Composers

Band Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical

Three Evenings With John Mackey

Last week at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance saw a visit from renowned band composer John Mackey. Accurately described as a young hotshot, Mackey’s transformation from an unknown dance-music composer in New York to a wildly successful creator of band music began with the 2004 wind ensemble arrangement of his orchestral work, Redline Tango. Since then he has received countless performances from high school, college and professional groups and has earned stunning national popularity best illustrated by his estimable total of 5,000 Facebook friends.  Though he came to Michigan for the October 1 performance of his trombone concerto, Harvest, Mackey’s interaction with the composition department took place over three evenings, starting with a casual outing to a local Ann Arbor bar on Wednesday, September 29.

I was immediately struck by Mackey’s affability, which exceeded any estimate I could have made prior to meeting him. As the night wore on, I realized – via Mackey’s own admissions – that appearing “cool” to the young people who so often perform his music is a critical part of his image as a professional musician. Armed with an electrifying personality, Mackey knows how to fill a room and endear himself to strangers. He is self-deprecating and open, and these qualities were probably the mot valuable elements I drew from his visit, given how closely they tie into his marketing success.

Mackey’s business sense is truly admirable. He takes advantage of social networking and other online resources to get his name out into the market and self-publishes his works, allowing him to control the distribution of his intellectual property and pursue copyright infringements when necessary. Though primarily known for his compositional achievements, he recently partnered with a marketing agency to produce a guide to new online casino platforms in Canada, further showcasing his entrepreneurial reach. For these reasons, I think Mackey epitomizes much of what the modern composer should be. Instead of submitting to the esoteric proclivities of our profession, he has found a way to update the social potential of composers within a given network. While I have met other composers with strong local presences, I have not met one with a following as strong and widespread as Mackey’s.

Of course, Mackey’s music is at the center of his success, and it serves him excellently given the market he targets. Highly rhythmic, laden with percussion and infused with progressive rock and other popular influences, his compositions are ideally suited for collegiate bands who are attracted to strong grooves and loud dynamics. In our composition seminar on Thursday, he explained that his non-band compositions sound the same, so it would seem wind ensemble is a perfect setting for the kind of music that comes easily to him. Interestingly, the night before this Mackey admitted he is a poor composition teacher, and the next day he told our seminar that he usually does not write without a commission. Thus, I did not find Mackey’s visit to Michigan a very informative experience on an artistic level. Nevertheless, hisprestige is undeniable seeing that his expansive popularity makes him a critical connection between thousands of musicians and the world of American contemporary music.

As I mentioned before, Mackey’s residency culminated in the Michigan Symphony Band’s performance on his trombone concerto, Harvest. Unfortunately for us composers, the previous day’s seminar included the most recent recording of Harvest, which had been played by at the University of Texas with New York Philharmonic Principal Trombonist Joseph Alessi only a few days earlier. I call this “unfortunate” because Alessi’s performance was super human, and it made the Symphony Band’s delivery on Friday underwhelming. David Jackson, Friday’s soloist, played valiantly, but the score was stacked against him. At moments when Alessi’s power penetrated clearly on the recording, Jackson was buried by the supporting sound. Perhaps further spoiled by the recording, I found the texture static and dull, and I yearned for a moment when the trombone would have acoustic space in which to saunter, liberated from the weight of the backing ensemble. In spite of these factors, the Symphony Band’s performance was definitely a success, and I left Hill Auditorium entranced by all the works I heard. The rest of the program featured an arrangement of Leornard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide (1956), Vittorio Gianni’s haunting Variations and Fugue (1964), Ricardo Lorenz’s El Muro (2008) and Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaques (1913).

Both Mackey’s music and presence left me with the impression that wind ensemble and band music is the music of the future, and these other compositions did not change my mind. Capable of high energy and subtle sensuality, wind ensembles are a perfect platform for the diversity and dynamism of contemporary music, as consummated by his works from Harvest to Asphalt Cocktail. Moreover, while orchestral genres came of age at the pen of European masters, writing for wind ensemble gives living composer a direct conduit to oft-forgotten American stalwarts such as Vincent Persechetti and William Schuman.

Above everything else, Mackey was very matter-of-fact during his visit to Michigan, and in no other area was he clearer than in describing the advantages of writing for band. In a world where composers struggle to get any attention from orchestral conductors, band directors receive contemporary works for wind ensemble with great enthusiasm and often perform the pieces more than once.  Mackey’s personal success is emblematic of how much bands and wind ensembles can afford composers both in terms of finances and notoriety. As refreshing as it was to experience his humorous, sociable and pragmatic qualities, I was equally awed by the momentum of his cultural relevance. If nothing else, I learned from him the value of self-promotion and generating enthusiasm for your musical product. Regardless how much I integrate these concepts into my career, my standard bearer for how a composer should be his own advocate and spokesperson will always be John Mackey.

by Garrett Schumann
Composers, File Under?, Songs, Twentieth Century Composer

Cyberbullying and Britten

When I planned to teach a course at Westminster Choir College about Benjamin Britten’s vocal music in the Fall, I knew that gender/sexuality studies would play a role in our evaluation of his works. But I certainly wasn’t planning to discuss something as topical and unsettling as the recent tragedy at Rutgers. Our campus is a half hour away from RU (my alma mater), and a number of students were understandably shaken by hearing about Tyler Clementi’s suicide.

The technological tools for communication may have gotten more sophisticated; but the people using them, if they act selfishly, can be in danger of disconnecting from their better impulses. Sadly, in this instance, the consequences were heartbreaking.

With Britten’s Michelangelo Sonnets and his opera Peter Grimes staring up at us, we began to discuss their texts. We then pondered the connection between the poems and some biographical background: Britten and Pears’ early collaboration, their trip to America, and eventual partnership. In my initial lesson notes, I’d pointed out that theirs was a relationship that was frowned upon in many corners, and would still be illegal for more than two decades after they returned to Great Britain. I asked: what resonances to Britten’s life can be found in the poetry of Michelangelo?

My plan was to then turn to a discussion of how Britten depicts these texts and alludes to personal biography in the musical details of these songs.

But in light of cyberbullying and prejudice, the continued homophobia in American society seemed an unavoidable topic: one I didn’t want to foist on the class but certainly wasn’t going to avoid if they decided to broach it. Delicately, one of the students brought up Tyler Clementi’s suicide. I was touched by how sensitively and maturely the other students in the class responded. They thoughtfully discussed the issues surrounding this terrible event, reflecting on how it affects their future work as teachers and musicians. They also reflected on how it should serve as a wake up call for their current lives, challenging them to speak out against teen suicide and try to be compassionate friends to their peers.

They pointed out that whether it is homophobia, racism, social, financial, or academic pressures that are troubling them, many young people are under duress and in need of compassion: both community support and sometimes professional help. As we saw this week, it’s far too easy for someone to be treated with prejudice and cruelty, even today. As some of the students pointed out, among young people we sadly must say, “Especially today.”

I’ll remember many of the comments made by the students on Friday. Although, to respect their privacy, I won’t share their more personal observations, there was one comment that brought us back to the music in eloquent fashion. It was the suggestion that Britten, indeed through the works we were studying that very day in class, could teach us a great deal about prejudice.

“What Britten sought, throughout his life, to portray in his music, was that if you treat someone like an outsider, we all suffer as a society: none of us can grow.”

Although we didn’t have time to find all of the musical intricacies in the songs, I’m very grateful for that lesson.

by Christian Carey
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Music Events

Field Reporting from Ann Arbor, MI

There are few institutions in America with a richer history than the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance and the composition department there has a particularly impressive tradition. With past and present faculty and students including Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, William Bolcom and George Crumb, UM composers have had a hand in much of contemporary American music history including the homegrown Once Festival and other movements such as Bang on a Can.  Moreover, with alumni currently holding faculty positions at premiere music schools across the country (including  UM), it seems safe to say that – despite the impossibility of pinpointing the best composition department in the country – Michigan’s legacy is gilded with rare prestige.

I am not here to sell the UM to Sequenza 21 readers, but Michigan’s reputation in composition is a quietly held secret, becoming increasingly obscured in recent decades as the landscape of American music education gained more parity. The test of time proves Michigan is neither an aging dinosaur nor a flash in the pan, and my experience here – though a brief three weeks – has evinced further proof that the UM’s prowess in music is no accident.

With all this pomp, you may think the UM has cast a spell on me, but that is not the case. Just like any other music school, Michigan has limitations and specialties, but its environment is very special. Ann Arbor is extraordinarily supportive of the arts, particularly in relation to its population (114, 024), and in the last week I have gone to four remarkably well-attended concerts, namely because three featured contemporary compositions.

The first concert offered a selection of French organ and harpsichord music from the late 17th and early 18th century, which was followed later that evening by the Michigan Chamber Players’ performance of two homegrown compositions: Andrew Bishop’s The Juke Joints in Burgundy (Blues in Burgundy) and Paul Schoenfield’s Ghetto Songs. The former was an exercise in timbre (scored for flute, harp and contrabass) and merging diverse influences. As Bishop explained in his program note, Juke Joints alludes to various French musical sources, but has a clear jazz orientation and climaxes with an extended jam between the three players. Ghetto Songs was decidedly more serious in tone, setting holocaust-era Yiddish poetry in a tastefully versatile musical landscape, which was at once evocative, suspenseful and somber.

To have Schoenfield and Bishop’s compositions featured on a Michigan Chamber Players concert is not unusual because both are faculty members at the UM School of Music. More remarkable is that Juke Joints and Ghetto Songs shared the stage with Charles Martin Loeffler’s Two Rhapsodies for Oboe, Viola and Piano (1905) and Johannes Brahms’ Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano (1891). Perhaps in larger cities, classic repertoire is frequently juxtaposed with contemporary music, but one can’t forget we are in Ann Arbor, MI with just over 100,000 residents. Moreover, two orchestra concerts from this last weekend also programmed recent compositions along side more standard pieces. Coming from my undergraduate in Houston, a city of more than 2,000,000 with an orchestra whose 2010-2011 season’s most recently written offering is Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, I am stunned in the best way possible that the Ann Arbor community so enthusiastically receives modern music.

Of course, cultural centers like Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago can provide similar experiences for young, learning composers. But, there is one thing Ann Arbor has that most other places don’t: pride in their own. As cheesy as this sounds, I think it lies at the heart of the community’s receptive attitude towards a repertoire other audiences would scoff at. As evidence I give you Sunday’s Ann Arbor Symphony concert so-called “Made in Michigan”. Here, Shostakovich and Saint-Saens sat second fiddle to Bill Bolcom, William Albright and Michael Daugherty and – with the help of command performances like flautist Amy Porter’s delivery of Daugherty’s concerto, Trail of Tears – the audience received their music with respectful avidity. Two nights prior, I witnessed an astounding display of the Ann Arbor community’s musical perspicacity as they recognized the high quality with which the University Symphony Orchestra performed Chen Yi’s Percussion Concerto and were not fooled by the familiarity of Berlioz’s Roman Carnival and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, both of which were not performed as well, and the audience’s reaction reflected the difference.

I am sure, by now, you are all wondering why this makes Ann Arbor a special place. The University of Michigan is like a jewel to the state, and its products, whether football or composers are always treated with respect by the Michigan community. The ability to hear a wide range of music on a regular basis is, by itself, no special quality, but when paired with the intimacy of Ann Arbor, the cultural environment of the University of Michigan becomes rather extraordinary. At worst, Ann Arbor is a close second to the country’s brightest cultural hotspots, but I imagine these locales don’t deliver the same nourishment of a tight-knit and supportive intellectual ecosystem. Again, I do not think this makes Michigan any better than the other places a composer can get an education these days, but it provides a rare platform for any young musicians burgeoning talents. I look forward to reporting more about his exceptional dot on the American musical map as my time here progresses.

by Garrett Schumann
CDs, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Hilary Hahn, Interviews, Violin

Hilary & Nico

No, not that Clinton woman and the iconic, dark (& sadly now dead) singer… Hilary Hahn managed to virtually catch up with a very busy Nico Muhly, and they chat on subjects far and wide in this two-part interview:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W81Pp0huONc[/youtube]

Part 2 is here. Both Hilary and Nico have CDs dropping officially tomorrow (Tuesday Sep 21); Nico’s A Good Understanding is a compilation of choral works, while Hilary’s couples the Tchaikovsky concerto with Jennifer Higdon’s 2010 Pulitzer-Prize-winner. (For the early-birds, follow that last link and see that Hilary also just happens to be doing a live web-chat today (Monday) at 12PM ET. Hop to it, chop chop!)

by Steve Layton
Composers, Minimalism, The Business

A Long Ride in A Complicated Machine: Who We Imitate, and Why

The consistently thought-provoking Kyle Gann has a complaint: “I think young composers might want to think about diversifying the composers they base their styles on beyond John Coolidge Adams.”   He gets a lot more promotional CDs than I do from record labels and young composers hoping to lure him out of music-critic retirement to provide that coveted Kyle Gann pull-quote for their bios.  (Can I do the heist-movie thing and say they want to get him out of retirement for “one last score”?  Too late, I already did.)  As I said, I don’t get the same recordings that Kyle gets, but let’s take him at his word and stipulate that an awful lot of the postminimalist composers out there–especially the more successful ones–are writing warmed-over John Adams.  I like John Adams as much as the next guy, and I’ve written my share of ersatz Adams, but too many composers hewing too closely to a single model could be cause for concern.  When I followed up with Kyle over e-mail, he did say that “a lot of young composers I know don’t sound like Adams at all, but they’re by far the less successful ones,” so what we’re seeing may be more of a skew in economic outcomes than a skew in total underlying populations, but that skew would also be troubling.

I wonder if part of what we’re seeing here is the wages of the stylistic tunnel-vision of the music higher-education system.  (more…)

by Galen H. Brown
Birthdays, CDs, Choral Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Los Angeles, Minimalism

Happy 75th Birthday Arvo Pärt

 Arvo Pärt: Symphony No. 4

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa Pekka Salonen conductor
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tõnu Kaljuste conductor

Symphony No. 4 “Los Angeles” (2008)
Fragments from Kanon Pokajanen (1997)

ECM New Series 2160

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt turned 75 yesterday. His record label ECM Records is celebrating his three-quarters of a century with two new recordings.

Pärt’s 4th Symphony is a long-anticipated follow-up to his 3rd – which was written back in 1971! In the interim, the composer has moved from a modernist style to an idiosyncratic version of minimalism; one the composer calls the “tintinnabuli” style of composition. From bell-like resonances and slowly moving chant melodies, Pärt has crafted a personal compositional language of considerable appeal. And while this has included a number of stirring instrumental works, such as Tabula Rasa and Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, more recently Pärt has been known for his choral music. His return to symphonic form is thus an opportunity to explore his mature language in a different milieu.

Perhaps in part as an acknowledgement of the home of the orchestra commissioning the Fourth Symphony – the “City of Angels” – Pärt decided to use a text as a formative – if subliminal – device in his preparations of the piece: the Canon of the Guardian Angel. Thus, while this is certainly not merely a transcription of a vocal piece – it sounds idiomatic and well orchestrated – there is a certain chant-like quality which demonstrates the symphony’s affinity with the vocal music and chant texts that are Pärt’s constant companions.

The live recording is of the work’s premiere in Disney Hall in LA. Salonen and the LA Phil give a muscular rendition of the piece, emphasizing its emphatic gestures while still allowing for the symphony’s many reflective, meditative oases to have considerably lustrous resonance. And while one can certainly hear a palpable connection to Pärt’s chant-inspired tintinnabuli pieces, the symphony also allows for dissonant verticals and melodic sweep that recalls both Pärt’s own Third Symphony and the works of other 20th century symphonists, from Gorecki to Shostakovich.

Perhaps in order to clearly attest to the connection between text and symphony, the disc is balanced out with a fifteen-minute serving of fragments from one of his important choral works from the 1990s: Kanon Pokajanen. The composer has pointed out the relationship between the canon that was his reference point for the symphony and the texts upon which the latter choral work was based.

He says, “To my mind, the two works form a stylistic unity and belong together. I wanted to give the words an opportunity to choose their own sound. The result, which even caught me by surprise, was a piece wholly pervaded by this special Slavonic diction found only in church texts. It was the canon that clearly showed me how strongly choice of language preordains a work’s character.”

Kaljuste and the Estonian Chamber Choir are seasoned handlers of Pärt’s works, having made a number of recordings of his music. They do not disappoint here, providing a performance that juxtaposes the ethereal eternity found in the texts with an earthy and corporeally passionate rendering of the music.

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In order to further fete Pärt, ECM also plans a lush reissue of their landmark 1984 recording, Tabula Rasa, complete with a generous accompanying book with newly commissioned essays about the composer.

by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Other Minds, San Francisco

Other Minds seeks Composer Fellows

If, like me, you’re a composer and you routinely ask yourself “What am I doing six months from now?  Can I get something on the calendar?”, Other Minds has a suggestion – especially if you have a piece on the shelf for flute, Bb clarinet or bass clarinet, violin, cello or some combo thereof.  Or if you’re eager to write a new one, knowing that the players involved could be the Other Minds or Navitas Ensembles.

And if, like me, you’d rather be on stage than squirming out in the audience the whole time, you have the option to perform in your own piece.  You can also include electronics.  Applicants need to limit the piece duration to 20 minutes or less.

If you can meet these criteria the good folks at Other Minds would like you to apply for the Other Minds Composer Fellowship. The application deadline is October 15, and Fellows will be announced by November 5. That’s when you’ll know if you will be in San Francisco six months from now, participating in a week-long residency in conjunction with the 16th Other Minds Festival, from Sunday, February 27 through Saturday, March 5, 2011.

One work by each of the Fellows will be performed on March 2, 2011. Leading up to that, the Other Minds and Navitas Ensembles will workshop these compositions in open rehearsals.  Fellows will also get to discuss their pieces in a public panel discussion as and take home panel and performance recordings.  Their recordings will be uploaded to www.radiOM.org. Other perks include lots of contact with the Festival composers and a full Festival attendance pass.

Check out the full RFP here – and break a leg!

by Polly Moller
Broadcast, Competitions, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Radio

440-30=12?

By now, you’ve surely heard about Project 440 at Orpheus/WQXR, and the next round of cuts will take the composers to just a dozen (to be announced September 9th on WQXR). So I thought it would be interesting to talk to the remaining 30 before the cut about this process.

Q: “You all have probably been involved in a group lesson or masterclass at some point – some sort of public forum – with a teacher, composer or perhaps an ensemble and conductor. Project 440, however, involves not only a selection committee, but comments on the internet. How do you view the critiques and praise, both positive and negative – and how does it differ from a masterclass/learning situation?”

A’s:
David T. Little:
As always, comments on one’s music should be understood for what they are: opinions. While a composer certainly can (and should) learn something by considering other people’s thoughts on their work–especially, say, in the case of a master class–they ultimately, for better or worse, answer only to themselves. When the time comes to sit down to write, I try put all of this aside and just create the best and most honest music possible.

Zibuokle Martinaityte:
Orpheus Project 440 offers young composers three main ingredients, which solidify the recipe of becoming a successful composer in the world and make it complete: exposure, the opinion of a larger audience and the critical judgment of a highly competent selection committee. The integration of these three things distinguishes it from other projects and learning environments such as master classes or public forums for composers. These usually incorporate one or two of the above-mentioned components, but have a non-worldly aspect used for isolated learning where only professionals of the field contribute their qualified opinions or honest advice. This is very useful for analysis and explanations of complex music and perhaps even improving compositional skills, but has little to do with the important relationship of composer to audience.

Due to its presence on the Internet, Project 440 is a unique and useful “reality check” with listeners who are in fact the audience whether one realizes it or not. This framework creates more vulnerability for the composer who becomes completely exposed to others not only through the sounds they create which would be typical for a composer, but also through the verbal interpretations of the listener. People have the freedom to speak candidly about the music and regardless of how we feel, it is posted and available for others to read. Furthermore, it is going to influence other listeners as well. It is my first time participating in a web-based public project and I’ve been very curious and stimulated by reading all the comments. Both positive and negative feedback is equally valuable for me, giving me a glimpse of what the listener is actually experiencing when encountering my music.

Chen Yao:
I am open to different critiques and praise, as these comments are based on the listeners’ different listening experiences on my music. I can tell that the critiques and praise I have received for my Glowing Autumn come from the listeners who are from all kinds of backgrounds. They take my music to various perspectives and levels. I deeply appreciate their individual thoughts and comments. I am very happy that my music can offer the listeners a little sound pleasure as well as an angle by which they can get to see and think what today’s young composers are creating.

It definitely differs from what you can hear and learn from a masterclass. The internet offers a no-personal interaction inviting listeners from a broader level of society, and mostly the comments you receive on line present a wide range of aesthetic levels and unfold what your music means to others. A masterclass provides a situation in which a composer can share his/her music ideas with other professional and experienced colleagues, and often the comments you receive at a masterclass deal with the composers’ understandings of what music composition is, and what might improve your composition.

Clint Needham:
I applaud the idea and effort behind Project 440 and I am honored to be selected to the next round of the competition. However, the major issue is that most comments for each composer come from friends of the composer (myself included). In an open forum where anyone can comment there is really no way of being “fair” and totally objective. That being said, I am fine with the way things are being run and I am happy the final decision comes from the committee. I would also add that I don’t think most of us would get such glowing reviews (or overly harsh ones) in a room where people, who were asked to be objective, spoke to us directly.

Christopher Lee:
I view comments I receive from the Internet not at all like those I would get at a masterclass, or even from a newspaper review, though that’s closer. Comments from online listeners represent feedback one would get from a concert audience, made up of people with very diverse backgrounds and degrees of experience with music. As such, I think this is important feedback to have, and represents “the last stop” our music makes on its journey into the world, but I would expect composers to take the same attitude towards it as they do to reviews: some will care, and others will not. This seems to be an interesting new direction for the reception of concert music however, and puts the music back into the public arena in a way reminiscent of the 1930’s and early 40’s with Copland and other populist composers.

Alex Mincek:
The comments have been fun and interesting to read. However, because many of the people who have commented perhaps feel as though they are in some way directly voting, there has been some amusing hyperbole. This project has been a unique experience and so I don’t really find it has much in common with a masterclass situation. While it is certainly informative to hear feedback, I don’t think the dynamic between myself and an anonymous commenter has much in common with any teacher/student relationship I have encountered. I think the project has more in common with a post-concert situation, where, after hearing my work people sometimes share their reactions and opinions without necessarily intending to be pedagogical in any way.

(more…)

by John Clare
Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Interview with Richard Ayres


Since 1989, British composer Richard Ayres (born 1965) has lived and worked in the Netherlands. He currently teaches composition at the Royal Conservatoire in Den Haag: an institution where he did his graduate studies with Louis Andriessen. His compositional style reveals a profusion of influences, from Ives and Kagel to Ades and Janacek. Above all one notices his interest in dense counterpoint, frequently deployed in multi-layered structures; as well as a concomitant flair for testing the limits of playability, often with an eye towards cultivating a “melancholically humorous” ambience. 

One of his favorite mediums is the “noncerto:” a composition for soloist and orchestra in which the soloist isn’t a heroic individual who overawes both orchestra and audience. Instead, the soloist’s role is quite the opposite: a Beckettian antihero: frequently asked to explore the barely possible or, indeed, the impossible. There are antecedents for the noncerto – notably in works by Carter, Feldman, and Kagel. By turning the concerto paradigm on its head, Ayres creates an affecting exploration of the individual who feels inarticulate: out of step with society. Doing so while creating compelling music (that attracts non-soloists) is no mean feat! But Ayres’ noncertos are becoming increasingly in demand. 

This year he’s received a great deal of buzz in Europe. His new CD for the NMC imprint, Noncertos and Others, has received accolades from many corners, including critical praise from venues not ordinarily known to be sanguine about contemporary classical music. Perhaps the disc’s biggest coup to date is landing the coveted “Editor’s Choice” distinction from Gramophone magazine. 

Despite the plaudits overseas, Ayres isn’t a household name yet here in the United States. Indeed, during the course of our wide-ranging discussion, he mentioned having not yet been programmed by an orchestra the United States. One hopes that this oversight is quickly remedied! 

Christian Carey: How did you come up with the idea of the ‘noncerto?‘ Who first performed one of your noncertos? Have soloists been receptive to the idea of this type of piece? 

Richard Ayres: I saw a program on the TV that was about a trombonist with some sort of Alzheimer’s disease. He was holding an electric razor and thought it was a trombone. He became very upset when he couldn’t work out how to play it. This broke my heart, and I wanted to write a little piece out of sympathy or as a tribute to this guy. This piece became the first noncerto for small ensemble and alto trombone. The Schoenberg Ensemble from Amsterdam commissioned it. I became attracted by the idea of outcast against the crowd, and four more noncerti followed. 

Soloists need a melancholic sense of humor (humor not comedy), and an amazing technique to play these pieces. In spite of being underdogs, the solo parts are obviously virtuosic. I like to think that anyone that is attracted to the melancholia of Charlie Chaplin, or the excess of Terry Gilliam would like to play my noncerti. This is certainly just vanity. 

CC: Each time I listen to No. 37B for Orchestra, I’m struck by what I hear as a kinship with the music of American composer Charles Ives: the overlapping of orchestral lines in a sort of collage, the frequent shifts of focus, and the wondrously pungent dissonances. Of course, I might just be listening through my own set of repertoire filters, but I wondered- is Ives at all influential on the music you’re composing?   

RA: Oh yes! I heard Ives’ 4th symphony when I was a student and this gave me permission to write “far too many notes” sections in my pieces, and generally to roam around musical history. Actually these seemingly complex textures are rarely more than five musical lines…any more than 4 musical lines seems to be heard as a texture. I’m glad I listened in that particular counterpoint class! 

CC: Who are some other touchstone composers you might point to?  

  

RA: Oh, far too many to mention. I devour all music. Contemporary music loves range from Jerry Hunt right through to Tom Ades. I listen to loads of folk and rock music, just about anything. If I had to pick out some especially important classical composers then, apart from Ives, the music of Janacek, Sibelius, Beethoven, Mozart, Purcell, Rameau, Verdi, Strauss has been a massive influence on my composition. 

I am just as, if not more, influenced by film. Fellini, Guy Madden, Terry Gilliam, and the great Charlie Chaplin have all played a part in shaping my creative taste. 

CC: Would you tell us a bit about your numbering system for pieces?   

RA: Three reasons for the numbers: I don’t have a lot of imagination for titles, and the ones I have made up were pretty awful; I find it easier to remember which piece is which (although this is no longer true. As I get older and the number of pieces increases, I find I can’t remember which is which); I forget now which painter said “a title is as important as a color in a painting”. Was this Jasper Johns? Whoever it was, I agree entirely. A title determines, or colors the listeners perception of a piece of music. I don’t want to pollute a listener’s experience unless it is absolutely necessary. At the moment I am playing with a juxtaposing literary and musical narrative, and am writing extremely long movement titles that are very evocative, and either concur with, or contradict how we experience the music’s emotional world. 

CC: Noncertos and Others (NMC) has gotten a terrific reception, both in Europe and the US. Has this been a surprise, albeit a pleasant one?  

  

RA: I wish I could be cool and knowing and say that it was what I had expected. I can’t, and I am extremely surprised. When I opened my copy of Gramophone magazine and saw my CD was editor’s choice I immediately ran to buy a copy to send to my mother. I’m very happy. 

CC: For those whose introduction to your work comes via this CD, where would you send them next to learn more about your oeuvre?  

  

RA: That is a bit of a problem as this is the only commercial recording, and so far my music has been played all over Europe but not in the states. I’ve never been there either, but I will get there one day! 

__________________ 

 

by Christian Carey
Choral Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Dance, Interviews, Los Angeles, Recordings, Signings

iDrink @ iTunes

Nico Muhly is set to appear at the Santa Monica Apple Store on the Third Street Promenade Wednesday, September 8th to mark two new releases from Decca. “A Good Understanding” will be released exclusively on iTunes on September 7, with physical copies available on September 21 alongside “I Drink the Air Before Me”.

Composer Nico Muhly

Muhly along with Los Angeles Master Chorale conductor Grant Gershon will take part in a Q&A session – where Muhly will demonstrate how he creates his compositions with GarageBand on his MacBook Pro. The talk will end with a performance by members of the Los Angeles Master Chorale featuring two works from “A Good Understanding” and two related works, “Like as the Hart” and “Wayfaring Stranger”.
John Clare spoke with Muhly about the works and event: mp3 file
Nico Muhly and Los Angeles Master Chorale conductor Grant Gershon appear at the Santa Monica Apple Store on Wednesday, September 8, 7:00 p.m.
Bonus – listen to the rest of the conversation as Muhly interviews Clare: mp3 file

by John Clare