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Libby Larsen Interview (2/99)
4. How to Measure Success
RK: And we've already seen groups of artists who have left those arenas. Steve Reich isn't writing for orchestra. There are all sorts of people who have absolutely left. One thing I think is particularly interesting about this conversation is how to measure success. If you are measuring success, that means that you're also measuring failure or different levels of success. It also has great implications on the grand psyche of this field.
LL: You're right, Richard.
RK: If this is being used as any kind of measure of success, then it means that people in some ways are viewing themselves as failures or the field as a failure. What does it mean to create a piece of music if it's not commercially successful?
LL: Exactly, and do you feel that (back to this question of language), the language has changed quite a bit since the 1970s, even again, but most of the rhetoric being written about what composers are working on today is in relation to commercial success? Composers are increasingly faced with the issue of commercial success. Which is of course an oxymoron in the non-profit world.
RK: Absolutely! Without a doubt.
LL: If we don't compose pieces of music that fit right into the format of orchestras or opera companies, where the most successful operas are masterpieces of 19th century convention (production convention), then are we failures as artists? Right now, arts organizations are telling us, in fact, we are.
RK: Well, you can imagine how prime this is to the Center, and how key this is to the Center. This has been an issue of the Center that concerns all kinds of composers, a Center that has a library where there are pieces that haven't been performed, where people are regularly depositing their scores. What validates whether or not they're composers? These are tremendous issues in terms of the history of new American music.
LL: And in fact that may be the central issue to the America Music Center: the whole question of whether or not a piece of music is successful by its public deliverance; or whether or not the compositional process constitutes the success of the piece. And then, what value is musical process alone in the culture? The American Music Center has always been a place where anybody who declares "I am a composer" feels an amount of success if a score can be received for the library.
RK: But this particular discussion somehow has to be broadened. It has to include more people. It is this issue that is dogging the everyday composer. It's this issue that's dogging the people who are wondering how to measure success, and it's rarely spoken about, in fact.
LL: No, but maybe this is a dialogue we should really try to foster. It hurts a little everyday when you think the music you're writing has no meaning, or is not successful. It hurts a little everyday. And too many months of hurting a little everyday, and too many years is very unhealthy personally, for the art form, and for the culture.
RK: I think people certainly have to look inside and think about the reasons they compose. Composers also have to work at getting people to hear their music and networking to find people who will be interesting in presenting their work.
LL: Yes, right, I agree.
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