Sunday, May 30, 2010

a friendly association or agreement OR to work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort

I love collaboration. It's one of my favorite things about inhabiting a creative profession.

Some composers stay within their own little sandbox and become, essentially, greedy about their art. People commission the "next work by So-And-So" rather than, say, the composer writing something specifically for them.

This, I think, is backwards and inherently wrong. It is not couched in the humility of collaboration (which you know my thoughts on) and seems like brow-beating to me. I also subscribe heavily to the "build communities, not empires" notion of being an artist so, clearly, that other way doesn't appeal to me at all.

Collaboration is getting together with others who share your ideals, existing in that ferment for a while and then taking a bit of what this person likes/dislikes and moving that proverbial ball down the field a little further.

Case in point: the new work I'm writing for The Esoterics. The two amazing conspirators I'm working with for this piece are the conductor of the choir, Eric Banks, and an incredible visual artist named Gregory Euclide.

Eric tasked myself and a few other composers to write a choral piece with no words which must be based on a piece of visual art. He is that rare conductor who comes up with a big idea and then just runs with it fearlessly. One look at this ensemble's stable of recordings and it becomes starkly evident that this is something different and amazing which exists outside the tradition of choral music without seeming alien and irrelevant.

I absolutely love this. I love love love it.

The artist I immediately went for was Gregory Euclide. I've known his work for about 5 years now and have admired from afar his ability to paint these incredible "neo-landscapes" (I'm hesitant to use that clumsy, awful term but I have to cast his art in terms of the traditions that come before him) and I was lucky that he agreed to work with me on this project.














That being said, it's obviously tricky when you enter into some sort of collaborative effort with someone else. How are we going to work together? What are everybody's expectations at the outset of the project? Things like that. I imagine that, for a visual artist like Greg, this process might feel like giving some of your favorite toys for other kids to play with. You always hope they get the same amount of care they got from their owner but you never really knew for sure.

Side note: I had a couple of favorite He-Man toys that I was always a bit more greedy with than I probably should have been. But, c'mon, we're not just talking about any old action figures here...this is Thunder Punch He-Man, you guys. You could load his backpack up with little caps and make them explode and spew little plumes of smoke around the room (my mother--for the obvious reasons--only bought me and my brother one pack of those things).


















But I digress.

With Greg's work it's become about how I can translate his medium into mine. How does the visual become the aural? Do you just take his gestures and put them down onto the staves and see what happens? Do you take the title of the work and try to make something programmatic about it? Or do you just write the piece of music and then say it's inspired by the art?

With any piece of music you often stare at that blank space where all that stuff is going to go and think, "Okay. Now what?" With choral music you have the added benefit of the text creating some sort of narrative thing that, like a faint road map, you can grasp onto from the very beginning.

But Banks, with his trademark innovation, took that completely out of the equation. So...really...now what?

This is where the collaborative part of the story comes into play. This is where I drive out to Greg's place and talk and talk and talk with him about his art and how it comes to him and, literally, what it's about. This is where the piece actually starts to focus itself.

Now I'm not going to try and articulate all of the things we talked about (they mostly exist in my mind as emotive gestures and concepts that are too deep into too many things for me to lend any sort of words to here anyway) but what I came away with from our three hours together was "the evocation of memory." These aren't specific memories per se but, rather, just the physical experience of remembering something. Déjà vu is way too specific for me to relate this to but it's probably as close as we're going to get. However, one look at his pieces and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Here:















You get the feeling that you're looking at something that you've seen before even though there is very little which is specific about that piece.

So how to translate this into my medium? I'll probably write more about that as the piece gets closer to done because working on it is going to be a bit arduous for me. I've hit on a very specific concept that's going to carry me through so I feel less out of the proverbial deep end and instead like I'm on some sort of adventure.

For now I think I'll have a listen to the amazing album Jónsi & Alex put out last year, Riceboy Sleeps. It turns out that Greg is a huge Sigur Rós fan so it seems an appropriate way to close out this blog entry.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

the wedding day jitters

Last summer my friend Eric phoned to say that he had just proposed to his girlfriend, Mary. He and I have known each other for going on 11 years and, since he had told me this was coming, I was truly happy for them. He also mentioned that they wanted to commission me to write something for the ceremony and, since I was in an inspired mood, I sat down in one of the practice huts at Interlochen and banged out a sequence of chords that I was happy with; something proper for a prelude-or-whatever.

Then, earlier this fall, I actually sat down and filled out the sketch a bit. It was based on a 3+3+2 pattern that repeated kind of endlessly so I set about altering the pattern in select places to keep it interesting; dropping/adding a few eighth notes here and there until I was satisfied with what I had.

The piece sat for a while and I mentioned it to him a few times and all seemed well. As the date for the impending nuptials started to get closer I started to ask him about details I was going to need in order to not totally screw everything up.

It was at this point that we met to go see Clash of The Titans. You see Eric is a huge fan of bad movies and whenever one like this comes out I inevitably get dragged to sit through it. The Mummy Returns? He loved it. (I thought it was crap.) Van Helsing? Completely satisfied. (That movie is terrible.)

Before this particular piece of garbage we happened to hit the Tavern on France for supper. Over the course of the meal (they have this insane process where you can make your own burger or pizza) I asked a few more questions about his wedding and this, my friends, is when he said the magic words. Here, let me set the scene:

Josh: So what other pieces are you having during the ceremony?

Eric: Oh, I must've forgotten to tell you. Your's is the only one.

Josh: Really? Uh, where is it?

Eric: It's going to be the processional.

Josh: Really.

Now I don't say this because it gave me a sense of inferiority in the face of all the usual gobbledigook that people process down the aisle to (although it definitely did). I say this because the entire point of the piece I wrote was to not have anything close to a regular pulse.

It would've been almost impossible to process to it. I had written something that was as close to what you could call an "anti-processional" as possible.

So, back to Square One then.

And, seriously, my apologies to Eric for what I'm sure was a pretty frightening (albeit momentary) look of utter panic on my face. I would imagine that, in planning something like a wedding, it isn't comforting to see that reaction pass across the face of someone you have entrusted some sort of responsibility to.

But this should all go to illustrate how useful it is for a composer to learn everything (and I mean everything) about the venue in which their new piece is to be presented. There is nothing worse than writing something into a new work that increases the chances that A) it won't be performed very well and/or B) the audience will be unsatisfied with what they've heard.

I've been writing pieces for other people for 10 years now and there is no excuse for the fact that I should have had the presence of mind to just ask. Live and learn, I suppose.

After our discussion I re-entered the pretentious labyrinth of the compositional process to write something good for Eric and Mary...and I'm really glad I did. What emerged was a much, much better work that has much, much more integrity than the little thing I wrote freezing my ass off in a practice hut in Michigan last summer. In fact, for what the piece's intention is, I would put it up against some of my choral works that have sold tens of thousands of copies. It's not "some little thing" I wrote for a friend's wedding.

The work itself is in an exploded rondo form with an E9 chord in second inversion serving as the ritornello thingy. Here's a shot of the chord structures that I use as my cheat sheet when I play it.















Hopefully I'll get a chance to transcribe it into Finale this weekend. This would certainly be helpful seeing as how the wedding is next Saturday.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

done! + currently li$tening + that artist guy

I just finished up my last proper commission of the season and am taking a two-week break. And I really needed it. This April and May have been awful.

Brian Dehn (conductor of an amazing choir in California) graciously allowed me to write a choral transcription of the opening aria from my opera-in-progress, We, The Boys and, having worked on that entire piece for a few years now, it's exciting to see one of the components actually make it to the concert hall.

I chose to use that first piece because it's the character of Howard recounting a dream he had in which he sat across the kitchen table from Leonardo da Vinci. Because of this the text has a start-to-finish narrative instead of being, say, a snippet of the plot or a dialogue between characters or something. The entire thing occurs as Howard (an elderly man near the end of his life) sits on a park bench presumably addressing the audience.
















I've been listening to some pretty dichotomous things as of late. First we've got Rufus Wainwright's new album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu. It's about as close to a new entry in the American songbook as any album I've heard lately. This is helped quite a bit by the fact that it's just Rufus, his piano and the stuff reminiscent of Tin Pan Alley that he's so good at.







It sort of reminds me a bit of that album Randy Newman put out a while ago in which he just sang and played piano but the keyboard parts are incredibly complicated. Even if I could play that well I still don't think I could sing at the same time. (Check out the song "Give Me What I Want And Give It To Me Now!" to see what I mean.) My hands-down favorite song on the album is "The Dream" which contains the lyric, "But I truly love/Which is harder to do than to dream of." So beautiful.

Then for something completely different my sister, Emma, has me hooked on Ke$ha's album, Animal. It reminds me of my semi-lecherous, irresponsible twenties; sort of like a musical postcard sent via DeLorean for me to enjoy as I take a nose-dive-death-spiral towards my thirtieth birthday next November.
This is not art music. But who would ever take something that contains the line, "Wake up in the front yard/Wine stain on the sofa/I threw up in the closet/But I don't care" that seriously. That lyric, by the way, comes from a song called "Party At a Rich Dude's House."

Then, in the Department of Random Happenings, I saw one of our local treasures, Scott Seekins, roaming down Hennepin around 2:45am last night (why I was out that late will have to remain a mystery for the moment). He's a local artist who wears a white suit during the summer and a black suit during the winter and bonds Minneapolitans together because we've all seen him wandering around. This picture showcases his winter look so, as you can see, he's quite memorable.















He is, according to a few articles I've looked up out of curiosity, an incredibly intelligent person; a true performance artist who strives to make his life the art object. His latest series of paintings feature him in various situations with Britney Spears...and you're going to have to click on the hyperlink I listed in that last sentence to find out why that isn't crazy.

Counting last night, I've run into him four different times.

Mahalo

Saturday, May 8, 2010

jónsi at the pantages + i heart morten lauridsen + don't be a hater

I recently went to an amazing show at the Pantages put on by Jónsi. I wrote about his new album, Go, a few weeks ago and seeing how he put it together for a live show was incredible.
















The set was designed by an English company that has expertise in the world of operatic productions and they most definitely brought that type of drama to the stage for this concert. Here's the trailer for his fall tour which, since he's coming to Austin, I'll hopefully be able to see:

In any case, this was hands-down the best live show I've ever been to. At one point the drummer had a spotlight directly behind him which cast a 30-foot tall, marionette-like shadow on the left wall of the theater and there were all sorts of beautiful things projected onto various things on stage. Combined with the music, the audience left having had everything wrung emotionally out of them by a man who only said one thing to them during the entire proceedings (and that was only because he had to stall while he tuned his guitar). Aside from that, the only time the band broke the fourth wall was when they bowed at the end.

The music he makes is something truly amazing. I think that Go will easily occupy my pantheon of "Albums I Could Listen To Any Time" for a long, long time (if not forever). I'm so glad I caught him live.

The Jónsi show was on a Sunday and catapulted me into a week of insane music happenings. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday saw The Singers doing 5-hour recording sessions with Morten Lauridsen for a new album of his works (with a few world premiere recordings as well!). The sessions were held at a beautiful church in residential Saint Paul with Dr. Lauridsen himself at the keyboard for a few pieces.





























I'm not sure how many choirs do this level of recording but to watch Matt Culloton and the producers work the kinks out of some of the more obscure Lauridsen pieces is absolutely fascinating for me and totally worth the backache I've worked up when the clock is approaching midnight and I'm still popping out high notes.

That being said, it would be a meaningless experience if not for Morten Lauridsen's music itself. (The first choral CD I bought when I was 17 was the LA Master Chorale's recording of a bunch of his choral cycles, Lux Aeterna. His "O Magnum Mysterium" is one of the big reasons I even stayed in a choir at all. The damn thing still gets me all misty to this day and I've sung it dozens of times.) His works just "open up" the choir so well. You could be having the worst day of your life by the time you roll into rehearsal but, by the climax of most of these works, you're somewhere else giving full-throated advocacy for the music in front of you. Not every composer can do this and, in the face of so much of this music, it becomes evident just how important this man is to choral music in the world.

You know, a lot has been said about how his music "all sounds the same" or this and that. And, you know what, I'm kind of sick of that level of criticism of everything (music or not). To say that sort of thing about ML's music is to completely miss the point. Don't come at it from a theoretical point because that's not what the soul of the piece is really about and, frankly, that's annoying. It's the classical equivalent of being a dirty, dirty hater.

Yes, "O Nata Lux" sounds quite a bit like "O Magnum Mysterium" (same key, almost identical opening chord, etc.) but I would argue that, if that's where you land on the man's music, then you're only looking at the forest instead of the trees (to confusingly reverse a metaphor). The point of these works is not to be looked at as a comprehensive whole but, rather, one beautiful thing at a time. For instance, Van Gogh's mature work looks like it was all done by the same guy but nobody ever bitches about that.

You wanna say that all Lauridsen's stuff sounds the same? Fine. What you actually want to say is that you're educated and smart and discerning? Then you'll probably go off and listen to the same 8 composers on your local classical station and be satisfied.

And you've probably also never heard the Mid-Winter Songs. They are nothing like the popular, more easily-consumed things (like the rose cycle or the Lux Aeternai). And the older cycles like his Four English Madrigals (almost a pastiche on Thomas-Morely-or-whatever) or his earlier psalms (Psalm 29 is one of the more difficult things I've ever performed) are completely different.

Yeesh. Here I got myself all worked into a lather about nothing. Here listen to this and let the soothing voice and music of Morten Johannes Lauridsen calm you down.


And p.s. my friends, he is the nicest guy you could ever meet. I had a chance to get to know him a bit better over breakfast at Hell's Kithchen with Jocelyn and Matt and he is as gracious as you could ever hope anyone in his position to be.

I'll be changing my life pretty fundamentally in the next few months with a move to Austin, Texas where I'll become a student again and, although I'm terribly excited, I'm also quite nervous about getting back into the academic swing of things. During the course of our time together he said something that I've got scrawled out on a piece of paper which is currently taped to my wall: "Young man, I'll give you a semester to prove if you can do it."

I'm going to get that shit tattooed on the back of my hand, I swear. It serves as a reminder that focus breeds success.

Thanks, Skip.