Orchestra Underground: Lines On A Point Composer Spotlight – Amy Beth Kirsten

Composer Amy Beth Kirsten

Beginning with a poem, composer Amy Beth Kirsten has transformed it into her composition, strange pilgrims, which will have its world premiere at American Composers Orchestra’s Orchestra Underground: Lines On A Point concert on February 20 at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall. Along with music, strange pilgrims, will also feature a video by Mark DeChiazza. In this interview, find out how this collaboration came about and the journey that Amy Beth has taken in composing her work strange pilgrims.

American Composers Orchestra: What inspired your composition strange pilgrims? How would you describe your composition process? 

Amy Beth Kirsten: Actually, reflecting on the idea of composing inspired the poem and the music for the piece. I wrote the poem when I was just finishing up an evening length theater piece for the chamber group, eighth blackbird, that was incredibly challenging to compose; it was a process that was more collaborative than anything I'd done before and it required making many sketches and rewrites (over the course of a few years) as well as composing about forty minutes of music that, in the end, I decided not to use in the final piece. I pushed myself harder and further than ever before and, in the end, made something I'm super satisfied with. During this three-year long journey I often felt a very strong spiritual pull and meditated quite a lot throughout. The poem for strange pilgrims is a reflection on this process. I sent the poem to Mark DeChiazza (whose stage direction was an essential part of making the eighth blackbird piece) and we started talking about the possibility of working together (again!) - the idea for the music/video project blossomed from there. I decided to dedicate strange pilgrims to my beloved, Christopher Theofanidis, who is also a composer, because we often talk together about making new art and what it means to us personally and spiritually. 

Credit: Mark DeChiazza

ACO: Did incorporating the video have any impact on your piece? 

ABK: One of most challenging things was that the text and the music for the piece came first (before I knew what the images looked like). Mark and I intuit each other’s imaginations very easily so that helped a lot; he described the images that he was thinking of and how the video might interact with the music. Because I've never incorporated video before, it was a leap of faith that I'd be able to compose music that left enough room for the images to have a definitive presence in the piece. We aimed to structure the music and the video to have a kind of symbiotic relationship. I'll be seeing the final piece a few hours before the audience does, and that's pretty thrilling to me! 

ACO: As this upcoming performance will be the world premiere of strange pilgrims is there anything you are most looking forward to in hearing it performed lived by American Composers Orchestra and The Crossing chamber choir? 

ABK: I'm really curious to hear what several sections of the music sound like; these are sections that use an interpretive kind of music notation and so far I've only been able to approximate the sound for myself. I'm also looking forward to the rest of Mark Andrew's (director of photography) incredibly moving images and to see what Mark DeChiazza created with them. It's especially rewarding to be an alumna of the ACO Readings and come back and work with this fine orchestra on something new, as well as to work with The Crossing for the first time. I feel incredibly honored to be included on a concert that features David Lang, Steve Reich, and Ted Hearne; these are composers whose music I'm crazy about and who have long influenced my musical thinking. I'll also be cheering for Lisa Coons who has a world premiere that evening as well. So all in all, it'll be a pretty exciting night!

Orchestra Underground: Lines On A Point Composer Spotlight – David Lang

Composer David Lang  Photo: Peter Serling

statement to the court, composed by David Lang, co-founder of Bang on a Can and Carnegie Hall’s Debs Composers’ Chair for 2013-2014, will be performed by The Crossing chamber choir and American Composers Orchestra at ACO’s Orchestra Underground: Lines On A Point concert on Thursday, February 20 at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall. In this interview, David Lang sheds light on the challenges he faced in composing statement to the court, the dedication of his work to Frances Richards, ASCAP, and what he is most looking forward to at the upcoming performance! 

ACO: What was your composition process for your piece statement to the court? 

David Lang: The text is from a famous political speech, delivered by the American socialist Eugene Debs, upon his conviction for sedition, for advocating that the United States stay out of the first World War.  I wanted to capture the rhythm of the speech, the power of it, but also something of the direct 4/4 agit-protest march rhythm appropriate to its world. I listened to a bunch of labor and protest songs before I wrote it, and I still can almost hear them in the background.

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

DL: The greatest challenge I had to deal with was how to use the text to model the relationships between the chorus and the orchestra.  Choirs and orchestras are hierarchical - there are rules and relationships about how the music is normally made, and I wondered if I could change some of them, so that the relationships would be more in the spirit of the text.  So I came up with what I thought would be a more democratic way to define all the society of musicians - everyone sings almost everything together, the strings double almost everything the singers sing, so they feel like equals, and there are many short vocal solos that are supposed to be divided equally among the voices, so that everyone can be valued as a community member and as an individual as well. 

ACO: Your composition is dedicated to Frances Richard, ASCAP, who is also being honored at this Orchestra Underground performance. Can you tell us more about this dedication and the impact that Frances has had in her work with ASCAP? 

DL: I love Fran, and I have loved Fran for as long as I have known her.  She is one of the most passionate, opinionated, fire-breathingly political people that I know.  It seemed right to dedicate this piece to her.

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

DL: I am very excited about this concert.  My piece uses music to explore a moment in American political history.  What more fitting group should play it than the American Composers Orchestra?