Where We Lost Our Shadows - Composer Portrait: Gloria Coates

Gloria Coates has written sixteen full-scale symphonies, eleven string quartets, several orchestral works, a number of song cycles, and a chamber opera, Stolen Identity. The 1978 premiere in Warsaw of her Symphony No. 1, “Music for Open Strings” brought her acclaim; the work was among the finalists for the 1986 International Koussevitsky Award. It was also the first piece by a woman composer to be performed at Munich’s Musica Viva, in 1980. Symphony No. 1 “Music for Open Strings,” was written in 1973 and is scored for a string orchestra playing entirely on retuned open strings. The work opens with the strings tuned to a minor pentatonic scale (B flat, C, D flat, F, G flat), which are returned to their normal tuning movement by movement.

We spoke with Coates about the story behind Symphony No. 1, “Music for Open Strings,” as well as her experiences as an American woman composer in Europe, and what advice she has for young composers.

American Composers Orchestra performs Symphony No. 1, “Music for Open Strings” on Thursday, April 11, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall, Zankell Hall. Click here for tickets and more information.

Composer Gloria Coates. Photo by Simon Leigh

American Composers Orchestra: Can you talk about your decision to write a symphony for open strings with “abnormal” tunings? What was the creative process like?

Gloria Coates: In 1971, I was commissioned to write a work for the Rhineland Chamber Orchestra.  

Back in 1962, after a summer course with Alexander Tcherepnin at the Salzburg Mozarteum, he jotted down several Chinese pentatonic scales he brought back with him from China while he was teaching there, and said, “You might want to use one of these scales one day.” I chose one of the scales and wrote an adequate piece. Not me! I felt, so tore it up. I tried a few more times to no avail. About to give up using the scale, I awoke one morning with an idea to see whether I might tune the instruments to this scale. It worked! Then I wrote a little tune using the scale and had the orchestra play it with open strings.  Many ideas struck me as I looked at the hocket-like matrix. Each time it was played, I had two instruments fall out of this matrix into a phrase of a particular color. With each repeat, more and more colors were added to the melody until it disappeared into an explosion of colors. This was the first movement.

The second movement used the open strings in a sort of scherzo.

For the last movement I decided it should be based on an early quartet I had written while studying in Louisiana in 1963 using glissandi in all instruments.  This had been rejected as “preposterous” by my professor. I had said, “Why can't I write this in glissandi if it can be played?” He laughed, “You can write it, but who will listen to it?” I whimpered, “I would.” So now I decided I would use this material. I set our normal scale vertically which happened to coincide with the tunings of the strings.  Then I had the instruments emerge from it using open strings. As I wrote it, more complex rhythms and intervals took over and it seemed to be a final movement. I called this piece “Music on Open Strings” and sent it off to the US copyright office.

ACO: Can you talk about what you remember about your very first time hearing an orchestra perform this piece? How long was it from the time you finished the piece to its world premiere?

GC: The Rhineland Chamber Orchestra began rehearsals but there was much protest, especially from the violin section. Someone came into the rehearsal from the street very excited at the new sounds and wanted to know when it would be performed. This gave me confidence which was short-lived as the last movement, when played, sounded like an old fashioned washing machine and the orchestra could not play it without accents on the beats. My attempts at getting a conductor to perform it properly were rejected, and I sadly took the piece out of the concert and put it away, hoping for better times.

I took it to Boosey and Hawkes in New York, and an editor named Stuart Pope was excited about it, and said it would be ideal for their Education Department. I told him it was a regular concert piece so turned down that wonderful offer. Before going out the door, he called at me, “Why don't you write a movement connecting that last movement with the other two?” (I had thought it would be interesting for the audience to see and hear the orchestra retuning for an interval of time.) This thought stayed with me, and a few weeks later I sat in a restaurant and suddenly saw a possibility. One of the strings did not need retuning, so was able to use it to retune with tuning by fifths. I found myself writing little canons and then arrived at a point of using the fine tuner with chords in fifths from the entire orchestra. This became the third movement named “Scordatura” … and completed “Music on Open Strings.”

It took five years before it was premiered, having been rejected by Wolfgang Fortner for Musica Viva. (After its success at Warsaw Autumn and a change of artistic director, it became the first orchestral work by a woman in the then 34 year history of Hartmann's famous Musica Viva series.)

The American conductor Richard Kapp was interested in performing this work with his Philharmonia Virtuosi. Alas, some musicians were afraid of their instruments’ being ruined … Stradivarious, Ramati and such … so he sent the score back.

A few years later, an avant-garde ensemble from Poland came through Munich led by Zygmunt Krause. After the concert I told him about my piece and he advised me to send it to Warsaw Autumn Festival. It was accepted. 

Again, a stumbling block! At the rehearsal, the orchestra did not want to play the piece on open strings.  Their reason was that it did not sound beautiful, but most of all, they could not crescendo the movement with open strings. I asked them to play it both ways for me, and I heard it did not meet with my expectations. I told them I would decide the next and last day about what I would do.

That night I could not sleep … pacing the room on the fifth floor of the old Bristol Hotel, an idea struck me: perhaps if I used the bow for the crescendo … loosen the hairs of the bows and in the matrix where the rests were, tighten the hairs, and gradually a crescendo might appear. There was no time to try this out at the last rehearsal. I had to find an instrument before 9am.

I glanced down at the plaza from my window and saw a man carrying a case. It was now about 3:30am so wondered if this were a doctor called out to deliver a baby in the night. But there was a slight chance it was an instrument. The elevator was locked for the night so I ran down the spiral staircase and out into the plaza. I saw no one. Then, around a column there he stood! I tried to talk to him, but he spoke no English, no German, no French. I motioned as if playing a violin and he nodded! … and pointed to the poster on the column about an orchestral concert and to Krakow … pointing to his watch. I showed him my name on the same poster and he understood. We woke the night watchman of the hotel who spoke German and he translated my request with the bow hairs on the strings. It worked!!

ACO: Many of your earlier works for orchestra were not originally classified as symphonies. Why was this the case? What made you retitle them as symphonies?

GC: I would say my life is different from most composers, because I was rather isolated. I wasn’t getting grants like my peers were. It was a different situation because there were no women composers then. I never set out to write an orchestra work. The first titles I had, I always tried to do something sort of programmatic. Even with “Music for Open Strings,” at one point I called it “The Three Ages of Samurai.” I never called it a symphony … Then there was a piece I wrote and it was so complicated. I think I had 54 instruments going simultaneously. It was a commission for an orchestra piece from the Stuttgart Radio and I could use all my ideas for a very large orchestra. I was able to put into practice things that had never been done for orchestra before. I thought that this piece was so huge that I would call it a symphony. It didn’t follow the rules for the old-fashioned symphonies, but then nothing that I had written followed the rules.

I thought, “If that’s a symphony, what were those earlier pieces that I’d written?” I went back over them, and the ones with more movements, that were heavier, I called symphonies. So by this time I had seven symphonies altogether. 

I sent Classic Produktion Osnabrück, which is very good label in Germany, recordings of my Symphonies No. 1, 4, and 7 … CPO sent my symphonies to a well-known musicologist, who wrote back, “I had no idea you’d written symphonies.” I thought, “I wonder if those were symphonies?” I wasn’t sure because they were different from symphonies normally. So he analyzed them and wrote that these are real symphonies, using examples of Mahler to evaluate them. Then other musicologists realized this and called them real symphonies, which they were. I continued then to write symphonies. 

ACO: An important part of your career has been to promote American music in Europe, with a German-American Music Series (1971-1984), writing musicological articles, and making broadcasts for the WDR Radio Cologne, and Radio Bremen. Can you talk about why this initiative is important to you? What improvements, in terms of the attitude towards American music, have you seen since you first moved to Europe in 1969?

GC: I think Germany is very proud of its musical heritage, and when I was first there the Americans were thought of more as light and superficial, even Charles Ives … Basically American music had very little promotion. I didn’t get paid for it … but I was able to have a music series promoting American music at the Amerika Haus. They helped with promotion and production. I did that for 13 years, and I think it made quite a difference. I also helped organize performances European music in America to facilitate an exchange of ideas.

Things changed through the years. The Wall came down. There was more money. And then there was a book that came out called Desert Plants: Conversations with 23 American Musicians around 1975 and I was asked to review it. Basically what the German writer [Walter Zimmermann] was doing was promoting only a very avant-garde group of Americans, like John Cage and Harry Partch. I would say that more conventional and new music people, even electronic artists, were pushed out. I created quite a long radio program for Radio Bremen, which was also broadcast on WDR Radio Cologne, which sampled all these various American composers … That was so successful that WDR Radio Cologne invited me to do a series of broadcasts music based on different themes, which I could use to promote more American music and also women composers, because there had been no women composers on the radio at that time. So I promoted American music quite a bit. In fact, I wasn’t able to do much of my own composing because I was busy doing this. It was kind of a dedication feeling I had. 

ACO: You have lectured about your concepts and techniques of composing at Harvard, Princeton, Brown, and major institutions around the world. Can you talk about some of the most common advice you give young orchestral composers?

GC: There’s a way that you can compose by looking at scores and developing your technique from that. That's all right. However, I feel that it’s important to go within yourself and that means you have to live more. It has to do with exploring yourself and trying to find the connections with what you’re expressing. It sometimes happens with an instrument, like if you’re a singer you’ll have a different compositional expression from if you’re a saxophone player. So my feeling for young people is to experience life and to find their own individual expression. If you have say 2,000 composers all with a similar technique, which one will stand out? It’s really the one who has that basic knowledge of music, but also has a personal voice that touches the audience.

Each composer has his own manner of composing. Mine is more intuitive than technical. I express myself as honestly as I can. I only hope it is received by the listener in his own way.

American Composers Orchestra performs Symphony No. 1, “Music for Open Strings” on Thursday, April 11, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall, Zankell Hall. Click here for tickets and more information.

Where We Lost Our Shadows - Performer Portrait: Shayna Dunkelman

Shayna Dunkelman is a musician, an improviser, and a percussionist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is known for her versatile and unique techniques, and her use of electronics to access a sonic pallet not found in acoustic percussion. Dunkelman is the founding member of the retro-future electronic band Peptalk with Michael Carter and Angelica Negron based in Brooklyn, NYC. She was also a member of the world touring band Xiu Xiu for six years.

Shayna Dunkelman is a featured soloist in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun and Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar’s new multimedia work Where We Lost Our Shadows, which explores the timeless story of human migration and the resilient human spirit.

American Composers Orchestra presents the New York premiere on Thursday, April 11, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall. Click here for tickets and more information.

Where We Lost Our Shadows - Performer Portrait: Ali Sethi

Ali Sethi is a renowned Pakistani author and musician. Having grown up in Lahore, Pakistan, Sethi graduated from Harvard College and authored the critically acclaimed novel The Wish Maker. He is also a trained vocalist in the Indo-Pakistani classical traditions of Khayal and Ghazal. A regular on the popular Coke Studio program, he is known for combining live music with historical narrative and critical analysis. He lives between Lahore and New York City.

Ali Sethi is a featured soloist in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun and Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar’s new multimedia work Where We Lost Our Shadows, which explores the timeless story of human migration and the resilient human spirit.

American Composers Orchestra presents the New York premiere on Thursday, April 11, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall. Click here for tickets and more information.

Where We Lost Our Shadows - Performer Portrait: Helga Davis

Helga Davis is a vocalist and performance artist with feet planted on the most prestigious international stages and with firm roots in the realities and concerns of her local community whose work draws out insights that illuminate how artistic leaps for an individual can offer connection among audiences.

Helga Davis is a featured soloist in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun and Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar’s new multimedia work Where We Lost Our Shadows, which explores the timeless story of human migration and the resilient human spirit.

American Composers Orchestra presents the New York premiere on Thursday, April 11, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall. Click here for tickets and more information.

Where We Lost Our Shadows - Composer Spotlight: Du Yun

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun discusses Where We Lost Our Shadows, her new collaboration with visual artist Khaled Jarrar. The new multimedia work explores the timeless story of human migration and the resilient human spirit, featuring singer Ali Sethi, singer Helga Davis, and percussionist Shayna Dunkelman.

American Composers Orchestra presents the New York premiere on Thursday, April 11, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall. Click here for tickets and more information.

Phenomenal Women - Composer Spotlight: Joan Tower

American Composers Orchestra (ACO) performs Joan Tower's Chamber Dance, led by Music Director George Manahan, as part of its program Phenomenal Women on Friday, November 2, 2018, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today. During a career spanning more than fifty years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by many of the world's celebrated ensembles, soloists, and orchestras.

In 1990, Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders. Tower's 2008 album Made in America, featuring three works recorded by Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony, collected three Grammy awards: Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance. Nashville’s latest all-Tower recording includes Stroke, which received a 2016 Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

We spoke to Tower about her first orchestral work, Sequoia, as well as Chamber Dance, written in 2006, which is featured on ACO's upcoming program Phenomenal Women on Friday, November 2, 2018, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Composer Joan Tower. Photo by Bernard Mindich

American Composers Orchestra: Your first orchestral work, Sequoia, was commissioned by the Jerome Foundation and ACO and premiered with conductor Dennis Russell Davies at Carnegie Hall in 1981. We’d love to hear any memories that stand out from that experience. How did it affect the trajectory of your career? 

Joan Tower: It changed my entire life! Francis Thorne [ACO’s co-founder] kept bugging me to write a piece for ACO. I kept saying “no” because I felt wasn’t ready, but he was very persistent. He said, “Joan, you are ready! Just go for it!” So I wrote Sequoia kicking and screaming and not knowing what I was doing.

I remember Keith Jarrett was on the program, the famous jazz pianist, and the place was sold out basically because of him. Dennis decided to reorder the program so that I was right before intermission, following Keith Jarrett playing Alan Hovhaness. I was a total wreck. I thought, “Why did you change the order of the program? You can’t do this to me!” So, of course, Keith Jarrett finished playing this piece by Hovhaness and the place went bananas, because it was Keith Jarrett, and I thought, “Ok, that’s it, I’m finished.” Then my piece was played and they went nuts again! I thought, “It must be the energy of Keith Jarrett or something that’s carrying over.” I had all these explanations.

But then Zubin Mehta picked it up with the New York Philharmonic. [Sequoia] just launched this completely, incredibly crazy life. Then Leonard Slatkin picked it up with the St. Louis Symphony. He said it was a really unusual piece and asked me to be Composer-in-Residence in St. Louis. I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I was from the chamber music world, not the orchestral world. All I had was that piece [Sequoia], an orchestration of another piece, and that was it. I told him [Slatkin] that. I said, “You’re taking a big risk with me.” He said he was willing to take the risk. He wanted to help me write some more music for orchestra.

So Slatkin took me all over the place, recorded the piece, made me Composer-in-Residence … I wrote a Concerto for Orchestra for them and several other pieces. [Sequoia] did literally change my life.

Listen to Sequoia, performed by Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic:

ACO: Chamber Dance, which ACO performs on November 2 at Carnegie Hall, was commissioned by Orpheus in 2006. Can you talk about your experience writing this piece and working with Orpheus? How did you come up with the title?

JT: I think Chamber Dance is a really good title. It's one of my better titles actually, because it is, to me, a dance between the musicians. It's a real chamber music piece, and it requires a lot of listening to each other, which is what Orpheus did. Writing for them was such an honor because they had figured out how to do that with fairly complicated music. I decided this definitely had to be a larger sounding chamber piece. It has duets and solos and groups and it covers a lot of different textures in the piece, where people are brought forward out of the group. They took it to Korea and they took it to Europe. I couldn't go to Korea because I fell on the platform at Penn Station and broke my knee, so I couldn't go to Korea, but I went to Europe with them, which was such a pleasure. It was like traveling with a large chamber group of terrific players, and I was even able to make changes to the piece here and there. So that was a fun piece to write.

ACO: The Boston Globe recently wrote that in the early 2000s you thought you were finished writing for orchestra, quoting you as saying, “I thought I’d spend my time in welcoming worlds.” What made you change your mind?

JT: I did think that was it and I was not going to write for orchestra any more. It was because I didn’t think the world was as welcoming as some chamber music worlds, the band world, the choral world ... At that time I really felt I wanted to spend time writing for players who were more welcoming.

But then, along came the Made in America project. It was a commission for community orchestras, which I had not dealt with before. I wasn’t sure about that world, I didn’t know what it was about, so I asked a violist who actually played in community orchestras. She said they don’t play as well as the professionals, but they actually love to do what they’re doing. That’s what they look forward to, coming to the orchestra rehearsal at night, which is more interesting, sometimes, than their day jobs. I thought that was really interesting. In fact, it made the decision for me and I decided to accept the Made in America commission.

What she [the violist] described was true. I went to 20 orchestras out of 65. I traveled around the United States to these smaller communities and I had a ball with these people, because they really did love what they were doing. It was mostly volunteers and they were there because they wanted to be there. They loved playing in the orchestra. There was a deep kind of care about not only their playing in the orchestra but also their community. They were very proud to do a good job as best they could. It was just a very different kind of world.

The first performance was by one of the most amateur orchestras [in the commission consortium]. He [the conductor] called me and said, “Look, my orchestra is probably going to struggle with this piece. Can I have the score a year early?” And I said, “No, because I haven’t even written it yet.” He said, “Well, can I be the first? You can use me as a guinea pig.” I said, “Absolutely. That I’m up for.” So I would send the work-in-progress to him from time to time. Then I checked out the parts I had written with some professional musician friends. They said, “This is too high for the first violins, this is too fast for the trumpet, blah, blah, ...” They really helped me. They saved me actually, because I wanted all these orchestras to be able to play the piece, of course.

The conductor who was my guinea pig was one of first to perform the piece with his orchestra. I went out there, Illinois I think, and I’ll never forget it. They treated me like a rock star. They picked me up at the airport and they took me to the best hotel and they took me to the best restaurant. I walked into the hall and the orchestra cheered me like I was some kind of rock star! This never happens in a major orchestra situation, never. They were so nervous because they had worked for six months, every week, twice a week on the piece and they wanted to do a good job. And they really pulled every bit of weight they could come up with to make this happen. It was just such a joy to watch the effort and the care of that kind of energy. So, I passed the test with one of the most amateur orchestras in the commission consortium, with the conductor's help too. From there the Made in America tour went on like that in all these communities, and it was a joy actually. The whole trip was wonderful.

Then Orpheus came along and said they wanted a piece from me. I thought Orpheus is this wonderful, wonderful chamber group. I couldn’t turn them down. So that kind of broke the ice for me to get back into more welcoming situations. Then Pittsburgh [Symphony Orchestra] came along a few years later and wanted a piece from me. So by that time I thought, “Ok, you don’t have to be so hardcore about this.” So I did two pieces for them, actually: Tambor and Stroke. And now New York has asked me, so I’m writing a piece for them.

ACO: A big part of ACO's seasonal activities are our programs for emerging composers, such as the Underwood New Music Readings, EarShot New Music Readings, and our Composer Yourself! program for high schoolers. What is some advice you think is important to give emerging composers?

JT: The musical advice I can give is to make sure you know what you have. You need to have musical control over the piece, and the only way you can have musical control over anything is to know what you have. You might not always have control over the orchestration, because that’s often new to emerging composers, but you should always know what the music is supposed to do. For me, that’s very important for writing an orchestra piece. That’s what I did with my first piece Sequoia. I knew I had control over the music. I didn’t have control over the orchestration as much as I wanted to, but I figured if I had control over the music itself, the orchestration would follow even if it was a little awkward. Orchestration doesn’t make the music, it’s the music that makes the orchestration.

Chamber Dance is featured on ACO's upcoming program, Phenomenal Women, on Friday, November 2, 2018, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Phenomenal Women - Composer Spotlight: Alex Temple

American Composers Orchestra gives the world premiere of Alex Temple's Three Principles of Noir – featuring singer Meaghan Burke, directed by Amber Treadway, with costumes by Storm Garner – on Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Alex Temple is a composer who loves both the Western classical tradition and the world of pop culture. Uncomfortable with stylistic hierarchies and the idea of a pure musical language, she prefers to look for points of connection between things that are not supposed to belong together. Temple's music has been performed by many prominent soloists and ensembles – including Mellissa Hughes, Timo Andres, Mark Dancigers, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Spektral Quartet, Fifth House Ensemble, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, and Ensemble de Sade – and she has appeared at venues such as Roulette, Exapno, the Tank, Monkeytown, Galapagos Art Space, Gallery Cabaret, and Constellation performing her own works for voice and electronics.

We spoke to Temple about her new commission from ACO, Three Principles of Noir, which premieres on ACO's program Phenomenal Women along with works by Valerie Coleman and Joan Tower – Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Composer Alex Temple. Photo by Marc Perlish

American Composers Orchestra: Can you talk about your process for coming up with the idea for this piece?

Alex Temple: The idea of the three principles of noir is something I came up with almost a decade ago when I was spending a lot of time on film messageboards.  Each one is based on a particular movie:  the Double Indemnity principle says that it doesn't matter how well you plan it, you won't get away with it;  the Detour principle says that it doesn't matter whether you actually do it or not, you won't get away with it;  and the In a Lonely Place principle says that it doesn't matter whether you actually do it again, cause you're a bad person anyway.

The plot has been floating around in my head for quite a while too.  It was inspired by the moral unease of film noir, of course, but also by my longstanding love of time travel stories, by Erik Larson's account of the 1893 World's Fair in The Devil in the White City, and by the seething wit of Sweeney Todd and the feminist bitterness of Claire Messud's The Woman Upstairs.  I thought about turning the story into a piece of music for years, but I never managed to find the right context for it until I got the commission from ACO.

ACO: How did singer Meaghan Burke, director Amber Treadway, and costume design by Storm Garner become involved?

AT: I've been friends with all three of them for a long time.  Meaghan and I have worked together before, when I wrote Switch: A Science-Fiction Micro-Opera for Cadillac Moon Ensemble in 2013, and the original plan for this project was to write a sequel to that piece.  Eventually I scrapped that idea and brought in this story of murder and time travel instead.  Meaghan's numerous vocal styles — sultry cabaret, melancholy Sprechstimme, dreamy spoken flights of fancy — had a huge influence on how I conceived of the protagonist.

Storm is a polymath:  not only a costume designer but also a singer, composer, photographer and filmmaker.  Her work is always imbued with an experimental spirit — including our one previous collaboration, a polystylistic film called And In Her It Danced: An Inheritance, which included my piece This Changes Everything! in the soundtrack.  Amber, meanwhile, has been doing great work in the queer and feminist opera world, directing shows like Kate Soper's Here Be Sirens and Griffin Candey's Sweets by Kate, the latter at the Stonewall Inn.  I originally know her from Twitter, which she is the official best at.

ACO: Your bio describes your tendency to “look for points of connection between things that are not supposed to belong together” in your work. What are some things that “don’t belong together” in Three Principles of Noir?

AT: There are all kinds of styles and reference points at play in the piece:  tango, Weimar cabaret, atonal counterpoint, the Great American Songbook, Straussian Romanticism, Robert Ashley monotone singing, Andriessenish sound masses.  All of them relate in some way to the story, the mood, or the period(s) that the piece takes place in.  Theatrical music is a particularly good venue for this kind of eclecticism, because you can use the narrative to unite all the disparate elements.

ACO: Can you talk about your relationship with ACO and the path that lead you to receiving this commission?

AT: I first worked with ACO in 2011, when I wrote Liebeslied for Mellissa Hughes to perform with them at the opening concert of the SONiC Festival.  It was a great experience for all involved, so I was excited when we started talking about collaborating again.  It's taken several years to put all the moving parts together, including securing a grant from the MAP Fund, going through several different ideas for what the plot might be, getting collaborators on board, and — if I can be candid — delaying the whole project after Trump's election sent me into one of the worst depressions of my life.  I mention this because I believe that our cultural taboo against discussing mental illness makes it harder for people to find support, and I want to help erase the stigma by being open about my own experiences with it.

For a while I wondered whether I really wanted to write a piece with such a dark ending, under the circumstances.  One thing that helped me was Derek Bermel telling me not to let myself be defeated, and saying that now was my moment to be angry, to be vulnerable, to be subversive.  Three Principles of Noir isn't about modern fascism, but it certainly is about anger and vulnerability and subversiveness.

ACO: What can the audience expect at the world premiere of Three Principles of Noir, and what are you most looking forward to about the concert?

AT: Listeners should come prepared for bloody schemes, feminist rage, moral ambiguity, academic angst, memorable tunes, convoluted rhymes, electronic collages, and more swears than you'd probably expect to hear on stage at Carnegie Hall.  As for me, I'm just looking forward to finally being able to relax into the role of audience!

American Composers Orchestra gives the world premiere of Alex Temple's Three Principles of Noir on Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Learn more about Alex Temple at www.alextemplemusic.com
Follow her on Twitter

Phenomenal Women - Composer Spotlight: Valerie Coleman

American Composers Orchestra gives the world premiere of Valerie Coleman's Phenomenal Women – a concerto for wind quintet and orchestra featuring Imani Winds – on Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Valerie Coleman is among the world’s most played composers living today. The Boston Globe describes Coleman as a having a “talent for delineating form and emotion with shifts between ingeniously varied instrumental combinations,” and The New York Times has praised her “skillfully wrought, buoyant music.” With works that range from flute sonatas that recount the stories of trafficked humans during Middle Passage and orchestral and chamber works based on nomadic Roma tribes, to scherzos about moonshine in the Mississippi Delta region and motifs based from Morse Code, her body of works has been highly regarded as a deeply relevant contribution to modern music.

We spoke with Valerie about her ACO/Carnegie Hall commission Phenomenal Women. The work is inspired by Maya Angelou's poem and book Phenomenal Women, and honors Angelou, as well as Claressa Shields, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, Katherine Johnson, and Immigrant Mothers, with solo interludes by members of Imani Winds. The world premiere is Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here

Learn more about Valerie Coleman at www.vcolemanmusic.com
Follow her on Facebook

Dreamscapes: Q&A with Clarice Assad

Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American Grammy-nominated composer, pianist, vocalist, bandleader and educator. She has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo, Albany Symphony, BRAVO! Vail Music Festival, and her works have been recorded by Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Eugenia Zuckerman, Chanticleer, and Liang Wang. Assad is a founding member of the Chicago-based music and poetry publishing company Virtual Artists Collective and VOXPloration, an award-winning research based outreach program and workshop for children and adolescents on spontaneous music creation, composition, and improvisation.

Clarice's piece Dreamscapes for violin and chamber orchestra is based loosely on Assad’s research on the subject of rapid eye movement (REM) and lucid dreaming. The piece follows a storyline based on notes Assad made about her own dreams, and depicts her struggle to have a pleasant dreaming experience against the strong subconscious draw of negativity.

ACO gives the New York premiere of Dreamscapes with violinist Elena Urioste on Friday, April 6, 2018, 7:30PM at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. Click here for concert details and tickets.

Clarice Assad. PC: Amara Photo.
"One of Brazil's brightest young composers" – Gramophone

American Composers Orchestra: In addition to composing, you are an accomplished singer/pianist and a dedicated educator as co-founder of VOXploration. Can you compare the concert experience as a composer (sitting in the audience listing to a performance of your piece) vs. a performer (on stage and performing your own music)? Do you find one more nerve-wracking than the other?

Clarice Assad: I think being exposed is the nerve-wracking part in either scenario, but it might be more so when I am sitting from an audience. When I perform, I am so preoccupied with the music that I am playing, that I tend to forget about everything else to focus mostly on doing justice to that piece (which most of the time, is music written by other composers…). When my own music being performed by other musicians, I will think about a million things per second. Ultimately though, it’s just an amazing moment to be inside of, having my music performed by people who took the time to learn it and are sharing it with others. The butterflies in the stomach turn out to be a good thing.

ACO: The human voice is the centerpiece of many of your works and performances, including your well-known singing scat concerto which you have performed all over the world. Can you talk about the influence the human voice has, if any, in your instrumental music? The violin is an inherently lyrical instrument -- did you write the solo violin part in Dreamscapes almost as if it was a singing part?

CA: Maybe I unconsciously write for other instruments thinking about the voice, because it is such an important part of my musical life! Dreamscapes is not really singable, though. It has lyrical moments, but I was more concerned about the different emotions and change of scenarios that take place, and the interplay between the orchestra and the soloist.

ACO: As a Brazilian-American who speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and English, can you talk about how your music has been influenced, affected, or guided by these languages?

CA: When I think of languages I think of cultures, so yes, I think somehow speaking other languages may influence the way in which we organize thoughts. I traveled frequently to France as a child and this experience deeply influenced me in every area of my life. Traveling at a young age also meant that I came in contact with people from other nationalities, so this may have given me a sense of familiarity with cultures that were not my own, and carte blanche to write in styles and genres that might not have come from my place of origin. I still feel a sense of belonging to more than one place at once.

ACO: Your Dreamscapes violin concerto is inspired by your research on the subject of rapid eye movement (REM) and lucid dreaming, and follows a storyline based on notes you made about her own dreams. Did the process of composing this piece change the way you think about dreams? Did it change anything about your actual dreams?

CA: I have an overactive mind and have had a handful of anxiety related problems affecting sleep. I've experienced many events of sleep paralysis which were petrifying until I knew how to handle them, so I began reading a lot about the brain and sleep. Writing this piece was the way I found to exteriorize what happened in my own mind, obviously because vivid dreams were a constant part of my life. I am in a better place now, having found ways to cope with these symptoms, and the silver lining was to turn vivid dreams into a piece of music. 

ACO: What are you looking forward to about the upcoming performance?

CA: Everything. The performance, hearing the orchestra, the soloist,  the hall, and the experience of re-visiting a work that is now completing 10 years of existence!

ACO gives the New York premiere of Dreamscapes with violinist Elena Urioste on Friday, April 6, 2018, 7:30PM at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. Click here for concert details and tickets.

Learn more about Clarice at www.clariceassad.com

Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Soundcloud

Reflected in Glass: Q&A with violinist Tim Fain

Internationally renowned violinist Tim Fain has been featured on the soundtracks to the films Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Swan, where he also was seen on screen. He has appeared internationally as soloist with many of the world’s top orchestras and performed recitals at the world’s major music capitals. He collaborated with Google on a Virtual Reality music video for his composition, Resonance, which introduced its 360 stereoscopic VR capability for YouTube, and was recently shown at The Sundance Film Festival (watch here).

Reflected in Glass: Philip Glass and the Next Generation — Friday, December 8, 2017, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall —features Fain as soloist in Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto No. 2, The American Four Seasons. Fain was kind enough to answer a few questions for us.

Philip Glass and Tim Fain. Photo by Brian Hall

American Composers Orchestra: Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto No. 2, The American Four Seasons, was written as a companion piece to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, but doesn't indicate which movement corresponds to which season. Glass writes that this is “an opportunity, then, for the listener to make his/her own interpretation.” Do you have your own interpretation for which movement corresponds to which season? How has this open-ended aspect of the piece affected the way you approach it?

Tim Fain: If Antonio Vivaldi depicted scenes from the seasons as a portrait artist might capture a still life — a feast, or a storm approaching — Philip’s concerto is less about the seasons themselves but rather about our struggle against, or acquiescence to the elements.

The piece alternates between solo violin movements, which function similarly to a Greek chorus as a running commentary on the story, and larger orchestral movements. One begins to sense a lurking tumultuousness throughout those movements, waiting to grow at any moment. Spring begins gently at first, followed by a languorous and stunningly beautiful summer, a tempestuous fall, and an all-out battle against the winter elements, alluding to a larger battle we all face against time itself. From birth we are built for struggle, at first just to breathe, then later to love, and finally the struggle to die gracefully and in peace.

ACO: Reflected in Glass celebrates the monumental work of Philip Glass, as well as the influence he has had on generations of composers after him. Can you talk about the influence that Glass has had on your career, both as a performer and composer?

TF: To perform with Philip, as I have done so many times, is to open oneself up to a passion and spontaneity in his music, and I’m continuously inspired by him and his fluid and organic approach to his own music. As both a performer and composer now, Philip has always been extremely supportive of  my work; writing his Partita for me, having recently presented a theater piece (Club Diamond) for which I composed the music, at his Days and Nights Festival in Big Sur, CA, and even touring as a duo partner have all changed and enhanced not only my work but me as an artist and person.

ACO: You appear on the soundtracks for Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Swan (where you also appeared on screen), and your critically acclaimed multi-media program Portals has been selling out venues across the world. How did you first become involved in the film music world? Can you talk about the differences, or lack thereof, between performing music for film vs. music that has no visual component?

TF: I was fascinated with film music as a kid — growing up in LA I sang in a boys choir and performed in numerous soundtracks, including John Williams’ score to Empire of the Sun. As I’ve worked more in film and VR/AR, pretty much without exception, each project has unfolded in its own unique way. From creating the diegetic music for 12 Years a Slave, to producing and performing Portals, I’m fascinated with storytelling as connection between people, among artistic collaborators, and as the connection of our various senses into a fuller multi-sensory experience.

When I perform live I am aware of the audience not only as they listen, but as they watch and feel the music physically in their bodies. One is always aware of how the music will be experienced — a transaction of emotion and storytelling which travels not only from performer to listener but back from the audience to me on stage. In these moments the music is the predominant element of the story. Performing music for film I am also thinking about the moment it will be experienced, but insofar as how the music will interact with the image and perceived as part of a complete work.

As a composer, I do think about how my music will be heard, and in what context, but this does not affect my process of creating the music itself. I don’t work much differently in writing my upcoming Concerto for Violin Orchestra and VR experience, for example, as I would work in composing or arranging a cue for a feature film.

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Hear Tim Fain in Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto No. 2, The American Four Seasons — Friday, December 8, 2017, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. Details & tickets

Follow Tim Fain on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube
www.timfain.com

Past Forward: Composer Spotlight - David Hertzberg

David Hertzberg is currently Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia and Music Theatre Group and has been honored with the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, the Fromm Commission from Harvard University, and the Aaron Copland Award from Copland House. Past residencies include Tanglewood, Yaddo, IC Hong Kong, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Young Concert Artists.

David's Spectre of the Spheres was selected for our 2015 Underwood New Music Readings, where it earned him the $15,000 Underwood Commission to write a new orchestral work. David's Chamber Symphony is this new work, and will be premiered by Maestro George Manahan and the American Composers Orchestra at “Past Forward” on Friday, March 24, 2017 at 7:30pm in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. David was kind enough to talk with us about the piece.

Composer David Hertzberg

American Composers Orchestra: Your description of Chamber Symphony, which is very poetic, says, "voices speak to one other across vistas, from different sides of time, finding resonances both sympathetic and volatile." Can you expand upon this? What do you mean by these "voices," "different sides of time," and "resonances both sympathetic and volatile"?

David Hertzberg: When I was awarded the Underwood Commission I knew that I wanted to write something for Maestro Manahan and the ACO that was different from, more rhetorically involved than my other orchestra pieces. I had this vague idea that I wanted it to be a symphony of sorts, whatever that means. The orchestra pieces that I have written up to this point all have flowing, organic forms, in which listeners are brought into a space in which they coexist with a musical organism, breathing and acting of its own accord. My Chamber Symphony, I think, shares this quality, but I feel there is more rhetorical depth in its argument, a gradual unraveling and coalescing of musical dualities - maybe that’s what made me feel the need to call it a symphony.

ACO: Chamber Symphony is your Underwood Commission which you won after participating in the Underwood New Music Readings and Workshops in 2015. Can you talk about anything you learned in the readings and workshops that you applied when composing your commission?

DH: The Underwood readings and the opportunity to work with Mo. Manahan and the ACO have served as an invaluable tool for me as an orchestral composer. In addition to the more pragmatic insights about instrumentation and the orchestra world, hearing them interpret my Spectre of the Spheres in 2015 helped me arrive at the musical conclusions described above, to dig deeper into my own orchestral ethos, and to find the place there wherein a more dynamic musical grammar can blossom.

David at the 2015 Underwood New Music Readings, rehearsing his piece Spectre of the Spheres with Maestro Manahan and the ACO

ACO: Can you talk about your composing process for Chamber Symphony? How long have you been working on it? What have been the milestones and challenges throughout the process?

DH: I generally compose by letting the music gestate internally for a long (or not so long) time. When ideas start to congeal, the actual writing part comes quickly, as was the case with this piece, though I had been living with the material for quite some time. I also feel this piece bears the influence of an opera I was (and still am) writing for Opera Philadelphia, freely inspired by the work of the British occultist Aleister Crowley, as well as the poetry of Wallace Stevens, whose deeply human voice has always been a wellspring of inspiration for me. 

ACO: How do you hope the audience will feel, and what do you hope they'll notice while listening to Chamber Symphony at its premiere?

DH: It is my hope that listeners will let themselves live in the metaphysical space of this music, and perhaps, feel a certain wholeness, oneness, in the arc of its form.

ACO: What are you most looking forward to at the premiere?

DH: Hearing these notes and sounds that I’ve dreamed up in these past months come to life, and be interpreted in the hands of such sensitive and intrepid (!) artists.

Follow David on Twitter and Soundcloud

www.davidhertzbergmusic.com

Hear the world premiere of David’s Chamber Symphony at “Past Forward” on Friday, March 24, 2017 at 7:30pm in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere Composer Spotlight – Loren Loiacono

Loren Loiacono, a young composer of extraordinary talent, synthesizes her childhood experience playing with Barbie’s Dream House and her later discovery of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe in the NYC premiere of Stalks, Hounds at Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere on November 21 at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall. Loren was kind enough to answer a few questions about the creative process behind Stalks, Hounds.

Composer Loren Loiacono

American Composers Orchestra: What was the inspiration for your composition?  Can you tell us about your creative process for this piece?

Loren Loiacono: As goofy as it may sound, the inspiration for Stalks, Hounds was a computer game I played as a kid, where whenever you clicked on various things, it would be accompanied by this harp-flourish sound effect.  Years later, as a teenager, I heard Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe for the first time, and was stunned to realize that the harp "sound effect" was, verbatim, taken from a gesture in that piece.  It struck me as odd how that particular phrase had been completely isolated from its original musical context, and had been turned into something completely, for lack of a better word, inane.  (I think I'm probably not alone in this experience – there is plenty of music that I heard as part of cartoons or games re-contextualized as used for a different purpose.)  In particular, I wanted to explore the idea of that gesture, not as an organic part of its original musical whole, but as a stock sound, that could be summoned with a click.

ACO: Are any of the musical gestures you decontextualize in this piece borrowed from anything a listener could recognize?

LL: The most obvious gesture is the Daphnis quote. The opening of the piece very closely replicates the experience I had of that flourish accompanying every computer click (including, if one were to click too quickly, the gesture becoming truncated).  Other than that, the materials I used were all very simple, even cliche (descending scales, circle of fifth harmonic progressions, etc.), but used in a way in which things are slightly askew.

ACO: What are you looking forward to about the performance of your piece at Carnegie Hall by the American Composers Orchestra?

LL: Everything! Hearing an orchestra play your music is always an exhilarating experience to begin with, but this time is particularly exciting.  What I'm most excited about, though, is to hear how ACO is going to interpret the piece.  The piece has only been played by one orchestra (it was premiered by the Yale Philharmonia in 2011), and so for the last couple of years, the way I think about the piece has been completely tied up with how they played it.  This piece is particularly close to my heart, as well, so hearing another orchestra play the piece, and particularly one as well-attuned to the nuances of contemporary music as ACO, will be like discovering a whole new side of Stalks, Hounds.

ACO: What should the audience listen for during your piece?

LL: I'd say the best things to listen for are how each of the gestures introduced is derailed: the harp flourishes that keep getting overtaken by strings and percussion, the descending scales that get stuck on the way down, and, most notably, the piano/vibraphone groove that can't quite seem to find its footing.

Follow Loren on Facebook, Twitter

www.lorenloiacono.com
www.americancomposers.org

Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere Composer Spotlight – Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk, 2014-2015 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair holder at Carnegie Hall, is a composer, singer, and creator of new opera and music-theater works. A pioneer in extended vocal technique, Monk has been called "at once fearless, unique, [and] uncompromising" by The Washington Post and "one of contemporary music's great innovators" by The Classical Review. Monk kindly shared with us the creative process behind Night, a rare orchestral work which will be performed at ACO's Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere on November 21 at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall.

Meredith Monk

American Composers Orchestra: What was the inspiration for your original composition, Night, for ten voices, two keyboards, violin and French horn? Can you tell us about your creative process for this piece?

Meredith Monk: My daily practice is working at the piano. Sometimes I like to explore different scales. One day in the early ‘90s I started playing with one that turned out to be a Hungarian minor scale, and I began developing material inspired by the particular dissonance inherent in those sounds.

At that time, the former Yugoslavia was in the midst of a bloody war. I had been on tour there a few years before and was struck by the natural beauty of the region in contrast to what was now going on. At the same time I began thinking about suffering in the broader sense.

As with most of my work, I begin from an intuitive place and try to access something both timeless and contemporary. Night was one of those works that came to me as a full fabric. While I think of it as an elegy, it also evokes the sturdiness and resilience of life.

ACO: What prompted you to re-orchestrate Night for a larger ensemble? Can you talk about any of the specific choices you made in selecting the new instrumentation?

MM: I think of myself primarily as a vocal composer and have always thought of the voice as an instrument. As the years go on, I have become more and more interested in the idea of instruments as voices, and in combining voices and instruments to find new sounds. I recognized that for Night to have its full power, it needed the richer colors and textures of an orchestra. Using unusual instruments such as shakuhachi, bowed psaltry and harp played with a guitar pick allowed me to explore new timbres and to think of the group of instrumentalists as somewhere between an orchestra and a band.

ACO: What should the audience listen for during your piece? 

MM: I’m hopeful that people will engage with it on different levels. I try to create an open space for each member of the audience to experience the work in his or her own way, affirming the power and uniqueness of each person’s imagination.

Follow Meredith on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

www.meredithmonk.org
www.americancomposers.org

Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere Composer Spotlight – A.J. McCaffrey

Motormouth, a world premiere by rising-star composer and ACO’s 2013 Underwood Commission winner A.J. McCaffrey, will be performed at Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere on November 21 at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall. A.J. has kindly shared with us the personal story that has inspired his work and some of the strategies he used in the writing process.

Composer A.J. McCaffrey

American Composers Orchestra: What was the inspiration for Motormouth? Can you tell us about your creative process for this piece? 

A.J. McCaffrey: Just around the time that the ACO commissioned me to write this piece, my then-four-year-old son began telling jokes. He would start off by telling the jokes the way he had heard them. Then, excited and emboldened by the laughter they generated, he would look for ways to make the jokes bigger and better, repeating them over and over and adding his own variations. The jokes would become these manic, absurdist, free-association epics, with tigers and fire hydrants invading jokes about astronauts (and vice-versa). I’m a sucker for this type of humor, and I would egg him on during car rides, passing mutations on various knock-knock jokes back-and-forth with him until the punch lines were as far away from the set-ups as possible and we were both laughing our heads off.

When I sat down to compose, I very much wanted to convey this hyperactive, overjoyed (and exhausting) energy in the music I was writing. I saw this piece as an opportunity to write “about” or “for” my son, although I also recognized that this was not the first time that I had been drawn to this type of playfulness with language and momentum. I love taking rhetorical musical devices (like certain phrases or melodies) and ratcheting up their intensity until the frenetic emotional state of the music seems completely at odds with its grammar or logic. I feel that there is similarly mischievous, slapstick, or satirical quality to the music of some of my favorite composers, like György Ligeti and Gerald Barry, and I often find myself paying homage to them in my own works. In Motormouth, a few melodic lines are taken through a myriad array of moods and levels of activities – from giddy to frustrated, from manic to calm – that one might experience in a typical day as the parent of young children.

ACO: You say that Motormouth is inspired by your experiences as a new father. Can you describe any specific moments with your child that have found their way into the piece?

AM: The first image I began composing with was that of “coloring outside the lines.” I tried to convey this concept through a melody in which the intervals kept getting farther apart, like widening scribbles, but I was unhappy with the actual sound of it. I kept paring the melody down until it was just a rising and falling major third (which is heard all throughout the piece). It was my wife who pointed out that this sounded exactly like a fire truck siren, or at least a boy’s imitation of a fire truck siren – one that will be very familiar to anyone who has visited our house in the last two years.

Perhaps more consciously, there is a section about nine minutes into the piece in which I most overtly tried to channel my son’s joke-telling: a repeated series of herky-jerky, falling-down-the-stairs melodies that are routinely punctuated by what I thought of as two loud “ta-DA!” chords.

ACO: What are you looking forward to about the performance of your piece at Carnegie Hall by the American Composers Orchestra?

AM: Given the level of skill, talent and devotion to new music exhibited by Maestro Manahan and the ACO, and the history and prestige of the venue, it is extremely difficult for me to narrow down what I’m looking forward to. I am absolutely thrilled and honored to be part of this concert.

ACO: What should the audience listen for during your piece? 

AM: Although I think it can be helpful for an audience to hear how composers approach their own works, I never want to impose my own agenda on someone else’s listening experience. When writing, I try to make sure that the concept never overwhelms the music, and I hope listeners can enjoy the sounds for their own sake without feeling beholden to any particular narrative.

Follow A.J. on Facebook, Twitter

www.ajmccaffrey.com
www.americancomposers.org

Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere Composer Spotlight – Theo Bleckmann

Composer Theo Bleckmann's My Brightest Garment will have its world premiere at American Composers Orchestra's Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere concert on November 21 at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall. Theo has kindly shared with us the personal story that has inspired his work and some of the strategies he used in the writing process.

Vocalist and Composer Theo Bleckmann

American Composers Orchestra: What was the inspiration for My Brightest Garment? Can you tell us about your creative process for this piece? 

Theo Bleckmann: The inspiration behind this piece was the recent death of two close friends. The idea that we exist one day and are completely gone the next really hit me hard. Whatever one believes in, the mere fact of dying on earth suddenly seemed like a magic trick to me. How could we be so present and real one moment, and irrevocably gone the next? I found there to be a strange beauty. I wanted to write an exuberant piece of celebration, not a dirge.

The piece started out with a 5-bar, repeated harp-and-piano counterpoint sketch, that very quickly evolved into a full form with some orchestration. The real work began then: I amended, changed, tweaked, switched, refined, obsessed, went back, filled in for months and months, a seemingly infinite process. I wanted to have something that was static while shifting colors, sometimes abruptly, sometimes with a sleight of hand.

ACO: Did you encounter any unusual challenges in writing this work? If so what were they and how did you resolve them? 

TB: This is my first commission for large orchestra, so I had to really familiarize myself with instruments I had never written for before. Some of them came easier to me, like the tuba e.g., others I had to research quite extensively and really figure out what is feasible and what is too ambitious. Composer and orchestrator Kirk Nurock was very helpful in this process, as I went to take lessons with him, especially for this piece. I also talked to friends who are virtuosos on their instruments. I consulted with them about all kinds of details and asked them to play sections for me to hear - it was very tempting to write endless extended techniques, especially considering the high caliber of players in ACO, but somehow the piece wanted to be much simpler and less oblique - more like a dance - so I followed that.

ACO: You describe My Brightest Garment as “an orchestral song about death as a vanishing act, a magic trick of sorts; pondering the ‘now you see it - now you don’t’ aspect, while wearing the most beautiful, brightest garment to pull it off.” How will your use of live electronic processing help achieve this concept in your piece?

TB: The live electronic looping I do is very simple and direct, technically speaking. There is no laptop or hidden hardware anywhere. I push a button, sing into the machines and out comes the music. I want there to be very little worry in the listener’s mind as to what is going on. I want them to see and hear that what is being created is happening right now and that it is not pre-recorded or hidden from them behind a screen. 

When we die, not much is left of us except for the people we affected and the things we owned or made. I came to realize that audio recordings are an eerie residue of a person’s soul. With the live looping I’ll be doing, I am capturing the now to be re-lived later, which is very much like looking at a photo of someone you lost.

ACO: What should the audience listen for during your piece? 

TB: There is no homework or checklist for this piece. I hope for the listener to enjoy it and relax into the music, be surrounded and immersed by the sounds and words.

Follow Theo on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

www.theobleckman.com
www.americancomposers.org

Orchestra Underground: Border Vanguards Composer Spotlight – Marcos Balter

Composer Portrait: Marcos Balter

Praised by The Chicago Tribune as "minutely crafted" and "utterly lovely" and The New York Times as "whimsical" and "surreal," the music of composer Marcos Balter (b.1974, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) has been featured at ACO’s SONiC Festival in 2011, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW, Köln Philharmonie, New World Symphony Center, Teatro de Madrid, Tokyo Bunka Kaykan, Teatro Amazonas, Morgan Library, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, among others. Here he tells us about his piece Favela, which ACO will premiere during Orchestra Underground: Border Vanguards on April 4, 2014 at Carnegie Hall. 

American Composers Orchestra: What inspired your work, Favela? 

Marcos Balter: It really came from the word itself. Favela is the Brazilian word for shantytowns. Although the term was coined after a Brazilian plant, I could never separate it in my head from the Latin word fabola (story). That always made me think of the many individual stories within a favela that we don’t hear, and of the actual nature of a shantytown: a community formed by circumstances rather than will, often created from found objects that are piled together until they make sense as world. This idea of artificial oneness and how we all figuratively live in favelas was really my main source of inspiration. 

ACO: How would you describe your composition process for the work? 

MB: Gruesome! I usually spend a lot of time thinking of the idea behind a work. That can take many months, even years sometimes. And, I don’t start writing until I can hear the music in my head, but then the piece is born very quickly. But, while I had the concept down early on, I just couldn’t hear music coming from it. I was about to change the concept itself when one day it just hit me at once that I was approaching it wrongly. I was trying to find linear strategies when the lack of lines was actually my only hope to create the illusion of one as I wanted. Once my head started thinking of how to fragment things rather than unifying them, everything else made sense, and the work was finally born.

ACO: Did you encounter any unusual challenges in writing this work? If so what were they and how did you resolve them?  

MB: When ACO invited me to write a new work, they told me it would be premiered in a concert focused on Latin America. And, that on itself was an interesting challenge for me. For as long as I can remember, I have refrained from using stereotypically Brazilian artifices in my music since this practice has political and economical tones I do not approve, especially when programmed abroad.  At the same time, I couldn’t be any prouder of my country and my cultural heritage. I really wanted to find a way to acknowledge it without cheapening or stereotyping it. So, rather than running away from it, I decided to dive into all these stereotypes head first, loading myself with paradigms and then trying to untie them from their usual connotations. So, the work is full of elements that could be reductively considered Brazilian, but divorcing these elements from their sense of familiarity is what actually fuels the work. My goal was to create a work that one could say “yes, I can see how this was created by a Brazilian artist, but I’m not quite sure why.”

ACO: Is there anything that you hope the audience will get out of listening to your work? Anything in particular that they should listen for?

MB: This is a tricky question… Part of the success of this work is exactly how differently people may listen to it. If you are looking for similarities and symmetries, you will find plenty of it. But, if you listen closely, all these similarities are false, and nothing really remains the same or is as straightforward as it may seem at first. If you listen “from afar,” it’s a very monolithic piece. But, if you focus on the small details, there are a lot of hidden surprises there. It all depends on how invested one is to hear them.

 

Orchestra Underground: Border Vanguards Composer Spotlight – Derek Bermel

ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel

Grammy-nominated composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel has been widely acclaimed for his creativity, theatricality, and virtuosity. Derek's works draw from a rich variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, folk, and gospel. Hands-on experience with music of cultures around the world has become part of the fabric and force of his compositional language. Derek currently serves as the Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra and was ACO’s Artistic Adviser from 2009-2013. Here he tells us about his piece Mar de Setembro which ACO will perform with Brazilian singer Luciana Souza during Orchestra Underground: Border Vanguards on April 4, 2014 at Carnegie Hall.

American Composers Orchestra: What inspired your work, Mar de Setembro?

Derek Bermel: Andreia Pinto Correia shared with me the work of the great Portuguese poet Eugénio de Andrade (José Fontinhas). I was immediately drawn to the direct lyricism of his language, his bold depictions of the natural world's sensuality. At the time, I was privileged to be serving as Composer-in-Residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and their music director Jeffrey Kahane reacted with great enthusiasm to my idea of setting this poetry. I traveled to Porto in 2010 and met with Andrade's translator of 25 years, Alexis Levitin, who introduced me to Andrade's heir Gervásio Oliveira Moura, and we all spent a wonderful afternoon talking together.

ACO: How would you describe your composition process for the work?

DB: Each song arrived differently. The first one I wrote was "Mar de Setembro," its lyrical rhythm suggesting the continual undulation of the sea; I notated it in short score and sang it while playing it at the piano. The short "Canção" cycles restlessly through two whole harmonic iterations of the circle of fifths, and the xylophone became my nightingale, a far-off descant over the final lines. I orchestrated "Ocultas Águas" directly into full score, away from the piano; it could not have realized in an abbreviated form. "Frutos" took form as a sort of fado/tango, a cabaret song with bold colors like the tiles of Lisbon. And the introductory prologue on the mysterious poem "Que voz lunar" I wrote last, adding aquaphone as a ghostly accompaniment.

ACO: Did you encounter any unusual challenges in writing this work? If so what were they and how did you resolve them?

DB: I had spent a good amount of time in Brazil, and had even written some chôrinhos. But it was my first time setting text in Portuguese. Throughout this daunting process, my lighthouse on the stormy shore was the magically expressive voice of Luciana Souza. The collaboration with her was nothing short of joyful; her generosity, sensitivity, and attention to detail were paramount, and she inspired me to seek my best compositional self.

ACO: What are you looking forward to about the performance of your piece at Carnegie Hall by ACO?

DB: Of course I am thrilled that Luciana is singing, and George Manahan is a conductor who is so closely attuned to the nuances of the voice and orchestra together, so I am particularly looking forward to this wonderful combination. I have a long history working with the gifted musicians in ACO, so it feels like a family reunion to me.

ACO: Is there anything that you hope the audience will get out of listening to your work? Anything in particular that they should listen for?

DB: I hope that the work can serve Andrade's poetry and I hope that I've helped bring a taste of Portuguese "saudades" (longing) to American shores.