Composers: Keeril Makan

“…Time is your canvas and sound is your paint…”

Though these words were spoken by just one of many teachers composer Keeril Makan had in his musical upbringing, their continuing effect is obvious. His distinct brand of controlled cacophonous music is receiving wonderful press (The New Yorker, Newsday, Sequenza21, and even yours truly ); His works have been performed by great ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, Bang On a Can All-Stars and Either/Or; His music has been featured in numerous festivals throughout the world (MATA Festival, Other Minds Festival, Gaudeamus Festival, Voix Nouvelles), and he is the recipient of several awards including the 2008 Rome Prize (American Academy in Rome), as well as awards from Meet The Composer and ASCAP. Even with such massive buzz as a composer, Keeril is also handling the position of Assistant Professor of Music at MIT. He managed to take some time and talk to us about his composer beginnings as well as his current CD Target, and a little about his life as well.

CM: When you studied violin, were you thinking of a career as a violinist with any kind of soloist aspirations?

KM: I enjoyed playing violin, but I realized at a certain point that I wasn’t really a performer. I have tremendous respect for musicians who can both master their instrument and connect with an audience. I actually stopped playing violin for a number of years during college. When I came back to it in graduate school, it changed my composing. I suddenly reawakened my physical connection to sound. Ever since then, I try to play the instruments that I’m writing for if I have the opportunity. This is how I wrote both Zones d’accord and Resonance Alloy. My physical exploration of the instruments connects the music with the idiosyncrasies of my body. It makes the music more personal, and I think more unique.

CM: What was it that led you to start composing?

KM: I started composing when I was in high school at the Interlochen Arts Camp. I went as a violinist, but I took classes in conducting and composition, and found that I spent most of my time composing during those summers. I like to tell the story of the first day of that composition class. The conductor said to all of us that composing is like painting, except time is your canvas and sound is your paint. Now go compose. There wasn’t any instruction given, or models put forth. I think this had a profound impact on my life as a composer–you just compose with what you have. There is no correct way, there’s nothing you need to know before you start. As you compose, you create your own tools and teach yourself what you need to know. It’s a continual, changing process, and there are no guidelines other than your own search for self-knowledge.

The Noise Between Thoughts (Either/Or Ensemble; Keeril Makan Portrait Concert, ICA, Boston, MA; 3/17/11)

CM: Who is your biggest influence?

KM: There are too many influences to name–many teachers, many colleagues and many friends. I’ve had some great teachers, but none of them were domineering figures. When I was younger, that made things difficult because I had to find my own way. As I’ve grown older, I’m thankful for the space that those early teachers gave me. All of them contributed to my growth, but none of them are towering over my shoulder as I’m composing.

CM: The piece titled Target you had written as a song cycle with poet Jena Osman. How did the idea for this piece come about, and was it your idea to collaborate with Jena?

KM: I was selected to participate within a workshop at Carnegie Hall on writing for the voice with John Harbison and Dawn Upshaw. When I was notified that I was selected, I was only given a week to find a text that I wanted to set to music, and get it cleared by Carnegie. I had met Jena at the Djerassi artist residency program, and I liked her work very much. I asked her if she had any texts that might be suitable, and she gave me a few different options. The texts were meant for performance, although in her case as spoken word. She gave me a lot of freedom to rearrange the texts as I needed. I don’t quite remember now, but I think there were two main texts that I rearranged into the five songs of Target.

CM: I must say, with the top-range notes and the dramatic weight of it in general, the piece was very powerfully sung by Laurie Rubin. What was it like to go through the process of working with her on this piece?

KM: I was assigned Laurie as the singer that I would work with by Dawn and John. I quickly searched her on the internet and learned she is blind. I talked to Laurie on the phone about her voice as well as by email, and she sent me recordings of her singing, but she never mentioned to me that she was blind. I figured that since she didn’t mention it, and she was having professional success as a singer, that I didn’t need to take her blindness into account in my composing. It’s actually a difficult part, with a lot of detail in terms of vocal inflection and rhythm. Her process for learning a piece is to have the text put into braille and have her accompanist teach her the melody by ear. But once she learned it, she’s had a string of remarkable performances with the piece.

Target (IV: Leaflet II; Laurie Rubin, mezzo-soprano; California E.A.R.)

CM: There is this incredible collapse/explosion at the end of the violin/percussion duet 2. By the way, the piece itself employs such a great use of the sonata form, but how was that last part done? Did the acoustics or production play a role, or did Jennifer [Choi] and David [Shively] slam everything they had into it? I really thought there was a third musician handling electronics on the recording (I even checked)!

KM: The ending of the piece is a structured improvisation for violin and bowed thunder sheet. David had showed me the marvels of the bowed thunder sheet when we were at college together at Oberlin, and I had been waiting for the right moment to use it. There are no electronics on this CD at all. The violin utilizes some techniques used in Zones d’accord which helped it blend with the bowed thunder sheet.

It’s funny that you should mention sonata form. When I was writing this piece, I was consciously trying to avoid any references to forms that I know. Every section explores its idea, and then never returns. I think Morton Feldman said something like if a composer succeeds in realizing his intentions when he starts a piece, then the piece will fail. Hopefully 2 is a success as a piece, so my intentions regarding the form are secondary.

CM: Zones d’accord is the unaccompanied piece for cello. Again, I thought there was an electronic element somewhere in the performance (or if it was an electric or a regular cello w/pickup) only to realize there wasn’t, and the soloist [Alex Waterman] made such a harmonic drone that sounded like guitar feedback (and the whole piece is wonderful, btw). Probably a dumb question, but do you have these instructions marked down in the score to make the musicians go to this extreme?

KM: Because I had been playing the cello as I was writing the piece, I was able to figure out how to very efficiently tell the cellist how to get the sounds I that wanted. It’s a combination of bow pressure and location, and placing the fingers of the left hand between nodal points to get some of the multiphonic-like sounds. There are short written instructions to indicate how to do the various techniques.

CM: Resonance Alloy is the percussion solo that closes the “Target” CD. You probably saw me say this in the review, but some of the structure of this piece reminds me of something a jazz group would play where the band plays the theme, takes turns playing solos, and then returns to the theme. Are you a fan of jazz and if so, did this have anything to do with the inspiration for Resonance?

KM: There’s a lot of jazz I enjoy and have a great respect for, but it’s never been a major influence on me. For me, this piece comes out of the experimental tradition, composers like [Alvin] Lucier, [James] Tenney and Reich. I certainly wasn’t composing it with a theme in mind; rather there is a continual timbral transfiguration in the piece, and an underlying rhythmic process where the rhythm simplifies, and this usually announces a new section of the piece. I’m guessing that it’s these moments of articulation that you’re hearing as points of return in the piece, which is my intention. Without these moments, I think the listener would get lost in the continual sound/noise transformation.

Resonance Alloy (excerpt; David Shively, perc; Keeril Makan Portrait Concert, ICA, Boston, MA; 3/17/11)

CM: Are there any future plans or fantasy projects you have for any specific artists on the drawing board?

KM: There are two big projects that I’m working on. The first is an operatic adaption of Ingmar Bergman’s classic film Persona, with a libretto by Jay Scheib. It is being written for Alarm Will Sound. We are still looking for commissioners and presenters for this project. I’ve written a piano/vocal score over the past year that I’m very excited about. It’s the first vocal music that I’ve written since Target. The second is an evening-length chamber piece for Either/Or for 2 clarinets/bass clarinets, percussion and string trio. We just received a Meet The Composer commission for that, which will be premiered in 2014.

BONUS PIECE:
Mu (Masumi Rostad, prepared viola; Longy School of Music, Boston, MA 2009)

KeerilMakan.com
Official website
Target
Keeril’s new CD at Amazon.com
In Sound
Keeril’s first CD at Amazon.com

CD Reviews: Keeril Makan: Target

The thing that I notice more than anything else hearing the pieces on Keeril Makan’s second CD Target is that they almost all seemingly have a similar structure of a setup, a climax, and an unraveling of sorts.
While the opening piece for violin and percussion titled 2 has the biggest unraveling you’ll ever hear at the end (Tam Tam and scratch-tones that are made to sound as if a metallic building is collapsing on top of a den of lions inside The Grand Canyon if Arizona was The Sistine Chapel), its layout is much more sectional and varied like a Liszt or Schubert sonata. The piece overall is played with such brilliance by Jennifer Choi and David Shively, and I particularly enjoy the shrill, faster section.

The solo cello piece Zones d’accord (performed by Alex Waterman) starts with a distorted drone (One that makes one reminiscent of some great moments in guitar feedback) that descends into furious passages and piercing phrases that fall back into a more silent drone.

The title piece Target, written in collaboration with poet Jena Osman as a commentary on US military intervention tactics (with actual military leaflets sampled in Osman’s texts), is a 5-song cycle performed by contemporary chamber ensemble California E.A.R. and mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin. In a slow-rising chord progression on “Twister I” (By contrast, you hear the reverse of the progression on the final section “Twister II”), Rubin, doubling on the melody with the flute (and backed by strings), sings at the top of her range once the piece is fully-engaged. Rubin does this with such fearless abandon, and she is equally compelling when she sings a few phrases in a dry, vulnerable half-spoken a capella.

Resonance Alloy is an epic all-percussion piece performed by David Shively. Scored for 3 cymbals and a gong, the piece gradually moves you through various degrees of vibration and volume using only simplistic gestures on the metallic objects, and as they each take a solo as in a jazz combo performance, the piece is eventually brought back to the opening theme.

After receiving great press from the NY Times and a blessing of an endorsement by David Lang on the CD’s liner notes, I can safely declare that Keeril Makan is definitely a composer that is destined for greatness, and this recording is proof of that. Just when you start to think “It’s all been done”, he proves that it quite possibly hasn’t been.

Target
Link for purchase on Amazon

KeerilMakan.com
Official website for composer Keeril Makan

Nat Evans: The Sun Also Sets

Nat Evans, a composer from Seattle, WA that specializes in electro-acoustic works and music for mixed chamber ensembles, has another great music event that continues the concept that began with the premiere of last year’s September 18, 2010. While that was a work designated for sunrise, this year’s Assemblage is meant for the sunset (Specifically, for this week anyway, 7:45 PM on Sunday, August 21, 2011). Having been premiered in 6 cities (Starting in DC, then Seattle, Chicago, Indianapolis, New York–this week’s concert–and finishing in Long Beach, CA), this outdoor event is like a concert meets a reverse flash-mob of sorts.
First of all, you need an iPod (Or any MP3 player if not that one) and you download the work from Nat’s website (or this page) onto the player. You arrive at the venue (For the NYC one this week, it’s Brooklyn Bridge Park) at a given time, then Mr. Evans is there to cue you to hit ‘play’ 10 minutes before the sunset is scheduled to happen, and you listen to this piece (Sounds of the day mixed with minimal instrumentation) unfold as the sky changes color.

“The Sunset event is the musical kin to the site/time specific work Sunrise, September 18th that I created last year,” explains Evans. “The basic concept behind these events arose out of a series of influences coming together: Zen meditation, Indian classical music, and a desire to push New Music into non-traditional performance venues and to people who would not normally listen to or experience New/experimental music. Specifically in regards to Zen, coming back to sit each week I casually observed the light having changed, and changing over the course of a meditation period. In Indian classical music many of the ragas are written for specific times of day or even seasons. So, these streams of thought coming together pushed me towards the concept for these pieces.”

And how was he able to know exactly what time the sun would set and the sky would change? “I did some observations of sunrise and then sunset and sort of determined that the 15 or so minutes before and after the moment of sunset (or sunrise) is when there is a very particular and dramatic light change and series of color changes that are consistent – yet consistently different every day of course, and this sense of openness is what the piece aims to embrace. And, though there are charts that tell us what time the sun sets on specific days in different places, it’s still only an estimate based on an algorithm…but, you know, it’s ‘close enough for jazz’!”

“As for the music itself, despite being tailored specifically to complement the changing of the light, it’s actually a fairly typical electro-acoustic piece for me–Utilizing equal parts electronics, live instrumentation, and a handful of field recordings.
My hope is that people will engage with their surroundings and with the moment more directly or at least differently than they would otherwise while listening – embracing the possibility for everyday sound and visual events to interact with the music and their experience – to listen more fully to all sounds happening around us all the time. And, though site-specific works are not the bulk of what I do as a composer, I do feel as though this is connected to the larger, rich lineage of experimental music out here on the west coast that has often included site specific pieces — things like Robert Moran’s 39 minutes for 39 autos or Stuart Dempster’s Cistern Chapel.”

If you happen to be in the NYC area (or near it) on Sunday, Aug 21st, head over to Brooklyn Bridge Park (The site is Granite Prospect at Pier 1); Be there by 7:30 PM. Nat will be there to give the cue for everyone to hit play on their players at 7:35, and you will experience the sunset midway through the piece. BTW, the piece itself is quite enthralling listening even if you’re not playing it at sunset.

Assemblage
Download this piece to your MP3 player
NatEvansMusic.com
Nat’s official website

Heirlooms

Heirlooms, an indie-folk band that hails from Hartford, CT have been making some considerable waves. Headed by singer-songwriter Jesse Stanford, the band, at least onstage, invokes sort of a hybrid of Springsteen’s E-Street Band and The Low Anthem. A very massive and dynamic sound that is almost too big for places like Rudy’s in New Haven where the 6-piece band had to perform one night back in July of 2011 on a small stage. They’ve been getting great local press, and even made it onto hipster webpage Brooklyn Vegan when they appeared at B.O.M.B Fest this year.

“The group got together in the summer of 2009 kind of in pieces”, Stanford remembers. “Myself and Neal began working on some new songs of mine together that summer and we soon got Thom and Justin involved. Shortly after, Ciara joined us and we started recording our first EP.”

On the influences of the band, Stanford explains, “My personal influences are all over the place musically. I grew up on my parents vinyl records–so the Beatles, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Dylan, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Buffy Saint Marie, Paul Simon …
all that stuff got into my head at very early age and when I started fooling around with my mom’s acoustic guitar, it was “Rocky Raccoon”, “Graceland”, and “Blowin’ in the Wind” that I was playing before anything else. I’ll always have a foot in that kind of folk singer/songwriter stuff when I approach writing music. However, there is a lot of current music that is more experimental and probably even more influential on what I’m doing in Heirlooms. Bon Iver is probably the biggest; Also Kurt Vile, Joanna Newsom, Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Deerhunter, the list goes on and on. Thom Servidone (our guitarist) has also turned me on to a lot of 80′s music I had sort of ignored until now–The Cure, The Smiths…I think he brings a lot of those influences to what we do.”

Empire State (Live at The Space, CT 10/26/10)

After recording a well-received 1st EP, Heirlooms cut a second one titled Heirlooms Live, Vol. 1 (Both are available for download on the band’s Bandcamp page) that sounds far more indicative of the live sound of the band.
Jesse explains, “As much as we all love and attribute much of our early success to our first EP, we began to realize how much we had grown as band in the year that followed its release. The first EP began and ended before we even considered ourselves a band, before we had begun truly writing songs together, before we stepped on a stage. In the months that followed its release, we moved out of ‘studio’ mode and put our collective energy into becoming a strong live band. And naturally we began writing new material together”.

“Heirlooms Live Vol. 1 is essentially a snapshot of the band in new clothes. We wanted to capture the energy and the dynamics and the orchestration of what we were doing on stage. We also wanted to present this new batch of songs that we had written together, and that have become staples in our live sets…By recording these songs live–in our practice space, with no overdubs and no real studio magic–in a weekend, we had a new EP we were really proud of and that was a solid representation of where we are now as a band. We set up a bunch of microphones, got Pro-Tools up and running, turned on our amps, and basically played a typical Heirlooms set. We got some amazing engineering and mixing help from our good friends Alex Cohen (Ciara’s husband) and Marc Andrew Gillig. They are both in a really great rock band Superart and were both a huge help in the making of the Live EP”.

Bloodstar (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT 12/11/10)

Ciara Cohen is a welcome and refreshing part of this mostly male lineup using a classical violinist’s sensibility in a rock setting. “Ciara is amazing–classically trained, has an amazing ear, and she just shreds on that violin. She’s kind of the den mother–keeps all us boys in line and on task. She has this really sweet exterior, but she’ll kick some serious ass if and when she needs to. She’s our secret weapon.”

The band even has plans to release their first full-length album as well. “We have begun serious work on a new full length album. It seems like the pendulum has now begun to swing back towards the studio. We had a hard time pulling ourselves from playing live (especially in the summer with big shows like B.O.M.B. Fest and opening slots at the Iron Horse), but we have come to terms with the fact that we have to put playing shows on hold for a bit if we really want to make the kind of album we have in mind. This will certainly not be Live volume two. We have a new studio space in downtown Hartford and we plan to hole up this fall and winter and go back to the approach we took on the first EP; Lots of textures and layers and instruments and experimentation–really use the studio as an instrument itself. We might grab a few songs from the live EP for the album, but we also have a bunch of new songs we are really excited about. We’ll be underground for a bit, but I think we’ll have something really special on our hands once we come back up.”

From Hank To Hendrix (Crown & Hammer, Collinsville, CT Sept. 2010; Neil Young cover!)

Heirlooms Official website
Heirlooms Live, Vol. 1 Bandcamp page
Heirlooms EP Bandcamp page

Composers: Daniel Felsenfeld

Daniel Felsenfeld, another one of our most celebrated new music composers, born in D.C., raised in California and living in Brooklyn, has consented to speaking with moi of all people, even with his busy activities writing music and doubling as a journalist (Besides his column in the NY Times, he has even authored books about the dead white guys! Bach, Tchaikovsky and Connecticut’s own Charles Ives, among others).
I have to apologize in advance for the lack of available clips either in audio or video form (save for a few) as I really wanted to do my typical form of saturation, but I was unable to imbed any of the audio that Daniel sent me. If you go to Daniel’s website DanielFelsenfeld.com, there is an audio page (Click on Sounds, and it gives you a list of his audio pieces).

CM: Before you had your training in composition, was there a time that you heard certain pieces that you weren’t ready for as a listener? I had this experience when I heard Del Tredici’s ‘Final Alice’ on the radio in the 70′s (It’s not quite as intimidating now).

DF: This is, by the way, an excellent question.
I got kind of a late(ish) start in music, especially that was not rooted in obvious tonality. So when I got to college I was ill-prepared for the 20th century. But some of the warhorse pieces—like the Rite of Spring or Quartet for the End of Time immediately turned me on. But the masterpiece I really had to come to on my own terms was Pierrot Lunaire. Now I have to say, I first heard all three of these pieces in the same few days, sitting in the listening library following scores, so perhaps by the time I got to Pierrot, I was already seriously misfiring with a lot of new information. But I listened hard—I tried it with score, without score, with the lights out, slightly drunk, wide awake, and it just never really spoke to me. Now, years later, having heard it live several times (and admittedly knowing a bit more than I did then) Pierrot and I have come to a kind of understanding. I love Pierre Boulez’ recording with Yvonne Minton, probably because she breaks the rules and “sings” more than a lot of people would deem stylistic. And its inherent resplendent creepiness holds a perverse appeal.

Funny you should mention Final Alice, because in that same week, my teacher, who made me rush to the library and hide the shame of not knowing these seminal pieces, included that piece in this list of great-and-imposing masterworks. So in my memory, Final Alice is up there with the Sacre and Quartet for the End of Time as necessary 20th century music listening.

CM: When you are writing, do you already have the title in mind to fuel the process?

DF: This depends. I am what one might call a “titler” in that I like evocative monikers for pieces. So often as much as I keep a running tally of musical ideas I also keep one for titles. Earlier on, I was more inclined to use “edgier” titles (in grad school I wrote pieces called “Smoking My Diploma”, “Cultivating Cool”, “New Forms of Control”, “Bad Coffee Serenade”, “O I LIKE the LIFE that I’m LEADING”, that kind of thing) while now, as a (slightly!) older person I am more inclined to write more emotionally solid music warranting titles to match (my new pieces are called “To Committee”, “Things Like That Never Happen to Me”, “A Genuine Willingness to Help”, “The Curse of Sophistication”). I do confess my love of a good title.

I don’t think I will ever write my Second String Quartet or my First Piano Sonata because musically I just don’t think that way. I don’t, though, have a problem with this kind of thing—many of my favorite composers, from John Corigliano to Lee Hyla, use these sorts of titles for their works—I just always get caught up in something at least cloyingly extramusical. But who knows. I’m not by any means averse.

Titles, though, are kind of the first line of defense for composers (or anyone who makes creative work), so they are as important as anything. We expect different things out of a piece called “From the Dawning of the Misbegotten Earth” than we do out of a piece called “Cracker Jacks” (and I am just making these titles up out of the air), and so when I hear something called “Quintet for Piano and Strings No. 97″ I just have different things in mind than I think my music is good for.

All Tomorrow’s Parties (Robin Cox Ensemble, 10/20/09; Based on The Velvet Underground’s song)

CM: Is classical instrumentation (orchestra, strings, brass, chamber, operatic voice, etc.) a format, if you will, that you are most compatible with? I really like the use of the harpsichord on ‘Every Composer Is a Murderer’, but has anyone ever said to you “We’d like to hear you use electronics on a piece”? Would you consider that or is that best left to the Fausto Romitellis of the field?

DF: I think this is a two part question. The first is about being married to the conventional “classical” instruments, which I think is an interesting point of discussion. The answer is both yes and no, because there’s been so much use of certain “non-classical” instruments (and I put the scare quotes for a reason I’ll get into in a moment) in my field that I’m not sure what the conventional instruments are any more. Going to a concert of new “classical” music one might hear pieces for electric guitars, saxophones, synthesizers, non-operatic voices, drum kits, laptops, and a whole host of “world” instruments that the definitions of conventional have changed. Nobody should be surprised to see a concerto for balalika or throat singer or a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument. Nor should anyone be surprised to see a string quartet that simply plays music for string quartet. We live in an amazing age for music because literally everything goes.

Which leads to the second part of the question re: electronics. This kind of thing seems to be the specious “tonal vs. atonal” or “extended techniques vs. conventional techniques” false schism of our own disunified age. What I mean is, I think the use of elctronics in and of itself is nothing noteworthy (nor is it anything new; this has been going on for decades in some form or another) and yet I keep hearing about it as if the mere fact of doing it is a remarkable—or, perish the thought, rebellious—thing to do. There are composers who never use anything save for the acoustic instruments who I think are totally brilliant and there are those who I think are less so; same goes for the use of electronics. It has to be more than just done, it has to be done persuasively. And I think we’ve all heard it used in a less than artful way by someone who thinks they are on the vanguard, and to me, as a listener who is taking the music qua music, that is just not that interesting. On the other hand, I think, say, Mason Bates, Anna Clyne, Judd Greenstein, Paola Prestini, Missy Mazzoli, and Nico Muhly (to name a few) are good composers whose sound palate quite naturally uses different kinds of electronic sounds (and they do so differently because they are all singular composers) because that is how they are hearing things, rather than it being done to buck a (prebucked) system.

This is the long way of saying that, like anything, I am not averse to using electronics but I’ve never heard things that way—the old music I devoutly adore tends not to make use of these sounds and so neither do I. And I think one of the challenges a composer faces is to find the most appropriate bottles for their exact wine, and outlets for the work they believe in. If I just started writing electronic or electro-acoustic music because I felt that was what was expected of me I would certainly likely fall into the category of people using the medium in a less-than-artful way because the sonics of it all don’t necessarily gel effectively with the way I hear my own music.

We can live in a world that is both multivalent and not drawn by bunker mentalities—no “us” and “them” in art—because the divisions are never simple, and more often than not the “groups” of artists are more for the convenience of critics than anything the artists themselves want to be involved in. But ultimately, these differences come down to little aside from timbre. We associate a string quartet with “classical” music regardless of what they are playing (or at least often people do this with an eye to a sectionalized market) just like a saxophone means “jazz” and an electric guitar “rock,” but of course the realities are much more complex. And while the idea that people might finally start to accept “classical” music as not being a single line out from Gregorian Chant to whatever they feel like is the “next” step and start seeing the music world—or any world in which artists offer their wares—as a place impossible to pin down in any way, where there are listeners and thinkers who like one thing and other listeners and thinkers who like something that might be quite different.

I guess what it all boils down to is that I’d love to use electronics if; 1) I had a project in which it seemed appropriate and 2) I could do it without the “political” associations. It really is just another palate with which to play, which delights many talented composers and enthusiastic listeners, and what can be bad about that?

CM: Have you ever gotten any commissions that were bizarre or that you’ve had to pass on?

DF: If by this do you mean have I been asked to write a piece for bassoon octet or kazoo chorus and just found I couldn’t do it? No, not exactly—though there’s always that weird “talk” of commissions (meaning someone says “you should write a piece for…” and inserts the most absurd thing here) that never, for some unthinkable reason, make it past the idea stage—or even out of the bar.

There have been offers to write for too little, though. And by too little I mean too little of anything. Money, sure, but also exposure, prestige, a great reading, a handy piece in one’s work list, these are all good reasons to write a piece. But I’ve had bizarre propositions to do a huge amount of work in an absurd amount of time (meaning too little) for no money and a single performance in a far-off city by a mediocre pick-up group. These I pass on, without rancor though because I think it is important to take seriously anyone who wants to perform one’s music. We’ve all been the victim of too little at some point or other, and these can be valuable to a composer even if not the best and most immediate experience because honestly anytime you’re working with people who are trying their best—and I don’t believe that there’s a soul out there who plays music and decides to do so poorly and in public—to get down to the psychology of players, to figure out how to talk to a wide range of people in a slew of settings. But then there are those projects that feel like the return will be disproportionate, which are the ones I tend to (politely) decline.

CM: Is there a story behind the solo piano piece “Toscanini’s Glasses”?

DF: There is. An alarmingly long one, for such a short piece (!) I wanted to challenge myself with a kind of compositional etude: I wanted to make a piece that worked (by my estimation) out of something I totally loathed rather than something to which I wanted to pay homage. So many pieces that are variations start with the premise of greatness—Brahms on Handel or Haydn, Chopin on Mozart-—Or with the premise of a kind of national pride-—Anyone, from Beethoven to Bartok to Copland to Britten et al. who ever made a piece from a folk song. I wanted to do something from the point of an EarWorm, a piece of music I felt was just too out there and not remotely good. So I chose “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry. But what gave me the idea for the piece really was reading the book The Fortress of Solitude by my friend Jonathan Lethem (who is the dedictatee of my piece), especially the scene where one of the characters simply says the words “lay down and boogie and play that funky music ‘til you die.” I’d never really thought about that with any seriousness, playing music until you die. It conjured up all kinds of images of a certain kind of madness crossed with a certain kind of nostalgia—-Or perhaps nostalgia for madness? Either way, I took the title from another of Jonathan’s short stories. In a way, all homages (like the work or, in this case, hate the work to which you are paying heed) are a kind of refraction, seeing the thing, the object, through your own lens. Ergo my piece “Toscanini’s Glasses”.
I should mention I wrote it for pianist Andrew Russo, who recorded it, and it has also been taken up by Blair McMillen. Both of whom play it so absolutely brilliantly and in such different ways. I’m hoping it has a bright future!

(EDITOR’S NOTE: A clip of Toscanini’s Glasses could not be located, so a similar piece “A Dirty Little Secret” is presented here) A Dirty Little Secret (Blair McMillen, piano; Greenwich House, NY, 5/21/09)

CM: What was the main idea behind writing new music for the lyrics of David Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’? Were/are you a huge fan of Bowie’s (I am, and I love ‘Ziggy’ in particular), and would you say your re-imagining of the story is like a folk song (or rather the story in a folk song) being re-sung or rewritten with a different melody?

DF: The idea of this project was to take David Bowie’s words and just pitch the music out altogether, re-setting them to my own music. And yes, I am a fan of Bowie, for so many reasons. But leaving aside his brilliance as a performer and songwriter, what the cycle is about is a pretty prototypical story of a confused teenager: me, riding around my ghostly suburb listening to the record and dreaming of escape, of bigger, epoch making things to happen, of places so distant (like, say, New York City, where I now live) as to seem like other planets. Everyone who’s even slightly weird can really get behind the fantasy that they are a landed alien sent across light years to observe. Add youthful frustrations viz. love and sex, glamour and obscurity, going forth as a comet or as a snail, and you have the appeal of the whole fiction of Ziggy Stardust.

In a way, what I wanted to do was have written that record. So this the closest I can get. I’ve already irked more than one die-hard fan with this one (the why of it all takes some explaining, and to a certain extent the real deep fans, especially those who had the same reaction and attachment to the record that I do, will be the least supportive of the project), but to them I say: do it too! Write your own take. Charles Ives taught me that the only reaction to a piece of music was another piece of music, and so this will be mine to Ziggy, a love letter to a great piece of art as well as a prior version of myself.

CM: Can you tell us anything about the upcoming commissioned piece for cello/piano duo TwoSense?

DF: One of the reasons I wanted to write for Two Sense (aside from the what-ought-to-be-obvious fact that they are not only astonishing players but also distinct and wonderfully forward musical people) was a conversation I had with Ashley Bathgate in which we both communed over what we liked in music, and what she wanted a new piece for her to be. One thing we agreed upon: It ought to be long. Not minimalist slow-developing long, but Beethoven-or-Brahms-sonata long. More than just the usual seven minutes. This sounded challenging in the best way: how, in this day and age, can you keep engaged and keep listening interesting with only two instruments in a long(ish) form.
Pictured Left: Lisa Moore and Ashley Bathgate are TwoSense

And I had read Georgio Agamben’s book Nudities, and while I’m still working out how the piece will relate to the ten separate chapters of the book, what struck me is the overarching theme, which could be summed up in the question: what is nudity? For a composer, the answer is obvious: chamber music. What’s more naked than two instruments playing, sans gimmick, for twenty minutes? And rather than gussy up the idea, why not embrace? My favorite composers—Britten, Brahms, Mozart, Bach, Chopin, etc.—were all unafraid to “expose themselves” in this way. To me, it is the essence of excellent art, that kind of exposure.

CM: You collaborated with singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding on ‘Charles Jessup Considered as a Murderer’, and on a future occasion we’ll talk about that project as well, but I might as well ask you about this clip of you performing with Harding along with several other folk-rock performers like Josh Ritter, David Wax Museum, Tift Merritt and Andrew Bird: How did that happen and what was your take on it?

DF: I met Wes (Wesley Stace, aka John Wesley Harding) twice: once at a party for our mutual friend Jonathan Lethem (who had just turned in his novel) and another time at ASCAP–we were both judges for the Deems Taylor Award (given out as a prize all to do with writing ABOUT MUSIC). He was, at the time, working on his book Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer, which is all about a (fictional) composer and a grisly crime he commits. He wanted me to read it to just see about the trajectory of his title character (not for help with his prose or development–he needs little help from someone like me on that!). At that same time, he was commencing his series the Cabinet of Wonders, a thrice-seasonal concert over which Wes presides. He has writers, comedians and musicians perform, and I’m fortunate enough to be his “court composer”. So it means, not only does a piece of mine get played once a season–especially the two collaborations Wes and I did: a set of madrigals called Music Doesn’t Want Me and the song cycle Every Composer is a Murderer, both with words by Wes–but I also play piano (the theme music Wes and I co-wrote), sometimes (thrillingly) with the group. I’ve met some amazing people there (including these people) and it serves as an excellent counterlife to that of a quote-unquote serious composer. Plus it is always a good time. And I’ve made friends, met heroes, and had an absolute blast playing music as opposed to just writing it.

Cabinet of Wonders (Featuring John Wesley Harding, Josh Ritter, Tift Merritt, Andrew Bird, David Wax Museum, Paul Muldoon, and in the back, Daniel Felsenfeld; City Winery, NY 3/11/11; Rock on dude!)

DanielFelsenfeld.com Official website
Felsenmusick Daniel’s blog
Opinionator Daniel’s column on the New York Times

Composers: Jennifer Jolley

Photo courtesy of Liz Remizowski

Just putting it out there that I’ve now interviewed 2 female composers in a row named Jennifer. What are the odds?

This Jennifer, Jennifer Jolley, hails from Long Beach, CA. Originally having a specific interest in scoring films (Which explains both her love of film soundbites in some of her sound collages and her interest in writing opera), Jennifer later focused more on straight composing after her graduation from U.S.C. and further studies at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in Ohio, where she now lives with her librettist and her 2 cats Lindsay Lohan and Coco Chanel. Having been commissioned by many contemporary ensembles and having one of her works presented at MATA’s 2011 Make Music Winter Workshop (“Press Play”), Jennifer writes a blog about her career (Titled “Why Compose When You Can Blog”) and even has time to write several other blogs (Building a Better Opera, MusicX Musings; She also contributes to the official blog for Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music: Center For Computer Music), and she’s also an instructor at University of Cincinnati. I’m just glad there was time for her to take a break and talk to me.

CM: You seem to have different sides to your music; Some of it is minimalist or modern orchestral, and some of it is electronics, tapes or sound collage. Is this a way of saying that you would rather explore and flesh out these styles simultaneously than focus on just one way of composition?

JJ: Maybe I’m accidentally fleshing out my styles simultaneously! Ultimately I want to work with a style that conveys my concept the best. If I need to write minimalist music to get my point across, then I’m going to use it. If I need to use a vocoder, so be it. Over the past two years I’ve changed my approach in my pre-compositional process—I merely thought about harmonies, melodies, and timbre before working on a piece, and now I think about what I’m trying to say with my music and which style would work best. After I figure out my concept, I think about harmonies, melodies, and timbre. Right now I’m working on an opera that’s a retelling of both the Narcissus and Pygmalion myths, and holy cow, I might be writing a neo-classical opera. I’ve already completed a da capo aria, and it looks like I might include secco recitative. Honestly I’ve been a little self-conscious about the style so far (because it may be a little conservative), but I feel that the style fits the story and concept.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Our discussion of Jennifer’s new opera is coming up shortly. )

CM: “Paint My Chopper Pink” is one of the tape pieces, and I really like the direction it takes toward the middle (It gets into a tinny-sounding section that is quite soothing to my ears, just so you know). Can you talk about the subject of this piece and about how this was recorded?

JJ: I wanted to write a motorcycle motet for four voices! Since I loved listening to motets and motorcycles, I wanted to combine the two. So, I found four different sound clips of motorcycles starting online (yes, this is probably cheating) and processed them in a Max/MSP external called PerColate. I was also obsessed with the convolve patch which combines any two sounds you like, and I wanted to combine the agressive sound of motorcycles with gentle bell sounds. On a side note, an art professor suggested I create an acoustic version of this piece, and I might do it! I think it would be great to have a live motorcycle motet. Of course, I don’t know what to do about the exhaust, and I don’t have access to four timbrally-different motorcycles…

Paint My Chopper Pink

CM: “Get Your Ass To Mars” and “More Human Than Human” are collages that feature dialogue from “Total Recall” and “Blade Runner” respectively. Were these pieces meant to direct a different point of view on the films’ stories, or were you just making a whole new statement with each one?

JJ: I was creating a Philip K. Dick triptych of tape pieces that would indeed create a whole new statement with each one. I had to go this route because the films are recent—those who are familiar with the films will instantly visualize scenes from the film, and I didn’t want to fall into the trap of retelling the movie. I mean, I instantly visual Arnold Schwarzenegger every time he speaks!

CM: “All Grief Empty, The Clear Night Passes” is one of your orchestral pieces, and it has a powerful cadenza for percussion (It almost sounds like a brief concerto)

JJ: This piece did not have a master structural plan when I started. I had a general idea that I wanted to start with high pitches then meander to lower ones. Then when I finished the first section, I decided to pick up the tempo a bit and then climax to a big percussion section. That cadenza section was fun to write, although I don’t know if the other sections tempered the fiery percussion duet. That’s okay though—I wrote this piece in 2008, and I’ll have more of a master plan when I write my next orchestra piece.

All Grief Empty, the Clear Night Passes

CM: “Laments By The Sea (III: A Farewell)” is so minimalist and current-sounding to me, yet it has a classical beauty towards the middle (EDITOR’S NOTE: Jennifer has 2 other movements of this she hasn’t posted on Soundcloud yet).

JJ: This piece grew from a song for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble that I wrote in 2001. 2001! And then my conductor friend Nathan Madsen asked me if I would be willing to expand the piece in 2007. The biggest challenge for me was linking the two bookend movements with the original one (“The Three Fishers”), and I thought the best way to do this was to have the text dictate the music. With the third movement, I thought it would be appropriate to compose calm and placid music since the narrator is dying and uttering his last words.

CM: Would you program this piece on the same night as “Paint My Chopper Pink”?

JJ: Absolutely not! The concepts of the pieces are completely different and would not curate well on the same concert. Now, if I wrote an electronic piece that had to do with the sea or death, I would reconsider.

Laments by The Sea (III: A Farewell)

CM: The audience participation piece “Press Play” is basically the Ricercar from Bach’s late work The Musical Offering. The first recording of it sounds like you transcribed the original (And THAT sounds so beautiful to begin with!) for various instruments on tape, but when it came time to do what you set out to do with the recording devices at the concert premiere, it took on a whole different feel altogether as some parts were slightly off kilter and there was what sounded almost like a more jarring orchestration of it. Was this exactly what you were looking for, or is this a randomness that works in your favor?

JJ: Thankfully this randomness worked in my favor. I wanted the audience to experience their childhood again by performing and interacting with a childhood tape recorder (I specifically searched for tape recorders from the 1980s) and listening to a piece of music that was performed on toy instruments. (Granted, the only two toy instruments on this piece were the toy piano and glockenspiel, but most pitched children’s instruments are diatonic, and Bach’s fugal line is chromatic.)

So, what tonal piece would survive a toy orchestration and irregular playback from thirty-year old tape recorders? The Bach Ricercar. I figured it survived a Webern orchestration, so surely it must survive vintage tape playback.

The playback was a little more “off” than I expected, but I loved the results. My main fear was that people would think that this was a pure orchestration of the Bach piece, but instead the different tape speeds produced a new piece. Of course, I wouldn’t mind having the original orchestration performed live.

Press Play (Recorded live at the Sonic Explorations concert, Cincinnati, OH 4/19/11)

CM: Your blog “Why Compose When You Can Blog?” (Great title, btw) is such a great read and looks like it can be insightful for budding composers. In it, there are entries you call “Composer Fail” where you talk about your rejections. I love that you can talk about these things that probably make other people embarrassed and shy away from discussing them. Did you always set out to talk about the failures?

JJ: Well, not specifically. My composer FAIL posts began as a catharsis for my turning thirty. As a twenty-nine-year-old composer, you worry that you won’t be successful because thirty is the cutoff year for entering huge young composer competitions. When I was twenty-nine, I had this urge to enter every single “young composer” competition while I could, and I was still receiving rejection letters. So I thought, why not share and talk about my failures? It is my way of dealing with rejection at this point. And now I’m glad I’ve continued this series on my blog because not only does it help me deal with rejection, but I think it also shows other composers that failing is a part of success. Composers (and anyone else, actually) will be rejected more times than they are accepted, but that is part of the process. I’ve learned that competitions aren’t working for me, so I’ve focused more time on establishing my connections and having my music performed. So, I hope to defang composition competition rejection letters and show young composers that you don’t have to rate your success based on your winning a competition.

CM: Okay, about your upcoming opera project–Supposedly it’s about a futuristic society where they practice cosmetic cloning. Can you say anything more about it at this point? Any other opera concepts you have in mind?

JJ: Yes! The opera I mentioned on my blog takes place in the near future, where a woman decides to clone her husband for an upgrade, only to be dismayed when the original starts to fall in love with the copy. Building a Better Joshua, the name of the opera, is a comic retelling of the Narcissus myth, as a vain couple sees their world spiral into chaos.

My librettist and I are also thinking about creating a sitcom opera about Ronald and Nancy Reagan. We’ll see what happens.

CM: What fantasy project/musician would you like to work/commission with? Personally, I would love to hear how you would write concertos of any kind!

JJ: I’m going to cheat here and say that I’d love to work with LA Opera. I was not a fan of opera growing up, but once I saw Billy Budd at the LA Opera, I wanted to write one. If LA Opera ever produced an opera of mine, I would be absolutely thrilled. (I just realized I would have to figure out what director I’d like to work with, but I haven’t done much research on opera directors.)

[As for soloists] I would love to work with Vicki Ray; she’s such a dynamic and skillful pianist. When I was in high school I went to the Piano Spheres concerts in Los Angeles and heard her perform a piece that required her to read Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis while playing the piano. (I wish I remembered the name of the piece.) She made it seem so effortless! Now, what would I write for her? A piano concerto with percussionists? An installment in my Sounds from the Gray Goo Series? Something for toy piano?
Sounds from the Gray Goo 2.01 (Rebecca Danard, bassoon with pre-recorded clarinet; Northside Tavern, July 2011)

Please do check out Jennifer’s webpage, her YouTube and Soundcloud as she has even more music on those pages that I didn’t feature here.
I highly recommend the blog as well.

JenniferJolley.com Official website
Why Compose When You Can Blog? Jennifer’s blog
Jennifer’s YouTube channel
Jennifer’s Soundcloud page