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.

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

Past Forward: Composer Spotlight - Steve Reich

Steve Reich has been called “America’s greatest living composer” (Village Voice), “the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker), and “among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times). His music, spanning a vibrant career that started in 1960s, is a staple of contemporary classical repertoire and has influenced composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. Music for 18 Musicians and Different Trains have earned him two Grammy Awards, and in 2009, his Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize. 

Tehillim, composed in 1981, is a work for four female singers and chamber orchestra that Reich says is quite different from his earlier works. He writes in his program note, “There is no fixed meter or metric pattern in Tehillim as there is in my earlier music. The rhythm of the music here comes directly from the rhythm of the Hebrew text.” The word “Tehillim” is the Hebrew name of the biblical Book of Psalms, from which the piece takes its text. Reich also writes that the work “may well suggest renewed interest in Classical or, more accurately, Baroque and earlier Western musical practice.”

The 2016–2017 season marks Steve Reich’s 80th birthday, with over 400 performances in more than 20 countries across the globe celebrating his music and legacy. American Composers Orchestra is proud to be a part of this celebration, and performs Tehillim with sopranos Elizabeth Bates, Martha Cluver, Mellissa Hughes and mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway at “Past Forward” on Friday, March 24, 2017 at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. 

Steve Reich was kind enough to speak with us about the piece and his relationship with ACO’s Music Director George Manahan, who conducted the premiere recording in 1981. This interview is transcribed from our phone conversation.

Composer Steve Reich. Photo by Jeffrey Herman

American Composers Orchestra: We wanted to start by talking about your relationship with ACO's Music Director George Manahan, who conducted the premiere recording for ECM Records in 1981. Can you talk about how you came to work with him and what it was like?

Steve Reich: My ensemble never had a conductor for anything until 1981 when I wrote Tehillim. We felt we might be able to do it without one but it sure would be better if we had one. James Preiss, one of the main percussionists in my ensemble, was teaching at Manhattan School of Music and knew George, who was at MSM also, and said to us, I think I have the ideal guy to be a conductor. George had the same kind of mind set so we decided to try it. George came down to my studio on Warren Street near City Hall and it was just like hand in glove. We said, this is the guy! George completely mastered the changing meters which are [laughs] well, I would never write anything with such large measures the way I did in Tehillim unless it wasn’t necessary – it accurately reflects the vocal line – but it’s a difficult piece to conduct. I think Michael Tilson Thomas said to me at some point afterwards, “Musicians like downbeats!” [laughs]

Anyway, George did a great job during rehearsals. We then took the piece to Europe and he conducted on tour with us. We all lived together, worked together, performed together. It was just a delight. Back in The States we did the American premiere at the Rothko Chapel out in Houston and the NY premiere at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, near the 20th century galleries. George did all of that and then finally we went back to Europe to do the recording in Stuttgart. It was very intense. There were a lot of people and we recorded live. There were lots of re-dos. Everybody’s in the room. I think it’s a remarkable recording. George is absolutely first rate and a pleasure to work with, and to top it off we both have the same birthday! [laughs]

George Manahan conducting the premiere recording of Tehillim with Steve Reich and Musicians in Stuttgart, 1981. Photos by Deborah Reingold courtesy of the Paul Sacher Foundation

ACO: Thinking about this first recording of Tehillim vs. the many subsequent recordings that have been made, can you identify anything about George Manahan's approach to performing Tehillim that is different to other conductors?

SR: I think George was at home with this kind of musical language – the subdivisions of twos and threes – and he was familiar with a lot of 20th Century music. I would say for me, that recording and the Alarm Will Sound recording are the two outstanding recordings that come to mind. The Steve Reich and Musicians recording had [laughs] I don’t know 50 or 60 cuts. And Alan [Pierson, Music Director of Alarm Will Sound] sent me a lot of the in progress mixes. So as cohesive as it is musically, this is a testament to how correct Glenn Gould was when he recorded and re-recorded so many multiple takes.

ACO: Tehillim has been performed numerous times around the world since its premiere in 1981. Its initial reception was not as severe as say Four Organs at Carnegie Hall in 1973.

SR: No no no [laughs] Tehillim was appreciated right away. It was pretty obvious that in general people were, and still are, attracted to Tehillim more than Four Organs. I enjoy it more. They are very different types of pieces.

ACO: Do you think audiences’ responses to these works have changed over the years?

SR: Of course! Four Organs created a riot in Carnegie Hall in 1973 – it’s been noted many times – but Michael Tilson Thomas did it in San Francisco in 1996 and … well, people recognized it and really liked it. There was a lot of resistance in the late 1960s and early 1970s to what I was doing and now that has changed enormously. I’m in Los Angeles right now – the LA Phil New Music Group just did Tehillim with conductor Jeffrey Milarsky. It was a great performance and received a wonderful standing ovation.

ACO: Do you think it is important for listeners to know the origins and meaning of the text in Tehillim?

SR: Yes, the text is the Psalms and, like any concert with vocal music, the text certainly should be printed in the program. They’re not that long since they’re really parts of the Psalms. The answer to your question is this: when you first heard Bob Dylan you said, “What … I can’t understand a word.” But there was something magnetic about the music. When you listen to Handel’s Messiah you don’t get all the words, but the music magnetizes you and you want to listen to it. You got some of it, got the gist of it, but later on you might say, “What exactly were they singing?”

Tehillim is of course set in the original Hebrew, which means that you’re not going to understand it by listening, so you’re either going to go to the libretto or you’re not. I think most people do end up going to the libretto and they understand it, they get it. Everybody especially understands “Hallelujah,” so the last movement is crystal clear and that may help gel a lot of the other parts. But for most people, if you’re just a casual listener, it has to work just as music. That’s a must for any composer. If you say, well, they’ve got to understand this and that and another thing, that’s just a crutch, that’s an excuse. I don’t accept it. If music is going to work it has to have legs and either it does or it doesn’t.

Now, if you’re attracted to the music and you’re interested in it, then you might listen to a recording before the performance or bring the text with you, and I think you will get more out of it, because Tehillim is definitely a setting of the text in the classical sense of that term. The meaning of the words counts and you want to capture that as best you can. So sure, the text matters, but the music comes first and then if you’re really interested you can go to the score and say, “How’d he do this?” [laughs]

ACO: You have said that you don't believe in movements, that when the music stops, it stops. Is Tehillim an exception? If so, why did you make an exception for Tehillim?

SR: It’s an interesting question because it was the first piece of mine to have a movement break, but certainly not the last. I have a lot of other pieces now with movement breaks. You Are Variations comes to mind immediately, which is very much related to Tehillim. You Are Variations is one of my best pieces, but because of four pianos and a chorus it’s performed less than I wish it was.

But to answer your question, writing Tehillim with movement breaks was basically a gut decision. I had finished the first half and I remember being in the car with Péter Eötvös, the Hungarian composer-performer-conductor, who at the time was the conductor of the Ensemble InterContemporain and the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart [Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra]. I had finished the first half and we were going to perform it as a work-in-progress. We were driving from Paris to Stuttgart. His English was not very good and my German was non-existent, so was my Hungarian, but he said to me at one point, “So you’ll go on like before? Same tempo?” [laughs] It hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, wow, what a good question. And really, what his comment ignited was the realization that I needed a slow movement. I hadn’t yet written a consciously slow movement at a different tempo. So that introduced the idea of taking a pause. Also, a lot of concentration is needed in the first half of Tehillim – it’s a very long section. A little break to catch your breath is very much in order in a purely practical sense, and the slow movement serves that purpose very well.

Having movement breaks or no breaks is not according to some theory or principle. If Péter Eötvös hadn’t said that, I probably would have gone with the same solution, but I do remember that moment with him in the car and thinking about it. The slow movement is the most chromatic music I have written to date – after my student years anyway – and I think it’s very successful. It was really exciting for me because I had never written anything that moved that slowly. It opened up a whole world which I pursued quite a bit going forward.

ACO: As you may already know, ACO is dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation and promulgation of music by American composers, and is involved in many programs to commission and premiere works by young American composers. Can you talk about any similar organizations or programs that contributed to your success as a young composer? 

SR: To be perfectly candid, I really wasn’t interested in the orchestra. I’m working on a piece now called 20 Soloists and Orchestra, which is a concerto grosso using the first chair people and a few soloists, but basically this is a large chamber work, which I’m always doing anyway, with a sort of backup band with brass and the remainder of the strings. So I have been writing chamber music all my life. Tehillim is a large chamber piece in that it’s one to a part. Is isn’t chamber music in the sense in which that it’s conducted, but I think playing it requires having to listen to each other much like you need to with all chamber music.

When I was getting started, no, there was no organization of any sort that I relied on to establish myself. The most overwhelming important thing for getting started was founding my own ensemble back in 1966. It started with three musicians, which grew to five, including Philip Glass and James Tenney. With Drumming I think it grew to 12, and then in 1976 it grew to 18. And there it more or less stayed until 2006, when I just felt I really couldn’t have the energy to do what was necessary to keep it going. Even though I had people to help out – I had managers and so on – there was an irreducible minimum that I had to do which I felt I really couldn’t.

My ensemble was the vehicle for my music, including Tehillim and of course Drumming and Music for Eighteen Musicians and other pieces. At a certain point I began writing for other ensembles and whether or not my ensemble could do it was sort of gravy or not, depending on the piece.

On the other hand, there was and still is an organization I was a part of, which I hope benefited others, and which I felt reflected my interest in the idea of the composer performing and getting involved in the performance of his or her own work. That is Meet the Composer. Myself, Fran Richard, and John Duffy were really the very center, the core of Meet the Composer. It was an organization that I really felt was worthwhile and of course it grew and grew and grew and now has turned into New Music USA by merging with American Music Center. I think it’s a very worthwhile mission. Supporting young composers by giving them money [laughs] and commissioning works is a great thing to do. ACO came along much later in my professional life, but it’s a great addition and something I’ve been connected with from time to time.

I should say in passing that the loss of Steven Stucky was just a total shock that completely left a hole in the American musical world. I think that should be noted.

ACO: Can you talk about the vocal style needed from the four female singers in Tehillim? Should their voices sound as similar in timbre as possible? Or can different vocal timbres create a richer texture in performance?

SR: Well, first of all, singers are human beings. I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that [laughs]. Their vocal cavities necessitate, as a rule of biology and physics, that their timbral quality will in fact vary. What is essential is not that the timbre of the voices be the same, but that the vocal style be uniform. So, if you’ve got one singer who thinks that they’re going to belt it out like Wagner’s Tannhäuser and the other three are singing early music style, which is what it should be, then that doesn’t work.

The vocal style of Tehillim is definitely related to Renaissance and Medieval music, but it can also be related to Ella Fitzgerald. Cheryl Bensman-Rowe, a great singer who is now in the Midwest, was putting together singers for the early versions of Tehillim. They would ask her, “What kind of vocal style do you want?” and she would say, “Similar to Joni Mitchell and he’ll love it.” Believe it or not, I hadn’t even heard anything by Joni Mitchell and only heard her about 10 years ago – I was completely floored, she’s absolutely amazing – but I think Cheryl had it right. Basically, singers are a good fit for Tehillim if they can sing with no vibrato, sing in a small voice, are at ease with a microphone, and are experienced with early music. They need to be agile and they need to have really good rhythmic qualities, which singers in the operatic world may not have as markedly as the people I’m talking about. So – early music, good with a microphone, at ease with different styles of non-operatic music – that is a necessity. Of course the timbre is going to vary from singer to singer, but if they’re all in the same stylistic world it’s going to work just fine.

ACO: Tehillim is especially intriguing in the way it doesn’t frequently display obvious tension then resolution, dissonance then consonance, whereas this is a basic tool used in a lot of music (especially Romantic and Classical) to create drama. How is it that Tehillim creates drama? 

SR: Tehillim obviously belongs in the tradition of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music – singers who regularly sing Bach cantatas will be right at home in Tehillim – and you could say a lot of music from those periods don’t use, to quote you, “frequent tension and release.” Bach seems to be doing pretty good [laughs] and does he have that kind of Romantic tension and release? Well, yes and no.

I would say that in Tehillim there are parts of the slow movement that have dissonances that resolve, albeit in a small and understated way. The Hallelujah at the end, to me, is ecstatic. I think it’s some of the best music I’ve ever written. If you can pull off a good Hallelujah in D Major then [laughs] that’s what it’s all about. So it does create strong emotional responses which surely vary throughout the piece. The mood of the slow movement is drastically different than the Hallelujah that follows it. The first two movements are similar, but in the first movement the voices are constantly doubled by the B-flat clarinet, then right on a dime at the beginning of the second movement, the voices are doubled by oboe and English horn. It almost feels like new singers – the timbre of the singers changes drastically.

Now, of course this is something Bach did too, changing the doubling of the woodwinds that are supporting the voices. These are all old tricks that go back to Bach and before, and this is part of the reason that I think the music is satisfying. For people who have listened to a lot of classical music from various periods – who relate to anything of Bach and before, and from Stravinsky onwards, and for that matter who like Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell or lots of people who are singing today – it seems to satisfy them and give emotional variety, which I think is really the essence of what you are asking.

You can learn more about Steve Reich and upcoming performances of his music at www.stevereich.com.

ACO performs Tehillim with sopranos Elizabeth Bates, Martha Cluver, Mellissa Hughes and mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway at “Past Forward” on Friday, March 24, 2017, 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. More information and tickets here.

ACO also performs The Desert Music at Symphony Space’s free marathon concert “Wall to Wall Steve Reich” on Sunday, April 30, 2017. More information here.

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: Lines On A Point Composer Spotlight – Lisa Renée Coons

Composer Lisa Renée Coons

Composer Lisa Renée Coons’ composition Vera’s Ghosts 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. Lisa has kindly shared with us the personal story that has inspired her work and how she hopes the audience will respond to Vera’s Ghosts.

American Composers Orchestra: What inspired your composition Vera's Ghosts? 

Lisa Renée Coons: My once vibrant and passionate grandmother, Vera, has slowly been losing the battle with dementia—there is now almost nothing of her previous ‘self’ left. This piece tries to capture the pain and fear of that trajectory, both hers and my mother’s as she cared for her. Or perhaps, more honestly, it is even more inspired by my own fear of that disease. The conductor acts as protagonist, surrounded by the musicians who are placed around him in a sparse U-formation. He often loses control of the gestures and becomes submerged in noise as ideas are passed quickly around the space between individual players, like an infection spreading. Moments of beauty deteriorate into angry episodes of confusion and frustration, but the end is a sort of 'hymn' - it is a quiet acceptance of someone who no longer communicates, but rather lives alone with her ghosts.

ACO: How would you describe your composition process for Vera's Ghosts? Did you face any challenges that you had to resolve during the composition?

LRC: Notation for the spatialized gestures - especially those based on the reactions of the musicians rather than the motion of the conductor - represented a new challenge for me. I have never written anything so physical for a large ensemble like string orchestra and I am excited to hear it realized.

ACO: What are you most looking forward to in having your work performed by American Composers Orchestra in its World Premiere at Carnegie Hall? 

LRC: I am grateful to have the opportunity to collaborate with these amazing musicians.  This piece is new and challenging in many ways, and I am eager to have it realized by the musicians of ACO.  But I am also quite touched to be included with the other composers on the concert. I look forward to this concert as both a composer and an audience member.

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

LRC: I would like for the audience to focus on the movement of textures and gestures - to let themselves be immersed in sound rather than listening for motivic development or themes.  My hope would be for them to have visceral responses to the sound, and that this piece will provide an engaging experience as much as it acts as music.

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: Adding Fuel to the Fire Composer Spotlight – Composer Fred Lerdahl

Composer Fred Lerdahl will help launch American Composers Orchestra’s new season with his composition Spirals, which will be performed at ACO’s Orchestra Underground: Adding Fuel to the Fire concert on Friday, October 25, 7:30PM at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall.  Fred Lerdahl wrote to ACO about the inspiration for his composition and the challenges he faced in creating Spirals.

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

Fred Lerdahl: My initial inspiration was a restless flurry of rocking fast notes bouncing off a harmonic progression in search of resolution. This idea evolved into the energetic and brilliant first movement. My second inspiration was to create a piece in which the entire texture and form emerged from a lyrical, expressive, and increasingly urgent melody. This idea grew into the second movement. I developed these ideas using my spiral method of composition, in which a simple idea gradually proliferates into a complex form.

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

FL: Initially I tried to combine the two inspirations within a single movement; but they needed separate development, so Spirals ended up in two movements. It took me awhile to realize that two movements were necessary. I built the melody of the second movement out of the harmonies of the first, so that the two movements exist in a complementary relationship.

A particular challenge was my wish to reverse, a little over halfway through each movement, the outward spiraling process into an inward, collapsing spiral, while at the same time continuing the development of musical material. The great intensity of Spirals is a consequence of these opposing forces.

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

FL: ACO is a marvelous ensemble, and I have never worked with the distinguished conductor Robert Spano. I am eager to hear Spirals under such excellent conditions.

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

FL: Spirals is a colorful and expressive piece. Listen attentively and without preconceptions.

coLABoratory: Lab 5 - Dan Visconti: Before the Lab

Feathers by Simon Tarr

It's taken a lot of composing/thinking/video editing/soldering/rewiring, but Simon and I are just about ready for Zankel this week! It’s such a treat to work on such a wild piece, one that we never would have been able to bring to life under the constraints of a typical orchestra schedule—but at the same time, all those possibilities create *lots* of things that can go wrong, and plenty of brilliant ideas crash and burn for want of an adapter plug. So we’re checking our I’s and crossing our t’s so that we can hopefully spend all of the time in rehearsal experimenting with cool sounds rather than trying to get X device to power on!

These ciruit-bent instruments are a real kick in part because of their utter unpredictability, but that same quality flies in the face of orchestra standards. For the next workshop, we need to be conscious of the inevitable challenges this will create as well as bringing out the happy accidents that will make the piece sound very different than a traditional, rigidly-controlled composition.

Dan Visconti

Our first priority of this last workshop is to verify that our setup works, after which time Simon will continue to focus on the video and make sure that it is getting enough audio input to make for enough motion (his video is reacting to audio input). The musical side of Glitchscape is not difficult, but as a large amount of the piece involves reacting and improvisatory elements it will require a slow “working through” every couple bars. It is important to work through the piece slowly as much of the interest will come from how we work out different events, so a slow trip through the entire piece is a must. After this has been worked out, we can focus on running the piece continuously.