Counterstream Radio is your online home for exploring the music of America’s composers. Drawing upon New Music USA’s substantial library of recordings, our programming is remarkable for its depth and eclecticism. The station streams influential music of many pedigrees 24 hours a day. Keep listening and discover the sound of music without limits. Click here to open Counterstream Radio.
Why bother replicating environmental sounds through electronic music synthesis when recording something is faster and more accurate? What is the point of recreating something when that thing already exists. For these questions, I have a philosophical answer and a practical answer.
On the philosophical side, fabricating a simulacra of the sounds around us is at its core a meditative process, built equally around practices of listening and analysis. It pays respect to the omnipresence of the invisible and honors the complexity of seemingly simple things. It unlocks new techniques for interaction with our instruments and enriches our experience of the world apart from them: “what makes up that sound” becomes something of a walking mantra impressing itself on everything you hear.
On the practical side, a recording is a life-like portrait, fixed and unchanging. It excludes from us the agency to restructure the world it captures. It relegates our creative interactions to the realm of post-processing (i.e. filtering, adding reverb, etc.) to emphasize or hide aspects of the events captured on tape.
The technique I’ll explain in this article takes the opposite approach: utilizing filtering, reverb, etc. as foundational elements for creating real-world portraiture while retaining the freedom of dream-logic malleability. Can you record the sound of a tin room in which a prop plane idles while its engine keeps changing size? Maybe. Can you synthesize it? Definitely.
Approaching a sound with the goal of recreating it is like listening to an exploded diagram, where a sonic totality is divided into components and considered individually. It is with an ear to this deliberate listening that I share with you words that have guided my work for the past decade, passed along to me by the great Bob Snyder, a Chicago-based artist, educator and friend, in the form of his “Ear Training” synthesis exercises. He started with a simple question through which the components of any sound can be observed and serve as a roadmap for from-scratch fabrication. “Is a sound noisy or tonal, and is its movement (if it has any) regular or irregular?”
Let’s do a quick exercise: listen to a sound, any sound (a baby crying, a phone ringing), and ask yourself: can I hum it? Trace the movement of the sound with your hand in the air and observe: is it rising and falling in a pattern? The answers to these questions point toward the equipment needed to recreate them. If the sound is tonal (if you can hum it), select an oscillator; if it isn’t, choose a noise generator. There are of course plenty of sounds that have both (a howling wind, the word “cha,” etc.) but for this initial thought experiment choose a tone or noise source to best fit whatever is the sound’s dominant component.
Next, is something about the sound changing? It could be its amplitude, its pitch, its timbre, etc., but if you find yourself tracing out this motion with your hand note how your hand is moving: regularly (up and down, like a car alarm) or less regularly (like shoes clanking away in a drier). A repeating motion would point toward a looping, cyclical modulator (a low frequency oscillator, a sequencer, etc.), where irregular motion would indicate something either noise-based or a mixture of otherwise unrelated things. Either jot these observations down or keep them in your head, whatever works best for you— the important thing is to remain cognizant of them as they accumulate.
To recreate a sound from scratch is to assemble these observations as discrete instructional steps. Try not to get bogged down by the totality of the sound itself. Instead focus on these component parts: the sound is nothing more than a list of them in aggregate.
Start with the basics—tone or noise, what about it is it changing— and slowly zoom in on the details from there. Wind blowing through a grove of trees is noisy and irregular. Sometimes the leaves rustle with more treble, sometimes with more mid-range. These various noisy timbres seem to happen sequentially, rather than simultaneously, as if the branches pushed one way sound different than when the wind changes direction and pushes them the other, and so on. Study the sound, note these characteristics, think of your observations as a decoder ring.
Hopefully this provides something of an overview of the opportunities that are possible in synthesizing environmental sounds and lays out some of the aspects of sound to focus on in your listening. Now let’s try our hand at a concrete example and patch something up!
I’d like to synthesize the sounds of the beach, in particular a memory I have of an afternoon spent there as a child. We’ll begin with the sound of ocean waves from the listening perspective of the shoreline. It’s low tide and the surf is mild. The sun hangs in the air, lazily
Once we have a working version of our central sound component, I find it helpful to surround it with supporting contextual sonics. These reinforce our creation’s place in this fabricated soundscape and allow for a degree of set-dressing about which the details are entirely ours to decide. Are these ocean waves happening on a beach or are they crashing in an office? Those decisions are executed through the inclusion of these background characters.
For this patch, I’ll play it straight and set the sound stereotypically. To create the sense of a shoreline, the focus will be on a pair of hallmarks—things you might hear (and in this case things I remember hearing) while sitting on the beach and listening to the waves: the dull roar of the ocean and the whipping hiss of the wind.
In tuning these sounds I’ll be utilizing Low and High Pass filters, and doing so with an ear for how each filter type represents distance: using Low Pass filters for sounds that are far away (and whose top end has rolled off), and High Pass filters for sounds that are close-up (and whose top end is accentuated). Additionally, setting the relative level of these sounds against each other paints a portrait of attention: the sounds being focused on (in this case the waves) can seem louder than their neighbors (the wind, the ocean), and should that observation shift for any reason this balance can be adjusted accordingly.
Finally, the addition of narrative elements can lend to this sound-portrait some much-appreciated variety: if the background is always there, the things that come and go can pull us into a far more immersive listening experience.
To illustrate this point we’ll create the sound of a single-passenger plane in flight, passing overhead. Unlike our wave, wind and ocean patches, this one is definitely hummable and will require tone sources to synthesize. While there are myriad ways to go about recreating engine sonics, each essentially contains at least an oscillator and at least some timbral complexity, especially if that engine is full of moving parts! The aspects that you choose to focus on in your own engine synthesis work will depend greatly on your listening work: what about the sound jumps out to you? What is essential? In the case of the single-passenger plane, I’ll be celebrating its beat-frequency-like movement, its stereo position adjustments and the Doppler Effect that occurs as it passes from one side of the beach to the other.
Now that we have our waves, our environment and our wildcard narrative element, let’s combine them into a performance. The world we create in the mixing of these sounds is at any point re-definable: on a whim the ocean can become tiny, the wind can whip itself up into a terrifying wall, the waves can pause and hold mid-crash. While the example illustrated below is one that tilts towards accuracy it can at any moment morph into something else entirely: a far more fantastical collage of sonic impossibilities or simply the next memory that comes to mind. The fluidity of the portrait is entirely yours to decide.
Like any skill, decoding and fabricating environmental sounds is an exercise that rewards practice. I encourage you to start as soon as you finish this article. Close your eyes and whatever you hear or imagine first ask yourself: what makes up that sound? Thanks for listening.
It is difficult to think of anyone more loved by the musicians with whom she works than composer, arranger, conductor, and teacher Alice Parker who has been a fixture of the choral music community for eight decades. Since becoming an arranger for the legendary Robert Shaw Chorale when she was fresh out of college in the late 1940s, Parker has devoted herself almost exclusively to music for the voice, since she strongly believes that people find their common ground through singing together.
During an inspiring conversation over Zoom, Parker explains how our lives become enriched when we can share a communal music-making experience.
When we sing something perfectly lovely together … and it really clicks, you have this marvelous feeling of brotherhood in the room. We are all human beings. We are all feeling this emotion together at the same time. And this is uniting us. We are not separate.
Sadly though, as she also points out, singing is no longer something that most people do: “As a society, as a culture, we don’t sing. … [W]e simply have gotten so dependent on having music there without our having to make it ourselves that we have forgotten that the value of making it ourselves is far beyond what the music is about.”
Music has been a presence in Alice Parker’s life since growing up in Boston in the 1920s, attending concerts by the Boston Pops as a little girl, attending an African American church sing while staying with her grandparents in Greenville, South Carolina, and hearing African-American lyric tenor Roland Hayes sing spirituals in a concert in the 1930s. Soon after she began taking piano lessons, she started to compose her own music, though her teacher had to find another instructor to help her write it down. But Parker doesn’t think that made her special.
“The ability to compose is not a huge, unusual gift,” she claims. “I think everybody would if they were encouraged to. And I was encouraged to, right from the beginning.”
Parker formally studied composition at Smith College before studying choral conducting at the Juilliard School, deciding to switch majors because she did not want to compose the music they wanted her to compose.
“They were trying to get me to write 12-tone music,” she remembers. “I was resisting like crazy. I simply couldn’t do it. And I had the satisfaction of living long enough to realize that I was right, and they were all wrong in the sense that what really lasts is not necessarily tonal music, but modal music. Somehow or other, that peculiar mixture of whole and half steps is much closer to musical truth than any system that is drawn out of equal half steps or equal whole steps. That’s too much. Henry Ford making everything exactly match. Things in nature don’t exactly match. The leaves on a tree are all the same except each one is different from each other one. And the snowflakes are all different. And the way water behaves is always different.”
Perhaps the most tell-tale sign of Parker’s lifelong humility is her devotion to creating music for and with community groups rather than for big celebrities. She has no interest in writing music unless it serves a purpose, as she explains:
If someone offered me a whole lot of money to write a big, important orchestral piece, orchestral-choral piece, to be done in Carnegie Hall, I would turn tail and run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I don’t see any purpose for it. In a church, there’s loads of purpose. It’s all around you all the time. In school, there can be, or there cannot be, but if you’re in the good schools, there’s lots of purpose. And certainly in the community groups, there’s almost always purpose.
Although she was writing music up until 2020 (you can hear a performance of her glorious hymn “On the Common Ground” which is embedded in the transcript below), her deteriorating eyesight has made it impossible for her to either enter notes on staff paper or even on a computer. But she’s enjoying spending time with her four great grandchildren and has become obsessed with Wordle.
We simply have gotten so dependent on having music there without our having to make it ourselves that we have forgotten that the value of making it ourselves is far beyond what the music is about.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
My general prescription for the healing of society is that we establish a Department of Peace in Washington to go beside the Department of War.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
When we sing something perfectly lovely together ... and it really clicks, you have this marvelous feeling of brotherhood in the room. We are all human beings. We are all feeling this emotion together at the same time. And this is uniting us. We are not separate.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
If you can speak, you can sing. And the singing may come first.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
Music is only sound. It is nothing else but sound. We spend a whole of our education talking about sound and not making sound.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
Somehow I was able to withstand the strong conditioning that I got certainly when I got to college, and was trying to major in composition, and they were trying to get me to write 12-tone music. I was resisting like crazy. I simply couldn't do it. And I had the satisfaction of living long enough to realize that I was right, and they were all wrong. ... Things in nature don't exactly match. The leaves on a tree are all the same except each one is different from each other one. And the snowflakes are all different. And the way water behaves is always different.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
I am not telling my music where I want it to go. I'm listening for where it wants to go.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
The ability to compose is not a huge, unusual gift. I think everybody would if they were encouraged to.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
There is absolutely no difference between brain tissue from male and a female. It's just my feeling about race is actually close your eyes, and can you tell whether it's a black person or a white person, otherwise from the language? You can't. Color has nothing to do with it. Nobody chooses where they're born. ... You come up where you are. What you can do is of course enormously influenced by your surroundings. If your parents say right away, "Well you can't do that; girls can't do that," you're pretty much taken for granted or else you're a terrible rebel and you risk the ire of your society all around you.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
I've always said if someone offered me a whole lot of money to write a big, important orchestral piece, orchestral-choral piece, to be done in Carnegie Hall, I would turn tail and run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I don't see any purpose for it. In a church, there's loads of purpose. It's all around you all the time. In school, there can be, or there cannot be, but if you're in the good schools, there's lots of purpose. And certainly in the community groups, there's almost always purpose.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
I think music is food for the ears, just as food is food for the stomach. And I want to feed people's ears. I want to nourish them through the music. I'm not interested in scaring them or frightening them, or stretching them beyond their beliefs. I need to find the thing that they will just love.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
Somebody called me an entertainer once. I said, "I am not an entertainer." Music isn't an entertainment art for me.
Alice Parker, composer & conductor
I think so many kids have never heard their parents sing, just for the fun of it. We don't sing as we do the dishes. We always did when I was little. We don't sing as we do chores because there's always some background music on. And nobody's really listening to it. I think the way to get people back into it is just simply to get a roomful of people singing or a family.
Composer Andrew Norman shares how his creative anxiety has led him into a current period of writer’s block. We discuss how his frenetic language captures how thoughts move in his mind, the underlying sources of his anxiety, and brainstorm together how he can move forward to reconnect with the joy of his creative process.
Different Cities Different Voices is a series from NewMusicBox that explores music communities across the US through the voices of local creators and innovators. Discover what is unique about each city’s new music scene through a set of personal essays written by people living and creating there, and hear music from local artists selected by each essayist. The series is meant to spark conversation and appreciation for those working to support new music in the US, so please continue the conversation online about who else should be spotlighted in each city and tag @NewMusicBox.
An Introduction by Ami Dang
(New Music USA’s Director of Development)
Ami Dang (photo by Missy Malouff)
When I think about music in Baltimore, the words that come to mind are energy, vitality, and transcendence. Baltimore is a place where truly original ideas flourish. No artist in Baltimore lives here because they’re making a lot of money or getting a lot of commissions or opportunities. These music creators live here because they’re inspired every day. This place is fertile ground for truly original artmaking.
Baltimore has a rich tradition of experimental techniques and cross-disciplinary, experiential arts that can’t be confined to one artistic medium, genre or style. Classical music joins forces with experimental film and puppetry. Dancers meander through multimedia installations featuring improvised sound art.
As Infinity Knives and Amy Reid both mention here, music concerts are typically curated in a way that brings together a plurality of voices. It’s more often that experimental hip hop, punk music, and avant rock would share a bill in one evening with a drag queen emcee-ing the show than a program featuring one type of music. Neither medium nor genre matter; innovation and experimentalism are paramount—rather than notoriety and prestige.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t share the reality of the silos that do, in fact, exist in the music community. Baltimore is a majority Black city, and the arts circles that I move in are mostly white. We have so many talented Black and queer musicians and artists—pay close attention to Jamal Moore’s account of the Black avant garde arts scene in our city—but many of them continue to struggle with a lack of support and resources. Over the past few years, the arts community has become slightly more integrated, and more queer and Black (and other BIPOC) artists have received support from local funding opportunities and various resources. However, there is still a divide that persists. As Director of Development with New Music USA, I am particularly passionate about building a more equitable future for new music—a future where artists from all backgrounds are supported so that their work can reach audiences far and wide.
It is often the artists from privileged backgrounds whose work is recognized outside of Baltimore and who are supported on a national or international level. While creativity is abundant among diverse artists of many backgrounds, we lack the music industry infrastructure, i.e. record labels, publishers, management, booking agencies, arts attorneys, publicists, marketing services, and more, that support many artists (of all backgrounds) in larger metro areas. It is simply easier for music industry professionals to witness the work of, connect with, and ultimately, support artists in larger cities due to proximity.
But ultimately, this dearth of opportunities to commodify creative product is exactly the reason that the work created here is authentic. As Allison Clendaniel touches on in her narrative below, creative work in Baltimore It hasn’t been created isn’t produced to please anyone or fit into a certain style, medium, or genre dictated by funding interests. While we reward innovative and artistically brilliant work, we cannot ignore that the funding and systemic privilege that bolster it almost always comes first. In turn, these accolades yield further recognition—and displace others who were already at a disadvantage. The arts are not exempt from systemic oppression.
Here in the US, very little unrestricted support exists for individual artists, especially compared to Europe, where artists receive government funding, healthcare, and free or subsidized opportunities to further their education. Baltimore is one of the few cities left in the United States where space is truly affordable. The abundance of empty, dilapidated warehouse and residential space that results from industry that folded decades ago provides ample opportunities for creative play, performances, happenings, space to turn dreams into reality and collaborate in large numbers.
Sadly, while Baltimore continues to be a more affordable place to live relative to most cities in the US, DIY venues have folded left and right. In the aftermath of the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, California in 2016, Baltimore’s warehouses began to shut down due to safety concerns, and the pandemic has further squashed opportunities and resources to revitalize non-traditional spaces as sites for creative activity. Bonnie Lander, Stephen Santillan, and others further elaborate on the changing landscape of live/work arts spaces in Baltimore in this essay.
Still, I have hope. Artists in Baltimore (or the ones who stay in Baltimore, anyway!) are resilient and approach their work in unique ways. Crisis breeds innovation! All of the artists mentioned in this article are masters of their crafts but with the Baltimore spirit—their artistry is often experimental, innovative, inspiring and doesn’t sound like anyone else.
Over the past decade and a half with urban renewal and gentrification, Baltimore remains with a large African American populace that encompasses a wealth of African American music and arts in all formats from Black Avant Garde to mainstream.
Jamal Moore
There’s not much money to be made in Baltimore, so there’s not as much influence of money on Baltimore art. That means the arts here rely on human-powered resources like time, dedication, and sheer force of will, not dollars.
Allison M. Clendaniel
Though this is true for many cities, Baltimore has a way of calling people back to make their work here, with tree-lined neighborhoods that are racially and economically diverse.
Liz Downing
I especially love that there’s a large (and organically grown) black and queer artist base.
Tariq Ravelomanana (a.k.a. Infinity Knives)
A whole generation of arts spaces are beginning to fall to the prospect of development, and our once un-gentrifiable city is changing. As access to housing and facilities becomes restricted to those who have, Baltimore’s arts community is feeling the squeeze.
Bonnie Lander
It has been a supreme privilege to be a part of such a smart, elevated, eccentric community.
John Berndt
Baltimore's openness to new experiences, exciting performers, and the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaborations are still inspiring to me today as they were when I first arrived.
Ljiljana Becker/Jovanović
Baltimore isn’t a big city you move to in order to “make it”, so there is a feeling of trust behind what people are doing here.
Stephen Santillan
I think something that really separates Baltimore from other cities is our rawness. That goes for both performers and people who attend events.
Amy Reid
Jamal Moore
Jamal Moore (photo by Larry Jackson)
Baltimore is the native soil where I was born and raised, and I returned in 2013 after living in Boston and L.A. for over a duration of 11 years. Affectionally called “Charm City” and colloquially “Bmore”; Baltimore is a very eccentric city filled with phenomenal creative arts that are often shadowed in the negative light due to its misfortune of urban plight. It is through my music that I have created a path of success and chose to return to Bmore to give back to the community and teach the youth of what I have obtained. On a constant basis I instruct that music can be an option and tool used to negate the systemic path of the prison to pipeline infrastructure. To always challenge oneself and not be afraid to think outside the box and feel you must stay within mainstream aesthetics.
The new music scene In Baltimore is unique compared to other cities I have traveled and toured in across the U.S. No matter which background or subgroup of artistry one is involved with, there is always cross pollination of the scenes with every artist working in all formats. Over the past decade and a half with urban renewal and gentrification, Baltimore remains with a large African American populace that encompasses a wealth of African American music and arts in all formats from Black Avant Garde to mainstream. You can always attend on any given Sunday with ideal weather, the historical Park Vibe drum and music circle in Druid Hill Park which has ran for over 50 years as a central hub for Black Arts. It is here where you get a chance to experience the sounds of exploration with artists experimenting with handmade instruments repurposed from found materials to poets, MCs and vocalists improvising over traditional rhythms from the African continent and diaspora along with hybrid rhythms or song. Often, those who are transient to Baltimore via academia isolated in school hubs may discover or learn of this community. It is here where you get a chance to explore, experiment and learn improvisation in the Black Avant Garde tradition opposite the idiosyncrasies of academia.
Since the beginning of the pandemic a few artist communities have collapsed completely while some remain ongoing in smaller spaces. The Park Vibe music circle still operates with musicians adhering to CDC guidelines. Baltimore historically always had a sensibility of Kujichagulia (Self Determination) and Ujima (collective work and responsibility) not solely restricted to the African American community but similarly across other ethnicities in the city. The pandemic may have stopped major events such as “Artscape” or “Afram” which are two major festivals highlighting art across all disciplines, but it did not stop true artists from their daily grind. It pulled everyone together closer, creating and hosting their own events in smaller gatherings especially during the warmer months.
Despite the challenges of the Covid pandemic, I personally have maintained balance and harmony. At the beginning of the pandemic, I lost a tour, contracts in education, and quite a few gigs. With all this happening at once I remained at peace and never stopped creating. Many colleagues who solely relied on live performances begin to break down mentally. It is with the pandemic that I realized from introspective meditation, to reverse the energy and take this time to go within and create more than ever, utilizing this time at full capacity. There was the notion of the world coming to a halt, yet the planet never stopped rotating and mother nature kept on with her daily routine.
Coming from a background of learning to use limited resources, making do with what you have and expand in all directions, it was easy to embrace technology with online performances. In fact, I had already done this eleven years prior when it was less common and frowned upon by colleagues that regarded it as folly. Little did they know this would be one key component of surviving as an artist later down the road.
While humanity is almost at a two-year mark of the pandemic, the direction where we are truly heading is still uncertain. One can speculate it may or may not return to what was once before. Music is a universal language and healing force of humanity and I believe, as in the beginning of the epic of creation of human existence, we will always continue to create new music and beyond in this continuum.
Here is an album I recorded with Nik Francis as The Mojuba Duo:
And here’s a local artist I recommend:
Allison M. Clendaniel
Allison M Clendaniel (photo by Sam Torres)
When I first came to Baltimore for my fancy Classical Music Degree, I was adamant about leaving it one day to find some better-funded, more legit place. Hah! The best-laid plans and all that… I’m happy to report that I’ve lived, worked, and thrived in Baltimore for 14 years and counting.
During my third year of conservatory, I realized the cut-throat academic culture was an inauthentic and uninspiring environment for me to exist within. With that awareness, I sought out the large community of art-making people living and making work in Baltimore. I was struck by the unjuried art happening within warehouse spaces around town, and when I finished my schooling, I dove in head-first. I began acting and creating theatrical sound design with a collective of DIY theatre makers, I joined a group of singers who specialized in renaissance music, started singing in a bunch of different bands, and became a session musician for rappers, rock musicians, jazzers, and the like! I feel so lucky to live in a place where anything that might pique my interest is within my reach and where I am met with open arms.The people in Baltimore are committed to serving and uplifting their communities, giving time and creative energy to create the future they want to see.
Baltimore is also a place to practice patience and compassion daily. Baltimore arts are to the left of capital — which is itself both bad and good. There’s not much money to be made in Baltimore, so there’s not as much influence of money on Baltimore art. That means the arts here rely on human-powered resources like time, dedication, and sheer force of will, not dollars. Ultimately, Baltimore creates a culture of experimentation, mutual respect, and a deeper understanding of work and the work of the folks who are deeply invested in the community. This is what drives my work as artistic director of Mind On Fire.
Mind on Fire is a notated music project I started with my co-directors Jason Charney and James Young in 2016. In the simplest terms, it’s a group of like-minded artists who want to facilitate high-quality music-making for our community. Our goal is to present all art with equal gravity and importance regardless of performance practice or history; to unify the appreciators of the Baltimore arts scene; and create a comfortable and welcoming environment for people to have new experiences. We strive for artistic excellence and be active and thoughtful members of our community, using our skills as presenters and performers to be a creative resource for the city at large.
We’ve been lucky to collaborate with many notable artists around town, not only musicians but also performance, visual, and theater artists: Wume, Infinity Knives, Ada Pinkston, Soul Cannon, and Elizabeth Downing, just to name a few. We performed amazing work from a variety of composers, including Missy Mazzoli, Jamal Moore, Alexander Schubert, Alex Temple, and so many more. We’ve been featured in the BSO New Music Festival, with Dan Deacon on stage and in film, and been lucky to work directly with The Pratt Library System, one of Baltimore’s greatest resources.
The past two pandemic-laden years have been everything all at once! I feel that I lost everything; and gained even more. It’s tough, y’know, presence is required for ephemeral art to exist. Accepting that art-making was being forced unceremoniously into a different experience entirely broke my brain for a bit. I cocooned for the better part of a year and a half, save the occasional Mind On Fire virtual event. Now, I’m beginning to emerge again. I feel like an optimized version of my former self. I have a greater understanding of how to love and be endlessly curious about my own thoughts, my own work, my own boundaries, and my own abundance!
Mind on Fire also had a helpful slow-down. Pre-pandemic, we were doing 15-20 shows a season, and frankly, I was exhausted by it and wanted to quit. We’ve been able to curate such incredible video work that likely wouldn’t have been captured in such a permanent way on one of our live shows during the shutdown. I feel emboldened by everyone’s spirit and desire for connectedness.
It’s hard to choose a single piece that best represents my work here in Baltimore. This collaboration between Mind On Fire and Infinity Knives is one of the most ambitious events we’ve put together. This piece was recorded during that marvelous period when covid numbers had subsided a bit, and holy moly! It was glorious to be in the room with everyone for a moment.
Tariq Ravelomanana: In the Mouth of Sadness
There are so many people here who inspire me. I’m wary of naming only one person because I feel like part of a large interconnected web of magical-human creators here. The person who has been most consistently present and inspiring during my time here is my collaborator, mentor, and friend, Liz Downing. Liz is the most magical, patient, and sparkling soul I’ve ever met. She’s particularly good at painting, singing, laughing, improvising, and listening. Anything Liz touches shimmers and is full of thoughtfulness. Her latest collaboration with Greg Hatem (another true Baltimore hero) is a beautiful celebration of her work. These songs are all at least 20 years in the making. You can check it out here:
Reach out to Mind On Fire if you’re ever in town. There is always something good happening!
Liz Downing
Liz Downing
I came to Baltimore in 1983 from a small town in Alabama to study painting with Grace Hartigan at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The Institute Graduate Program offered teaching positions for new graduates, so I stayed. During this time I began to develop relationships with people from other art disciplines. Working with a filmmaker, set designer, operatically trained singer and choreographer, we created musical art performance plays in the trio Lambs Eat Ivy, touring with sets strapped atop a Subaru. Always, I was happy to return to Baltimore, where there were loft spaces with room to create and a fertile inspiring community.
The music scene in Baltimore is metamorphic, changed and influenced by the confluence of artists moving through. Graduates from the music, visual arts, and theater departments stay around taking advantage of this creative energy, expanding their vision through collaboration. Baltimore is, during non pandemic times, a destination for touring groups with a large variety of venues. These touring groups make relationships with local musicians and all the circles become wider. Though this is true for many cities, Baltimore has a way of calling people back to make their work here, with tree-lined neighborhoods that are racially and economically diverse.
Being a musician and painter, I was able to survive during the early days of the pandemic by delving into my painting practice. Having a porch and yard, I was able to make music with neighbors. Bringing her fiddle over, neighbor Susan Alcorn, usually a pedal steel guitarist, would improv with me as I bowed my banjo and sang, for hours, even into bitter temperatures. Vocalist Allison Clendaniel and I would create sound pieces on the porch and throughout the neighborhood. Early in 2021, I began a project with arranger and instrumentalist Greg Hatem in which the core work was done, each of us in isolation, creating tracks and sending the files back and forth. The resulting album is called, Curving Tooth. Local Festivals offered online shows such as Shakemore Rock Festival, High Zero Experimental Music Festival, Mind On Fire, Black Cherry Theater Puppet Slams. These requests for entries gave me reason to film musical porch performances with comrades of “Molesuit Choir” and to develop new skills. To create work entirely in isolation, I set up a camera on a tripod in my studio and created puppets, which I made by cutting out painted characters. I had the puppets interact with each other, casting shadows on their painted backdrops, moving the puppets and singing to the soundtrack.
Though artists, musicians, writers are likely to thrive during a pandemic, the lack of a physical audience was difficult. The need to be in the physical presence and share reactions to work is a vital part of creation. This underscores the beauty of Baltimore’s live venues, Normal’s Books and Records, The Current Gallery, The Crown and so many more, which feed the community with friendships, inspiration and reason to continue.
Infinity Knives (Tariq Ravelomanana)
Infinity Knives (photo by Amanda Lee Letts)
I actually didn’t choose Baltimore. My mom and grandmother were more or less living here because it was a relatively affordable city. We were pretty poor. I moved in with them in 2005-06. I was living in Johannesburg beforehand. I’ve made the city a headquarters of some sort. I leave often and come back every few years.
I’ve always loved the mixed bills we’ve had. In a single night, you’d have a metal band opening followed by a folk band and eventually closing off with a neo-soul artist. I know this, because I was in the folk band! I especially love that there’s a large (and organically grown) black and queer artist base. The young and emerging artists are accepting of diversity and they don’t treat it as an oddity. This was not always the case a decade ago.
It took a really long time to establish myself here. Unreasonably long, considering the fact that my music hasn’t changed in the past ten years. There was a monopoly on the “scene” by mostly affluent white art people. Their music was awful. I was never made to feel welcome or appreciated. No one wants to admit it now, but people were openly racist too. I was eventually taken in by the emerging black queer dance scene where I was finally heard out.
As far as the pandemic; it hasn’t been too different for me from other working artists around the states. Fickle tour dates and delays on vinyl releases…the works. Personally, the stimulus checks and a five hundred dollar grant upgraded my equipment just enough to dip my toes into soundtrack and sound design, which is what I mainly do for money. That’s another “scene” that is oversaturated with the no-sauce and no-seasoning crowd. I’m a more than able composer, but it seems as though, like everything in the arts, is solely reserved for the connected and wealthy. Not sure if “overcomed” is the word I’d like to use, but rather improvising, or even better; ghetto rigging. A concept I’m very familiar with.
Songs:
The Black Power Paradox by Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals
The Ride by Jupiter Rex
Bonnie Lander
Bonnie Lander
The boomerang effect has been explained to me many times. Someone leaves Baltimore for greener pastures, only to return years later with a renewed appreciation for the arts community and the opportunities it provides. I understand it because it happened to me. I returned to Baltimore in 2017 after a 9-year hiatus to explore all the facets of my artistic endeavors: classical soprano, new music performer, experimental musician and improviser, composer, concert curator and educator. Due to a mix of affordable living and a thriving, close knit, DIY artist community, Baltimore is the perfect place for a self-motivated artist who wants to create, collaborate, and belong.
In the four years since I have returned to Baltimore I have been inspired by my friends and colleagues who care deeply about their art and work as hard as they play. The local culture is brewed in experimental art and music, which means that local shows can be as wild as they are bad, and sometimes, completely mind blowing. When our city is thriving (read, not in a pandemic), there are shows every night of the week in galleries, bars, houses and warehouses across the city, often multiple per night.
Since returning to Baltimore, I have been able to upkeep an active freelance career in new opera and composition on the East Coast, even in a global pandemic. I have performed and collaborated with countless local artists. I volunteer with experimental music collective High Zero Foundation, host social justice events and concerts at the 2640 Space, and work as Assistant to the Community Chorus of Peabody. I’ve performed with local new music presenter Mind on Fire and perform as a regular chorister/soloist at Emmanuel Episcopalian in downtown.
I am grateful to live in a city where I can afford stable housing, work with dedicated artists, and have access to physical space for projects, collaborations, and concerts. But in the past few years I have seen my city suffer some unfortunate changes that many artistic communities are struggling with right now: our art spaces are closing. Most recently the live/work warehouse space that I called home since my relocation is up for sale. The H&H building in downtown has provided live/work space for artists for the past 20+ years. Huge shows, concerts, dance parties, theater, visual art, performance art, and more have happened at this space. Eclectic groups of musicians, actors, theater troupes, painters, sculptors, videographers, photographers, illustrators, composers, dancers, and puppeteers have all called the H&H home. It’s looming closure is deeply grieved by our community.
The H&H is not alone in its closing, a whole generation of arts spaces are beginning to fall to the prospect of development, and our once un-gentrifiable city is changing. As access to housing and facilities becomes restricted to those who have, Baltimore’s arts community is feeling the squeeze. It’s up to our local governments to ensure these spaces do not disappear and up to us to loudly vocalize our support for the local, underground arts scenes that bind our cities together.
Here’s a clip I made for the Red Room in Your Room improvised music series during lockdown:
My avocation as an experimental musician in Baltimore began when I was about 11 years old and was part of a larger sensibility which I could not have described at the time; a deep, eccentric interest in phenomenology of experience, a perverse (or at least highly skeptical) approach to structure, and a willingness to embrace contradictions and paradoxes as source material. How I got there is a long story beyond this short essay. The emotional center of the activity was a desire to exit the prosaic world—a dangerous motivation, and one not tied to a particular methodology or ideology.
Baltimore was and continues to be an exciting place to develop those interests. In the ’80s, as a teenager I fell into a rich avant-garde scene which was equal parts influenced by happenings/Fluxus, language writing, experimental music, and utopian political currents. As an experimental composer/performer I became one of its youngest members. Frequent collaborations with unusual figures like ultra-nonconformist tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE, instrument inventor Neil Feather, and L.A.F.M.S. transplant Peter “Pan” Zahorecz in the Baltimore of the ’80s and ’90s led to a scene that drew international figures to the city for collaboration. This was the richest and most sophisticated universe of inspired weirdos I could have asked for—though not an entirely cushy, or comfortable scene. The story of that amazing time remains to be written.
In the ’90s I became the saxophone student / protegee of Jack Wright, a crucial force in North American free improvisation, and toured extensively with him, providing a new focus in instantaneous music making and virtuosic technical considerations, which layered on to the rest of what Baltimore had given me. In turn, the networks derived from that touring formed the basis for a larger free improvisation engagement, leading to hundreds of collaborations through the ’90s and ’00s, and the formation of my record label, www.recorded.com (now on its 25th release). It was also this time that I became a philosophy student and music producer for Henry Flynt, the unusual American philosopher, founder of Concept Art, and inventor of Electronic Hillbilly Music. Both those relationships had a huge impact on the development of my sensibility.
It was during this time that I convinced my business partners in Normal’s Books and Records to let me use the storage room as a space for experimental gigs on a regular basis, which I ran by myself for the first year and was the launch of www.redroom.org, a storied experimental music space that since 1996 has presented over a thousand concerts of experimental music, along with language, philosophy, performance and film. The collective that I formed to run that space went on to realize the www.highzero.org festival, an international festival since 1999 that is both one of the most inspired institutions of free improvisation but also a crossing-ground of all the varied subcultures of experimental music. The clashing range of sensibilities, in combination with exaltation and sophistication are all hallmarks of the Baltimore scene; one with a shocking large and consistent audience for experimental culture.
Though still connected with all those activities, in the last decade, I moved on in my own work to develop the concept of “Relabi”—a cultural form based around “always slipping the pulse,” attempting something in relation to tempo that the Escher Woodcuts are in relation to depth and space. Again, paradoxes as experience-generators. The idea of confusing the issue of “is there a tempo or not” has become an obsession for me and a new form of dissonance. Expect an LP, Baltimore Relabi Style, in the coming years, full of special guest and odd gambits.
Baltimore, “the ambiguity city,” turns out to be one of the best places to care about this sort of ineffable stuff, and it has been a supreme privilege to be a part of such a smart, elevated, eccentric community. It has been exactly what I, as an individual, needed and also a major love of my life.
I came to Baltimore area by a chance, via Germany, Israel, and Canada. After I completed my studies in Neues Musiktheater with Mauricio Kagel in Cologne, I was practically stuck in Germany without being able to return home since the war in former Yugoslavia was still going on. The new music scene in Cologne was fantastically exciting, with pieces programmed at all concerts no matter how small or big the venue or who the performers or the audiences were, but the negative public opinion regarding the war in my home country was so intense that it was just impossible for me to continue living there. I got an opportunity to go to Israel, and very soon found out that although there was a great appreciation for traditional classical music, there were not many opportunities in contemporary music performance for someone who just recently landed there. I then applied for a six-month residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada, and it was in their library where I came across the Towson University’s graduate program in interdisciplinary theatre which accepted the students from various artistic backgrounds and gave them practical training in self-produced theatrical performances. And so I went to Towson in 1999, where I also took composition classes (mainly in electronic sound) from Dr. William Kleinsasser.
While still at TU, I was invited to join the Baltimore Composers Forum. The primary focus of the organization was to program the new music concerts featuring local composers who wrote in a variety of styles with strong classical or jazz backgrounds. There was no real connection among the members other than showing up for the concerts when their music was performed. In 2008, my colleague Keith Kramer and I took over the leadership and slightly restructured how the organization was to be run, which has remained up until the present: from the all-membership meetings where concert ideas are freely exchanged, to scheduling events in spaces other than traditional concert venues, to reaching out to other local artists and collaborating with them – the most successful dance event Sound in Motion was held last year for the 6th time. Our main focus is to reach diverse audiences and present a variety of local ensembles through our compositions, but the most significant change for us was that we gave the performers the freedom to choose which works will be performed at any event, rather than it being decided by the Board.
When the pandemic started, Baltimore Composers Forum was a little bit stuck in a limbo; as current president, I kept postponing our vocal concert for 3, then 6 months, then cancelling it altogether and switching it into a virtual event. We all had a steep learning curve in how things in this new-normal performance reality are supposed to function: from utilizing our website as a virtual stage; to dealing with the logistics of putting together a virtual vs in-person concert; to finding the musicians and videographers who felt safe enough to rehearse and film the music; to finding venues that would be open to the idea of someone filming in their otherwise shut-down spaces; to figuring out how royalties work for virtual performances, etc. Some of the online concerts, like Sound in Motion VI, were very successful, and because with each online event we were able to reach much wider audiences, even internationally, it was decided that when we get back to live concerts we should still keep one portion of our concerts virtual. As for me personally, I was juggling homeschooling my two young daughters, taking care of everyday chores, running Baltimore Composers Forum, and finding a time to compose. As many of our current members, I have moved away from Baltimore, and now am a part of our greater Maryland base that is continuing to be active in the Charm City’s new music scene. Baltimore’s openness to new experiences, exciting performers, and the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaborations are still inspiring to me today as they were when I first arrived.
I have started at the beginning of a lockdown a series of very short virtual compositions (1-2 minutes) inspired by and featuring very mundane every-day objects as a sound inspiration such as an electric toothbrush, children’s talking books, and a musical jewelry box.
The first one, titled B(rushed) Moment can be watched here:
White Noise for prerecorded text in 8 languages, musique concrète and sound effects (text by Juanita Rockwell in collaboration with Anna Maria Delinasiou) can be heard here:
I recommend my fellow Baltimore Composers Forum Keith Kramer’s Amalgam:
Stephen Santillan
Stephen Santillan
I grew up in Baltimore after my family moved here from the Philippines in 1982. I fell in love with art and music in my teens and have since met like-minded people here who have become longtime friends and collaborators. They are a big reason why I continue to call Baltimore home. For the past 25 years, I have been writing and performing music in both collaborative and solo settings, some of which have allowed me to tour throughout the United States and Europe. Outside of purely musical works, I have written music for theater and dance productions, art installations, and have also been a member of DIY theater ensembles as well. With the help of grants, a longtime collaborator and I were able to hire Peabody Conservatory students to play some of our compositions and I’ve also had ensemble performances made up of just friends.
One of the most important things about Baltimore for me is that the music scene feels like an actual community. Baltimore isn’t a big city you move to in order to “make it”, so there is a feeling of trust behind what people are doing here. There are a lot of people here making art and music with a pure kind of motivation. That same genuine impulse is apparent in the effort to put on events and performances, too. When Baltimore artists do become well known, they remain very much in the fiber of the community, instead of being treated differently. I think one of the reasons the community is so healthy is because of its strong vibrant DIY spirit. There are a lot of highly motivated people and many dedicated independent warehouse spaces. The importance of these cannot be overstated. I’ve been lucky to witness a wide variety of performances at these events, from English improv group AMM, to the late Baltimore Club DJ, K-Swift, to DIY ensemble performances of music by Louis Andriessen and Terry Riley, to the Sun Ra Arkestra performing at an independently funded festival, just to name a few. Outside of the DIY scene, establishments like the Peabody Conservatory, MICA, the Maryland Film Festival, as well as other smaller galleries and venues also host their own program of events, adding to the mix, and helping to create a flourishing community. The diversity and supportive nature of this community has kept me inspired and motivated to keep creating and experimenting.
The live music scene shutting down, has personally been one of the more challenging parts of the pandemic. When watching live performances was part of my routine, it added inspiration and a balance. As far as my creative practices, some personal projects were put on hold, but also some new avenues of exploration opened up. My work has always had a live element in mind, but during the lockdown I shifted my focus to experimenting with the film music medium, which also helped me build up a portfolio. I did work on some collaborative projects but found it hard to be productive when working through emails and file sharing. Fortunately my wife, Wheatie Mattiasich, is one of my collaborators, and we were able to record an album in our home studio. This work will be released on vinyl in 2023. As of late, I’ve shifted my focus back to writing live music, with the optimistic hope that shows and concerts will become increasingly safer and more abundant. I’m very much looking forward to being an audience member again, and to also be part of this city’s very communal musical dialogue.
And this is the selection I am making of another artist:
Amy Reid
Amy Reid (photo by Kata Frederick)
I have lived in Baltimore my whole life, it’s what I call home. My practice is rooted in building community and connecting with people through music. Because of that, and being close with my family (chosen and biological), I am deep-seated here. I moved from Baltimore County to Baltimore City when I went to college at MICA and fell in love with the warehouse/nightclub music scene in 2006 and never left. It was my first time going to legendary spaces like the Paradox, experiencing Baltimore club music in person and that was really life changing. There were also underground spaces hosting bills with Beach House, Rye Rye, Future Islands, Naeem, Dan Deacon, DDM, TT the Artist and other legends in the making. During this time I became really close friends with another Baltimore musician, Abdu Ali who started throwing these amazing parties called Kahlon which hosted Princess Nokia, Juliana Huxtable, and Jungle Pussy, to name a few. These experiences fueled my passion for collaborative music making and curatorial work.
I think something that really separates Baltimore from other cities is our rawness. That goes for both performers and people who attend events. We’re not afraid to go all out, get weird, be flamboyant, and move our bodies. In my band Chiffon, we make dance music and it always took me out of my element to go to a city where it was difficult to get people moving or to be vocally receptive. Another thing I love about this city is how we have such a range of genres here, some really niche ones, and how they are all frequently represented on one bill. It’s not out of the ordinary to attend a show with a noise/electronic musician, dj playing dance music, rapper, indie band, or a combination of all of these. I think it’s also important to note that our city forces us artists to be resilient and resourceful. We don’t have a large variety of venues and we definitely have a lack of queer centered spaces. Despite all of that, I have seen the LGBTQ music scene explode which has been really exciting for me as a queer identifying musician. TT the Artist’s film Dark City Beneath the Beat does a really great job capturing the high energy, soul, and spirit of Baltimore.
The pandemic has obviously been difficult for everyone. For me, making music is how I connect with people so it has been challenging both mentally and financially. It has been two years of trial, error, and sometimes succeeding in finding ways to share space with people through music as safely as possible. In addition to being a musician, I am also an events curator. Baltimore based musician, Pangelica, and myself makeup GRL PWR–a platform dedicated to cultivating community and elevating the visibility of women, trans, queer, and non-binary artists. Every year around Halloween, we organize a grandiose drag show, SWEAT and the pandemic challenged us to find a creative way to still make this happen. We wound up renting out a space, gathering a film crew, and putting on an outdoor show with djs, local drag performers but no live audience. Airing the first virtual rendition of SWEAT was successful in gathering our community together in a celebratory digital space. Musically speaking, the virtual world opened up new possibilities for collaboration. As part of a residency at the Merriweather District in September 2020, I assembled a sample pack for a project titled Future Canopies. The pack included field recordings, improvisations and through a digital open call, I invited artists to re-interpret the samples by creating new compositions. I wound up receiving tracks from Brazil, California, New York, and beyond. This time has me reflecting on how to cross borders/boundaries and be a cheerleader for the global recognition that Baltimore City deserves.
[Ed. note: Last month, we launched a new series of articles under the banner “Out of the Box.” For this series, which follows New Music USA’s tenth anniversary this past November and marks the start of our second decade, we are asking a group of deep musical thinkers to ponder what the landscape for new music will be ten years from now. We aim for this series to spark important discussions in our community as well as to raise important journalistic voices from all around the country. The first installment of this series is a provocative essay by University of Florida-based musicologist and bassoonist Dr. Imani Mosley. Our second contributor is Brooklyn-based violinist and arts journalist Vanessa Ague.-FJO]
When I think about music 10 years into the future, the one thing that jumps out in my mind most is the perennial question of genre: How we define it and how it’ll change. Will there be any genres in 10 years? What will post-genre and cross-genre and everything in-between look like? Which new genres will emerge and take over the musical landscape? To me, genre and its evolution is one of the most fascinating aspects of music and music history. They’re imperfect descriptors, yet we cling to them. They’re constantly morphing, yet they stick to certain boundaries that contain them. People want to identify with a genre, or against a genre, and that becomes a defining part of their character. Genre encompasses more than the words that describe them. But will we someday land on words that finally feel right?
I’ve been considering this question even more lately, as I recently completed a Master’s capstone that touched on them. (Parts of this essay draw from that research and writing.) My writing is often dictated by genre, as are record store shelves and digital sales, for better and for worse. I personally find myself more and more drawn to the “post-genre” and “genre-blending” music—or, music that defies categorization yet is categorized in imperfect ways. As I think about the next ten years of music making, I hope we’ll grapple with how we define, use, and think about these signifiers. Some of the most compelling music made today, in my opinion, is born out of a conglomeration of genres and styles, and in the next 10 years, my idealistic dream would be for us to shift to talking about music in a way that foregrounds appreciation of the sound and the people who make it instead of boxes that don’t always fit.
Our struggle to find the perfect genre tags aren’t anything new, and neither is crossing over from one genre to another, or mixing them together into one. The trend of genre mixing perhaps most famously came to the fore in New York in the mid-20th century, and The Velvet Underground is one of the best known genre and medium-bending groups from those days. Their early albums, like 1967’s The Velvet Underground and Nico, united La Monte Young and Tony Conrad’s drone composition with singer-songwriter structures; the sound became a mix of long-held tones with chugging four-four rhythms and hazy speak-sung vocals. The band’s legacy has been long-lasting: They’ve inspired many other alternative rock bands to extend boundaries, from ambient pioneer Brian Eno to shoegaze band Galaxie 500 to indie rock darlings The Strokes.
More recently, we’ve had the community of the internet to power our genre discovery. In the 2000s and 2010s, the internet would make more genres than ever before, from all over the world, available to anyone who wanted to listen. On the internet, all kinds of music became available to everyone and anyone and sounds from across the globe became easy to access. On sites like Limewire, and later what.cd, redacted, and soulseek, the music-obsessed could download as many MP3s as they wanted, taking in every single sound and throwing it back in the art they’d make later on. Today’s streaming services like Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music tried to follow suit, providing a constant stream of new music for listeners and makers (though none of these platforms support artists financially, which is another, separate issue I hope we address in the next 10 years). With such easy discovery, it’s no wonder mixing and matching in music has continued to proliferate and the barriers between genres have come down. Access has allowed us possibility.
Much of our music discovery today is centered around genre. Streaming sites make playlists geared towards specific genres and their algorithms recommend similar artists. In 10 years, I don’t see this type of recommendation changing—but I do think those algorithms will need to continue to expand and get more detailed. There are general playlists for umbrella genres like pop and experimental, but will more playlists show up that cover subgenres? Will algorithms begin to detect the smallest shifts in sound, linking together artists from completely different parts of the musical landscape? This certainly happens occasionally—Spotify in particular touts itself as a bastion for this kind of discovery—but I wonder if it’ll start to happen more as our genre barriers continue to dissolve. And, with radio and podcasting on the rise, I wonder if in 10 years we’ll see those formats become major agents for discovery again, too.
"My idealistic dream would be for us to shift to talking about music in a way that foregrounds appreciation of the sound and the people who make it instead of boxes that don’t always fit."
Vanessa Ague
The trend of genre mixing perhaps most famously came to the fore in New York in the mid-20th century.
Vanessa Ague
More past trends and styles will be resurrected and repurposed in the next 10 years. Perhaps there will be music that mixes baroque composition with field recordings, or medieval chant with ambient—perhaps there already is.
Vanessa Ague
Genre is a way of describing what we hear so that it can be contextualized and understood. Genre isn’t going to go away for this reason—it helps us categorize and understand the world of music. But can it become more malleable?
Vanessa Ague
I don’t know if we’ll ever have the perfect solution to categorizing music, but as the next 10 years continue, we’re going to hear new kinds of music that question our assumptions of what genre is and what it means, just like the past 10 years and the 10 before that.
Vanessa Ague
Musically, I don’t see the impulse to mix genres and form new ones changing anytime soon. A lot of today’s genre blending seems to mix old trends that have come around in popularity again with new ones (like mixing minimalism with modern electronic dance music). More past trends and styles will be resurrected and repurposed in the next 10 years. Perhaps there will be music that mixes baroque composition with field recordings, or medieval chant with ambient—perhaps there already is. There will probably be more shoegaze-y drone and electronic dance and hyperpop variants, which are genres that seem to dominate the recent conversation around experimental music. Whatever sounds do appear, though, will likely be those that glean influence from past sounds to make something current, building on past innovation to drive it into new directions.
Will the music industry respond to future genre shifts? Today, buying, selling, awarding, and discovering music is tied to arbitrary genre tags. Many of them feel like dusty conventions we haven’t brushed off yet. In the utopian future I imagine, these tags will be determined by the album we hear, an attempt to discuss and share music from a place of how it actually sounds. After all, genre is a way of describing what we hear so that it can be contextualized and understood. Genre isn’t going to go away for this reason—it helps us categorize and understand the world of music. But can it become more malleable? With the continued breaking and reassembling of genres, the industry as a whole needs to become more open-minded about changing how we talk about, understand, and think about musical categorization. I wonder if in the future, we’ll have entirely new, as-of-yet to be discovered genre tags that actually encompass the meaning of the music outside of a convention established years ago, supported by record labels and venues and marketers who start to adopt new tools and language to talk about the music they present. Maybe those new genres will be a better representation of the artists and the art.
I don’t know if we’ll ever have the perfect solution to categorizing music, the box to box genre boxes back into. But I do know this: As the next 10 years continue, we’re going to hear new kinds of music that question our assumptions of what genre is and what it means, just like the past 10 years and the 10 before that. I hope we look for solutions that stay true to the sounds and to the artists who make them.
(Text by Belinda Reynolds with video content by Ashley Killam)
I first wrote about the lack of works by living composers for younger players 15 years ago. Fast forward to today. Sadly, essentially nothing has changed. Contemporary music is still desperately needed in the teaching repertoire for most orchestral instruments.
Back then, I addressed the problem by creating a set of progressive level instrumental books, called CUSTOM MADE MUSIC SERIES (CMM). The 6th book has just been published by PRB Productions: CUSTOM MADE MUSIC VOLUME 6 – 10 Progressive Solos and Duos for Trumpet. Using this new CMM addition as a guidepost, I wish to share with you some tips on how to successfully compose for student players and make a lasting difference in new music for all of us in today’s challenging times.
Step One:
In approaching composing at the student level, find a collaborator who is both a player and a teacher of your chosen instrument(s). They will bring the expertise and knowledge needed to help you create a project that can make lasting change in the pedagogical repertoire. They can come from any avenue in your life – a former teacher, a colleague, a friend, a connection, anywhere! For my new project I collaborated with trumpet player/music educator/new music advocate Ashley Killam (she/her). She actually found me when she was researching composers to be listed in her open source music catalog of brass music by underrepresented composers. We wound up having a conversation about students and the trumpet repertoire and I asked her if she would be interested in being the Editor of a new CUSTOM MADE MUSIC book for trumpet. She was and thus began our project.
Watch the video below to hear Ashley’s point of view on the CUSTOM MADE MUSIC collaboration.
Step Two:
Together identify the technical gaps in the pedagogical repertoire of the instrument(s) you both wish to approach with your project. In this case, Ashley immediately knew what was needed, thanks to her extensive experience in working with music students and teachers across the country and in her studio. After a Zoom session and a few emails we decided to create a book mostly containing solos and some additional duos for three levels of trumpet players: beginners, late beginners, and early intermediate learners.
With each work I introduced the basic techniques that Ashley said were essential concepts for young trumpeters to master. I also kept all of the compositions limited to a one octave range because it was the maximum reach for most beginner players. All of these issues were addressed in composing a tasty melody for them to play. For me such challenges are creativity drivers; I believe in the motto “Limits Create Possibilities”.
Watch the video below to hear Ashley describe in more detail the ins and outs we addressed in the creation of these new compositions along with her playing one of the solos for beginner, “Carefree.”
Step Three:
Do workshops during the entirety of the creation of your composition(s). From day one I included Ashley almost as an equal partner, for I believe that bringing musicians into the creation of a new piece just makes for a higher quality composition. This is almost essential when composing for students. I learned this during my 25 years as a member of Common Sense Composers Collective, as well as with my own independent career. Ashley found this approach to be extremely rewarding, nourishing and a wonderful creative outlet for her. Together, along with her students, we ironed out the kinks and even found some new possibilities for some of the pieces. The results, we feel, are a stellar group of small pieces that young trumpet players can easily learn and gain technical skills while doing so. Take a look/listen below to one of the pieces that came to its true ‘life’, thanks to workshopping it:
Step Four:
Beta test all of your project before you bring it to its premiere and to market, so to speak. After workshopping your music, before it hits the limelight have the intended students or a similar group of learners “test” out your pieces. These young players are the final arbitrator of whether your music will or won’t work for them, regardless of what you and your collaborator have done thus far. What may seem idiomatic to a professional can sometimes seem weird and awkward to a newcomer. Ashley did this with many of her students, who gave her insights as to what articulations to finally use in some of the works.
Step Five:
Be enterprising and do tons of outreach and marketing to insure your project lives beyond the first performance/publication release. All too often a new music gem is lost into the past after its premiere because nobody pushed hard and long enough to give it a foothold in the repertoire. Compared to 15 years ago, marketing is easier than ever thanks to social media and other internet resources. Both you and your partner must utilize these tools. Urge your friends to help and reach out to all of your professional contacts that may have interest or contributions to make to your release. Outreach in the music education community is also essential, even more than ads. Get your music into the hands of teachers via networking with educational organizations, instrumental guilds, and music conventions, among other areas. Bring it to classrooms and teaching studios with creative workshops showcasing your project from the start to the finish. Folks love to know how something works before they purchase it! Once your project is ready for the public both you and your collaborator must invest in the time and effort to do these actions; creating room in the repertoire of an instrument is a long term investment. You must get fans of your project on board, those who teach the instrument(s) and those who play it/them.
I hope this presentation will inspire you to try writing at the student level. Don’t worry if you think your style is not ‘kid-friendly’. I have found that EVERY style can be student friendly if it is tested and presented in a way as to welcome the learner into its universe and not alienate them. Young players are mostly more open to the sounds of new music than their older counterparts. Your efforts will plant the seeds for long term sustainable growth of new music in both today’s and tomorrow’s professional players and audiences. In addition, it will help both your creative skills and your career trajectory as an artist. I have received numerous performances and commissions thanks to the reputation of my work in composing music for younger players. I welcome you to try this venture!
Belinda Reynolds, Composer
Raised in a Texan-Florida Air Force family, Belinda Reynolds (she/her) now considers herself an “adopted native” of California. Her music is performed worldwide and has been featured in such festivals as Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series, the Spoleto Music Festival, and many more. As a Music Educator Ms. Reynolds is in demand nationwide helping children learn to create music. For more information, go to www.belindareynolds.com.
Ashley Killam, Editor
Ashley Killam (she/her) is an international speaker, researcher, and educator based in Radford, Virginia. Killam is President of Diversity the Stand and General Manager of Rising Tide Music Press. Killam’s work centers around educating musicians on the importance of making ethical and sustainable changes in performing and teaching music. For more information, go to www.ashleykillam.com.
I had meant, at least at first, to produce here an essay criticizing programs of “Music by [Insert Marginalized Community Here] Composers.” While I’m sure there are some who in their own heart of hearts find such marked categorization validating, I personally find it uncomfortable to have my utterances branded publicly as “female music” or “queer music,” the implication being that an unbranded program constitutes “real music”: music that needs no qualifier. However, this point has been articulated before better than I ever will, and perhaps more importantly, simply shaming the one practice that seems intended to help those of us whose work does not enjoy the privilege of de facto universality in our culture seemed unlikely to provoke any meaningful alternative. Moreover, in envisioning a culture of egalitarian programming–even in watching one come to fruition–I came to realize that a solution I would really like would have to be more profoundly transformative. A hegemony of Deserving Artists with a tiny handful at the top, but who equally likely happen to be women, if anything, feels like more of an exclusion than a culture of programming all men: at least, if women were never programmed, we could blame sexism entirely for our frustration, rather than be faced with the implication that we are inadequate standard-bearers for our gender.
To put it more generally, the assumption that opportunities come to those who deserve them is inherent in any structure in which there are fewer artists who can work than who want to, or moreover in which there is an unequal distribution of opportunities within those who are actively working artists. We are simply in competition with each other whether presenting organizations intend this or not; scarce funding exacerbates this, but throwing money at the problem does not annihilate this fact, and I feel a degree of it would persist even if all artists were guaranteed a stable income. Rather, some disruption of the basic creative transaction is necessary: an option which does not require a composer to start her own ensemble and thereby insert herself into the decider-position.
“The assumption that opportunities come to those who deserve them is inherent in any structure in which there are fewer artists who can work than who want to.”
Can we foment a culture in which composers’ utterances are deemed valuable solely on the basis of having been uttered, regardless of hegemonic notions of musical quality? Certainly explicit competitions are out. (As a side note, when a competition specifically asks for submissions from “underrepresented groups,” this language rings severely hollow. Forcing us to compete for the privilege of being tokenized–in the event that any such applicants are selected at all–is in fact doubly insulting, and it might be worth someone’s time to conduct a thorough survey of how results actually change when such language is imposed.) I have often daydreamed about the possibility of a course evaluating applications by random lottery. But how, then, can music reach the audience-facing stage without this notion of deserving-quality backing it up?
The best course I have foreseen is a change in dismantling our listening hierarchies: really dismantling them, rather than moving the locus of deservingness from the art’s own nature to the artist’s character. What, for example, would it look like if every work that existed were recorded equally well and given an equal chance at reaching audience’s ears? What opportunities could be created, then, for every composer and every performer and every listener to form their own aesthetic values? I don’t mean to pitch a particular type of project as much as to posit a thought experiment and offer a gentle nudge in a new direction. What I envision, were the technical and economic barriers to such a situation eliminated, is a type of free association, in which creative communities would form without deference to a Discerning Other, and in which the bounds that force us to appease pseudoaristocratic notions of taste would cease to alienate us from our own inner creative wellsprings.
“What would it look like if every work that existed were recorded equally well and given an equal chance at reaching audience’s ears?”
As for what I think you, dear reader, “should” do right now (who am I to say “should?”): remember as you evaluate that you are never without biases, and perhaps this is most especially prevalent when you attempt to abolish your biases. While it would be wonderful if we could fully sacrifice our creative urges to some sense of collective good, maintaining the illusion of such a sacrifice (and you do sacrifice your creative urge if you choose to defer to me, even willingly, even if you were to consider me particularly deserving) constitutes a dishonesty harmful both to yourself and to those you have chosen to “support.” Ultimately, at the root of all this, I say: imagine listening differently, as if you have never taken a recommendation from someone, as if you have never suffered through a “Music Appreciation” course, as if you have never read a review in any publication: as if, instead, you are simply searching for the particular combination of factors that stirs you most deeply, in this life and in this moment.
Were it not for the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, last week would have been the 10th anniversary season of PROTOTYPE, a festival held in New York City each January devoted to boundary-pushing new opera and music theater. One of the highlights of this year’s offerings was to have been The Book of Mountains and Seas, a collaboration between Chinese American composer Huang Ruo and experimental puppeteer Basil Twist. I was so excited to see and hear this work, especially after being so deeply moved by Huang Ruo’s hour-long string quartet A Dust in Time which the San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet premiered online in October 2020 as the virus raged around the world. (In October 2021, Bright Shiny Things issued Del Sol’s recording of A Dust in Time on a CD that is packaged with a coloring book of Tibetan mandalas which listeners are encouraged to color in as they listen to the music.)
So in late December, I talked with Huang Ruo about A Dust in Time, The Book of Mountains and Seas, and many other works of his. No matter what he composes, whether it’s a bona fide opera or an instrumental work for a chamber ensemble, there is usually some kind of visual stimulation and often an element of theater involved in the performance. For Huang Ruo, music–like theater–exists in a four-dimensional space, which is why it is often difficult to capture his work in a merely two-dimensional medium like, say, most CD recordings. In fact, in one of his most intriguing creations, Sound of Hand, the solo percussionist barely produces an audible sound.
In our conversation, Huang Ruo remembered telling David Schotzko, the percussionist for whom the piece was originally written, “I want to approach it like a Chinese medicine. I want to give you this piece; clean out all your right or wrongs in your system. Just to rebuild you, from nothing to something. From bottom up. So then I created this piece, I want a piece to have the hand, just as the instrument, without holding anything. The hand itself could be the skin of the drum. The cymbal. The surface of a percussion instrument. Sometimes they are moving in the air. People might not hear anything, but they could see everything. It is a performance art piece. It is not just a piece for solo percussionist. … A dancer could do it. A regular person, they could see the score, they could learn it almost like Tai Chi, like a Kung Fu piece. I hope this piece could help people to build their own being, mental and also physical.”
There is a larger purpose in most of Huang Ruo’s work. His recent Angel Island Oratorio is based on poems that were scrawled on the walls by East Asian detainees in the immigration processing center located on this San Francisco island which is the antithesis of Ellis Island and all the myths we’ve been taught of how welcoming the United States has been to immigrants. His 2014 opera An American Solider, which he created with playwright David Henry Hwang, was based on the true story of Private Danny Chen, who committed suicide in Afghanistan after being harassed and beaten by his fellow soldiers for being Asian. The Sonic Great Wall, which was a joint commission from Ensemble Modern, Asko Schoenberg, and London Sinfonietta, shatters the fourth wall between performers and the audience.
There was so much to talk about with him and our conversation all in all lasted an unwieldy hour and a half! But since the performances of The Book of Mountains and Seas have been postponed until next year, we decided to save the portion of our conversation about that piece for a later date. There is still so much material in the hour we are presenting here which we hope will be inspiring to read and or listen to during these unfortunately ongoing precarious times.
According to Huang Ruo, “We need to learn to live with challenges, including this ongoing pandemic. One thing for sure, art and music should continue and should find its own way to be shared, to be created. And of course, doing it online. … We all need to connect, but also we need to be safely distancing ourselves. Now, yes, physically performer and audience might need to be distancing, just for safety reason, health reason. However, the main idea, why we exist, why we create art, why art exists, thousands of years, even until we are long gone, I believe this idea will still be there, is to be shared, to connect, to connect people, to share with people. And that’s the joy, the tears, that’s the laughter. That’s why we feel the burning of the art. I believe that no matter what, that will still be felt, and still carry on. If we are persistently looking, searching, and thinking, we will find a good way to create that.”
Listening to a CD will give you two-dimensional space, instead of four, when you really see a theatrical performance.
Huang Ruo
One big lesson I learned during the pandemic is accepting our fate. Accepting where we are, but also learning how to let go of the things we might have to lose.
Huang Ruo
The only way we can learn not to repeat the same mistake is by really learning what happened in the past.
Huang Ruo
A critic who came to review our opera wrote that both David and I created this very bombastically anti-American work. ... It was absolutely not our intention to create division.
Huang Ruo
Each character has their own dilemma, has their own duty to be bound to. It's not just easily black and white, who is right or who is wrong. To me, opera should tell a story more complex than that to let audiences reflect and to think. To find their own answer.
Huang Ruo
The true meaning of revolution is not about just being successful, but about keep trying.
Huang Ruo
I believe everything happens in our life for a reason.
Huang Ruo
To me the idea is to use music to bring down the barrier of what the physical wall normally is.
Huang Ruo
I think we need to learn to live with challenges, including this ongoing pandemic.
Huang Ruo
Why we exist, why we create art, why art exists, thousands of years, even until we are long gone, I believe this idea will still be there, is to be shared, to connect, to connect people, to share with people. And that's the joy, the tears, that's the laughter. That's why we feel the burning of the art. I believe that no matter what, that will still be felt, and still carry on. If we are persistently looking, searching, and thinking, we will find a good way to create that.
Conductor Ryan McAdams shares how the myth of the “ideal” conductor, perpetuated at conservatory and within Western culture, glorifies destructive lifestyles such as living in isolation, excessive behaviors, constant striving for perfection, appearing omniscient, and hiding all human vulnerabilities. In order to manage these impossible professional standards, Ryan believes many conductors turn towards self-destructive behaviors, and Ryan shares some of his own personal struggles. Lastly, Ryan suggests how young conductors could be nurtured and prepared for the challenges of the profession, instead of being told they are not cut out for the job if they cannot cope with stress.
[Ed. note: Last November, New Music USA marked its 10th anniversary. While we are continuing to celebrate all of the remarkable new music that has been created over the last ten years and our relationship to it throughout the coming months, we also want to start our second decade by imagining what the landscape for new music will be ten years from now. To that end, we are asking a group of deep musical thinkers to ponder this question. We aim for this series to spark important discussions in our community as well as to raise important journalistic voices from all around the country. Our first contributor is University of Florida-based musicologist and bassoonist Dr. Imani Mosley.-FJO]
Anthony Tommasini, in his final article as chief classical music critic for The New York Times, asks “so what things about classical music shouldn’t change?” It’s an interesting thought exercise that he unfurls throughout the article, reminding readers of things possibly slipping away: the sound of live acoustics, the exhilaration of risky playing, the generational work of artists and institutions. I don’t particularly have a qualm with the exercise or its examples — it’s a way, in a sense, of grounding classical music in a space and time that currently feels so unhinged, unembodied, unpracticed. But I am struck by the binary presented (even if it is to take apart a particular “problem”): that we in classical music-land are either asking what should change or what should remain the same. In approaching an essay such as this one that I was tasked with writing — what will new music look like ten years from now — I find myself running into that same binary. It is the idea that in order to assess or predict the new music landscape, one must be forced to face the conflict of change and stasis; not that things will change as most things inevitably do, but that change is not definite; stasis is.
This binary becomes murky both in theory and practice. One could say that art music throughout the twentieth century was based on change and the refutation of past practices. But as composers and performers shifted from style to style, medium to medium, our institutions became museumified, creating a dichotomy of either/or. The urge to be static rose concurrently with the urge to change. And so, in the twenty-first century, we’re presented with a choice: to look ahead or to look down. Not back or backwards, not into the past (because pastness cannot be and is not always equated with stasis), but down: down at our idle hands, down and away from our communities, down and buried in the sand. Had I been approached with discussing the future of new music two years ago, I probably would have answered differently; that our desire to look ahead would always be countered with our desire to look down. But as we enter the third year of a global pandemic, my view has shifted ever so slightly. Looking down is no longer a feasible or viable business model. It has become “look ahead or cease to exist.” And while I do not want to tie this piece so explicitly to current events, I don’t think it is possible for me to talk about the future without acknowledging what is happening in the here and now.
As composers and performers shifted from style to style, medium to medium, our institutions became museumified, creating a dichotomy of either/or.
Dr. Imani Mosley
Looking down is no longer a feasible or viable business model.
Dr. Imani Mosley
It has only been until very recently that the idea of space and place has been limited to the tangible.
Dr. Imani Mosley
That shift away from liveness (something that I believe was on its way) is a huge step in the future of new music.
Dr. Imani Mosley
As someone who is ensconced within the world of living composers, never have I felt as much access to them and their works as I have in the last few years.
Dr. Imani Mosley
Looking ahead may be the only feasible way forward, the only way we will have created for ourselves.
Dr. Imani Mosley
Music is indelibly linked to space and place. Those elements can shape, structure, and define our listening and performance practices. The rigid acoustics of a European concert hall, the grand solemnity of a cathedral, the vast possibilities of a soundwalk—these are all ways in which music moves from the theoretical to the experiential. Music thrives on the performance of the experiential, on the real. The real, dependent upon physical space and presence, has been valorized above other kinds of performance often by listeners and performers. Whereas other types of music and performing media may thrive within recordings, art music relies upon the live. This is not disputing the long history of classical music recording, but rather positioning it within a synchronous history of live performance practice. Recording obfuscates authenticity because it has to be imbued in order to be believed, as explained by Philip Auslander: “[T]he music industry specifically sets out to endow its products with the necessary signs of authenticity.” Even Pierre Boulez expressed concern about the fidelity of recording, where “the so-called techniques of reproduction are acquiring an irrepressible tendency to become autonomous and to impress their own image of existing music, and less and less concerned to reproduce as faithfully as possible the conditions of direct audition.” For a genre that existed before recording technology, its authenticity lay within the visage of liveness (one only has to look to arguments around amplification to see this concept at work); liveness becomes the real. It has only been until very recently that the idea of space and place has been limited to the tangible. Philip Auslander and Jonathan Sterne discuss a shift that occurred in the 1990s, but the advance of the internet has accelerated that shift. Space and place could become virtual, mediated, otherworldly. The late 2000s saw Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir as well as the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, emphasizing that a virtual space could still be experiential, authentic, real.
So, what happens when physical space and place are no longer available to you? The COVID-19 pandemic posed this question to musicians, composers, and institutions. What about your precious real now? Many organizations opted to make already filmed material available to a wider public, following the already existing models created by the Berlin Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, and Glyndebourne. But others saw this as an untapped creative space: Opera Philadelphia created a streaming channel with new works by composers such as Caroline Shaw, Angélica Negrón, Tyshawn Sorey, and Melissa Dunphy. These composers created works within a virtual space, decidedly unreal in a sense, to make a multifaceted multimedia object, one that uses all available tools to build something unique. Like the television opera/opera on television divide, these works exist in this mediated way first, much like Benjamin Britten’s Owen Wingrave or Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors. Their authenticity is not predicated on some kind of prescribed and imagined liveness; they are not meant to be experienced in that way. And more than anything, that shift away from liveness (something that I believe was on its way) is a huge step in the future of new music. This is more than just using media, electronics, and technology as tools; this is about restructuring foundational elements of art music.
I am loathe to cite this pandemic as a breaking open of anything. Music’s relationship to this moment is varied and I find the “Newton’s Annus mirabilis” approach to these last few years as demoralizing and unapt. But decisions will be made and I wonder if in ten years hence, we’ll look back at now and see those decisions as being tectonic for new music. There is an immediacy that exists in a way that has seldom been seen and with that immediacy comes freedom: freedom to create new music without the shackles of place, space, and institution. The freedom that signifies the taking back of creative power and control. As someone who is ensconced within the world of living composers, never have I felt as much access to them and their works as I have in the last few years. And I cannot imagine anyone wanting to give that up. With the virtuality of space and place comes a kind of equalizing; yes, there will always be funders, donors, money, connection, and privilege. But virtual space is limitless. I’m reminded of composer Garrett Schumann’s “I’m a composer and I wrote this music” TikToks, maximizing the medium’s penchant for virality, its visibility and algorithmic pervasiveness to introduce his music, new music to the world. And as we’re forced to turn to those virtual spaces to have as close to real musical experiences as we can get, the more we reify that aforementioned power. I do not foresee a looking down after this moment ends.
So, what does that mean for the future of new music? What happens in that next decade? I personally can’t speak to musical and stylistic changes, that’s anyone’s guess. But as a musicologist and historian who specializes in how people have reacted to music in specific cultural moments, I can guess as to how the moment will be presented to us. In schools, in our major institutions, and with individuals, we will have assessed what to let go, what will change, and what will remain static. Looking ahead may be the only feasible way forward, the only way we will have created for ourselves. Tommasini ends his article noting that he wants to “protect it [classical music], as well as shake it up.” This reads as that forced binary appearing once again and this moment now suggests that that binary may no longer be viable. We may experience another moment when we will have to let things go because they have been taken from us. And instead of approaching that moment as a deficiency, let us approach it as an abundance, as so many composers and performers are doing now. Creation not in spite of but out of a desire to. A future where change is definite.
