Category: Field Reports

From August 18-21, 2011, over 500 taiko enthusiasts gathered at the eighth biennial North American Taiko Conference sponsored by the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, organized by the Northern California Taiko Network and San Jose Taiko, with support from Stanford University. Participants included taiko players from across North and South America, the UK, Germany, Hawai’i, Hong Kong, and Japan. Notable workshop leaders included Seiichi Tanaka, recipient of the 2001 NEA National Heritage Fellowship, Yoko Fujimoto, principal member of KODO since 1976, and Saburo Mochizuki, original member of Sukeroku Daiko.

To new audiences, a group taiko (or kumi-daiko) show may seem to be music passed down through many generations. In actuality, modern ensemble taiko performances started in the late 20th century. Tokyo-based jazz drummer Daihachi Oguchi founded Osuwa Daiko in 1951. While Japanese religious, theatrical, or village taiko may influence kumi-daiko performances, most taiko in North America is a form of new music or neo-folk performance generated by a vibrant, soul-searching community of amateur and professional musicians.

Kenny Endo Taiko EnsembleTaiko in North America: San Francisco Taiko Dojo was started by Seiichi Tanaka in 1968, prompted by his missing the sounds and rhythms of the drum during the annual Cherry Blossom festival in San Francisco’s Japantown. Kinnara Taiko started at Senshin Buddhist Temple in South Central Los Angeles as a Buddhist music group that transitioned from chant to gagaku and found long-lasting success as a taiko group in 1969. San Jose Taiko formed as part of the Asian American identity movement and anti-war protests in 1973. North American taiko groups generally follow the model of a dojo (school), Buddhist temple activity, and/or community music-making group with the addition of professional taiko practitioners such as Kenny Endo, Michelle Fujii, Shoji Kameda and Kaoru Watanabe, to name a few.

With more than 300 taiko drums, numerous related percussion instruments, and many taiko players meeting for the first time, the North American Taiko Conference provided an opportunity to explore musical and performing techniques, share repertoire, learn about the history of North American taiko, further the artistic development of taiko, and strengthen the bonds between members. Most of the taiko groups in North America continue to make drums from wine barrels, using car jacks to stretch the drum heads made from animal hide. Many groups rehearse in temples, churches, or basements. The opportunity to gather and learn from various approaches to taiko offered solutions on how to foster creativity, oftentimes within collective music ensemble structures.

The three-day conference was packed with 48 workshops, a free public performance of ten taiko groups from around the world, special presentations, discussion sessions, and a marketplace with 18 vendors including Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten and Kodo Arts Sphere America (KASA). In addition, the 2011 Taiko Jam Concert at Stanford University’s Memorial Auditorium featured Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble from Hawai’i, Kyosuke Suzuki from Tokyo, Soh Daiko from New York, Inochi/Mirai Daiko from Seattle/Denver, and San Francisco Taiko Dojo.

NEW MUSIC FOR TAIKO

Amidst all the activities, videographer Chad Williams and I were able to interview about a dozen workshop leaders and ask them for their thoughts on new music for taiko. A handful of these interviews are excerpted in this brief informational video.

George Abe (founding member of Kinnara Taiko, Los Angeles)
Invited to all eight conferences as a workshop leader

Roy and PJ Hirabayashi (directors emeritus of San Jose Taiko)
Recipients of the 2011 NEA National Heritage Fellowship

Yoshihiko Miyamoto (president of Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten, Tokyo)
Founded in 1861, Miyamoto Unosuke Co., Ltd. has provided musical instruments to the emperor of Japan since 1926

Masato Baba (artistic director of TAIKOPROJECT, member of On Ensemble, Los Angeles)
Began studying at age six with his parents, jazz musician Russel Baba and taiko drummer Jeanne Mercer

Michelle Fujii (artistic director of Portland Taiko)
Recipient of the 2001 Bunka-Cho Fellowship to study with Warabiza

The Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Los Angeles hosts the North American Taiko Conference in 2013. As a performer in the 1997 and 1999 Taiko Jam, as well as workshop leader in 2007, 2009, and 2011, I have been grateful for the insight that this community continues to offer on topics ranging from building instruments to composing music to performing with integrity.

Two quotes that continue to resonate with me are “innovation is tradition” spoken by numerous people throughout the conference, and “work is both a verb and a noun” spoken by Stephen Sano, professor and chair of the department of music at Stanford University. Considering work as both a process and a product, as a way for new music to continually rearrange for multiple performance contexts, provides a sustainable approach that the taiko community, even though nascent, offers to musical groups in America and beyond.

Since it’s hot all over, my normal summer scheme of getting out of Austin for a while (short of international travel) is just not happening. Many of the things that make this town so great—like hiking, outdoor festivals, and spicy breakfast tacos—prove to be a bit of a test for anyone wanting to enjoy them during the three-plus months of The Big Sun. Fortunately, it has worked in my favor this time around because if I’d been out of town I would have missed the Austin Chamber Music Festival.

This is a big year for the Austin Chamber Music Center. It marks the 30th anniversary of the center itself, the 5th year with Michelle Schumann as director, and arguably the biggest year for its annual festival. Now in its 14th year and spanning more than two weeks, the festival features a wide range of performing groups, from the alt-jazz of Kneebody to the Tokyo String Quartet. This year’s festival also has a featured composer in Michael Torke, a first for the festival. Though somewhat string quartet heavy (four groups in all), the festival still showed an impressive diversity of styles while maintaining a strong connection to traditional practice.

The opening concert featured the Miro String Quartet performing music by Kevin Puts, Michael Torke, and Phillip Glass. Puts’s Credo was commissioned by Miro in 2007 and has been in their rep regularly since then. Torke’s Mojave was commissioned by the 2010 Tromp International Music Competition and Festival and written for Colin Currie. Though written as a typical concerto, it was designed (as per the commission) additionally as a “chamber concerto” for marimba and string quartet. It was played wonderfully here by Miro and guest marimbist Thomas Burritt.

The second concert featured Anonymous Four performing music from Gloryland, as well as their trademark medieval repertory. Listening to A4 is a pin-drop experience, and while it’s not new music, it’s something everyone should experience. This concert was followed by the Vienna Piano Trio, who were joined by UT faculty Nathan Williams (whose recent performance of Gnarly Buttons was spectacular) and Naomi Seidman to perform Torke’s Telephone Book.

In a refreshing hard right turn for the festival (both in musical style, as well as venue) jazz improvisers Kneebody played at Austin’s famed Continental Club. As part of their show, they did an arrangement of Torke’s July. The original version is for saxophone quartet, but Kneebody’s re-imagined version for jazz quintet retained the spirit of the original while taking the piece in new and exciting directions. Their whole performance had the audience moving and was very well received.

The Bandini-Chiacchiaretta Duo continued the festival’s migration from traditional chamber fare to the exotic with two sold-out concerts. ACMC worked in conjunction with the Austin Classical Guitar Society to present these guitar/bandoneon concerts, which is one of many examples of organizations working together to present music to Austin audiences. The Chiara String Quartet, fresh off their new recording of the complete quartets of Jefferson Friedman, marked the festival’s gradual return to tradition with a nod to the new with its performance of Torke’s Chalk. As with the Vienna Trio, the Torke was bookended by some real warhorses, which is perhaps advisable when presenting new music to an audience that, while interested in the new, is familiar with the old.

The penultimate concert was an all-Torke event with performances by ACMC Festival Artists and the Young Artists of the ACMC Academy. In its thirty-year history, the ACMC has taught thousands of students. Among its graduates are members of the National, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio Symphonies, as well the Jupiter and Maia String Quartets; a legacy which quickly became clear as the show got underway.

The concert featured three somewhat longer Torke pieces with no intermission, which is a formatting choice I hope to see more often in concert presentation. If we can sit through a movie without an intermission, we should be able to do the same for a concert. (Though I do occasionally have a tough time doing the former while watching movies at the Alamo Drafthouse, I imagine the beer might play a role there.) Anyway, this concert in many ways was the most successful of all (perhaps along with the Kneebody gig) in its ability to show how to program for the future, which should include the following concepts:

1. Change the Venue

2. Include the Kids

This does not mean that we have to be in rock clubs, abandoned buildings, or parking garages for new audiences to check out the tunes, nor does it mean that we should have 5th graders play woodblocks on our new piece so that parents will shell out for tickets. What it does mean is that we need to consider that the churches and halls where so much chamber music is performed feel like exactly what they are; frankly, a bit stuffy and not always inviting. Also, if we don’t get the kiddlywinks interested in playing newer music (in every way, including the experience of putting a piece together that they’ve never heard, especially in an environment where they can be coached by the composer) then they are going to likely spend all their time living in the past, which is no place for a kid. At least not exclusively…

The concert began with Two Girls on a Beach, performed by Waterloo Sound Conspiracy which showcased Torke’s trademark bright pulsing rhythms accompanied by long, lyrical lines. This was followed by one of Torke’s older pieces, Music on the Floor, which featured ACMC Festival Artists along with Young Artists Luis Maria Suarez on violin and Arnold Rodriguez on cello. The latter were notable both for their age (high school, maybe?) and for their fantastic chops. This was not a piece for kids, and both performed at a very high level. It was fun to watch Festival Artist violist Aurélien Pétillot smile every time Suarez cleanly followed him in one of the many complex unison lines they shared. I hesitate to use the word “follow,” as they were clearly playing together, but you get my drift.

Finally, we heard the North American premier of Fiji, which utilized a chamber orchestra comprised primarily of the festival’s Young Artists. This is one of the pieces featured on Torke’s upcoming CD Tahiti with the Liverpool Philharmonic’s Ten/Ten Ensemble. It was a great closer for the concert, and though it seems like too many concerts end with a standing ovation, this one felt quite genuine and heartfelt.

Finally, the closing show of the festival featured the Tokyo String Quartet with the Aeolus String Quartet opening. Though the idea of an “opening” band, as well as the fact that Aeolus played Torke’s Corner in Manhattan, lent a “new music” element to the concert, it did make for a long show. Also, though Aeolus played fantastically, they suffered the fate of most opening groups, namely that no matter how well they play, most people want to:

1.     Hear the Headliner.

And…

2.      Hear the Hits.

And on that note, the Tokyo Quartet delivered, big time. They played Dvorak’s American quartet, Opus 96, Mozart’s Quartet in D Minor, K. 421 (only one of two in a minor key, though both are in D minor), and wrapped up the concert and the festival with Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat Major, Opus 44 with Festival Director Michelle Schumann on piano. The performance was what you would expect; beautiful, virtually flawless performances from seasoned veterans.

Bear in mind that the above concerts were just the main shows (actually, there were two other ‘main shows’ I couldn’t attend: one featured the Aeolus Quartet, the other was the 3rd Annual Gay Pride Concert) and so it does not take into account the DOZENS of other free events directly affiliated with the festival. Every “Austin Festival Thing” has its non-affiliated hangers-on who will slap SXSW or ACL on their establishment and get a drunken frat band to play in order to ride coattails, but this was quite different. The free shows, workshops, and master classes featured virtually every above-mentioned performing group, as well as Torke in multiple guises advising string quartets, composers, and coaching/conducting performances.

This kind of connection to the community plays a significant role in why the festival, which has grown every year since Schumann’s appointment as director, grew by 30% in the past year. Audiences want to be connected to music and musicians, and ACMC has shown that by bringing the community into the equation and making connections between the two “sides,” a better experience is had by all.

Now if they can only do something about the heat…

Ed. Note: In the coming weeks, NewMusicBox readers will be introduced to a new team of regional editors stationed in four cities across the country. These contributors will be our eyes and ears on the ground, surveying the new music landscape in their areas and delivering regular coverage.

It’s my pleasure to now welcome Boston-based roving reporter Matthew Guerrieri to our roster. –MS

The annual Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, which started last Wednesday, has long been dominated by what used to be called the new-music mainstream, before new music sprouted so many streams that the title became dilute. Charles Wuorinen, the director of this year’s festival, certainly made his reputation in that mainstream: East Coast, atonal, academic. But, so far, this festival has been comparatively—well, funky might be too strong a word for it, but certainly more loose, more varied, than past festivals. It’s not exactly ecumenical—minimalism, chance music, the more far-out experimental traditions are only represented as influences, not by the genuine article. But there are more than enough styles to afford a change of style with nearly every piece, which is something.

The eclecticism was charged up by the festival’s opening piece, a world premiere: Fanfare to Stop the Creeping Meatball! by Fred Ho—avant-garde jazz artist, political revolutionary, purveyor of ebullient confrontation, and a host of other not-stereotypically-Tanglewood qualities. The Fanfare is sharp, edgy fun—two trombones (Douglas Rosenthal and Paul Jenkins) lay down a heavy, cop-show-worthy riff, two trumpets (Alex Fioto and Najib Wong) jab in big-band punctuation, and then the four are off on a quick-fire collage of jazz colors: lockstep tall chords, vibrato-heavy sweetness, a passing bit of Raymond Scott factory machinery, counterpunching cross-rhythms. It’s a concise blast of smart attitude.

Wuorinen’s own 2006 Never Again the Same sets a James Tate poem, a sketch of a curiously apocalyptic sunset, for a sepulchral duo of bass and tuba. The sounds are keeping in Wuorinen’s atonal-modernist style—a baseline of dissonance, lines full of expressionistic leaps and sharp turns—but both the deep sound and the in-and-out-of-focus counterpoint, a tangle of weighty ropes, makes for an operatic effect: a scene from the Baroque stage, maybe, a rustic character puncturing the balloon of a myth with down-to-earth commentary. Bass David Salsbery Fry was an excellent witness, singing a challenging part in a way that made the challenge its least interesting aspect. José Martínez Antón, on tuba, set up his stand and chair with nervous meticulousness, only to have an infiltrating breeze—even Ozawa Hall is outdoors by extension—cast his music to the floor. The false start loosened him up: his gestures rumbled with high-contrast, low-wavelength vibrancy.

Wuorinen’s It Happens Like This, another world premiere, was both much larger and more carefree. The seven-part cantata, for four solo voices and a twelve-player ensemble (conducted by the composer), again sets Tate, but in a more storytelling mood. Each poem was almost an operatic scene in itself, an effect amplified by Ken Rus Schmoll’s nimbly light staging. The singers—soprano Sharon Harms, mezzo Laura Mercado-Wright, tenor Steven Brennfleck, and bass-baritone Douglas Williams, all superb—were also amplified (though not quite enough), shading towards a more musical theater vocal style, forward and clean, the articulation bright and easy. Sharply costumed in mid-’50s sitcom style, making quick-read characters, mixing dialogue and narration with a kind of matter-of-fact surrealism, the quartet fashioned unassuming absurdity.

The setting mixes speaking and singing freely, the better to keep the words on the move. Tate’s blank-verse yarns, chatty, discursive fables-without-morals, fly awfully close to whimsical rambling, but Wuorinen’s music does them the service of disciplining the whimsy, giving it the dance partner of an intricately flexible but precise rhythmic style. The instrumental writing is, again, modernist in that way that perhaps isn’t very modern anymore—pointillistic, quietly busy, the expressiveness frozen into vertical intervals rather than flowing melody—but the addition of text reveals Wuorinen as a composer who, unusually, lets the voices carry most, if not all, of the musical sensuality. “The Promotion,” a bleak jest about a dog dismayed to be reincarnated as a person, brought this quality to the fore: the four voices in nebulous, bewitching polyphony, the orchestra dropping in glints of cool color.

The cantata also showed a flair for running gags that took on increasing shadows—the low brass/bass drum punctuation to the sinister dinner party of “The Formal Invitation,” a slapstick axe-fall, returned as a grim commentary on the (human) species in “The Promotion,” and then was echoed at the end of “Intruders,” resolving a choose-your-own-ending encounter with a short, sharp shock. But, mostly, It Happens Like This works because Wuorinen’s fluid, complex rhythmic grid allows him to indulge a surprisingly exquisite sense of timing, comic and otherwise, neatly balancing the tightrope between musical landscape and verbal speed. The only place, in fact, where the balance tipped was at the very end, for “The Wild Turkey,” a strange-magic encounter with that bird that seems to hint at transmigrations and purgatories; the music stretched out towards transcendence, but forced the words—on the page both offhand and portentous—untenably towards the latter. It only seemed off because the rest was so light on its feet. It Happens Like This is rigorously breezy entertainment.

***

This year’s Fromm Concert—Fromm Foundation money still runs annually in New England, kind of like maple sap—featured the New York-based Ensemble Signal, conducted by Brad Lubman. But even with the caffeine jolt of Ho’s Fanfare (it’s opening every concert of the festival), Thursday’s program was a slow starter. Tobias Picker’s 1977 Sextet No. 2 (“Halle’s Ravine”) is an early and curious piece, all stop-and-start sonorities, mobiles of mid-century new-music shards. When, in the second movement, the fragments are injected with a bit more personality—detached chorale leftovers, granite octaves, Romantic violin turns—it hints at a kind of meeting of the minds between Ives and Burroughs’s cut-up technique. But elsewhere, the trail seemed continually blocked.

Jason Eckardt’s Rendition, for bass clarinet (Bill Kalinkos) and piano (Oliver Hagen) started with a terrific quiet rumble; but the piece unfolded prosaically. The title refers to the CIA’s war-on-terror practice of purposefully shifting detainees to regimes with fewer legal scruples concerning torture, and the structure could be read as a dramatic précis: slow and murky, then sharp and violent, then a spare, single-note coda for piano alone. The realization of each section, though, seemed arbitrary, each initial texture simply continued rather than developed. Among much busy music, Eckardt’s daring toward stillness was welcome, but the piece felt more like a first draft than a finished statement.

Terrain, a 2005 violin chamber concerto by Brian Ferneyhough, was the opposite of still, a thorough dose of the composer’s incontinently dense style. The solo violin (Christopher Otto, in a heroically accomplished performance) plays almost constantly, the line all multitasking, obsessively worked virtuosity; the eight-player ensemble layers in their own thickets, abuzz and swarming. The sensation is that of expression both immediate and frustratingly peripheral; the music is, in a way, in limbo between vocabulary and syntax, the complexity demanding that one take in the rush of experience as a whole, the individual parts so intricately detailed that they insist on their own attention. Terrain runs on a bit long, but the rest of the piece is so much about too much that perhaps that’s part of the point: the transcendence of sensory overload, an idea of high Romantic ancestry.

After intermission came another disciple of complexity, Milton Babbitt, the honored exception in a festival otherwise devoted to living composers. But Babbitt was after leaner expression. More Melismata, a late piece (dating from 2006), played with gung-ho expertise by cellist Fred Sherry, is all about compound melody, an initial division into high and low ranges, each range then evolving further hierarchies. The line spins out with unorthodox eloquence, Babbitt working the extremes into well-turned phrases. Next to Ferneyhough, it sounded almost casually courtly. (And—the fruits of a lifetime of composing—More Melismata ends at exactly the right place.)

Electronic music is only rating a couple of spots on this festival, but the first instance was marvelously filled: John Chowning’s 2005 soprano-and-computer Voices. A soprano (Amy Petrongelli, secure in a challenging part, dramatically flamboyant, and vocally bright, if a little diffuse) sings—in golden-ratio temperament—oracular pronunciations (literally; the reference is Pythia, the famed oracle of Delphi) into a reverberation of electronic echoes and transformations. The control and interaction is deftly sophisticated, the voice triggering digital events, the timbres enveloping the voice seamlessly; but much of the fun of Voices is its evinced love of old-fashioned sounds, the sci-fi burbling characteristic of early electronic music, here updated and shiny, but still charmingly otherworldly.

Thursday finished with another commission/premiere, this one from John Zorn: À Rebours, a pocket cello concerto for Sherry and nine players (the TMC-based New Fromm Players, with Lubman conducting). Zorn’s characteristic juxtapositions generated characteristic friction and fury; but, while there were hints of old-fashioned exoticism (rippling harp, Balinese tolling, the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom—all, perhaps, reminiscent of the tropical scents manipulated in the Huysman novel that provided the concerto’s title), À Rebours conflicts invented gestures rather than borrowed ones. The performance, like the rest, showed precision, go-for-broke extroversion, and—something that hasn’t always been a requirement at the FCM—versatility.

***

Matthew Guerrieri (who was—full disclosure—a 1999 Tanglewood Music Center Fellow) will be covering the rest of this year’s Festival of Contemporary Music for the Boston Globe.

Bang on a Can composer-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe don’t just create music. They’ve also created a utopian environment where independent-minded young composers and performers gather every summer for three weeks to immerse themselves in contemporary and experimental music. The institute celebrated its 10th season this summer, and I traveled to North Adams, Massachusetts, to hear the culminating marathon concert at MASS MoCA. As was evidenced by the six hours of excellent performances of exciting new pieces (and a couple of oldies) by the Institute Fellows alongside the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the festival is going full-steam ahead into decade number two. I had the pleasure of interviewing “the big three” (Gordon, Lang, and Wolfe), as well as performance faculty member clarinetist/composer Ken Thomson and 2011 composer fellow David T. Little.

The Orchestra of Original Instruments celebrates the legacy of Gunnar Schonbeck, led by Mark Stewart

THE PLACE
MASS MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) has been a home to the festival ever since 1998, when David Lang put on a hard hat to tour the building site and proposed the idea to Museum Director Joe Thompson. The museum provides Bang on a Can with an idyllic summer home which supports their community-based, boundary-pushing philosophy.

Alarm Will Sound in dress rehearsal

What a week. The Mizzou New Music Summer Festival proved to be an intense, non-stop learning experience. Right from the beginning, I felt like I had been dropped down into the midst of a Hollywood party with all these great composers and musicians. The formal and informal meetings, rehearsals, and activities were never-ending and one activity seemed to flow seamlessly into the next. The informal interactions at this festival were great, and there were plenty of opportunities to build personal connections. As a group, the eight resident composers were quite different stylistically, each bringing different experiences from academia and from the professional world to share. The mentorship of Anna Clyne and Roger Reynolds was also extremely valuable, and I feel that they interacted with us in a very organic way–taking the time to get to know us, rather than slapping a one-size-fits all pre-planned lesson or agenda on us. When they asked us what we wanted to get out the festival the first night, it was clear that they were there for us, and lessons and discussions were tailored to what they felt we needed as a group and individually.

In addition to our own presentations and lessons, we also attended presentations by guest composers Anna Clyne, Roger Reynolds, Stefan Freund, Tom McKenney, and Jaime Oliver, Reynolds’ assistant. Roger Reynolds’ presentation was more of a virtuosic multimedia “event” than a lecture, encompassing many of his activities and ideas over the course of his long career in a non-linear way. At first, this seemed to be a confusing juxtaposition of sound (recorded excerpts from previous lectures, clips of Reynolds’ music, and Reynolds’ live lecture) and images, which sometimes moved quickly across the screen, too fast to be understood. At various instances throughout the lecture, anecdotes of his times with historic figures such as Takahashi, Xenakis, and Cage focused into clarity before shifting into another thematic node. In the middle of the lecture, he embedded information about the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, and seemed to have messages specifically for us. The next day, Reynolds’ clarified that this lecture was designed to be “an aggregation of information that is all meant to be connected,” although not in a fully explicit way. Jaime Oliver ran the video and electronics, coordinating it with Reynolds’ lecture.

The Music:

During the festival, four concerts were presented. Tuesday night, members of Alarm Will Sound performed solo works and pieces with electronics. Highlights included Anna Clyne’s Rapture for clarinet and electronics performed by Elisabeth Stimpert and Courtney Orlando’s stunning rendition of Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms No. 9.

Thursday night, Alarm Will Sound performed a dynamic and stylistically varied concert as a full ensemble. They started with Matt Marks’ Song for Wade (This is not that song), a one man mini musical (sung by Marks) full of 50s style doowap and quasi-surrealistic text about an Internet romance. It was very entertaining. This was followed by Anna Clyne’s intense and passionate work for the full ensemble and electronics, Blush. Other highlights of the show were Payton MacDonald’s Metadrum and Alarm Will Sound’s stunningly vibrant performance of John Adams’s Chamber Symphony.

Resident composer Liza White whipping AWS into shape during rehearsal

Friday night, Alarm Will Sound had the night off as members of the University of Missouri New Music Ensemble performed works by Dan Cox, Anna Clyne, Roger Reynolds, W. Thomas McKenney, and Patrick David Clark, and the MU Percussion ensemble performed a work by MU faculty composer and member of AWS, Stefan Freund. The students performed superbly, making this a great addition to the festival.

Columbia Theater before the final concert

Saturday night, The Mizzou New Music Summer Festival ended with the grand finale concert featuring eight world premieres by the eight resident composers. Of course, the opportunity to write a piece for Alarm Will Sound was the main reason I applied to the festival in the first place. Alarm Will Sound’s reputation as a titan of new music precedes them. They are masters of many different types of new music, from the rhythmic, driving intensity of rock and pop crossover arrangements and mash-ups, to the pulsing repetition of post-minimalist works by composers such as Steve Reich, to the mind-blowing abstract sonic ear and brain candy of the likes of Rihm and Ligeti. I guess that most people involved with new music gush a bit over Alarm Will Sound, iconic purveyors of new music. I myself felt a bit star-struck, like I was suddenly face to face with Scarlett Johansson or George Clooney. However, after getting over that, I discovered that they are quite approachable, and some are even science fiction addicts like me.

So, now that I have worked with them, I can definitely say that Alarm Will Sound is the real deal. They are new music monsters that will eat up anything put in front of them. They play with incredible dynamic energy and enthusiasm. During rehearsals, they always seemed happy to be there, frequently joking around during rehearsals, smiling, and nodding their heads after performing a piece. They are approachable and will be happy to answer any questions you have about writing for their instruments and they will not hesitate to tell you when you have done something wrong. On the last day of the festival, we had a talkback session where they raked us over the coals for the errors we made in our parts, such as using illogical rhythmic notation within certain meters, the inconsistent use of certain symbols, or in my case for not binding my parts. What was so great about Alarm Will Sound is that they truly live up to their reputation, and will put in the same amount of energy into learning and performing your music that they would any other piece.

Resident composers Yotam Haber, Clint Needham, Steven Snowden, and Liza White discussing their pieces with Roger Reynolds onstage during the final concert

Overall, the festival was fantastic–I learned a lot working with Anna Clyne and Roger Reynolds and meeting the other resident composers, but the highlight of the festival was of course getting to work with Alarm Will Sound. Great music festivals always leave me feeling recharged and inspired as a composer, and frequently light a fire under my tail to write more and do more as a musician. This festival has also left me with the pleasant feeling that anything is possible.

One of the things about the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival that has absolutely captivated me this week is the personal role that one of the primary donors, Dr. Jeanne Sinquefield, takes in the festival. I have never experienced this type of relationship before, and it has made me think a lot about the importance of patronage from private sources. I am familiar with funding that comes through various types of grants, either via non-profit organizations or local, state, and national arts councils, but I have never before been in a situation where a single private donor is so supportive, or is such an integral part of what she is funding. As a musician, I have often felt like the people who are in the best position to support the arts do not actually feel that art (especially the creation of new art) is an integral part of our culture or is worthy of support. However, here in Columbia, Missouri, the situation is unique—they have Jeanne Sinquefield.

Jeanne, who plays string bass in several local ensembles, first became interested in the idea of creating new music through one of her cousins, who was always writing music but could not actually notate or read the music that he was creating. Jeanne began to help her cousin out by writing some of his music down, and they would play the music together. From there, she became fascinated with how people create music and began to make plans to “grow composers.” Through a partnership with the University of Missouri School of Music, Jeanne started a three-tiered plan and often uses a baseball analogy to describe it. In the little league, K-12 students participate in the Creating Original Music Project, or COMP, which encourages students to compose music and culminates in a competition and performance of the winners’ music. The pony league allows high school students to further develop their skills as composers and ends in a competition and a summer camp. Jeanne considers the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival to be the major league. This festival brings eight emerging composers to Columbia where they receive a professional performance and recording of their piece by Alarm Will Sound.

I spoke with Jeanne during intermission of the concert Friday night entitled “Mizzou’s Right to Bear New Music.” Jeanne said that she could already see the results of her three-tiered plan—the number of students involved in the COMP project has already grown and many people in central Missouri have become involved in these programs and attend new music concerts. People in Columbia have also become more interested in and engaged with new music who would not have otherwise known about it except through these programs. This is the other side of the coin; Jeanne also sees the importance of bringing new audiences into the realm of contemporary music. From what I observed at the festival, it is working. All four concerts were well attended and the community members seemed curious and supportive, approaching performers and composers alike with questions and comments. The concert Friday night featured performances by members of the University of Missouri New Music Ensemble. I commented to Jeanne on how well the students were playing, and it turns out that Jeanne plays a big role in this as well. She supports five graduate assistantships for the new music ensemble.

From the very beginning of the festival, I was blown away by Jeanne’s generosity. In my first post, I mentioned that she invited us to her estate for dinner on the first night of the festival. She had also already been hosting Alarm Will Sound during the previous week, allowing them to use her lake house as a rehearsal space. In addition, Jeanne hosts artists for residencies and presents other concerts at her home. So, for me, it’s not just the fact that the Sinquefields donated the money to start the programs involved in the Mizzou New Music Initiative, it’s that she has such a personal relationship with the music-making she is supporting. Jeanne was at all of the concerts, and she is exuberant about her plans to transform Columbia into a “Mecca for new music.”

For more information about Jeanne Sinquefield and her involvement in the Mizzou New Music Initiative as well as her other philanthropic activities, visit the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation website.

Steven Snowden, Yotam Haber, David Biedenbender, Michael-Thomas Fumai, Clint Needham, Stefan Freund, Alan Pierson, Jeanne Sinquefield, Thomas McKenney, Kari Besharse, Liza White, Gavin Chuck. Photo courtesy of Dale Lloyd, http://www.pureexposure.me

Group discussion with Anna Clyne and resident composers David Biedenbender, Michael-Thomas Fumai, and Patrick Clark

This week at the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, various discussions and interactions between resident and guest composers have explored many issues related to being a composer. Here in Columbia, we have experienced much of the usual light-hearted camaraderie and goofing off that makes these types of festivals super fun, but we have also had an enormous amount of insightful discussion about our lives as composers and what we do (or think we are doing) when we compose. As I mentioned in my first post, on the first evening of the festival after our introductory dinner at the Sinquefield Reserve, Roger Reynolds and Anna Clyne summoned the resident composers into the sitting room for a special meeting and invited us to voice our “concerns” as composers. This immediately set the stage for a week of fascinating discussions about a number of compositional issues and helped us to be more vocal and candid as a group. Throughout this week, discussions have been both formal and informal, with Anna or Roger and without them, and aided or unaided by adult beverages.

Here is a sampling of some of the ideas that have been in the air this week:

Compositional Voice:
One of the initial themes that came up during resident composer presentations on Monday and Tuesday was the idea of having a unique compositional voice. Questions such as “What is voice?” and “How does one know if we are truly composing in our own voice?” were asked. The consensus seemed to be that your compositional voice is writing music in a way that is truly your own. Anna Clyne posed another interesting question: Can we compose with more than one voice?

Inspiration and Impetus:
Very early on during the resident composer presentations, we each discussed what inspires us as composers. Each resident composer is very different stylistically, and we also look to many different sources for inspiration. As a group, we have been directly inspired by sources ranging from popular music, folk songs, specific works of art, the music of previous classical composers, and nature, to random coincidences or ephemera. For example, resident composer Steven Snowden came across a set of hobo symbols on the Internet that inspired his A Man With a Gun Lives Here.

Closely related to the idea of inspiration, is the idea of compositional “impetus” as posited in lessons and discussions with Roger Reynolds. Reynolds thinks of the impetus as a sort of spark or seed that inspires a particular piece of music. Of central concern was how we take this compositional impetus and embody it in a piece of music. According to Reynolds, this involves looking at the impetus in many ways and trying to see all of the implications that it can have on the piece and eventually on the listener.

“We all feel that we are more understood than we are.”—Roger Reynolds

This last “issue” came up many times during the festival and centers around the ways that we communicate with other composers and inevitably, how we communicate (through our music) to the audience. The Mizzou New Music Summer Festival brought together eight very different resident composers and threw us in with two radically different guest composers. Throughout this week, we have made the best possible effort both to learn from each other and to explain our own compositional approaches to each other. Roger observed that many of us lack “clarity of intent” in our verbal explanations of how we approach composition and that many of us do not know how to adequately answer questions posed to us. Of course, language often seems woefully imprecise and different people will understand words and connections between words in different ways. However, Roger seemed to be pointing his finger at certain laziness in us all to take the easy way out with our explanations. Of course, this also extends to composition itself, and how a certain “clarity of intent” is necessary to truly communicate through our music.

Beer and Pizza (to come) at Shakespeare’s Pizza. Steven Snowden, Liza White, David Biedenbender, Michael-Thomas Fumai

Columbia, Missouri. You may have driven by this small city in the midst of the green rolling hills of central Missouri just off I-70. Perhaps you are a MIZZOU Tigers fan, or maybe you have passed through Columbia on your way down to the Ozarks. There is not much about this location, however, that screams NEW MUSIC, and it may seem an unlikely place to host a vibrant festival with headlining names such as Roger Reynolds or Alarm Will Sound. However, Columbia, Missouri, is now home to a burgeoning new music scene in which the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival plays an important part. This festival, run through the University of Missouri at Columbia and currently in its second year, gives resident composers the opportunity to compose a work for Alarm Will Sound, which will be premiered and recorded during the festival. Resident composers learn from invited guest composers through lessons and lectures. This festival also serves the very important role of presenting new music to the central Missouri community.

Resident composers with our new friend the MIZZOU Tiger. Kari Besharse, Yotam Haber, Steven Snowden, Patrick David Clark, Michael-Thomas Foumai, Clint Needham, David Biedenbender

I flew into Columbia, Missouri, on Sunday afternoon and after being taken to the dorms and meeting up with the other resident composers, we were all whisked off to the Sinquefield Reserve, the gorgeous home of Jean and Rex Sinquefield, the generous sponsors of the festival. At their estate, we were treated to an excellent dinner and were then introduced to just about everyone involved in the festival, including Alarm Will Sound, guest performer Susan Narucki, guest composers Roger Reynolds and Anna Clyne, and other interested and involved parties. This evening was a great way to immediately establish connections between the performers and resident composers. Close to the end of the evening, Roger Reynolds and Anna Clyne called for a meeting of the resident composers during which we were invited to voice our “concerns” as composers and to state what we wanted to get out of the festival and the guest composers. I thought this was an interesting concept, and several important ideas which have since become themes of the festival were initiated. It also helped us to immediately begin talking about serious issues and helped to create an atmosphere of close exchange.

Stimulating conversation with Roger Reynolds over Lunch on Monday. Patrick David Clark, Steven Snowden, Roger Reynolds, David Biedenbender, Michael-Thomas Fumai, Clint Needham

It has been extremely hot this week in Missouri, in the upper 90s and very humid. Resident composer Steven Snowden even reported seeing someone frying an egg on the sidewalk outside the Fine Arts Building. So, it is probably a good thing that so much of Monday and Tuesday were spent indoors in a long series of presentations, meetings, and rehearsals. The schedule has been absolutely intense. Monday morning I had the privilege of kicking off the festival by giving a presentation on my music, followed by presentations by five other resident composers. Additionally on Monday, several performers from Alarm Will Sound made a presentation on instrumentation and we also had evening presentations by Anna Clyne and Stefan Freund.

Just chillin’ outside the dorm. Steven Snowden, Ed Paulsen, Patrick David Clark

Tuesday proved to be similarly busy. The remaining three resident composers presented their music Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon, half of the resident composers had their first rehearsal with Alarm Will Sound, while the other half of us had lessons with Roger Reynolds and Anna Clyne. Despite barely having time to catch my breath so far this week, it seems like this level of activity has been great for fostering relationships. I feel like we have already established our own little new music community. I now know some very important things about my fellow-resident composers’ music and have established relationships with them, as well as with Anna, Roger, and several of the members of Alarm Will Sound. Because it has only been two days, there is a lot of time left for these relationships to develop even further.

And finally, a concert.

Tuesday evening, members of Alarm Will Sound presented the first concert of the festival titled “Another World’s Rapture Remix: An Electroacoustic Chamber Recital,” which featured solo performances with and without electronics. All of the pieces were quite virtuosic and were expertly performed by AWS soloists who were obviously enjoying themselves, which made me very happy to be a part of this program.

Perusing the collection of stuffed ducks, pheasants, and geese at the Anheuser-Busch Natural Resource Building at UM

This year in Seattle, Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony are celebrating the music director’s final season at the helm of the orchestra by presenting 22 world premieres, including 18 new works commissioned under the banner of the Gund/Simonyi Farewell Commissions. We caught up with the maestro in advance of his final concerts of the season to chat about new music, new ideas, and not taking no for an answer. —MS

Gerard Schwarz Photo by Ben VanHouten

Molly Sheridan: This has been a stunning year for new music in Seattle. When the 2010-11 season is over, you’ll have celebrated your farewell season with the symphony by presenting 22 world premieres. The common perception is that “new music” and “orchestra subscribers” don’t mix very well, so how are you getting away with this?

Gerard Schwarz: It is a huge honor to end my tenure as music director of this terrific orchestra with a season full of new works. It’s a testament to this great orchestra, to our adventurous audiences, and to our committed board that we could all make this happen. Of course a season with 22 world premieres couldn’t work without our history of exploring contemporary music together. Our audience in Seattle is quite remarkable. I think they really do trust my programming instincts. The music I’ve championed over these many years has, with very few exceptions, been extremely well received by audiences and critics alike. There is no question that the audience here is not fearful of new music, and I am so grateful to them for embracing so many living composers.

MS: Obviously, you’ve made supporting the work of living composers a hallmark of your career. On a personal level, where does this commitment come from? What has fueled it through the years?

GS: From the time I was quite young, I was interested in composing. When I told my parents that I wanted to be a musician, I know that they were skeptical. But my father then insisted that if I was going to devote my life to music that I must study properly and he arranged for me during my high school years to study with Paul Creston. I was already very familiar with the mainstream American composers because of my extensive LP recording collection. Composers like Schuman, Piston, Diamond, Copland, Barber, and Mennin were all very familiar to me. I first encountered Howard Hanson’s music as a student at the National Music Camp in Michigan. When I became active as an instrumentalist, both playing as a soloist in the American Brass Quintet and in most of the new music ensembles in New York in the mid ’60s, this curiosity and interest in new music was intensified. The excitement I felt in those years for new music has continued until today. With 22 world premieres in Seattle and 9 at the Eastern Music Festival this summer, this year has been without question the most exciting for me in terms of new music.

Bright Sheng, Gerard Schwarz, Gunther Schuller, and Sam Jones in Seattle Photo by Ben VanHouten

MS: What characteristics have most attracted you to a new composer/new work? Has that changed for you in the course of the 26 years you’ve led the Seattle Symphony?

GS: I have always been interested in a clear musical voice from a composer and not much interested in a particular composer’s popularity at the moment. The actual style of music was less important to me than a discernable personality. For example, I love the music of William Schuman, Walter Piston, and David Diamond—these are all composers whose voice is distinctive and whose music speaks to me. When you look at the composers whose music I have championed over the years, I think you’ll see a consistency there.

MS: Considering the length of your relationship with the ensemble, what has kept things fresh for you artistically?

GS: I approach each work, whether I’ve conducted it once or a hundred times, with a new set of eyes and ears. For me the continued study of the great repertoire for orchestra is thrilling. Every time I conduct a standard work, I feel that I have benefited from my history with that work and I am now in a new place to take the interpretation even further. When I conduct the Seattle Symphony, we go on this journey together and I always find that these wonderful musicians are able to see each work with fresh eyes and ears. They are always willing to take music making to new heights.

Over the years, I can really see that my approach to particular works has definitely changed. I can only conduct from where I am now—I cannot go back and do something as I did 20 years ago. A piece of music becomes a part of yourself—and you have to go with where you are in your own journey and bring that to the music.

I have to say that both conductor and orchestra in this partnership have grown tremendously over these past 26 years, and so has our relationship with the audiences. We know each other well and it shows in the freedom of our music making.

Gerard Schwarz working with Gunther Schuller Photo by Ben VanHouten

MS: Is there anything particular to the character of the communities you work in that guides the music you select to perform for them? Is playing to a house in Seattle any different from playing anywhere else?

GS: Not really, but as I’ve been in Seattle for 28 years, we must continually challenge our musicians and audiences through innovative programming as well as continuing to reevaluate the traditional repertoire. That can mean playing The Song of the Bell by Bruch or artist Dale Chihuly’s vision of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle. Of course it also means understanding the language of the composers of more recent music. I think it is very important for a music director to give the audience an opportunity to truly understand a contemporary composer by playing numerous works by that composer. As a music director you must believe in the composer and then give the audience the opportunity to understand his or her language. When I guest conduct, I work together with the orchestra to determine the best program and I try to understand as much as I can in advance about the uniqueness of the ensemble. I always hope to pick a program that plays to each ensemble’s greatest strengths and will make a lasting impression on their audiences.

MS: What piece of music has inspired you the most, strictly on a personal level?

GS: There is no single piece that has inspired me more than any other. Even to give a short list would end up being quite long. Yet some composers’ style or language resonate with me at different times. Lately I’ve been touched by Strauss’s harmonic language, Bruckner’s warmth and grandeur, and I am presently studying the Mahler 2nd for our final concerts; his imagination, sentimentally, and drama have been very inspiring indeed.

Photo by Yuen Li Studios

MS: In the course of your career so far, what changes in the music field in general (or the orchestra field in particular) have most challenged or distressed you?

GS: The most challenging part of our world over the past few years is no doubt the economics. There are so many wonderful artistic and educational ideas that need to be funded. This is positive in some ways because it forces you to think through your plans and be very sure and confident. Yet the constant struggle to fund these dreams can be very tiring and sometimes even difficult. Still, those who know me well see me as optimistic—I rarely take no for an answer or listen to people who tell me something is impossible. If I have a dream—like building a new concert hall or commissioning 18 composers in one season, or founding an All-Star Orchestra to bring classical music to a broader audience—I simply keep at it until I make it happen. My heart goes out to the orchestras who are struggling and I encourage those players and their communities to come together to keep the music alive and thriving for our next generation.

MS: Flipping that around, what developments have most inspired you?

GS: Though news reports concentrate on declining numbers, I know that audiences have grown in Seattle over the past 26 years—both in numbers and in musical sophistication. In addition, I am inspired by the remarkable technical capabilities of players in orchestras all over the world. I believe that one can hear a great performance from any of our major orchestras. Recently I’ve heard some concerts at Carnegie Hall in the Spring for Music Project. That festival clearly supports my feeling that any of our major orchestras can produce exquisite concerts. In summary, what inspires me is the music—giving concerts, commissioning new works, coaching young musicians, studying the masterpieces of the classic repertoire, and simply the day-to-day work in rehearsal with great musicians to keep the music alive.