40th Birthday Concert & Gala - Q&A with Artistic Director Derek Bermel

Grammy-nominated composer-clarinetist Derek Bermel has been hailed for his creativity, theatricality, and virtuosity. An “eclectic with wide open ears” (Toronto Star), Bermel is acclaimed for music that is “intricate, witty, clear-spoken, tender, and extraordinarily beautiful [and] covers an amazing amount of ground” (San Francisco Chronicle). As a performer, “There doesn't seem to be anything that Bermel can't do with the clarinet” (The Boston Globe). Since 2013, Derek has brought his creative strength and engagement with myriad musical cultures to American Composers Orchestra as Artistic Director. 

ACO’s 40th Birthday Concert & Gala - Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at Jazz at Lincoln Center - will feature Derek as soloist in Leonard Berstein’s Clarinet Sonata (orchestrated by Sid Ramin). Derek spoke to us about the piece, the program, and the broader picture of ACO.

Composer-clarinetist Derek Bermel. Photo by Richard Bowditch

American Composers Orchestra: Leonard Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata (later orchestrated as a concerto) is his first published work, written when he was just 25 years old. Can you talk about the piece and its character, and why it was chosen for the program?

Derek Bermel: I've played Bernstein's Sonata since I was in high school; still have my copy that Lenny signed when I was a teenager ... I waited an hour to meet him backstage after a concert at Lincoln Center! It's a joyful, brilliant work for such a young composer. You can hear the strong influence of the composition teachers with whom he studied at Tanglewood; the first movement recalls the austere, academic lyricism of mid-century Hindemith, and the second movement echoes Copland in its embrace of Latin rhythms, but with a jazzy grace that presages Bernstein's emerging voice. The sonata contains that special sound which would become so personal in later works like Candide and the Serenade; you can hear them in this early work, adapted by Bernstein's long-time orchestrator Sid Ramin.

ACO: What about the other works on the program? Can you talk about why they were chosen to be a part of ACO’s 40th anniversary celebration?

DB: Everything in this concert relates to our 40th Anniversary and to ACO’s mission, which is to champion great American works and the creators of the future. We're celebrating our founder Francis Thorne, and so we're performing an imaginative work that Frannie wrote for ACO – Fanfare, Fugue, and Funk. ACO is also honoring long-time supporters James and Ellen Marcus, whose love of opera and the American Songbook leads naturally to Gershwin, Arlen, and Ellington. As a tribute to the Bernstein family, and in honor of Lenny’s 100th birthday this season, we're performing his orchestrated clarinet sonata. And in a tip of the hat to our co-founder Paul Dunkel, who relentlessly championed work by emerging composers, we've programmed an operatic excerpt by Paola Prestini and a U.S. premiere by Elizabeth Ogonek, showcasing ACO’s commitment to the music of our time and beyond. We're lucky to have our superb music director George Manahan AND our founding Music Director, the great Dennis Russell Davies, conducting this concert, as well as two rising-star singers, Mikaela Bennett and Jakub Józef Orliński, as soloists – an embarrassment of riches!

ACO: When did you first learn about the American Composers Orchestra? Do you remember any initial impressions you had about the group, and the path that led you to become Artistic Director in 2013?

DB: I've been lucky to be involved with ACO for more than two decades. Back in 1994, when I was still a masters student at the University of Michigan, I was lucky enough to be selected for the Underwood New Music Readings. The readings were a formative experience in my musical career – breathtaking in a way that was simultaneously traumatizing and deeply inspiring. Over the years, first serving as ACO’s Music Alive Composer-in-Residence (2006-2009), and later curating programs as ACO’s Creative Advisor (2009-13) and artistic director (2013-present), I've been fortunate to collaborate with so many wonderful composer colleagues, including Tania León, Robert Beaser, George Lewis, Anna Clyne and James Newton, to name a few. Some of the highlights were curating the 2011 and 2015 SONiC Festivals, which featured the work of more than 200 emerging composers; mentoring at the Underwood Readings and at EarShot orchestral readings across the U.S.; and helping design and implement JCOI (Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute), which launched in 2011 and continues to this day. Throughout these years, I have developed the deepest respect for the heart and soul of the ACO – the musicians of the orchestra – and for Maestro George Manahan. I can't emphasize enough what a special group of artists this is; we composers are lucky to have them as partners and inspirations.

ACO: In additional to being ACO’s Artistic Director (and your other esteemed positions) you are an accomplished composer and clarinetist. Can you talk about any specific instances when your work with ACO has influenced your composing and/or performing?

DB: ACO has had a lasting effect on my compositional output. In 1995, ACO offered me my first orchestral commission.  I had an idea to make the orchestra sound like voices – a huge conversation.  I had developed a rather complex system of notation to express my ideas, but I wondered how could I communicate all this to a big orchestra in a short rehearsal period? My solution was to write a concerto, devising a musical conversation between the orchestra and me that would help the musicians to intuitively interpret my notation. Plus, it was a great way to play as a soloist in Carnegie Hall (and without too much practice, practice, practice)! You can read more about it here.

ACO: What is your biggest hope for contemporary classical music in the US in the next few years, and for ACO?

DB: I'd like to see ACO continue to grow and serve the needs of composers in all genres and styles, partnering with a range of collaborators throughout the art world and beyond. There’s a great need for orchestral music and composers to connect with communities in all sorts of ways, and ACO can be a catalyst in making that happen. I'm excited to work alongside our new President Ed Yim, George Manahan, and the musicians as we begin writing a new chapter in ACO's story!

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Hear Derek perform Berstein’s Clarinet Sonata (orchestrated by Sid Ramin), plus works by Prestini, Ogonek, Ellington, Gershwin, and more, as ACO celebrates 40 years of American music - Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Learn more about Derek at www.derekbermel.com
Follow him on Facebook and Twitter

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.

coLABoratory: Lab 1 - Ray Lustig: After the Lab

Raymond Lustig & George Manahan

It's pretty amazing that one can actually just get together with an important orchestral ensemble and play around with ideas like teenagers in a garage band.  Crazy fun, and an amazing learning experience.

Here's some of what we learned:

Well, we knew this already, but technology continues to be the dog in musical performance, even though we're trying to use something no more complicated than Google Hangouts, something designed to be the most reliable, user-friendly software.  We had trouble linking up with our Manchester partner Dane Lam until the very end.  But at least when we did, it was really informative.

We learned that the transatlantic link to Manchester seems to a good deal slower, stickier, uglier, which is great!  This is what we're looking for, the problems, the limitations of the technology.

Raymond Lustig & Derek Bermel

Most of my test canons yesterday were swirly in continuous note values throughout, but Derek Bermel encouraged me to do more with canons of greater textural variety within, periodic aural landmarks that the listener hears go by at different times in each voice, and that can create their own polyphonic independence of voices.

I'll probably include some sweet diatonic (scaler) canons in the set, but diatonicism under aleatoric circumstance just becomes pan-diatonicism (all the notes of the scale), whether the delay is 1 beat or 10 beats.  Pretty, but the degree of delay doesn't really make much difference to the sound.  More interesting for me are canons in which the degree of delay changes the music by degrees, so most of my canons to date cycle through the keys via the circle of fifths.  Thus when delays are short, the music sounds diatonic and consonant, but as delays get longer, the sound gets crunchier and spacier as the voices get into more and more distant key relationships.  I like this because it makes the degree of delay matter a lot in the musical result, rather than delay being merely this random offset of music that would sound more or less the same with a long or a short delay.  That said however, sonic variety between the various canons might suggest having some diatonic canons interspersed in the complete set.

George Manahan conducts remotely

Much of what we learned was about the setup possibilities of who is where, who is playing what, and who is following which conductor.  Morton Subotnick suggested two interesting possibilities: Crossing conductors (having onstage players follow a remote conductor, and remote players follow George Manahan onstage at Zankel Hall), and choose-a-conductor (individual players choose which of the conductors to follow, which actually helps because some of the players, like the harpist, have trouble seeing the screen from the stage, and could therefore just follow their local conductor).  But in the end we agreed a variety of conformations, specified in advance in the score, will probably be best.

Plus a lot of other things.  But that's all for now.

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Day 4 - Samantha Boshnack

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute - Day 4
by Samantha Boshnack

Another incredible day here at JCOI, our next to last day – I can’t believe it.  Today George Lewis gave a fascinating lecture on “New Approaches to Form”.  It covered a ton of information and we listened to many different composers. When thinking about form we examined modern music that did not think of musical progression in the standard way. In John Zorn’s “File-card compositions”, he would write down a description of what he wanted on file-cards and arrange them to form the piece.  This was an example where each moment of the piece is individual – it doesn’t need to come directly from what is before or lead into what is after. 

Next came an incredible panel discussion with three conductors - wild Up’s Chris Rountree, La Jolla Symphony’s Steven Schick, and Pacific Symphony’s Carl St. Clair.  I thought a great description of the conductor was the “membrane between idea and execution”.  I recently had my first experience of working with a conductor on my music and couldn’t believe how important and transformative this membrane is.  In the orchestra world there is an incredible amount of pressure on conductors.  They are responsible for the time management of a large amount of musicians, dealing with the dwindling finances that orchestras are facing, programming series that will sell tickets, not to mention the composer.  The conductor manages time and fear.  Everyone wants to deliver a great performance; there is always a fear of failure and a short amount of rehearsal time.  The conductor has to create a feeling of confidence amongst the musicians, allowing the time to be used more effectively.

We have been speaking about classical musician’s fear of improvising; which is hard to understand amongst jazz musicians.  The conductors agreed that classical musicians needed to adapt and be more versatile, and that this may help to save the dying orchestra.  There was talk that the curriculum needed to change in the music conservatories to produce musicians with a broader skill set.  I wondered to myself if the change in musical education should begin with even younger students.  Let more kids use music as a tool to find their own individual voice in addition to a regimental and disciplined practice – maybe it would create greater music appreciation across the board, producing bigger audiences and a more creative society.     

   

Steven Schick told an amazing story of playing a new composition in his orchestra.  Sometimes there is a fear that audiences won’t like newer music that is more atonal and complicated then say Haydn or Vivaldi.  He made the experience personal to the audience by telling them and the orchestra that he liked the piece, rather than holding the composer at an arm’s length.  In the end the piece was a success.  I have often thought that we underestimate audiences.  If you are friendly to them they are more likely to listen closely and find things they like about the music, even if they don’t fully understand what is happening.  “Play difficult music for them as if it’s not difficult”, Rountree said.  

Carl St. Clair painted a friendly and inspired vision of the orchestra as many people pooling together to bring new works to their fullest potential.  “A lot get’s done if there’s no credit.”  Musicians and the conductors “pool together” musical ideas to create better music then what the composer wrote.

I loved when one of the conductors said how musicians learn more about Beethoven and Mozart from creating a new piece of music then by continuing to play those composers.  They learn how to create a new piece – which is exactly what Beethoven and Mozart were doing.   

A common theme today was how important it is for music to be continually adapting and changing from what came before.  Derek Bermel spoke of his many influences and said, “If you limit your intake, the genre becomes stagnant.”  George Lewis quoted, “Your history is going to come into your music if you let it.”  As American composers one is exposed to a multitude of cultures, which can be a great resource and create music that is unlike anywhere else.  All genres have room to move somewhere new.  This may sound jaded, but it seems that all music with integrity is really struggling in today’s corporate-run America, maybe because exercising one’s mind doesn’t help to sell product.  It has been thought provoking to be at this institute with great minds from two genres that are maybe struggling the most – jazz and classical.  Hopefully this “pooling together” between us all, as if we ourselves were an orchestra, will create solutions or at least inspiration for this incredible group of American composers.  

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Day 4 - Michael Dessen

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute - Day 4
by Michael Dessen

Today was once again packed with energizing conversations and presentations. 
We had an instrumental session on piano and harp in the morning, including a 
terrific whirlwind demo of many pages of harp technique notations by Anne
LeBaron. She vowed to make us all want to compose for harp by showing the 
wide range of sounds that can be achieved through conventionally-accepted
notations, in addition to demonstrating the fascinating, personal techniques
 she uses in her own music.

 Following that was George Lewis' seminar on new approaches to form, a dense 
overview of this topic with examples from western music spanning the 20th 
century. On One level, George was introducing general trends he sees in
 20th-century composers' explorations in new forms, including "depiction,"
 "indeterminacy/open forms," "repetition" and "noise." But as with any of
 George's talks (my post yesterday included a disclaimer that I studied with 
him closely for years), there were layers within layers of provocative 
questions. One of these was his constant weaving together of examples from
 European and African American music in order to reveal resonances among 
formal innovations in these traditions. In addition, he framed the 
presentation by arguing that the dominant discourses of form in common
practice western art music - especially notions like "coherence," "logic,"
and "continuity" - should not be accepted at face value, but are instead 
"fraught" in profound ways and can often serve as "ideologies and moral
precepts." If you're familiar with George's scholarship, you know that such 
comments are the tip of an iceberg of cultural critique and historiographic 
intervention, but he also spoke to us more directly as composers when he
 brought up the fact that each piece we create involves a choice as to whether or not to use "received forms." He emphasized that rejecting
 received forms forces you to confront the amorphous and difficult question
 of how to deal with form, and to examine the relationship between your forms
 and materials.




Even though everyone here at JCOI is super polite and respectful, this is a 
topic bound to strike some nerves, since it's hard not to sense at least a 
whiff of value judgment in this formulation. One of my favorite moments so
 far in the symposium was in the discussion session after George's talk, when one of the younger participants asked if George thought that it is still possible to find room for innovation within traditional ("received") formal
 approaches. I started thinking that this question can only be approached by 
doubling back on the question itself and asking what we mean by "innovation"
 to begin with, in a potentially endless loop of deconstruction, but at the
 same time I was also thinking about my empty stomach like everyone else in
the room, as we were already very late for lunch and this was the last
 question before the break. George improvised a quick solution, if not a
 resolution: "For now, I'll just say this: Yes and no."



Later in the day, Anthony Davis discussed his recent opera Wakonda's Dream,
which I don't have time to cover here, but was another wide-ranging view
 into Anthony's long relationship with operatic writing, building on his 
presentation of Amistad that I discussed in yesterday's post. Derek Bermel 
then gave a presentation on his  music and background that was very 
inspiring and helpful for me, and tackled some of the same questions George 
raised about form but through a different lens. Among other works, Derek 
played an excerpt from a concerto for clarinet that he wrote for himself to
 perform with the ACO years ago, one of his first major commissions. He
 explained that when he wrote it, he had been deeply immersed in listening to
 "What Love" performed by Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy on a live recording
 at Antibes (1960), and that he was fascinated with the musical conversation 
between the two, the sense of characters personified through sound. He
 recalled that he tried to capture something of the spirit of that music in
 the concerto, but was worried at the first rehearsal that the orchestra 
wouldn't be able to play his piece, since the parts involved new kinds of 
performance techniques. The conductor urged him to simply start out by 
playing his own part, rather than try to explain the techniques first, and 
Derek said that once the orchestra heard how he begin to play, they simply
 got it and everything worked. This story struck me in connection to the 
questions about new performance practices and orchestral culture that I mentioned in yesterday's post. At least in the context of that specific 
piece, it seems like Derek found a solution that allowed him to bring
 something powerful to the orchestra that was formed through his own
 relationship with improvisatory music.



He also spoke at length being immersed in hip hop and other forms of black
 music as a white kid growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood in New
 Rochelle during the 1970s and 80s. He mentioned being especially influenced
by Eric B. and Rakim's albums when they were first coming out in the late
 1980s, and I loved hearing that in this context because I share a deep 
respect for Eric B. and Rakim's albums from that time, even though I'm not
 very knowledgeable about hip hop. As Derek talked about what this music
 meant to him, I was impressed by how well he navigated this tricky subject.
 He didn't over simplify the questions around race that it brought up, but he
 didn't exploit them in a shallow way either. He discussed formal aspects of
 the music and his explorations into analyzing it, rather than just making
 vague references to hip hop in order to color his profile as a composer.
 He's written about these and other topics in online essays found here, and this talk intrigued me to check out his writing more in the
 future.



Another intense panel today included three conductors, Carl St. Clair, Steve 
Shick and Christopher Rountree. In addition to some useful information about
 the mechanics of dealing with orchestras (how much advance time do they need
 to get bowing markings into the parts? how should you interact with a 
conductor during rehearsals? how big should the score be?), the panel also
 moved eventually into some rich questions around improvisation and the
 potential for transforming the orchestra and moving away from the assumption 
that every orchestra has to be modeled on the great institutions of the
 past. Carl St. Clair described his vision for leading the Pacific Symphony to
 be "the new orchestra of the 21st century," and he and Steve Shick, as 
orchestral conductors, passionately encouraged us to be part of that larger
 process of change, echoing the comments Derek Bermel made about orchestral 
evolution in the opening session that I reported in my first post. Steve 
made a great point that the best mind set for us to bring to our interactions 
with an orchestra is to think of them like a big group of fellow musicians.
 It seems simple when I put it this way, but Steve captured this idea
 brilliantly in the conversation. But it was also refreshing to hear Carl St.
 Clair's brutal honesty on the pressures and challenges facing even a
 conductor such as himself who is already committed to championing new music.
 His jaw nearly hit the floor when Christopher Rountree reported that for 
tomorrow night's closing concert of chamber music, they had 25 hours of 
rehearsal, exponentially more than the PSO ever has for any single concert.
 And Carl also gave some powerful insight into how the current paradigm of
 orchestral programming is shaped at a fundamental level by marketing. For
 example, he explained that his programming decisions have to take into
 account the "data" he's given on the ticket sales that will be generated by
 a choice to program Beethoven's 5th compared with the 4th, and he commented
 that he can't program as much new music during the weeks when they are
 marketing season ticket renewals. For all this darkness, though, there was
 still plenty of enthusiasm and a feeling among everyone in the discussion 
that such circumstances make it all the more urgent that we work together
 now to envision new directions for the orchestra of the future. Citing the 
statistic that the average age of the season ticket holder is 65, Carl 
eloquently connected JCOI's aims to the economic crisis facing the orchestra
 today, stating that the orchestra "must find new relevance, and that new 
relevance is going to be a new identity."

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Day 1 - Samantha Boshnack

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute - Day 1

by Samantha Boshnack

My name is Samantha Boshnack, I am a trumpeter/composer living in Seattle, WA.  I just had the most incredible day.  Today was day 1 of a five day intensive for jazz composers living all over the country to learn about writing for a symphony orchestra.  That may have been the starting point, but we learned about much more than that.

A little background on myself, I play all kinds of music on the trumpet.  For the last 8 years or so, I have been writing for Reptet the instrumentation is four horns, bass, and drums.  This past year and a half, I added to that B’shnorkestra a 13-16 piece orchestral project (with rhythm section) and Sam Boshnack Quintet (trumpet, clarinets, piano, bass and drums).  I guess I fall into the jazz realm as a composer but I draw from a lot of things.  

I really had no idea what to expect going into this intensive.  I knew that it was probably going to feel crazy to be surrounded by so many other composers.  And it was - crazy in a really inspiring way.  To be around so many who are trying to create something new and putting their whole lives into their vision; in a world that can sometimes feel like it doesn’t care much about innovation or sophistication in music.  As I looked around and interacted with the peers and faculty throughout the day, I could see the hunger in everyone’s eyes to soak up as much as they could from this experience.  I could sense that it was refreshing to all of us to be surrounded by others working in such a tough field, a kind of comfort in numbers.  Even though we were from different parts of the country (and some had or do live abroad) we all had so much shared experience and so much to talk about. 

  

As I write this I have to apologize for any mistakes I may make and/or ideas that I can’t quite convey right now.  It’s midnight and I have been on a rollercoaster ride of ideas all day and heard so much that inspires me.  So I’m going to sketch some stuff out tonight, and hopefully can continue to develop on themes throughout these days.  I can tell already that certain ideas will probably resurface over and over.   

We started at 9 a.m. with a welcome from George Lewis and Michael Geller.  Then we jumped into orchestral evolution with Derek Bermel. Derek is a composer that I started listening to when I got the list of faculty for this intensive and his music totally blew me away.  I hadn’t been that excited by a new orchestral piece in a long time.  He had a 90-minute presentation planned out for us that took us through many orchestral pieces spread over hundreds of years.  We heard Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ligety and more.  It truly was a whirlwind and it was great to spend time listening and studying scores.  We also learned a lot about history, instrumentation, and the personalities of the composers. We learned that the orchestra as an ensemble has gotten more specific in its instrumentation.  In the beginning, orchestral composers would be less specific, or write for what they had, or what could fit in the space - more than a standardized instrumentation.  That has changed over time into what we think of as the orchestra. 

It was interesting to think about how the course and history of the outside world affects what movements of music are picked up and which are forgotten.  Also how the development of the instruments themselves affects how music is written.  Over the course of the day we learned both how the composer pushed the instrument into new territory, and how sometimes it's the other way around.  

As someone coming into this who is pretty self-taught when it comes to orchestration, it was so great to hear things that I had come to myself, but never known if they were true. 

Some notes I took during Derek’s speech were:

-Each instrument is like speaking a different language, each section is too. 

-In an orchestra the strings are the driving rhythmic force and the percussion is ornamental. 

-Great composers are great orchestrators. 

Paul Chihara gave us an incredible presentation filled with his music, the music of others, and lots of life stories.  He said a few things that stuck with me such as, “We don’t make choices”.  His story as a composer seemed like a wild road filled with lots of amazing opportunities.  

He called himself a film composer.  He spoke about technology and how much that has changed music.  Composition was created around the idea that musicians perform it live.  Because of technology, now that is no longer always the case.  

James Newton played an incredible piece of his for us called “Looking Above, The Faith of Joseph” written for solo piano.  He explained to us about a method he created called “The Transformed Entrance” where he instructs the performer to “channel” famous performers like Cecil Taylor or Elvin Jones.    

I was excited by his quest to bring the improvising tradition into the new chamber and orchestral music world.  Also, I loved hearing him stress that we should look at our time on the stage, and how it affects you as a composer.  The excitement of live improvisation – how can we bring that into notation?  This is what “jazz” composers bring new to the table and it felt important that we were all trying to figure out how to best tackle it.    

Members of the ensemble “wild Up” did presentations on the violin and the oboe, clarinet & bassoon.  Wow, these performers were incredible.  To be honest they did things on there instruments I didn’t know were possible and taught us all so much, giving us ideas on how to write for them.  It made me really excited for their performance on Saturday.  

After all of this, we continued on until 11 pm (with some breaks) listening and sharing scores.  About half of us presented.  There was seriously some amazing music played from prodigies to established composers and many in-between.  Everyone was very supportive of each other it was a lot of fun.  

Like I said, I think tonight’s writings will be truly tip of the iceberg.  In my current state of exhaustion, there is no way I could accurately convey the amount of ideas I will be mulling over for years to come or the excitement that was in the room.        

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Day 1 - Michael Dessen

Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute - Day 1

by Michael Dessen

I've been to many festivals, conferences and workshops, but already on day one of JCOI, I can honestly say I've never experienced anything inspiring in quite the same way as this. For one, there is the diversity of the 38 participants. They represent a wide range not only in their backgrounds and aesthetics, but also in age. There are veteran artists with decades of important contributions behind them, younger musicians in their 20s just starting to find their voice, and others at every stage in between. Everyone is here to explore new ideas and learn from one another as well as from the faculty, and it's so refreshing to see this spirit, especially given how many different socio-musical networks are represented here.

This feeling of mutual support and curiosity was just as palpable among the faculty artists. George Lewis has described the vision for JCOI as a "community-based, sociodidactic" model, and it seems clear that the faculty and organizers have consciously worked to infuse the event with this emphasis on non-hierarchical exchange. Most important was that instead of just showing up for their own classes, the faculty composers all attended and participated in all the day's events. They intervened with some fascinating comments and questions - such as Alvin Singleton's mention of a Berio score that mentions Elvin Jones' name in order to contextualize a performance technique - and they even stayed late into the night to hear the presentations by participants of their own music.

In his preface to a morning class on "orchestral evolution," Derek Bermel set the tone for the day beautifully by describing how the "tree" of the orchestra needs ongoing care from multiple fronts, an idea that exploded in many directions in the following composition seminar by Paul Chihara and James Newton. As Paul played excerpts from his music, each opened up a different thread of his history, forming a riveting, passionate talk that covered everything from his debt to Duke Ellington's music to how growing up in a Japanese American relocation camp during WWII shaped his sense of what it means to be a composer. James gave a powerful presentation that challenged us all to find ways to transform the unique experiences and sensibilities that we've cultivated as improvisers into notated music, showing some outstanding examples from his own recent, fully-notated works.

There were also two instrumental sessions (violin and woodwinds) which included excellent demonstrations of extended techniques, very well organized and presented by the members of wild Up, and an evening session in which I enjoyed listening to the music of other participants. Looking forward to tomorrow!

Day 2 & 3: Pin Hsin Lin - Underwood New Music Readings: From the Composer

Day 2 & 3 - Thoughts on Underwood New Music Readings

by Pin Hsin Lin

Christina Jensen PR
Publicity and Promotion Discussion

The second morning, June 2, 2012, consisted of a professional development workshop comprising of a presentation on “Intellectual Property and Copyright Law” by Jim Kendrick, a summary on “Engraving and Self-Publishing” by Bill Holab, an overview of “Support Structures for Composers” by New Music USA president Ed Harsh, and a course in “Publicity and Promotion” by Christina Jensen. This workshop provided useful information for us as we move into becoming professional composers. Writing good music is just half of the process, we need to know how to effectively promote ourselves.

Afterward, my fellow composers and I met with the maestro Manahan again before the run-through concert that evening. In Saturday night's second reading session, ACO sounded even better than yesterday! My fellow composers and I briefly introduced our works before the maestro rehearsed a few spots and performed a full run-through. All of the great qualities of each work were well pronounced today. My colleagues and I were very happy with the results. After the concert, we went to a reception to celebrate our successful performance and to meet other ACO alumni.

Finally, the third day, June 3, 2012, opened with a panel discussion of issues relevant to young composers by our illustrious mentor composers and maestro. This time they focused on our music and composing process, which I never learned before.

George Manahan and Pin Hsin Lin

I would like to express my deep gratitude to American Composers Orchestra, maestro George Manahan, our mentor composers (Bob Beaser, Steven Stucky, Derek Bermel, and Melinda Wagner), and the other participant composers for this precious experience. I sincerely hope the Underwood Readings program will continue to grow in the future. Because of this wonderful program, many individual creative and personal voices can be seen!

Day 1: Benjamin Taylor - Underwood New Music Readings: From the Composer

Day 1 of ACO's Underwood New Music Readings

by Benjamin Taylor

Benjamin Taylor, Michael-Thomas Foumai & Steven Stucky
Day 1 - Underwood New Music Readings

Wow! What a whirlwind of a day! Today's session was a serious high-octane ride. The day started at 8:00 a.m. meeting with composers Robert Beaser, Derek Bermel, Steven Stucky, and Melinda Wagner, ACO Executive Director Michael Geller, and ACO operations staff Greg Evans and Jules Lai. Enjoying a nice breakfast, we made introductions and then met individually with the composers and conductor George Manahan. While my meetings were only a few minutes long, they were very useful to clarify a few spots I thought would give the orchestra trouble, as well as answer a few quick questions. I wasn't feeling nervous until we sat down in front of the orchestra. Wow, what a sight to sit five feet away from all that acoustic power! Peter Fahey's piece, Impressions, opened the session, and then my piece, Leaving White, was second. Sitting in the "hot seat" (directly behind George Manahan and between Steven Stucky and Robert Beaser) was certainly intimidating, yet at the same time, it was reassuring to feel their support. On the whole, the orchestra did an incredible job sight-reading my piece. I made many notes while listening to the first full run-through. They then went back and did the second half of the piece again with huge improvement. I kept getting those "oh-my-goodness-I-can't-believe-this" chills. I couldn't stop smiling! So much of the piece was working even better than I had envisioned. We then enjoyed listening to Pin Hsin Lin's piece, Symphony No. 3, Michael-Thomas Foumai's piece, Concerto for Orchestra, Ryan Chase's piece, The Light Fantastic, and Paul Kerekes' piece, timber. After working with the orchestra, we spent the afternoon receiving excellent feedback from a team of musicians from the orchestra as well as from the mentor composers. This evening, I'm preparing my errata sheet, which allows me to apply some of the feedback I received today. I can't wait to hear the piece again tomorrow!

Day 1: Pin Hsin Lin - Underwood New Music Readings: From the Composer

Day 1 - Thoughts on the Underwood New Music Readings
-- by Pin Hsin Lin, participant composer

  

Day one of ACO’s Underwood New Music Readings has ended. What a wonderful day full of professional and helpful activities! I am in my hotel room reviewing the feedback about my piece from distinguished mentor composers, the wonderful maestro, and experienced orchestra principals and librarian. Here is what happened since yesterday when I flew to New York City from my current city, Champaign, IL:

The night before the readings, my fellow composers and I participated in a welcome reception where we had the chance to meet ACO board members, ACO Executive Director Michael Geller, and ACO Development Director Barbara Burch. At this wonderful party, I learned about ACO’s vision and mission and what’s going on in the new music industry in the United States.

I also had the chance to meet with mentor composers, Robert Beaser, Steven Stucky, Melinda Wagner, and Derek Bermel, and maestro George Manahan. In this short meeting, I briefly described what I want to express through my music and what I would like to learn from this reading event. Then they shared with me their comments about my music.

During the working rehearsal, the 1^st reading, I met the distinguished composer Aaron Jay Kernis and shared our composing experiences. The audience showed their enthusiasm and support to the young composer participants. They often came to us and introduced themselves. The concert hall was full of learning and communication, which encouraged me to want to write more new music in the future.

After the reading, we met with the mentor composers and conductor again, along with orchestra principals for a “NUTS AND BOLTS” session, where we discussed the effectiveness of different notations, formal concerns, score engravings, and compositional issues. The comments of maestro Manahan and mentor composers were very professional and right on point.

As a composer, my creating and orchestration chops are only half the story. How composers present themselves is important. Further, having well prepared, well thought-out scores and individual part scores are essential parameters for a successful work.

This was an amazing experience I will benefit from for my entire compositional career. The greatest lessons in composing orchestral work are learned during the process of having music performed, especially read by top-notch musicians like ACO. I also learned a lot from my fellow composers’ works.

Rehearsing...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Quick post just to put up a few pictures - we're rehearsing all weekend for our concert on Monday (tickets at the Carnegie Hall website), pretty exciting stuff going on! I feel like we say this every time, but it is really amazing to see everything coming together after months of anticipation and preparation.It is amazing watching this orchestra shift from piece to piece. First a Chinese folk singer, then a jazz pianist riffing on 'Now's the Time' and finishing off the day qith a work dedicated to the traditions of the Navajo Indians. No rest for ACO musicians and never a dull moment...

Conductor Stefan Lano rehearsing with Huang Ruo and the orchestra

Percussionist Jonathan Haas rehearses Huang Ruo's Leaving Sao

Stefan Lano and pianist Donal Fox rehearse Peace Out

Donal Fox and Creative Advisor Derek Bermel

Mad Music Part 3: Angel Lam

Derek Bermel and Angel Lam take a break from the post-readings party hosted by Colorado Symphony to talk shop about Angel's work In Search of Seasons...

Mad Music 2 with Jeremy Podgursky

Derek is back with Mad Music Part 2. Here he talks with composer Jeremy Podgursky immediately following his first read-through of Our Bliss, it Comes in Waves. Check it out...