretation was relatively more rhythmically strict than Lina’s intensely frenzied approach last week but equally exciting and dramatic. Kia-Hui’s adherence to evenness of rhythm and tempo allowed the work’s final section to stand out even more because of it’s long, slow build (slow burn?) to the work’s explosive climax. immaus remains my most performed work, and it is a joy to have so many wonderful violinists discover this work and for me to rediscover it through their unique performances.
immaus in Denver and Riding the Rails
Today I had the pleasure of hearing Lina Bahn perform my solo violin work, immaus, as part of the Rocky Mountain Regional Conference of the College Music Society in Denver. Lina is a member of the faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Executive Director of the VERGE ensemble in Washington, D.C. I first met her when she gave a spellbinding performance of immaus at June in Buffalo in 2009. With that performance still fresh in my ear and memory, I was again reminded of what a thrill it is to hear one’s work come alive in the hands of an amazing performer.
From the opening three-note motive Lina grabbed the listener’s attention. There was an appropriate edge to her playing that worked well during the music’s frenzied runs and tense silences and emphasized the “scurrying” nature of the opening tempo indication, making the soaring lyric lines of the central slow section even more searing. Hers was a compelling and personal interpretation of the work that left everyone blown away. What more could a composer want?
After spending just half a day in Denver I elected to take a long, winding, peaceful, and productive trip on Amtrak back to Philadelphia. I’ve been hooked on trains for some time, and this trip gave me the chance to experience the California Zephyr eastbound (My only other travel on the CZ was westbound to the Aspen Music Festival last summer.) as well as riding the entire length of the Capitol Limited from Chicago to Washington, D.C. Train travel in the US is certainly not the fastest route, but with a private room it does offer some key ingredients to a composer’s success: a distraction-free environment, regular meals, and…no escape! Here’s hoping the smooth clickety-clack of the rails inspires me to “work the rhythms” in my percussion quartet, Kinetic Attractions.