The Latin American Music Center at Indiana University is presenting American Cosmology, a program designed specially for the Composers Now  festival that is involving many members of New York’s new music scene in February.  Invited by Composers Now’s artistic director, composer Tania León, the program will be presented on February 4^th a the Music Now Marathon in Symphony Space , and on February 6 at the Americas Society Concert Series.

American Cosmology was designed by the LAMC’s director Carmen-Helena Téllez to showcase complementary meditations on the sky and the cosmos represented in David Dzubay’s Astral  String Quartet and in Gabriela Ortiz’s Baalkah for String Quartet and Soprano. Astral, written for the Orion Quartet, was inspired by the ensemble’s name and by the constellations visible in the sky while the composer worked at the MacDowell Artsit Colony in  New Hampshire. Baalkah was composed for the Kronos Quartet and Dawn Upshaw, and sets texts from Mayan cosmology addressing patterns of existence and the place of humanity in the universe.

David Dzubay has received commissions from Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts, the US-Mexico Fund for Culture, and the Fromm and Barlow foundations, among others. Recent honors include Guggenheim, MacDowell, Yaddo, Copland House and Djerassi fellowships, a 2011 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2010 Heckscher Prize. His music has been performed by orchestras, ensembles and soloists in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Asia, and is published by Pro Nova Music and recorded on the Sony, Bridge, Centaur, Innova, Naxos, Crystal, Klavier, Gia, and First Edition labels.

David Dzubay writes: “Beginning work on a piece for the Orion String Quartet, and taking a cue either from the group’s name or perhaps from gazing upwards on evening strolls around the MacDowell Colony in rural New Hampshire, I decided to focus on the stars, composing an “Astral” quartet, movements of which would look at stars and space in various ways. Though the movements are somewhat independent, they do share musical elements and together are balanced on the curious middle movement. Like our galaxy, the quartet has a spiral structure, both in the shape of an eight-pitch ‘spiral motive’ and in the duration of the movements (roughly 5′-3′-2′-4′-3′). A recurring element, first heard in the opening bars, is a group of three evenly spaced attacks, a representation of Orion’s Belt, the tight grouping of three stars lined up in the Orion constellation.

Gabriela Ortiz is one of the foremost composers in Mexico today. Recent commissions and premieres include her new videopera Unicamente la Verdad with the Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Ensemble under Carmen-Helena Téllez; Altar de Piedra for three percussion players, timpani and orchestra for Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with Esa- Pekka Salonen and Kroumata percussion ensemble; Zócalo-Bastilla, for violin, percussion and orchestra premiered by violinist Pierre Amoyal, and  Altar de Muertos, a string quartet commissioned by Kronos Quartet.

Baalkah, which means ‘world’ or ‘cosmos’ in Maya, was inspired by the cosmological beliefs of the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula and of other Mexican and Central American native peoples. For over 5,000 thousand years, these Native American peoples have conceived the world as being divided into 4 cardinal directions: east, north, west and south. In each one of these directions stands a gigantic tree that supports the sky, and each one has its particular cosmological characteristics, such as its own ruling deity, its own color, a set of related plants and animals, and, more generally, its own mood or personality. The lyrics of the first four songs of Balkah are taken from a 17th century Maya book, the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, a priceless depository of centuries of historical and religious wisdom inherited by Maya priests and kept hidden from the prosecution of the Catholic church. Each member of the string quartet represents one the four cardinal directions, and the center is represented by the soprano.

The ensemble includes Madalyn and Cicely Parnas, both soloists and members of the Parnas duo that has received accolades of  “stunning” and “electrifying” in the New York Times. Madalyn will play a solo piece by Timothy Dunne earlier in the evening on of Saturday February 4^th.  Cicely was the inaugural artist-in-residence of the radio program Performance Today last December.  Violinist Tim Kantor has been a featured artist with the Banff and Aspen festivals as well as with the Cleveland Pops; and violist Rose Wollman has performed all over the word with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Fabio Luisi, Hugh Wolf, Joseph Silverstein, and Larry Ratcliff in orchestras all over the world. A fierce new music performer, soprano Sharon Harms will return later to New York for the performance of Charles Wuorinen’s It Happens Like This, which she premiered under the baton of the composer at Tanglewood last summer.

I asked Peri to answer a few questions from me, and she was happy to oblige:

Besides your usual hectic rounds as a freelance cellist/conductor, you’ve had a pretty good and busy year for performances of your own music. How did all of these things come together?

Being a constant presence on the musical scene and getting in on just about every opportunity I come across is the main reason I get so much work. My motto is “Seize the moment”, and there is so much opportunity, so many amazing people to hook up with. I see myself as part of a larger picture, and the possibilities for so much creativity and actualization are everywhere.

Your piece BLOGARHYTHM had a couple really well-received performances (in very different venues, I might add!). Could you tell me a little more about the title/inspiration, and the form of the piece?

Overall, BLOGARHYTHM is what I think of as an “umbrella piece”. I can adapt it to different performance situations and will keep adding scenes to it when given an opportunity to present it. It is totally my own project, my musical blog set to performance, and I enjoy it tremendously. Plus I get a chance to conduct and put ensembles together, which I also really enjoy. With it, I can integrate all the various facets of my musical life.

With all those previously-mentioned hectic rounds, where do you find the time to really sit down and compose? How hard is it to keep a good balance between playing and composing?

Doing both playing and composing are extremely important to me. At times it can be very difficult to maintain the balance (like right now, having  just returned home from a three-hour rehearsal for a concert), but I do my best. It is like having two children that you love equally and want to be sure they get equal time, one is not favored over the other, etc.  The result is I am always working on some project. This is what I do, this is my life.

You’re a life-long New Yorker? Does your life now resemble whatever plans you were laying for it back when you were just coming up through school? You’ve seemed to avoid the standard, safer course of sticking with teaching; was that a conscious decision?

Yes, I am a life-long New Yorker. Truth is, I never made any plans. I just kept going! I began piano when I was 5, cello at 11, went to the High School of Music & Art, and just never stopped. I am a bit unusual as far as composers go, in that I love to perform and miss it terribly if I let it go. I am miserable when things fall into an everyday sameness, so I never sought out either a steady orchestra or teaching gig. It would drive me crazy to have a regular ongoing routine.

When you look back at musical life in New York when you were just coming out from The Manhattan School of Music, and what you see going on now, what seems different/same, easier/harder?

The internet has definitely made everything a lot easier. I am amazed at how easy it is to learn of opportunities, to create them, to hook up with them, and get them going creatively.

What influences have been the guiding lights and inspiration for your own music language?

My own ear : ) …  I’ve always liked the sound of 12- tone music. Discovering Webern was very pivotal for me. Although my own music isn’t serial, it is 12-tone. I write from my life, and therefore my work is dramatic and emotionally relevant.

One thing you wish I’d ask you…..

Hmm, not sure! : )  My life is a musical one, this is what I do.

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Philip Glass is 75 today. The American Composers Orchestra gives the American premiere of his 9th Symphony at Carnegie Hall tonight.

My interview with Dennis Russell Davies, who is conducting the ACO concert, is up on Musical America’s website (subscribers only).

If you’re looking for a terrific way to celebrate PG’s birthday, Brooklyn Rider’s latest CD on Orange Mountain Music includes Glass’s first five string quartets. The earthiness with which they play the music may surprise you at first, but it provides a persuasive foil for some of the more motoric, “high buffed sheen” toned performances of minimalism that are out there.  In a 2011 video below, they give a performance of a more recent work, a suite of music from the film Bent.

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Andy Akiho may have started out as a performer only, but his heart has driven him to become not only a wonderful composer in his own right, but a composer/performer that creates some of the most wonderful and compelling sounding pieces combining steel pans with a variety of instruments from other great new classical musicians. Having studied composition with such greats as Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Ezra Laderman, and Martin Bresnick among others, Akiho had just recently won eighth blackbird’s inaugural Finale National Composition Contest. Andy talked to me about that and some of my favorite works of his.

CM: Can you talk about your beginnings as a musician and how it led to composing?

AA: I started when I was about 9 years old. My sister had a drum set, and she wanted to be a rock drummer. I wanted to be like my sister, so I really enjoyed playing the drums–it was a lot of fun! I just started playing the drum set, and my older sister would teach me the different grooves and different patterns of her favorite songs. I took it seriously, and I played rudimental snare drum throughout middle school and high school–I used to do drumline and stuff like that, and I ended up going to school for it. That’s how I got started with music and percussion.

Composition came later on. I didn’t consider myself a composer until I was 28. So, about 2007 was when I was trying to compose for other instruments besides what I was playing or teaching at the moment. I did a Bachelor’s at the U of South Carolina for percussion, where I was introduced to all types of ensembles: West African drumming, orchestral percussion, steel band, concert band, and drumline. Anything they had to offer, I was excited about because I wanted to learn everything about percussion. I always tried to create stuff, but I didn’t consider myself a composer yet. I moved to NY after that. I went to Trinidad a few times. I would teach steel bands in NY, and I would do arrangements for people. I started to do a few original things with steel bands–That was a lot of fun, but eventually I was telling Baljinder Sekhon II, a really good friend of mine and a great composer, that I wanted to start writing for other instruments–not just steel pan solos for myself. I was starting to write pan solos back then [2003-06], and he encouraged me to write for other instruments by going back to school to meet classical musicians that are into playing new music and are interested in what I was trying to do with the steel pans. I wanted to incorporate steel pans with other instruments, not just within jazz, but also within western classical contemporary music. So, I auditioned for the Manhattan School of Music contemporary program the first year they had it [2007]. I hadn’t played percussion for 6 or 7 years, only steel pans, so I had to work really hard for the audition–that was my door to start writing for the other instruments. I had many opportunities to perform, and had a lot of pieces written by other composers for the steel pan and other ensembles, but I was also given many opportunities to write them–that’s how I got more involved with composition.

By the following year, I just went crazy with composing! I didn’t sleep–I never slept, but I really didn’t sleep then! I was the only percussionist in that program at the time because it was a brand new thing, and I would play in all the ensembles and work really hard to try to learn my music, and then go home and compose all night. From there, that’s what really got me motivated to keep going with it. I was working with Julia Wolfe at the time, and she was a big inspiration for me to really push this and really go for it. Then in 2009, I ended up going to Yale. That was the first time I was actually going to school for composition, and that’s when I felt like this is my life from now on. Without giving up performing completely, I still wanted to be a composer.

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CM: One of my favorite pieces of yours is “21″, and it had been played brilliantly by you and Ashley Bathgate–I loved the story she told about the two of you performing it and her having the lion’s share of the mechanics in that performance, but it had also been played by Mariel Roberts. Can you talk about this piece and their association with it?

AA: I met Mariel in 2008 at the Bang On a Can Summer Festival at Mass MoCA. When I was there in 2007, I was a percussionist, but in 2008 I got in as a composer, and I wrote a piece to be played there called “to wALk Or ruN in wEst harlem”. While I was there, I took every opportunity to have other pieces played and to perform with the other performers. We did a piece of mine called “I falleN TwO” for steel pans and string quartet–It was the first time I had written for strings. This wasn’t the premiere, but it was the second time the piece was played. Mariel was playing cello, and I thought she was amazing–Her timing, her rhythms–it was incredible for a string player to have such good timing, and I felt like she related to what I was trying to do with my music, especially with rhythm. We also played a show at The Stone that summer, and she asked me to write a piece for her recital at Eastman, so that’s how that piece started. I wrote it that October, then we played it at The Stone in November, and then in December we played it at her recital. When I met Ashley, I introduced her to the piece. I said to her “If you think this is something you are ever interested in doing, I’d love to play this with you sometime”, and she took it on and did a great job. I also performed it once with Dave Sedlins for the American Composers Forum New Music Salon in 2009.

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CM: How did the CD No One to Know One come about?

AA: I wanted to make a CD for years. It was always my dream to record the Synesthesia Suite. I wanted to have the movements as different colors associated with each of the 12 key centers—plus white and black. It was always my dream to do all 14, and it ended up just being 6, but this worked out for the best. It was a better representation of who I was and where I came from at the time. While I was at Yale, I still wanted to have a performance outlet, whether it was a jazz or a chamber music setting. I went to this sushi restaurant called Misos, and I got to know the owner Ming Lau really well–he was like an uncle to me. He really looked out for us, especially the music students at Yale. I played a piece called “Aka” for his birthday, and when he heard it, he liked it and invited me to come play at the restaurant. Samuel Carl Adams was another composer I knew from Yale, so he and I got together and just started playing there twice a month, and we would invite other musicians from the school. Our main group included Sam Adams on bass and myself on steel pan. We had different drummers come in–Charlie Dye from Hartford, Sean Dixon or Kenneth Salters from NY–every now and then Mariel would come in. Maura Valenti would also play harp with us, and Domenic Salerni would play violin. Ming was the one that kicked-off the CD–he encouraged me to record it and he helped fund the making of the CD. I just didn’t have the resources to make that happen and still don’t to this day, so I’m very fortunate that it worked out.

CM: Another great piece you wrote is “Vick[i/y]” for prepared piano, and it was dedicated to and written for 2 pianists: Vicky Chow and Vicki Ray. Can you tell us about this piece and the 2 dedicatees?

AA: Vicky Chow and I started at Manhattan School of Music together in the contemporary program, and I was extremely impressed by her. I never heard piano played like that! She premiered the first piece I ever wrote that wasn’t just about steel pans, and my first piece that included other instruments besides percussion. It was called “Subconscious Inconsistency” and was written for the new music ensemble at Manhattan School. It was scored for 3 flutes–flute, alto flute and contrabass flute, soprano voice, trumpet, 2 percussionists (I was one of them, and my part had a lot of steel pan), piano (played by Vicky), and bass clarinet. Vicky blew me away with how she played, and I knew that I’d write something for her down the road–I knew it would be an honor to collaborate with her.
This was the same year (2007) that I went to that summer’s Bang On a Can festival as a percussionist, and I met Vicki Ray, who was a phenomenal player and a wonderful teacher too. She did a masterclass on prepared piano that just blew my mind. I’d heard the Cage pieces but I never really understood what was going on. She gave a masterclass on preparing the piano and all the different things that can be done with it. The thing that caught my ears the most was threading the dimes between the strings–when you played it, it sounded like a cross between a bell, a steel pan and/or a Balinese gamelan. It’s still one of my favorite sounds to hear, and that’s what inspired me to write the piece with the dimes in the strings, so I dedicated the piece to both Vicky Chow and Vicki Ray.
There are only eight notes in the whole piece inside a symmetrical scale. If you look at the title of it, ‘V’ would be the center of that scale, and it kind of mimics the spelling of their name going in either direction, but the ‘i’ or the ‘y’ can be, depending on the chord that was used, either B-flat or A-sharp. It was just a way to have fun with the sketches, and the process of coming up with the piece.

CM: Vicky [Chow] told me that piano technicians hate dealing with prepared pianos for concerts!

AA: Yes, I’ve gotten yelled at a lot for that piece, but that’s why we used dimes, so that it wasn’t too destructive to the piano.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

CM: Then this really great thing with eighth blackbird just happened with the Finale Composition Contest–Your piece “ERASE” was the chosen winner. Can you talk a bit about this event?

AA: It was hosted by American Composers Forum and MakeMusic, the makers of Finale. There was an anonymous call for scores–you had to send in 3 representative scores, and it was like many composer competitions. I was fortunate enough to make it into the finals, and I was in great company. I was really inspired by Eric Lindsay and Kurt Rohde. We got to go to Chicago to workshop the piece, and we had a good amount of time to work with them as well. I think each of us had 2 1/2 hours to workshop the piece with them, and the next night we had a concert where they played the piece in its entirety. We even got to interact with the audience. “ERASE” was originally titled “thE stReAm of conScious machinEry”, with capitals spelling “ERASE”, but we ended up just going with “ERASE” because we liked it better. It sounds like a bunch of machines taking over this nostalgic melody, and they kind of take over with their own conversation. I thought eighth blackbird did an amazing job, and it was an incredible experience working with them. I would be so happy if they recorded it!

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re reading this, eighth blackbird…

BONUS TRACK:

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Andy Akiho.com
Andy’s offical website

Andy’s YouTube Channel

The decision to apply to any program, whether a D.M.A./Ph.D. or a summer festival, is individual; the core motivations for pursuing or abstaining from the activity are absolutely personal. I urge anyone out there considering a graduate track in Music Composition to consider all the options – I have just as many peers who take time in between the stages of their education as those who, as I aspire, follow an unbroken path from their undergraduate studies to their doctorates.

With that said, I believe there is one universal I can offer: DO NOT do this because ‘everyone else’ does it, or you think it is a de facto part of a composer’s life. Although extraneous forces may shade doctoral studies as pro forma for the professional composer, this is not necessarily the case. No one should pursue a doctorate without a heartfelt motivation for staying in school.

My reason for continuing my education is impossible to capture in a pithy catchphrase. Even saying I, “love to learn”, is wholly inadequate because we are always learning no matter where we are and, more importantly, school isn’t the only place to absorb what we need to know. Last year, a doctoral student-friend of mine at UM told me, “don’t let your education get in the way of your learning”, which I think is excellent advice for any creative person in any level of schooling.

Along these lines, I didn’t choose to apply to doctoral programs for any curricular reason. Although there are specific parts of my craft/musicianship I look forward to working on (electronic music, orchestration, for starters), I don’t think I must be in school to meet these goals. In other words, I’m not searching for something in the schools I’ve applied to; rather, I’m looking for a place where I can look inside myself, become more familiar with the forces that drive me and mature into the musician I need to be to do my best in professional life. Perhaps naively, I consider the other responsibilities of a doctoral student ancillary to this process of self-discovery, experimentation and artistic refinement.

Additionally, I feel inherent to the act of applying for a doctorate is my recognition of the consequences of my actions as a composer. I cannot live off performance royalties and commissions. I haven’t built a name for myself through awards and competitions. If I were to leave school now I won’t be able to focus on composing as much as I can if I continue my studies. Of course, a doctorate does not guarantee commissions and performances; it gives me time and the best circumstances to continue to develop my skills and presence as a composer

Admittedly, I know other musicians who see little or no value in doctoral degrees. I can’t remember the exact quote a singer-friend of mine used on this subject, but she essentially told me last semester that, as a singer, getting a doctorate is a sign of professional surrender. I found her sentiment ironic because, much like composers, I know singers take time to mature. When I look at the widely-performed, frequently-commissioned composers out in the world who have built careers without a doctorate, they seem to possess a clarity about the sound of their music, the subject of their art which I do not yet share. Unwaveringly confident in my music and my abilities as I am, I also feel, were I thrust into the ‘real world’ of composing today, I would walk its streets unprepared.

A particular analogy has guided me through much of this process, and I apologize if I lose any of you by sharing it because it involves sports. I believe collegiate football and basketball players face a similar decision to mine when they choose to leave college. The upside of leaving school at the earliest possibility is not as clear as it would seem. For example, in basketball, players only need to attend one year of college before entering the professional draft. Every year, there is a crop of ‘one-and-done’ players who enter the NBA, but don’t necessary flourish immediately. Instant success, particularly sustained success, is rare in both professional football and basketball, and, more often than not, players who maximize their college experience succeed over the long term.

These players who stay an extra year or three years don’t just grow physically over that time, they come into their own in terms of their position and their sport as a whole. This learning equates to the self-reflection and self-learning I seek to pursue in my doctoral studies. Not to be tautological, but there are also specific concepts I will benefit from studying further (such as big words like “tautological”!). I feel, above all, the personal understanding I will focus on in my doctorate will ultimately bear more fruit in my life and career.

As you can see, honest, thorough contemplation has been omnipresent in my decision-making these last few months, just as it will be when it comes to choose a school to attend next year, assuming I am accepted somewhere. I feel all the places I applied to offer me an excellent situation to achieve my goals, though each in a different way. Truthfully, this process is far from over, but, as of now, it is out of my control. Clearly, The Wait has given me time to reflect on what this experience means to me, and I hope this account, though not my typical review, does not only seem worthwhile to me and Christian.

If you are interested in more of my observations on my experience as a graduate composition student at the University of Michigan, check out my website.

Zoë Keating (Wow, what can I say??) has definitely cultivated a very respectable place in the new music and indie music circles. After rethinking a classical concert career as a cellist for working a tech job, she was intervened to perform with various friends, played in the band Rasputina, eventually went solo with a gorgeously layered, rhythmic cello sound. Zoë went on to sell over 40,000 copies of her CDs without distribution, a record label or management. And she has over one million Twitter followers. The internet loves her!

Besides her solo career, her other projects include music collaborations with various dance companies (Apex Contemporary Dance Theatre, American Repertory Ballet, Digby Dance), film scoring (or soundtrack performances; Warrior, The Secret Life of Bees, The Conspirator), scoring for varied TV programs and other medias, and makes guest appearances alongside artists such as Amanda Palmer, Paolo Nutini, Imogen Heap, and many more.

CM: Can you give us the nutshell version of the beginning of your musical career up to now?

ZK: I studied classical pretty seriously as a teenager, but I decided not to pursue classical music as a career. I went to a liberal arts school, and when I got out of school, I started working in technology in San Francisco just because I needed to make a living. I played the cello in various groups, and friends started asking me to play cello in their rock bands. I said “yes”, and sort of just started playing in other people’s bands and playing non-classical music. I found that to be kind of more rewarding, and it became something that I was good at, because I listened to non-classical music. At the time it was unusual because classical musicians were supposed to play only classical music. So, then, time went on, and I just kept working and then eventually my cello career became big enough that I could support me and I didn’t have to work a day job anymore. I started playing with the group Rasputina in 2002, and I quit my tech job in 2003. I left Rasputina at the end of 2005 or early 2006, and I’ve been solo ever since. It’s been a very gradual process–I think it probably is for most musicians because it takes a long time to get established.

CM: How did that lead to composition?

ZK: I always wrote music. I started writing music in high school, just coming up with stuff, and then I pursued it in college, I took composition classes and improvisation, and made music there. I’ve been doing that since I was a teenager.

CM: It’s really amazing stuff! When you hear music from you guys in the new music world it’s hard to categorize it, and everything has its own version of melody and texture–it doesn’t even really necessarily have to factor in a categorization anymore. And the fact that you have this career where you can just make your own records, release them, stream them–Thank goodness for the internet because that definitely has played such a huge role in how you’ve sort of come up.

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ZK: I think actually the internet is definitely responsible for my success, because I was playing the cello with other groups, but the kind of music that’s in my head that I wanted to make–Nobody else was making it, and it was just something that I wanted to do. It was a very solitary pursuit. When I finally had something recorded that I was happy with and was ready to release, which was in early 2005, I sent it out to a few people in the industry that I kind of had vague connections to, and they said “it’s interesting, but it has no absolutely no market potential”. So I felt like “okay that’s fine! I’ll just keep doing it ’cause it’s something I want to do and it’s my thing–Nobody else likes it, fine!”. [laughs] I really feel like in some ways it developed without outside input, you know, like business input or anything. And the fact that it ended up being modestly successful was a huge surprise and a bonus, and it was only possible because of the internet, because the internet allows me to find my audience, and it allows them to find me. It’s all about the fragmentation of music and the rise of subcultures. I’m very niche, and the internet is all about letting people and their niches find each other.

CM: I probably have heard you the first time last year on Q2 when you performed at LPR with Todd Reynolds. I think you were both awesome, and then the 2 of you played together–That was like 2 wonderful things happening at the same time! BTW, are you guys ever going to do another thing together like that either onstage or on a record?

ZK: I hope so! He’s kind of legendary, so I would love to do something else with him!

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There’s a lot more musicians right now–Again we’re becoming aware of them because of the internet, and then there is a little bit of a trend happening, and I’m like ‘”Finally!”. The New York Times had an article a couple of weeks ago about what they called “alt-classical”. It was the first article I ever read where I read that I might possibly fit into a group! [both laughing] That was interesting to read! A lot of it is demographics–I’m on the older end of it, but there’s a lot of younger folks who are coming out of school, and there’s as many of them as there are baby boomers, and they grew up listening to classical and other kinds of music, and so it’s inevitable that they would be playing both or mixing them together and being without genre.

CM: What’s so great today is that you have everything that exists in contemporary classical–Sometimes people have music for one instrument, some have music for one instrument layered and looped the way that you do it and different people that have their own version of that, and there’s people that still write for orchestral or smaller ensembles, and vocals (with or without accompaniment)–Everything you can think of is all happening now, and it seems to all work, and people either like it or don’t like it, or like some of it, and it seems like it doesn’t fall into political camps like it used to.

ZK: In the United States, people tend to be, or they used to be, very socially identified by their musical taste, which is kind of big, for not all countries are that way, and that’s the other thing I like about this trend is that it’s cross-genre, but that doesn’t mean that it lacks social cohesion or whatever. It’s nice to see people get out of their genres.

CM: And you do some wonderful things on the side as well with people like Curt Smith, Amanda Palmer, Imogen Heap, Pomplamoose–All really good indie artists too. Is there a huge difference between working with them and just working with yourself?

ZK: Well there’s always…When you’re working with someone else, there’s compromise, and you have their vision meets your vision, so that’s always going to be different no matter whether it’s music or a technology project, so, I like doing both. I don’t necessarily like one more than the other. For my own music, I have certain things that I want to do, and I like doing it by myself. And then I like what happens when you have two people’s musical vision, and they come together, and it’s something neither of you would come up with on their own. They’re both valid things, and they’re both necessary.

CM: And pretty much everybody lets you be yourself, they don’t don’t try to tell you “Can you play more classical?” or “Can you play less classical?”?

ZK: That’s kind of my rule. I don’t do it unless it’s something where I get to be myself! I’m very consistently myself for better or worse! [laughs]

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CM: During the LPR gig on Q2, you said that when you perform, it’s like you’re in a film, and when you close your eyes you’re invisible.

ZK: I don’t necessarily feel like I’m creating the music. [laughs] The music is its own thing, and I’m just consumed by it. I’m sort of inside of it or something, and it’s a very satisfying feeling, it’s kind of like I cease to exist and it’s just a musical expression of myself. And then it’s like I’m in a film in that when I close my eyes, I can sort of see the sweeping landscapes and the abstract things happening. I really like that, and it’s very hard to explain because it’s not linear, it’s just a whole different form of communication or something, and as soon as I open my eyes, I can’t experience it that well. That’s one of the reasons why I keep my eyes closed, so that then I can be in this musical world–This kind of abstract musical space.

I like keeping my music in this world that is non-narrative. Everything else in our culture is built around words and stories, and there are other ways to communicate, and so I like to stay in this realm of non-narrative storytelling, you could say!

CM: I like the version you arranged of the second movement from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony [Allegretto].

ZK: Thank you! That’s fun to do! It’s like a little academic exercise, but I like doing it!

CM: It was cool because you started with parts that sounded like harmonies of the melody, and I was like ‘is she doing it in a different key?’ By the time you threw in the rest of it, it was more recognizable.

ZK: Yeah, you’re hearing it sequentially, because what I’m playing is the actual cello part as it’s written, and I’m playing each phrase sequentially and then adding them accumulatively, so you wouldn’t naturally hear them all together because it’s just the cello part, although those phrases get passed around the orchestra. So it’s kind of like taking the music apart, cell by cell.

CM: It’s like when you mix a record, and you hear the parts that you’re not used to hearing separately.

ZK: It’s like a Beethoven remix!

Arrangement of Beethoven’s 7th-2nd mvt (Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA 6/26/11)

CM: Can you talk about the cycle Legions that appears intercut on the CDs?

ZK: Sometimes I feel like my life has sort of musical themes, and they have different forms, and so, the Legions one was kind of this–It was like a theme that was like the musical setting for something, and then there were different versions of it. There was “Legions (War)”, which is the main one, and then these other sort of ways of looking at the theme, and then on the latest album I did this one called “Legions (Forest)” because I wanted to feel like I’m moving from the city into the forest, and I’m sort of starting out with the theme of my life, and then I’m moving it into the forest. They’re really little threads that tie it all together. The music to me is really me making one large piece of music, and it just so happens that I’m breaking it up into smaller songs. I see it all as a linear progression for me, from my teenage years to the present day. If I have my own way, I might just number all the pieces or something. [laughs]

CM: No, but that’s cool–What it is, is you’re making it sort of like a saga, and it’s being broken down into different chapters.

ZK: That is kind of how it is. The Legions one–It keeps cropping up again and again, so no doubt there’ll be other versions of it to come out.

CM: If you move into a suburban area, there’ll be another chapter then, right? [both laughing]

ZK: Here we go from the forest to the shopping mall!

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CM: You had recently written an article about Spotify that’s very interesting. It was about them saying they compensate every artist, and you were saying there’s great dispute with that. Is there anything you could add to that?

ZK: My career is possible because of the internet, and the because internet levels the playing field, there’s no gatekeepers. I can interact directly with my potential fans and I can sell my music directly to them. And when iTunes came along, it was kind of revolutionary in a number of ways, and one of them was that they gave the same deal to every single artist. Traditionally, with a record deal, you don’t know what the deals are because they’re under NDA agreements and they can’t discuss them, but it might be that an artist might get X amount of dollars for their advance, and they only get a few pennies per album, a different artist at the same label might not get much of an advance and more back in payments, and they’re all different. But with iTunes, everybody gets 70 percent of every sale, and Apple keeps 30 percent. It meant that it’s still the burden instilled in the artist to go out there and promote your music and do your own thing, however, if you’re able to do that, you can make the same amount of money as somebody who’s on a major label! [laughs] You’re getting the same deal! So I have a direct label account with iTunes, and if somebody goes and buys a track for 99 cents–We’re giving and taking pennies here–I make roughly, slightly less than 70 cents, and it’s extremely fair.

To go to Spotify, we’re moving towards this world where people are buying less and less digital music, and instead they’re streaming it, but Spotify has a throwback to the old way of doing things. They have different deals with each artist and each label, and they don’t allow independents to even negotiate, so, I can’t actually just go up to Spotify and put my music up there, I have to go through a gatekeeper, going back to the old model. So the gatekeeper I have to go through is somebody who aggregates music, for example, CD Baby or something. So Spotify makes its money through subscription fees, like if you get a monthly subscription for Spotify, that’s one way. The other way is advertising, in fact they make more money from advertising! But the major labels, they get a percentage share of Spotify’s profits, like share price, they own shares in Spotify–Across the board, they make money. So, it doesn’t matter for them about the exact streaming rates for a particular artist. In other words, like Warner’s, or Universal, they make money off of me! People go up there and they listen to my music and there’s advertisements up there and stuff, Universal Music is taking a cut of the proceeds. I don’t get to take a cut of that. So it’s not equitable, and that’s my complaint with it. I’m not saying that streaming might not be the way to go, and maybe it is the case, that artists have to adjust to this new world where they only make .0008 cents per song as opposed to 99 cents per song. Because that’s the difference. It would take me–I’d have to have millions and millions and millions of listens in order to make the same amount of money that I can make with just 10,000 listens on iTunes.

CM: It’s insane! I can’t even wrap my brain around it, other than Spotify doesn’t seem to play ball fairly–I also noticed that there’s a lot of artists that didn’t make the deal with them and are absent from the stream.

ZK: My other point about it is that not to sort of just complain, but I don’t see anybody standing up for independent artists, and so I feel like, because I small amount of prominence in the world of independent artists, I feel like it’s my responsibility to say these things publicly because nobody else is doing it. It’s kind of like, I feel like I have to stick-up for everybody. And then if nobody’s talking about it, then you have to fight for everything in the music industry, and I’m wanting to just make sure that people hear our story, that actually there are independent artists out there who make a pretty good living through music, and this new streaming model is cutting us out of the picture and saying that the only thing we should care about is exposure. That’s why I do it. I hate to sort of, go on about it, but I just feel like, for whatever reason I’ve always felt like this in life, it’s my responsibility to call out things that people aren’t paying attention to.

CM: For the record, believe it or not, they put my album [CMc] on Spotify, and I think the reason for that is CD Baby probably put it on there because I actually have a deal with them! [laughs] I was shocked to find it on there–All I had to do was type in the name of the record and there it was!

ZK: I have advice for artists about what to do, and this is what I have done–Don’t release everything. Don’t stream everything. I always say put some of it up there, the stuff that you want people to hear to get interested in you, and keep the rest back. 1/2 and 1/2. Because there’s nothing to be gained if people can get everything of yours for free. I think it’s better that they be able to get some of it, and if they want the rest, then they should go support you as an artist. And I also think that Spotify should make it easier to support artists, like, while you’re streaming on Spotify, if people are listening to my music and are listening to the whole album, Spotify should show them that I’m on tour. If they really do care about artists, they should make it easier for potential fans to find the artist and go to their concerts.

BONUS TRACK:

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Zoë Keating: Avant Cello
Zoë’s official website

Click here to purchase Zoë’s CDs

Elliott Carter (lower left corner) takes a bow after 92nd Street Y’s 103rd Birthday Tribute Concert to Mr. Carter on December 8, 2011, which ended with the world premiere of his A Sunbeam’s Architecture, conducted by Ryan McAdams and performed by tenor Nicholas Phan and chamber orchestra. (Photo: Cory Weaver)

Elliott Carter is 103. The only composer who lived longer: Leo Ornstein. But Ornstein stopped composing at 97: Carter is still going.

On Thursday evening, in a concert at the 92nd Street Y organized by cellist Fred Sherry, seven works written since Carter’s 100th birthday were given their world or US premieres. Astounding.

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