Category: Headlines

Jazz tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe, 60, died September 19, 2003, of complications from lung cancer in New York. Greatly influenced by John Coltrane, he played and recorded with musicians such as Alice Coltrane, Rashied Ali, Sun Ra, Eugene Chadbourne, Don Cherry, Joseph Jarman, Billy Bang, Joe McPhee, and Saxemble, four-saxophone group he founded in the early ‘90s. In 2002, he recorded Down & Blue which critic Glenn Astarita notes will serve as “glowing reminder of his unique sound, style, and distinct approach to modern jazz.”

• Todd S. Jenkins takes a look back at Lowe’s influential, though often unheralded, career in an article posted on the Jazz Journalists Association Web site.

Timothy Andres

The Davidson Institute for Talent Development, which is a Nevada-based non-profit organization that has as its mission “…nurturing profoundly intelligent young people,” has awarded Timothy Andres, a gifted composer from Connecticut, one of its fellowships, which includes a $25,000 scholarship.

Timothy, who is just beginning his studies at Yale University, has already composed a substantial body of work. For the competition he submitted three piano pieces: a concerto, a sonata, and a suite. The works themselves are heavily invested in the composers who he cites as influences, a list which includes many Americans. “The concerto,” he says, “is the earliest of these pieces and shows the influence of Bartók, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev. The Sonata is a much larger scale piece in four movements; here I was influenced much more by American music, in particular Ives, Copland, Bernstein, Barber and Sessions. The Suite shows more contemporary influences, like Corigliano, Carter, Danielpour, Adams, Ligeti and Rzewski.”

“I think,” says Andres, “that now is a great time to be growing up compositionally, despite the obvious obstacles. I feel as if I am allowed to do whatever I want: I can be tonal, atonal, romantic, neoclassical, minimalist, jazzy, all in the same piece if it pleases me. I don’t think, historically, any other generation of composers has had this freedom.”

Future plans for this young composer include the completion of his first symphony, which he has already started. “It’s my largest piece to date,” he says. “Much of it was inspired by my new interest in the great Romantic symphonists. I don’t know if mine would be considered ‘romantic,’ even though deep down I am a sap. I think it’s appropriate that I wrote it while leaving the relative safety of high school and starting college.”

Other fellowships were awarded to 16 year old Devon Guthrie, who is not only a singer but takes existing American poetry—e.g. Emily Dickinson or Edna St. Vincent Millay—and “sets” the words to the music of illustrious American composers like Aaron Copland, Jake Heggie, and Ricky Ian Gordon, and to pianist Pallavi Mahidhara.

A rendering of the interior of Zankel Hall

A crowd of media personnel and industry professionals filled the newly completed Judy and Arthur Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall yesterday for its inaugural concert. A diverse selection of repertoire performed by Emanuel Ax, Renée Fleming, the Kenny Barron Quintet, the Fula Flute Ensemble, and a group of young performers under the baton of Carnegie Composer Chair John Adams demonstrated the versatility of the Hall and offered a sampling of the programming that is in store for its opening season.

In a brief speech, Carnegie Executive and Artistic Director Robert Harth congratulated the audience for having “lasted through the last speech about Zankel Hall.” He continued, “From now on it is just music.”

The opening of Zankel Hall represents the completed restoration of Andrew Carnegie’s original vision, which was to have 3 stages in one great hall, a theme that was apparent throughout the event. In fact, when Carnegie Hall opened in 1891, there were three stages dedicated to music: the large, Main Hall (now Isaac Stern Auditorium), an intimate Chamber Music Hall (Joan and Sanford I.Weill Recital Hall), and an intermediate-sized Recital Hall on the lower-level. The first performance to be presented under the auspices of Carnegie Hall actually took place where Zankel now resides, a piano recital by Franz Rummel that took place one month before the building’s official opening.

But within less than 5 years of this performance, the intermediate stage was already being used for non-musical purposes, and was rented out to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, who renamed it the Carnegie Lyceum. In the century that followed, the space was converted to an off-Broadway theater, an art film house, and a commercial movie theater. In order to be reclaimed for music, serious renovations were needed including burrowing through 6300 cubic yards of bedrock and designing a stage area that had suitable acoustics for music.

Construction on the Hall began in 1999. Photo courtesy Carnegie Hall

Under the initiative of former Carnegie Hall Executive and Artistic Director Judith Arron and Isaac Stern, a campaign began in 1997 to restore the lower-level space into a music venue. With significant financial support from Judy and Arthur Zankel, as well as state and federal funding, Polshek Partnership Architects, Jaffe Holden Acoustics, Inc., and the Tishman Construction Company of New York were enlisted and work on the space began in 1999.

Just four years later, the Hall opened its doors to a welcome its first audience. “Today is a great day for Carnegie Hall in history as we realize the dream that thousands of people have embarked on for the past five years,” remarked Harth.

Indeed the opening festival, two-weeks of diverse programming curated by John Adams, is a celebration. With music ranging from the highest quality chamber ensembles playing the classics to extensive new music offerings and an array of jazz and world music, the festival is set to establish Zankel as a flexible space that is capable of great eclecticism of programming. With three different seating configurations and extensive multimedia capabilities, the Hall seems particularly suited to contemporary works that stray from traditional concert hall set-ups. And certainly American composers are well-represented in the opening season. In the opening festival alone, a diverse range of American music is being presented, including works by Charles Ives, Lou Harrison, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ingram Marshall, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewkski, Meredith Monk, Ned Rorem, Elliott Carter, Peter Lieberson, and Bill Frisell.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In October, the Hall hosts “When Morty Met John…“, a tribute to Morton Feldman and John Cage that includes a concert of Feldman’s six-hour 2nd String Quartet performed by the Flux Quartet and John Cage’s complete carillon works, performed by George Steel. (Actually, this one will be performed in partnership with Carnegie Hall from St. Thomas’s Church on Fifth Avenue and heard outside.) “The Creative Process” is a series of discussions with John Adams talking to Frank Gehry, Peter Sellars, and Bill Viola. “Signatures” and “Fast Forward” are also series dedicated to new music and will feature performances by Maya Beiser, Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish, David Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness!, the Kronos Quartet, the American Composers Orchestra, and the New World Symphony.

In his statements, Harth admitted that while being involved in the building of the concert hall was a fascinating process, “nothing is as exciting as planning the music that will bring this hall to life.” And for eager music fans, the fruits of the labor are finally ready for picking. The first public performance, a
concert titled “From the Steeples and the Moutains” featuring works by Ives, Harrison, Adès, and Salonen conducted by Adams, will be at 7 PM on Friday, September 12.

Like the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that set off World War I, the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or the explosion of the Challenger, the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001 is an event that has been burned into the American psyche. A moment that redefined an era, the September 11th attacks continue to impact the everyday lives of Americans. And while the political arena has chosen to respond with aggressiveness and violence, a generation of composers sought refuge in what they know best—their art.

Begun in May 2003, the 9/11 Project from the American Music Center (AMC) has already collected information on nearly 200 works written in response to the attacks. A list of the works collected thus far is available through the American Music Center’s online virtual library and listening room, NewMusicJukebox. In order to access the list, users must log in (registration is free) and use the Advanced Search function. Selecting “Search by Ensemble” and the typing in “9/11” (without quotes) into the Keyword field, yields the works that have been catalogued. Information on instrumentation, duration, year of composition, and whether the work has been premiered is included with each entry.

From John Adams‘ Pulitzer Prize-winning orchestral work, On the Transmigration of Souls, to Alex Shapiro‘s haunting percussion work At the Abyss, and James Adler‘s soulful setting of Whitman called Reflections Upon a September Morn, the list represents a diverse group of composers who transformed their personal experiences on 9/11 into musical works.

The project is ongoing and by no means exhaustive. Through NewMusicJukebox, American members of the AMC can upload information about their own pieces that were inspired by 9/11. Those choosing this option need to include “9/11” (no quotes) in the Keyword field when posting the work. Nonmember American composers interested in having their works become part of the list should contact the American Music Center’s Information Services Department via e-mail or telephone (212-366-5260 x11).

Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart

While Porsche and Mercedes-Benz may be the most well known names to come out of Stuttgart, Germany, Akademie Schloss Solitude is looking to change that. Founded in 1990, the Akademie has quickly propelled itself to one of the most sought after residencies for young artists from all over the world. Offering fellowships in several categories including architecture, visual arts, performing arts, design, literature, music/sound, and video/film/new media, Schloss Solitude aims to offer its guests “the opportunity to experience their time in a different, qualitatively better way than what they experience in the course of their everyday lives.” While this mission statement may not seem too different than those of similar artist retreats in the U.S. like Yaddo or MacDowell, the German penchant for cutting edge, adventurous work tints Schloss Solitude with a decidedly experimental vibe. In the realm of music, this means a predilection for tech-based sound art, installations, and other kinds of wild explorations in sound.

For the most recent round of fellowships (2003-2005) all 5 of the music/sound fellows are American-based composers. David Birchfield (New York/Arizona), Jason Freeman (New York), Chandrasekhar Ramakrishnan (Santa Barbara), Kristjan Varnik (Boston), and Jennifer Walshe (Chicago) will be spending some portion of the next two years in Stuttgart.

The dominance of Americans on the roster certainly reflects the growing interest in experimental sound works that has surged through both American academy and the broader musical environment of the United States, but upon closer examination, it is a deep knowledge of technology and computers that characterizes most of the work of these artists. With the exception of Walshe, whose chamber works often celebrate naturally occurring soundscapes, the other 4 fellows will be collaborating with legendary sound artist Max Neuhaus on a massive project called Auracle. In fact, it was Neuhaus who was the sole juror of this round of fellows, and he has handpicked some of the most talented musical technophiles in the world to contribute to Auracle, which will ultimately be a Web architecture that combines signal processing, network design, machine learning, psychology, music, and aesthetics to create an global, interactive musical experience. (Many of the fellows warn that the project is still in its planning stages, so the end results are difficult to predict and nearly impossible to articulate.)

“We are all musicians with strong technology skills,” says David Birchfield. “For many of us, the use of the computer has become as much of an instrument as the piano or any other. The computer suggests a myriad of alternative, open forms, and this project exemplifies that. Of course these trends are not particular to musicians in the US, perhaps just a fact of the particular technology we will be working with in this case.”

Caught between a permanent faculty position at the Institute for Studies in the Arts and the residency in Stuttgart, Birchfield worked out a compromise that, while foregoing a long-term residency at the Akademie, will still allow him to work on Auracle through several visits, phone, and e-mail. He is excited to get to work on this project with Neuhaus and the other fellows and will be focusing primarily on applying artificial intelligence to musical problems and extracting emotive elements from participants through a Web interface. “I am attracted to this project because of its social implications, and the creative use of web technologies. Furthermore, facilitating unique, rich, and interactive musical experiences for people with diverse backgrounds is particularly exciting.”

“The project will require a huge amount of work in so many different areas, that it will challenge me to apply everything that each I have learned through years of exploring computers and sound, and quickly fill the knowledge gaps in areas that I haven’t touched on before,” chimes in Kristjan Varnik, who will be helping build audio software that is driven by the human voice for the project. “The completeness of this challenge is what I am looking forward to the most.”

Birchfield adds that another uniqueness it of the project is that it requires such close collaboration and the different strengths of all of the participants. “I think the acceptance of several musicians to collaborate on one big collaborative ‘piece’ speaks to the shifting role of the ‘composer’ or ‘author’ in music. Not only will this piece be a dynamic work with contributions from an online community, the process of making the piece will be dynamic and collaborative. The romantic notion of a single author toiling alone to produce a masterwork has no place in this particular work.”

Freeman and Ramakrishnan are also part of the Auracle crew, but they also acknowledge individual projects that they hope to have time to work on at Schloss Solitude. Freeman has an instrumental work to complete for Speculum Musicae in 2004 and will also be delving into the first phase of his Virtual Composer Residency Project, that like much of his recent output, “uses technology to facilitate a creative musical experience.”

Ramakrishnan, a professional programmer-cum-sound artist, looks forward to the chance to focus on his art. “My time at Schloss Solitude will give me opportunities to experience a different culture, interact with ambitious and accomplished artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, and concentrate on developing my own artistic ideas. I plan to take full advantage of these opportunities and expect it to influence my work in unpredictable ways.” He hopes to have some extra time to develop software for improvisational music making and toolkits for building music applications.

“More than anything, the residency is an opportunity for me to really focus on writing, without many of the distractions and responsibilities that usually fight for my time,” points out Freeman. “And being able to do so in such an incredible environment, surrounded by all of these other interesting artists, should make it not only productive but enjoyable too!”

Artists who have finished their basic studies within 5 years and are less than 35 years old are eligible for fellowships to the Akademie. Fellows are selected based on the quality of their submitted works by a juror in their specialty and are awarded an apartment/studio for the duration of their residency as well as 1000 Euros per month as a stipend. Applications for the next round of fellowships will be available in July 2004.

Pascal LeBoeuf and Fred Sturm will compose works honoring Quincy Jones for the 2004 IAJE Conference

For the seventh time, the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) and the American Society for Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) have joined forces to commission new works for jazz ensemble, one by an established jazz composer and one by an emerging composer. The works are intended to honor an individual whose contributions to the field of jazz education have been outstanding and are premiered at the IAJE’s annual conference. This year, the commissions were awarded to Fred Sturm in the established category and Pascal LeBoeuf in the emerging category (for composers under 35). The works will celebrate the 70th birthday of composer/bandleader/arranger/trumpeter Quincy Jones and will be premiered in New York City in January.

“The ASCAP/IAJE Commission is the highest distinction I’ve received in my career as a composer/arranger,” relates Sturm, who is the Director of Jazz and Improvisational Music at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Wisconsin. “I’m deeply touched to know that a board of my professional peers judged my original works worthy of this award.” In addition to the $7500 commission, Sturm has been invited to conduct the piece at the IAJE conference.

“I know some of the artists that have been granted this prize since its inception, and I know others (including many superb young writers that I have had the privilege of teaching over the years) that have submitted applications. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be recognized amidst such a pool of talented individuals,” he continues.

And while LeBoeuf will be receiving a smaller financial sum (the emerging composer receives $3000), he recognizes the importance of such a high-profile commission as being more than a cash prize. “It is an amazing advantage to be recognized as an emerging composer at the age of 16,” he writes from a Brazilian music camp, one of his many musical activities this summer. “It gives my work the kind of validation and recognition I didn’t hope to achieve until I was much older; in fact, many excellent composers never receive this sort of attention.”

A resident of Santa Cruz, LeBoeuf is also particularly excited about having one of his compositions premiered in New York City, which he rightly describes as “one of the world’s jazz centers.”

“Besides the recognition, being awarded this commission has helped me grow as a musician… I have had to think on a bit grander scale since this piece has to come up to the level of the occasion.”

Although he hasn’t worked out the details of his commissioned work, he does hint that it will be in two or three sections and that he hopes to make extensive use of polyrhythms, a musical element that he has just recently become a part of his language. Le Boeuf acknowledges a number of influences on his work, including Danilo P%eacuterez, Chick Corea, Geri Allen, McCoy Tyner, Chris Potter, Jovino Santos-Neto, and Dave Holland.

But he also is quick to remind us of the impact that teachers can have on young composers and musicians. “I began playing piano at age nine, and jazz piano at age 12. After the 6th grade, I took a short jazz camp from a wonderful musician called Gene Lewis along with my twin brother Remy, who had just taken up saxophone along with his oboe. This man was an Oxford educated, consummate musician. He played piano, jazz to classical, trumpet to lute, and sang as well. He introduced us to jazz; we loved it at first hearing. He took us under wing and in a few weeks we were playing and singing for handsome tips at the local farmer’s market (at 12 we had the cute thing going for us). We were able to work with Gene for about a year before he became very ill and passed away but he got us started.”

Sturm, just as busy this summer as LeBoeuf, also admits that he hasn’t had a chance to get notes down on paper, as he finishes up a recording project with the Hessischer Rundfunk Big Band, of which he is the artistic director. But the wheels have begun to turn. “I’m thinking about it every day, working with small bits of musical detail and establishing a conceptual game plan.”

He has also given a little thought to how to honor Quincy Jones with the work. “Though I won’t be arranging a Quincy Jones composition or quoting musically from his works, any writer that has been studying jazz during the past half century would be hard-pressed to ignore Quincy’s contributions to the art of jazz composition and arranging. I first heard his charts when I was a high school kid, and I’ve been a fan ever since. I’m blessed to be associated with an award in Quincy’s name.”

Other artists and events that have been honored through the commissioning program include Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Dr. Billy Taylor, Marian McPartland, the Duke Ellington Centennial, and the Louis Armstrong Centennial.

But while Quincy Jones may be this year’s honoree, the true star of the show is jazz education. With works by one of the most highly-regarded educators in the country and the quintessential jazz “student,” this year’s commissioned works are a living testament to the importance of musical and jazz education—a particularly crucial reminder as state and federal budget cuts claim more and more of the arts curriculum in our public schools. With Sturm having already demonstrated his undying dedication to the field, it is encouraging to hear that LeBoeuf definitely sees a role in education in his future. “I plan to continue my education to the graduate level because I eventually would like to be able to teach at a college or university. I say eventually because I would also like to spend time playing and touring as a practicing musician. Remy and I have observed that most of the older jazz musicians who are leading healthy, happy lives, spend some time performing and some time teaching.”

And like a true composer, albeit a young one, he wraps it up, saying, “Of course, I will continue to compose; how can I not?”

A group of scholars, musicians, and composers descended upon Bowling Green, Ohio, last month to participate in three days packed with papers, panel discussions, concerts, and socializing as part of the Feminist Theory and Music 7 conference. The theme of the conference, which is held every two years, was Crossing Cultures – Crossing Disciplines, and the range of scholarship was impressive, viewing popular, classical, avant-garde, and world music through the lens of feminist and queer theory.

Although this year’s conference was hosted by Bowling Green State University, Marilyn Shrude, who organized the performance element of the event, points out that the offerings at this conference often stray from straight-ahead academia. “The topics vary widely—Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Alban Berg. What better place to try out such ideas than an academic institution? We should not hesitate to forge into what might be less comfortable territory.”

For Ellen Koskoff, this year’s keynote speaker, the conference is a rare opportunity for scholars of “separate music disciplines who are interested in theorizing the intersection of gender and music to come together.” With no official organization sponsoring the event, the conference is a grass-roots effort that encourages great diversity of thought.

“The venue is important for the presentation of a cross-section of research on women’s music and feminist theory,” notes Shrude. “Women will always have a bit of an uphill battle. Dealing with the cultural ‘baggage’ can be difficult—society’s impression of who and what we are.”

This year’s programs focused heavily on ethnomusicology and how relationships between gender and music are affected by cultural variables. Particular sections focused on Islam, Gender, and Music, ethnographies of music in Boston Society, Turkey, and Sweden, various Asian musics, and a discussion of feminist ethnographic practices, chaired by Koskoff. Admitting her prejudice for ethnomusicology, Koskoff relates that “this year’s conference was unusually powerful for me. There were a number of really good papers, especially from ethnomusicologists who are still trying to teach our musicology colleagues just what we do—on intersubjectivity as a more or less feminist project and how this helps in fieldwork or library research.”

Other topics covered more purely musicological studies of sound, sociological perspectives of women in music, and historical analyses. For a complete list of abstracts, you can visit the FTM7 site. Concerts in the evenings featured compositions and improvisatory work by Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Elainie Lillios, Chin-Chin Chen, Monique Buzzarté, Kristen Nordeval, Pauline Oliveros, Tomie Hahn, Katherine Hoover, Jennifer Higdon, Rebecca Clarke, and Shrude.

And while an intensive three days dedicated to this subject may indicate an increased awareness of the significant contributions women have made to music, Koskoff sees a long road ahead. “As long as we continue to send double messages to young girls (and boys) about the boundaries of their own gender/sexuality identities through media, etc, while at the same time telling them they all have equal opportunities, we will be in for a confusing, and ultimately, frustrating time.

“We really need to mean it when we say that it’s ok for women to be composers, play the drums, etc., and that it’s ok for men to play the harp and to teach elementary school, rather than continuing to also send underlying messages with more powerful but less overt ones that say the opposite,” she continues. “I don’t know if this can be totally fixed—most cultures, including our own, are pretty rigid in terms of gender roles and identity construction—not much wiggle room there. Lots has to change before these ideas can have real currency.”

And while for Shrude the diversity represented through the conference was a highlight, debate on the International Alliance for Women in Music listserv indicates that even in the midst of a supportive community some old grievances, particularly the conflict between popular and classical/electronic music, have arisen. Composer Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, who presented a paper at the conference as well as having one of her works performed, was concerned with the lack of research presented on concert music. She claimed that her main caveat with the conference was “the preponderance of great research about crappy music!…If you have people applying queer theory to the B-52’s and not to Pierre Boulez and John Cage (who are/were gay); If you have people applying queer and feminist theory to Tracy Chapman and not Pauline Oliveros….well, well – we’ve got a problem.”

In response, Roberta Lamb, from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, who’s also the listowner of GRIME, the Gender Research in Music Education, blew the whistle on high/low art designations. “I would not want to judge that one kind of music per se is better than another. Popular music studies have a place in music scholarship. And I would not want us to limit our studies to the “good” music & musicians of any genre—that’s how women were eliminated from the picture in the past.”

However, according to Hinkle-Turner, one attendee wasn’t familiar with the name Alice Shields. But she certainly is now, which seems to be a great indication that the conference was successful in providing a forum for the sharing of knowledge and exchange of ideas by different facets of the music community. Monique Buzzarté, a trombonist and composer who attended the conference this year, sums it up, writing, “As conferences go I believe that the FTM, however flawed, does a better job than others I’ve attended of mixing up scholars with composers and educators and performers and activists—and people who wear several of these hats.” The next conference will be in two years.

Martha Sullivan

The Dale Warland Singers announced New York-based composer and singer Martha Sullivan the winner of the 2003 Choral Ventures^TM program. Sullivan was selected from over 150 applicants from 36 states to receive a commission for a 10-15 minute work to be performed by the Dale Warland Singers during their 2003-04 season, which will be their final season as Dale Warland announced his resignation as director earlier this year. [Stay tuned to NewMusicBox for an exclusive interview with Dale Warland.] Since the inception of the Choral Ventures^TM in 1987, over 75 works have been commissioned by the Singers, adding a significant amount of new repertoire to the choral music community.

Sullivan was one of 4 finalists selected after the initial evaluation process. All of the finalists were commissioned to write a 5-7 minute long work to be workshopped as part of the annual Choral Ventures^TM Reading Session, which was held in May at Hamline University. The other finalists were Luis Jorge Gonzalez (Colorado), Jay Huber (Minnesota), and Frances White (New Jersey).

Sullivan, who began composing in 1999, was very impressed the wide-ranging aspects of the program. “It goes far beyond just recognizing the talents of four composers every year. It invites the composers to explore the larger context of choral music and how they might both contribute to it and benefit from it.” As part of the program, the four finalists are invited to Minnesota where they attend workshops and sessions that address topics like self-publishing, prosody, relationships with conductors, promotion, and general knowledge about the choral market. The time in Minnesota also allows the composers to get to know each other and share their music. “The main message I got from all this is that where new music and choral music intersect, there is a big and fascinating place, so why not go there?”

The actual reading of the works involved an audience-participation element in which audience members were able to react to the works being presented. Sullivan’s winning work, Nocturne I, was a setting of the 18th Stanza of Edmund Spenser‘s 24 stanza wedding ode, “Epithalamion.” For the newest commission, which will be premiered in November, Sullivan will abandon Spenser’s poetry for the sonnets of 19th century British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Sullivan is looking forward to working with the ensemble again. “I’m really psyched about this commission! The group is a fabulous collection of singers, with tons of talent and enthusiasm. It’s an honor to work with them.” And she has certainly been impressed with their talent, she also points to the impeccable organization of the group as a key to their success. “The rehearsal process wastes no time!”

As a composer, Sullivan has been commissioned by the Gregg Smith Singers and Chicago A Cappella, in addition to numerous school and church choirs. As a singer, she has performed with the Gregg Smith Singers, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Vox Vocal Ensemble, new-music ensembles at Yale and Boston University, and Toby Twining Music.

Between her plentiful summer activities, Martha Sullivan took a few moments out to write down her thoughts about the commission and offer some great advice for composers who want to write for choir.

AMANDA MACBLANE: I read in your bio that you have worked with the Dale Warland Singers before. What has been your experience with the ensemble?

MARTHA SULLIVAN: My experience with the Dale Warland Singers comes entirely from Choral Ventures^TM. All the finalists were commissioned to write a piece for the reading back in May, so that’s the commission my bio refers to.

The Dale Warland Singers are fabulous in so many ways. The group sings with a very rich and coherent sound; it’s also clear and nimble and can turn on a time when the music calls for it. Of course you can hear all this on their recordings.

The organization of the group impressed me hugely. The rehearsal process wastes no time; singers get their scores a month before rehearsals start, and Dale gives the section leaders all the breath marks and so forth to pass on, so the basses (for example) never have to twiddle their thumbs while waiting for the sopranos to find out that they need to take a breath in measure 67.

The singers themselves are diligent and enthusiastic about working with composers. They are willing to try new things, too. One of the other 2003 Choral Ventures^TM finalists had written a piece that involved vocal harmonics/overtones such as the Tuvan throat singers use, but, not being a singer himself, he did not know quite how to teach the technique to the group, so I was enlisted. It was really quite a joy to stand up there getting forty pro singers to say and then sing “near” over and over again, testing tongue shapes until they found the harmonics. The effect came over quite well in the hall, and I was stunned at how quickly the singers picked it up (it took me months of practice before I could get it under control for the Toby Twining project I learned the technique for).

The Choral Ventures^TM program itself is something very special. It goes far beyond just recognizing the talents of four composers every year. It invites the composers to explore the larger context of choral music and how they might both contribute to it and benefit from it.

We went out to Minnesota and were happily wined and dined and workshopped. We got to know each other over coffee and meals and a session of sharing our scores and recordings with each other, this last coordinated by the tireless Frank Ferko, a prior Choral Ventures^TM winner and last year’s composer-in-residence. Then we were treated to a workshop with generous people such as Stephen Paulus and Michael Dennis Browne, covering topics ranging from self-publishing to how to get to know a poem well enough to set it to music (read it aloud… many times).

Choral conductor Kathy Romey was also there to set us straight about querying conductors and thinking about the choral market; it’s a hungry market, with many participants and many ubiquitous genres, such as sacred music. Writing useful music serves the groups who sing it and allows for an audience almost by definition. Ga
yle Ober, the Singers’ executive director, also described for us how the group’s commissioning of music goes farther than just Minnesota audiences: if another group does a Choral Ventures^TM piece, they must ask permission of the Dale Warland Singers first, but then they get the benefit of a well-known name associated with their program, the Singers get that name spread to a wider audience, and of course the composer gets another performance, so everyone benefits.

The main message I got from all this is that where new music and choral music intersect, there is a big and fascinating place, so why not go there? Choral Ventures^TM provided us with insights and tools galore (heck, they even gave us a contact list of groups that program new music; how generous can you get?)… What a gift.

AMANDA MACBLANE: The work that you submitted to the competition is based on a stanza of Edmund Spenser’s poetry. For your commission, do you plan on continuing in a similar vein or do you have something different in mind?

MARTHA SULLIVAN: Back when we were still talking about a Spring 2004 performance, my plan was to finish the set of songs based on stanzas from Spenser’s “Epithalamion.” The Singers had seemed to enjoy the first song of the set last May. Of course with this being the last year of the in-town concert series, there has been some program juggling, and the group’s needs have changed, program-wise. The new piece has been moved to the Thanksgiving concert (1 and 2 November), and it will have a text more in line with a Thanksgiving theme, and more allegro bits (at Dale’s request) than Spenser was inspiring me to write. I had a quick phone conversation with Dale about all this back at the beginning of July, on the one day I was home between my return from San Diego and my departure for upstate New York, so, since I hate packing, I procrastinated by reading any likely book of thankful or autumnal poetry at hand, working my way through Wallace Stevens, Milton, the Psalms, and half the Norton Anthology of Poetry (I’m a fast reader) before hitting upon Gerard Manley Hopkins. The piece will consist of fragments from his sonnets. And it will be done by the third week in August. Ah, the joy of deadlines.

AMANDA MACBLANE: You are also a singer. What do think the most important compositional considerations are for writing for chorus?

MARTHA SULLIVAN: There are several important ones, and I have strong opinions, but you asked, so here goes!

• Voices Like To Move. That’s Rule #1, for choral or solo writing for voice, and it’s pivotal to the singability of a piece. The reason sopranos hate singing Beethoven (or his choral works, anyway) is that he tends to stick them up on a G above the staff, howling words at a generous forte for long stretches at a time, until he gets bored with that and moves them up to an A. Even in the middle of the vocal range, the voice can get tired or stuck—I love Minimalism, but chanting numbers on the B above middle C for 16 measures at a time makes my tongue cramp up. That’s just embarrassing…
• Tessitura. I’ll discuss this with reference to the soprano range; transpose what I say down a whole step or minor third for mezzos, maybe an octave lower for tenors, an octave and a third or fourth for baritones, and as much as an octave and a sixth for true basses… So. Yes, sopranos enjoy singing notes at the top or the staff, say from F up to B (or higher, if they are pro singers), but they do not like to live up there for long. If the group or individual you are writing for says their usable soprano range is middle C to high C, fabulous! But also ask what the best tessitura for the part will be—usually on the staff, from F sharp up to E. Keep the bulk of the writing there, move the voices around a lot, and make all the excursions up to the heights you want, but don’t buy a cabin up there—high notes are a day trip only. This topic is an important one to discuss with the singers you write for, particularly if you want to hear your piece sung more than once.
• Phrase Length. Can you yourself sing through a vocal phrase you have written without taking a breath? If yes, then great. If not, is the group you’re writing for big enough that they can stagger the breaths? Note that singers often don’t enjoy staggering, because it makes them feel like wimps if they can’t get to the end of the phrase in one breath. A favorite voice teacher of mine (Joan Heller) once had a tuba player ask her to teach him to sing the entirety of a certain Schubert song all in one breath. I don’t know why he wanted that particular skill, but I certainly understand the impulse to be macho about breathing. And I think composers shouldn’t encourage it! When singers have enough breath, they give a better performance.
• High Notes and The Issues They Raise. Singers like to sing melismas on the highest notes in their ranges. The preferred vowel is [a] as in “Father”. An open o as in “hot” is also fine. The e in “wet” does not always sound good, mostly because any 10 singers will come up with 10 slightly different versions of the vowel; avoid it unless you know the choral conductor is a vowel nerd. Some singers (such as me) love to sing the [i] in “police”, but most don’t. I recommend avoiding it on high notes. The [u] in “June” is likewise to be shunned in extreme ranges. The [æ] in “cat” is fun to sing in medium and low ranges, hard to make beautiful in high ones (ask sopranos you know how they feel about a certain aria in Floyd’s Susannah if you doubt me). What about consonants, you ask? Well, as I said, singers prefer melismas up high. If you must write words up there, realize that the more tongue action or lip action is involved, the harder the consonant will be to pronounce in extreme ranges. B and P, for example, are relatively easy; v and f are harder, requiring more use of the lower lip. Try it yourself and see: say “pill” and “fill,” then try to sing them on a high note… Test any text you are planning to set in a high range by singing it yourself, high in your own range.
• Disjunct Versus Conjunct Motion. Voices can always negotiate stepwise motion easier than skips. I sang the Bach Missa Brevis in A a couple of weeks ago, and there’s one bit in there where the voices have to sing arpeggiated sixteenth notes in an allegro section. It’s doable, but not readable accurately the first time through. It takes real practice. Skips are fine when they are not too wildly fast; it also helps to change the direction of the line after you write a skip (are you listening, J. J. Fux?) For a good example of angular, skippy writing that also uses fast sixteenths (but in conjunct motion), look at the allegro part of Anne Truelove’s first big scene in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.
• Scansion and Prosody. English is an accentual–syllabic language. We have accented and unaccented syllables. We have patterns those syllables divide themselves into, and we can analyze them: Twinkle, twinkle, little star is stong-weak, strong-weak, strong-weak, strong. You do not need to have studied scansion enough to identify that as trochaic tetrameter to set it to music. You automatically know that you wouldn’t set the “twin-” of “twinkle” on an upbeat, because it’s strong. Nor would you set the unaccented “-kle” on some note that’s emphasized either by falling on a downbeat or being the climax of a phrase. Prosody is how you line up the text with the notes; it’s good to pay attention to it and work with the language rather than against it or in spite of it. I agree with Michael Dennis Browne who recommends speaking the text over and over again until you can really feel it and know it and set it appropriately. Of course I can hear you pointing out that Stravinsky often didn’t set music according to the scansion of the texts, and neither did many French composers, but I notice that Stravinsky’s Russian pieces really do work that way (Russian being another accentual–syllabic language), even if his Latin ones don’t (Latin scansion is extremely fussy), and French is an oddity because it is not accentual–syllabic at all. Nevertheless, composers such as Ravel and Poulenc and Messiaen are absolutely meticulous about the lengths of syllables so that the music reflects the particular rhythm of the text, with a typically French combination of smoothness and precision.
• Knowing the Voices You Are Writing For and Asking Questions. Individual voices are so different from one another, and choirs have different sounds (compare any gospel choir to any men-and-boys choir of an English cathedral, for example). I believe in writing for particular singers or groups; I like to imagine singers I know singing certain solo lines, and if I don’t know a singer before I write, I will ask questions about range and tessitura and also request a recording. The same goes for choirs. And one of the most important questions is this: How much rehearsal time will you have on this piece? With very good readers, you can get a reading of a piece on short notice, but you won’t get a real sing of it until they’ve had enough rehearsal time to absorb it properly. Try to make the difficulty level commensurate with the rehearsal time, so that you get a performance, not just a reading (thank you, David Conte, for this valuable bit of advice).
• Details of Various Voice Types. Some orchestration textbooks describe voices with the same sorts of details you see in discussions of particular instruments, such as which part of a voice’s range carries best over an orchestra (for example, a dramatic Wagnerian soprano carries fine in the octave above middle C, while a lyric coloratura can’t be heard so well over a full orchestra until about an octave higher, so the composer has to orchestrate delicately). Blatter’s textbook goes into detail. I recommend keeping it or another similar reference handy.

AMANDA MACBLANE: What other projects will you be working on this year as both a singer and composer? (I am also curious to find out exactly what you are doing this summer!)

MARTHA SULLIVAN: Ah, the traditional “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” essay!

At the beginning of the summer I flew to San Diego with New York’s Bach Choir, the group that does Vespers with Bach cantatas a couple times a month. We were there for a huge convention of Lutheran church musicians, and we sang Bach motets one-on-a-part and gave workshops. It was pure heaven. We also sneaked in some time at the San Diego Zoo, definitely worth seeing when you are in the area. We did not sing to the giraffes.

When I got back, I had my quick talk with Dale about texts and deadlines, then headed up to Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, NY, for Gregg Smith’s Adirondack Festival of American Music (AFAM). My job up there was to sing, be a featured composer, teach voice lessons, and write occasional translations of things as one of the designated language nerds. It is worth readers’ while to write Gregg because the second week of the festival is all about new music, with concerts of works by featured composers as well as a reading session that one can pay to attend. It’s quite affordable. The Gregg Smith Singers serve as guinea pigs and will happily tell you what works and what doesn’t in any choral score you bring. Gregg is an adamant booster of new music, and someone worth sending music to at any time, since he programs new works on his New York City concert series during the year. The summer festival is still the best way to get his attention, though, with all the fresh air upstate and concentrated music every day.

I am hoping that Dale Warland will want to do some teaching along the lines of AFAM or of the late great Robert Shaw’s workshops, too… I am not sure he wants to get into the tangled logistics of such a project, but what a boon it would be if he did!

As I write this, I am procrastinating on the packing to go up to Bard College for the Bard Music Festival tomorrow; I’ll be one of the chorus people singing works of Janacek, Mussorgsky, and Szymanowski. I love doing this gig. It’s another scenic escape from the city, the music is generally unusual (and programmed in the context of other music of its time, much of it pretty obscure), and we get to sit behind the orchestra, where I can always observe interesting things about orchestration, particularly the use of percussion. In the last movement of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, for example (that was summer of 1999), there’s a tam-tam placed horizontally on a stand, like a big serving platter, and the percussionist plays it by dropping a heavy iron chain into it. Who knew? This year it’s Janacek’s <href=”http://www.iclassics.com/iclassics/album.jsp?selectionId=12940″ target=”_blank>Glagolitic Mass. Of course this year we will be indoors for the first time, in the new <href=”http://www.bard.edu/fishercenter/about/” target=”_blank>Sosnoff Theater, designed by <href=”http://www.frank-gehry.com/” target=”_blank>Frank Gehry. I’m told that the acoustics are a revelation.

Between out-of-town gigs, I’ve been singing on the <href=”http://stbarts.org/summerfest.htm” target=”_blank>summer festival of sacred music at <href=”http://www.stbarts.org/” target=”_blank>St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue, a place you might find familiar because all the major networks have been using it for stock footage of Episcopalians this August as they report on the sexual politics of bishops-elect. B
ut, more to the point, St. Bart’s has a very strong commitment to its music program, including new music. The church was one of three participating in the <href=”http://www.composersforum.org/” target=”_blank>American Composers Forum’s <href=”http://www.newmusicbox.org/news.nmbx?id=00208″ target=”_blank>Faith Partners program this last year, and the director, Bill Trafka, has always been generous about programming anthems written by composers who sing for him. New and unfamiliar music brings out the best in this group; it’s been a privilege working with these musicians.

During this whole period, of course, I have been working on and am continuing to work on the Warland commission. I take it with me wherever I go, so feel rather like I ought to mention, somewhere in the score, all the pianos that have let me work tricky bits out on their ivory…

Come September, I’ll be back at <href=”http://www.nyu.edu” target=”_blank>NYU, teaching in the <href=”http://www.cap21.org/” target=”_blank>CAP21 program for music theater majors. I’m also taking a weekend in September up in Vermont to teach a workshop at <href=”http://www.smcvt.edu” target=”_blank>St. Michael’s College, and I’ll keep working with private students in voice and music theory throughout the year.

There will be plenty of Bach in the works, with the Bach Choir of Holy Trinity, and other early music fun with the New York Continuo Collective. I’ll also keep singing with my regular groups such as the Gregg Smith Singers.

Composing won’t stop when I finish Dale’s piece, of course; I have a piece to write for Seattle’s hot choral group the <href=”http://www.theesoterics.org/” target=”_blank”>Esoterics, and a few other commissions percolating. <href=”http://www.laurendale.com/” target=”_blank”>Laurendale Associates will publish my set of rounds for young singers (based on tongue twisters about animals) under the imprint of Linda Ferreira, the children’s choir guru. I’m looking forward to all this.

Really, it’s not lack of focus. Everything could lead to something useful, from the brassy rhythms of the tap classes I always hear at CAP21 to the child I met in my building’s laundry room last week (she read <href=”http://www.ksu.edu/english/nelp/purple/books/harold.html” target=”_blank”>Harold and the Purple Crayon aloud for me; has anyone written a children’s opera on any of the Harold books? It’s food for thought.)

AMANDA MACBLANE: Is there anything else that you want to add?

MARTHA SULLIVAN: I’m really psyched about this commission! The group, in case I didn’t make it clear, is a fabulous collection of singers, with tons of talent and enthusiasm. It’s an honor to work with them.

I should mention that I didn’t start composing until 1999. I am so grateful to several groups for the encouragement and the energy with which they’ve presented my music, particularly the Gregg Smith Singers (who gave me my first choral commission), Chicago A Cappella, Equal Voices, and the St. Bart’s Choir, in addition to the Dale Warland Singers. Choral music done well is such a direct thing—there is no instrument between the singer and the music, just the voice and the body resonating. So I think vocal music is particularly powerful. I can’t thank all these singers enough for bringing my music to life!