These videos are from a concert presented by the composition area on 19 April 2011 called Music + Theater. It included four works, three by graduate student composers, one by a faculty composer, that all dealt in some way with the intersection between music and theater. Enjoy!
Sam Merciers presented a film on the program as well, but I thought it would be a bit silly to show the video from the camera pointed at the screen. Sam, if you read this, feel free to embed your video in this post.
Dr. Lorenz visited to talk about the premiere (last week) of his new viola concerto, Canciones de Jara, performed by Roberto Diáz and the MSU Symphony Orchestra. He discussed the complicated relationship between the U.S. and Latin America.
He shared a short film called 9-11/9-11 by Mel Chin, who he met at the MacDowell Colony. The film tells parallel stories about the military coup d’etat in Chile in the twentieth century and the World Trade Center attack in the twenty-first. It links them in a long cycle of cultural violence.
At MacDowell, Lorenz found many of the artists creating works that were critical of the culture, contemporary politics, and social issues. They seemed unaware of and uninterested in “classical” music. “There’s room to make statements and connect to individuals in classical music…It is grounded on very powerful events that affected me when I was growing up and still affect me.”
Lorenz has observed a growing number of students interested in studying film music. He thinks this could be because film music is more present in our society. He is still confident however, that the kinds of specific artistic principles that can be conveyed in film can still be effectively presented in art music that does not include images or text.
composer Ricardo Lorenz and violist Roberto Diáz
“I was playing a double game,” Lorenz says. Canciones de Jara is a statement (about violence, terrorism, and politics) while remaining a concerto. Audiences who know nothing of the Victor Jara’s songs, the source of the musical materials in the piece, can still experience Canciones de Jara as a viola concerto.
After Dr. Lorenz’s remarks, we had a class discussion about music’s ability to convey empathy. Specifically, we talked about some of the specific sounds Lorenz used in the concerto: a siren, a person talking through a megaphone, and a guitar, itself amplified by a megaphone. To conclude, we listened to excerpts from the recorded premiere.
This year, I am teaching composition lessons as part of my assistantship for the first time. In trying to come up with valuable and helpful suggestions for my students, I have decided to reflect on my own experience as a student composer, trying to identify those things that have helped me (and still do) with my own creative process. The following is a list of what I consider to be the most important ones:
1. Listen to music: Sounds simple right? And perhaps obvious for a musician. But, with so many different options out there it’s sometimes hard to know where to start. That’s where your teacher comes in. Not only because (hopefully) he/she has a better knowledge of the repertoire, but also because, as a teacher, he/she should be able to guide you based on your specific needs as a student. Being able to look at the score while listening is always a plus. And being able to hear live performances is even better, so, I guess a related suggestion would be: Go to concerts!
2. Ask the Masters: Fortunately for us, some of the most important composers have written books relating their own experiences. Listen to what they have said about the same types of challenges you are facing now.
3. Look around you: Sometimes it’s easier to find the answer to your compositional problems by looking at other artistic expressions. I personally like to draw ideas for form from literature and movies, just to mention an example. But I think answers can come basically from anywhere, so, as long as you keep your goal in mind, keeping your eyes (and ears) open will make a difference.
4. Forget all you have learned: Forget all the rules and theory you’ve learned at school and just be like a child playing with sounds. Use your imagination to go beyond limitations of any kind (notation, instrumental technique, timbre, etc).
5. Be a listener (and a performer): Conductors videotape themselves so they’re able to see what performers see when they’re on the podium. Performers listen to audio recordings of their own performances and often realize things they can’t hear when they’re busy playing their instruments. So, how can we step back from our own work and be listeners? I don’t think I have the answer, but I think it’s possible. Hasn’t it happened to you that, once in your lesson with your teacher there, as you hear the playback of your own music you realize things that you didn’t hear before? It happens to me and I think it’s because when you have someone else listening to your music, for some strange reason, you become a listener, too. It works for me and, as a plus, you might get useful suggestions from that other listener. Also, since you’re trying to play different roles now, try to imagine yourself playing that instrument you’re writing for. In other words, be an actor.
I know that this isn’t brand new, revolutionary advice in composition. I just wanted to post these suggestions in a brief and simple way hoping they help my students (and any other composition students) the same way they have helped me to find solutions to those problems that are common to all composers. Please feel free to add any other suggestions from your own experience and let’s make this list bigger.
Guest artist Heather Maxwell has been in residency this week in the Residential College of Arts and Humanities. She is a composer/songwriter/singer/musician of African fusion music. She is playing this afternoon in the RCAH theater at 5:00.
On her career:
Attended Interlochen and Michigan as a voice major. Despite difficulty with theory classes, she became more comfortable as a composer after studying music in Africa. She also learned various African instruments, including the balafon and kamele n’goni. She works through instrumental improvisation, focusing on rhythm. Then she moves to Garage Band and builds up layers of other rhythms. Because balafon is a pentatonic instrument, she tends toward tonally repetitive sounds. Through working with other musicians, she expands to other tonal spaces. She also incorporates improvisation and dance into her music.
On dance:
When learning African music, Maxwell was in a class with students playing various instruments and dancing. Everyone was expected to play each instrument as well as dance. Dance became very important to the way she experienced music, and in particular, rhythm. Trying to consider the music analytically can make the music more difficult to perform.
Future project:
Maxwell would like to work with a composer to transcribe marimba music from Mali for Western musicians to read. This marimba music was at times ritualistic, but often for entertainment, but most importantly it was ubiquitous. She would like to not only like share this music with people who don’t have the opportunity to hear the music in person, but also make it available for educators to use with music students at various levels.
On bodies:
Maxwell observed that many of the dances she was learning seemed designed to take advantage of bigger dancers. Also, they look different from the front and the back. Malian culture does not value thinness the way we do in the West, and Malian society (either gender) doesn’t have a “complex” about body image.
We talked in studio last week about domain-specific creativity and the possibility of extracting general ideas from those specific activities, ultimately translating the ideas to divergent disciplines through networking. Incidentally, I’ve been watching a few dance films lately, specifically studying how the addition of the camera revolutionizes the relationship between audience and performer. Traditionally in a live setting, a dance might be seen only from certain angles, with some distance necessarily present between audience and performers. In the dance film genre, the camera allows for any and all spatial relationships, which (with some editing) may shift constantly or employ special effects like slow motion or time lapse. In the dance film Amelia, performed by Canadian company La La La Human Steps, the camera not only zooms in for close-ups on eye movements and facial expressions, it also swirls around the dancers as if it were a dancer too. These moments of close-up action are contrasted with distant camera shots from far above or from the opposite side of the room. The audience is in and around the dance in a way that would be impossible live. The Amelia score is composed by David Lang, adjunct composition professor at Yale and 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner. Something I enjoy about the music is how Lang pairs minimalism a la Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich with lyrics from some of Lou Reed’s songs written for Velvet Underground. Although Phillip Scott of Fanfare magazine sums up the work as “abstract,” I think the cinematography and musical score of Amelia together succeed in being both profound and accessible.
What do dance films have to do with new music? I’m not sure yet. The camera allows the audience to be close—even uncomfortably close—to the performers and move around them, almost joining the performance. I equate that to a music performance situation in which traditional boundaries between performer and audience are blurred. Perhaps it means creating a situation where the audience is free to join in the performance, or maybe it means moving the performance out of the traditional context of the concert hall. I’m not assuming anyone is particularly interested in hearing a live performance of my music at the bus stop, but I would be interested to see how people respond. The “audience” in this setting has no obligation to stay and listen or even pay attention; they are free to encounter the art in any way they please. The Dresden Semperoper Ballet has taken works to the public at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin; here they are performing Johan Inger’s Empty House. Semperoper dancers made interesting use of the performance space too; in No Thumbs, they used the nearby escalators as a creative way to enter and exit. Actually, it was a multi-level-plus-escalators performance, since they continued dancing even as they reached the second level. Imagine if Hubbard Street Dance Chicago showed up at Water Tower Place and started dancing Jiří Kylián choreography. I’d like to be there if that happens.
One goal of this type of performance is to create an audience… by ambush. Along these lines, the group Improv Everywhere is pretty good at making a scene. Joshua Bell played in Union Station once, dressed like a typical guy, and didn’t get much notice. In contrast, when percussionist Evelyn Glennie played at Grand Central Station she drew a crowd. Maybe the difference is Bell had his violin case open for donations, and people felt uncomfortable giving money so they didn’t hang around. Or maybe it was the time of day and location. There are probably numerous factors affecting audience interest and involvement in this situation. In any case, the situation might be worth exploration. My point in all this is not to belittle traditional performance settings, but to consider what other performance situations might be possible. The dance film genre offers me a fresh perspective. I feel like the idea is there, but for now I’m lost in translation.
Welcome back! First studio class of the 2010-2011 academic year.
Dr. Sullivan just got back from a few weeks in Porto, Portugal, where he spent time at Casa da Música. Click that link and visit the site. The architecture of the hall is beautiful. They have several resident ensembles and conductors, as well as three resident composers. One of the three residencies is reserved for a composer under the age of 30. They don’t distinguish between “classical” and “experimental” music, and they are equally interested in jazz and popular music. The new music ensemble is called Remix.
The audience is large and diverse (in precisely the same way such audiences in the US aren’t). There are electronic music games for kids to use and play creatively. As Dr. Sullivan describes it, Casa da Música seems a lot like a community center that has a particularly creative focus. “It really is a center of cultural activity.” People of all ages and interests come together to see, hear, and create.
One of the discussion topics for studio classes this semester will be audience engagement and outreach in new music. New music concert attendance is “pathetic.” Fifteen years ago, Dr. Sullivan claims, he had as many as 80 people coming to new music concerts and participating in subsequent discussions. In contrast to this, participants in Porto were open to experimental creative projects.
How can we be more proactive about growing attendance and participation (and more importantly, engagement) in new music at MSU and in the Lansing area?
Victor Marquez-Barrios is this year’s composition area graduate assistant. Victor would like to find ways to improve the Premiers concerts this year. Not only improving the performances and presentation, but also improving the audience and the audiences general experience. Dates for the semester’s concerts are on the calendar (undergrad composers: Oct. 19, grad: Nov. 9, last concert: Dec. 7, all are at 7:30). Five weeks before the concert, let Victor know you’re interested. One week before, give the complete program info here. We have a third date in the book for December that we can talk about later.
Sam would like people to “Like” the MSU Composition Facebook fan page and for composers to invite their friends to “like” it as well. Dr. Sullivan wants people to feel more comfortable plugging their music and performances thereof. We all agree that advertising for performances must be as creative as the performances themselves.
SCENE&heard continues at (SCENE) Metrospace on Friday, 8 October at 7:30pm. The concert is about rhythm, and will feature music by Steve Reich and Louis Andriessen, as well as traditional music from Africa and the Middle East.
This semester we will create a blogging schedule to encourage traffic to this blog. We will also share research about music of the last ten years.
New show opening tonight at SCENE that includes a piece by Nate. Saturday night is an interesting concert/CD release at SCENE (doors at 7:00, music by 8:00, admission $5). Another cool concert at Mac’s Bar on Michigan Ave. starts around 9ish on Monday night.
I’m a member of the Society of Composers, Inc., or SCI. Occasionally (ok, very rarely), there is a conversation on the SCI listserv that I find compelling for one reason or another. Over the last few days, there has been a discussion of photocopying scores. Specifically, choirs performing from photocopied music as opposed to buying enough copies. I would say that anyone who has spent any time singing in choirs has seen this. The composers on the SCI list seem to consider this a personal affront to their cultural value. (The thread is actually called “Choral Crimes”!) Here are a few anonymous quotes from the spicier side of the discourse:
“One of the most serious crimes in our musical community is that of choral directors photocopying the music of living composers in order to illegally perform their music…It is time for singers to report these atrocities!”
“Can we establish some sort of collective to reward whistle blowers?”
“Stealing is stealing. Don’t rationalize it.”
“However, a college or university choral director who photocopies choral parts that are not public domain—and whose choristers know that he does it—he or she is not only breaking the law, but is setting a bad moral and musical example for the singers who respect him or her. Those choral directors ARE evil people!”
First, allow me to say this: piracy, whatever you think of it, is not stealing. Intellectual property law professor Lawrence Lessig1 points out an important distinction in his book Free Culture. If I steal a score from the music store, that’s a score the store paid for and that they no longer have to sell. However, if I check a score out of the library and make a photocopy, that isn’t depriving anyone of a sale. If I could afford to buy the score, I probably would have. My copying of the score does not represent a lost sale to a music store, a publisher, a distributor, or (most importantly) a composer.
In the SCI discussion, church and school choir conductors are the chief villains. Churches and schools (particularly public schools) are not exactly known the world over for their bulging arts budgets. The composers taking issue with these performers seem to think that they could put their kids through college if only these horrible, cheapskate conductors would put their money where their batons are and do the “right” thing. WRONG! The options are not photocopying your music on the one hand and purchasing it on the other; the options are photocopying your music and NOT PERFORMING IT AT ALL!
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather hear an “illicit” performance of a contemporary work than a legal performance of a public domain work by Mozart or Scarlatti. I’vesold my music, and I will hopefully continue to do so. But don’t think for a second that I would tell somebody not to copy my work. Steal my music!
Got any thoughts on intellectual property? I knew you would. Feel free to have your voice heard in the comments.
Notes:
Lessig is also a founder of the Creative Commons project. All of his books are available in print, as well as for free in various digital formats under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. ↩
