Category: Articles

When did first you know that you would be a composer and what is the earliest work that you still acknowledge? Andrew Imbrie

Andrew Imbrie
Andrew Imbrie
Photo courtesy of G. Schirmer, Inc.

I started my piano lessons when I was four years old with a woman named Ann Abajian. She was a student of Leo Ornstein. She encouraged all her students to make up little pieces of their own to play, so it never occurred to me that being a composer was anything unusual. It just seemed like a natural thing to do. Later I studied with Ornstein who continued to encourage my efforts at composition.

When I got older, I became a Wagner fan. I got to be very interested in the Ring. That was my Star Wars. I made a collection of all the leitmotifs the way other kids made stamp collections. And so I wanted to write operas.

When I was about sixteen, I went to Fontainebleau to study with Nadia Boulanger, but she didn’t influence me the way she seems to have influenced other American composers. On returning in the summer of 1937, I started taking private lessons with Roger Sessions before entering Princeton. In my junior year, we had a thing called a “reading period” where students had to read up on a topic for two weeks and write a report. Instead of doing that, Sessions had me write a new piece of music every day for two weeks. It didn’t matter how short it was, but it had to be complete. I realized that I had not yet found my own musical personality. This was the best laxative I have ever taken because in my senior year I started to write my thesis, which was a string quartet. I still needed a lot of help from Sessions while doing this, but I realized at last that I was writing my own music.

With Roger’s help, the string quartet was given its premiere at an ISCM Concert in 1944. It received the New York Music Critics Award for that year and was recorded by the Juilliard Quartet. This is the first work that I acknowledge. I owe much to Virgil Thomson for his favorable review.

When did first you know that you would be a composer and what is the earliest work that you still acknowledge? Barbara Kolb

Barbara Kolb
Barbara Kolb
Photo by Carlo Carnevali, courtesy of Boosey & Hawkes

If I can reflect on my past for a moment, without exactly knowing just when I wanted to be a composer, I recall sitting at the piano in my grandmother’s house improvising scenarios I would create in my mind…e.g.: galloping horses, stalking scenes, rippling water – anything that enters the minds of 5 year olds. This is my first recollection of being “serious” about music.

Music always played an important role in my school years, and since my father was a musician–he was music director of WTIC in Hartford CT–I was exposed more than most to activities which included being on live radio, meeting interesting musicians who would be guests on my father’s programs, and going to jazz clubs on the weekends with my parents.

Personally I believe my wish to become a musician/composer had to do with all of the above since I viewed musicians as exciting and fun people to be around who were paid for doing what they would do without remuneration. The best of all possible worlds, I thought!

My earliest composition that I acknowledge? REBUTTAL, for two clarinets which I wrote in my first year in college before I began “serious” composition lessons. Since I was a clarinetist, this work was written for a friend and myself and is both challenging and fun to perform. Fortunately, others who have performed it have expressed similar thoughts.

When did first you know that you would be a composer and what is the earliest work that you still acknowledge? Steve Mackey

Steve Mackey
Steve Mackey
Photo by Susan Wilson, courtesy Boosey & Hawkes

I decided to become a composer when I was 20 years old in 1976. I was playing in a rock band in Northern California while going to UC Davis as a physics major. Foisting our original tunes on audiences who were looking for an unobtrusive background to seduction and self-medication rather than a listening experience was leading to some disillusionment on my part. At the same time I enrolled in a music appreciation class and for the first time heard Beethoven Quartets, Mozart Piano Concertos, and Stravinsky Ballets. The music blew my mind and the idea of music just for listening fascinated me. The clincher was when, upon hearing a low marimba roll in a George Crumb piece, I asked the teacher how the composer knew that it was going to sound so cool. His reply was, “He is a composer, it’s his job to know.” I wanted that job! I learned to read music, changed my major and continue to foist my originals on unsuspecting audiences.

The earliest piece that I still acknowledge is called A Final Glance for Violin and Guitar (1978). The title referred to the fact that I thought I was turning completely away from the guitar and any traces of vernacular music as I went off to grad school… Ha! There are many pieces after A Final Glance that I don’t acknowledge up until my second string quartet, Fumeux Fume (1987). After that I start accepting all my children.

When did first you know that you would be a composer and what is the earliest work that you still acknowledge? Olly Wilson

Olly Wilson
Olly Wilson

It’s really hard to pinpoint precisely when I first wanted to be a composer because I come from a musical family. My father was a singer. As a child, I started studying the piano. As part of that, I’m sure I was already picking tunes out on the piano.

I really knew I was going to be a composer when I went to Washington University in St. Louis as a music major. I think it was during the freshman year, after I had completed a course in music theory, that I really thought it would be great to write music as a profession.

The very first piece that I wrote after having thought about it seriously was a Woodwind Quartet. I wrote this as an assignment during my private studies in composition. However, I think of that piece as being primarily a study. The first piece I still acknowledge as “a piece” is a Trio for piano, flute and cello, which was written during my sophomore year.

In retrospect, I now realize that I had been thinking compositionally for a longer period. As a young teenager, I had written popular tunes and jazz pieces as well. And all of this was really preparation for serious involvement in composition.

Your Career or Your Life

The joke used to be that you’re a young composer until you’re fifty. By that measure, I have eighteen months left. By any other measure, I’m solidly middle-aged.

One of the pleasures of mid-life is the ability to look both ways at once. Still, I’m hardly the right guy to offer sage observations about a career as a composer. From mid-adolescence on, I never had any doubt that I’d be a composer. But the whole concept of having a career didn’t really dawn on me until I was almost forty. By then it was too late for me to worry much about it.

As a young man, I had the idealistic notion that being a composer was all about music. No one ever told me there was this other dimension that involved studying with the right people, living in the right places, being published and recorded by the right companies, winning the right prizes.

Or if they did tell me, I wasn’t listening. Either way, I’m grateful. With role models like Lou Harrison, Pauline Oliveros, Conlon Nancarrow and Harry Partch, I blissfully followed my own path. The rest is my life and my music.

Several years ago, I congratulated a fellow forty-something composer about some well-deserved professional recognition that had just come his way.

“Who knows,” I said half-jokingly, “This could be your big break.”

“John,” he replied wistfully, “I gave up waiting for the big break years ago.”

My friend’s remark was a knowing one. But there wasn’t a trace of self-pity in his voice. It’s not an easy proposition to make a living as a composer, independent of steady support from academia or commerce. But those of us who follow this rocky road get something priceless in the bargain: We get a life.

A life dedicated to music is a rare gift. The possibilities for growth and discovery are vast and open-ended. Unlike athletes, composers can look forward to getting better at our work as we get older.

But whether Henry Brant or Natasha Sinha, a composer’s age isn’t as interesting to me as the music they create. I’m much more interested in the age of listeners. New music needs new listeners. And the younger those listeners, the brighter the future of the art.

For most of us independent composers, there will always be the difficult problem of finding a way to make a living and to get our music to the audience we believe is waiting to hear it. But the greatest reward is the work itself. And, at least for those of us who don’t know any better, the music will always come first.

What about you? How do you manage the balance between your musical career and your musical life?

Can American-born musicians learn to play your music? Obo Addy


Obo Addy
Photo courtesy Susan Addy

Ghanaian-born master drummer, teacher and composer
Based in Portland OR

Ghanaian music takes a long time to learn. Americans can learn to play this music, but only if they have a very good teacher and if they are willing to take the time to do it.

There are some people who just learn a couple of phrases from somebody and then start telling people that they are playing Ghanaian music. But if they don’t learn the history of this music and if they don’t learn how to play it properly, it sounds like they don’t know what they’re doing. There are even Ghanaians who are claiming they know this music who have not studied it properly.

American audiences can’t always hear the difference because they tend not to take the time to learn about any kind of traditional music.

Can American-born musicians learn to play your music? 1


Ali Akbar Khan
Photo courtesy The Ali Akbar School of Music

In the history of America, people never had a chance to learn or hear Indian music, so this has been a completely new thing for them. I was the first man to introduce Indian classical ragas to America in 1955. Slowly, slowly people have had a chance to hear much more Indian music. The purpose of this music is to change the whole system of people’s minds and souls and to help them to understand the real joy of life.

God created the ragas and talas. Therefore, we say, nada Brahma, sound is God. He taught all of the selected ragas and raginis to Lord Shiva, and Lord Shiva taught them to the naradmuni rishis. Through the rishis the ragas came to this planet because music is the easiest way to understand and reach to the 9 essential moods that have been given to us by God: peace, devotion, joy, pathos, wonder, detachment, fun, and power. We don’t use the 9th mood in music, and that is ugliness; this is used in dramas and effect music.

Even Sri Ramakrishna Paramahangsa Dev, Swami Vivekananda, and other saints learned pure music, and through music it became easier for them to understand how to use these moods to give greater service to people and reach to God.

I opened my college, the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California, more than 36 years ago, and since then over 10,000 American and European students have come to learn from me as well as many performing musicians from India. Many advanced students are still with me after 29 years.

My 18-year-old son, Alam, has been born and raised in America. He started learning with me when he was 7. Now I allow him to perform with me everywhere in order to learn how to become a performing musician. Also, many of my advance students are still learning, performing and playing well.

It is very good that Americans have started learning Indian music. My college is working hard to preserve and archive the music. I pray to God that they will keep the purity of the ragas and raginis that is slowly dying.

***

North Indian sarod master, teacher, and composer Ali Akbar Khan is based in San Rafael CA where he runs the Ali Akbar College of Music.

Can American-born musicians learn to play your music? Jin Hi Kim


Jin Hi Kim
Photo by Camilla Van Zuylen

Korean-born komongo virtuoso and composer
Based in Connecticut

Compared to the Western music tradition, Korean music is not precisely written for every nuance of notes. The music is not absolutely fixed. Its notation is also designed for this concept: notes are given, but more important is the creation of each note through the individual musician’s energy and gesture. In Korean pansori dramatic song, the singer shapes each tone generated with various articulation from Shamanistic vibration. This technique is called “sigimse.” It is like spices in food. A good pansori singer makes spicy “sigimse.” This concept was also practiced in the instrumental music. The concept of “sigimse (Living Tones)” is that each tone is alive, embodying its own individual shape, sound and sub-text. Its philosophical mandate came from Buddhism as a reverence for the ‘life’ of each tone, and the color and nuance granted each articulation came from Shamanistic expression.

When I learned Korean traditional music I experienced that I could learn the space within flexible time sense and “sigimse” in Korean music. However, there were limitations for me to recall the soul of ancient music and the soul of ancient “sigimse.” My life was already in the new, contemporary time zone and different from my ancestors and my teacher. Therefore I had to discover my own soul within a new life context. My compositions for komungo, a development I have pursued over the past twenty years, represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. I have created a wide array of compositions for the komungo as a soloist, collaborating with leading Western contemporary classical musicians, jazz musicians, improvisers, world musicians and computer MIDI system for the world’s only electric komungo.

In 1995, the Korean Performing Arts Institute brought professional American musicians to Korea for a six-week intensive summer school. They studied traditional music at the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts. It was impressive that they learned so quickly about correct melody and rhythmic cycles, but the difficult part for them was expressing “Living Tones.” If they lived in Korea since they were young and were exposed to Korean music, culture, and life style they probably could come much closer to performing authentic music. On the other hand, there are many Asian musicians who play Western classical music well. I think this reverse situation is more possible, because the music was composed in the fixed manner that doesn’t request much more than what is written. I feel that American-born musicians could play traditional Korean music if they understood the profound cultural concepts behind the musical system and had the right attitude about the function of traditional music in Korean society. But it would be very difficult for one to imitate the souls of others. The soul cannot be easily trained.

Can American-born musicians learn to play your music? Paquito D’Rivera


Paquito D’Rivera
Photo by Mary Kent

Cuban-born composer and saxophonist
Based in New Jersey

In the last few years, an increasing number of artists with the most diverse backgrounds have been attracted towards musical currents coming from South of the Rio Grande and mainly towards the music of Cuba, Argentina and Brazil, the three streams that form, along with North American Jazz what I would call the musical golden circle of the New World. Names such as Piazzolla, Lecuona, Villa Lobos and Ginastera are performed each time with more frequency in concerts alongside Schuman, Ravel or Stravinsky; and behind the most recognizable names in the Latin American Music world, comes an avalanche of much younger composers some of which we should mention, such as the Venezuelans Aldemaro Romero and Antonio Lauro; the Cubans Leo Brouwer and Oriente Lopez; the Argentineans Carlos Franzetti and Pablo Ziegler; the Mexican Samuel Zyman; and the Puerto Rican Roberto Sierra.

As long as it is approached with the required seriousness and discipline, this tendency towards the rich musical art of Latin America, with its intricate rhythms and exotic melodic and harmonic turns, should be interpreted as a positive signal of open mindedness and renovation of the well-known and often over exposed traditional symphonic, operatic and chamber repertoire. I have always maintained the thesis that you do not need to be an Austrian to be able to interpret Mozart, if not more (or not less!) than talent, dedication and respect for this style, or for any other musical genre which you may pretend to attain. Latin American music is no exception.

Listen Globally, Make Music Locally

As a Baby Boomer, I was part of the first generation to grow up with the whole world of music. By the time I was eighteen, I was familiar with the sounds of Indian ragas, West African drumming, Indonesian gamelan, European classical music, Japanese court and theater music, Tibetan chant, and the classical and traditional folk music of China. Through recordings, I also discovered Mexican marimba music, Bolivian pipes and drums, Mississippi Delta blues, Sacred Harp singing, Northern Plains chant and other indigenous American musics.

At Cal Arts, along with my studies in counterpoint, orchestration, electronic music, and the works of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, I played in a Javanese gamelan and studied the music of Ghana and northern India with masters of those traditions. Through the music and teaching of Lou Harrison, I came to understand how profoundly the American tradition of Henry Cowell, Harry Partch and John Cage was shaped by what Lou calls “the whole, wide, wonderful world of music.”

After leaving school, I headed for Alaska, where I’ve lived and worked for the past twenty-five years. By now, the drumming, chanting and dancing of the Yup’ik, Iñupiat, Athabascan and Tlingit peoples have become integral elements in the soundscape of my life and work. In some ways I feel closer to these traditions than to those of Western Europe. It’s my hope that these elements inform my music in a way that respects their origins and has led me to a new sound that’s an authentic part of this place.

As Cowell taught us, all music is ethnic music. European music of the 18th and 19th centuries is simply another form of local music, no more and no less significant than any other music. American music is something else.

Music in the United States today is as distinct from European traditions as we are from the Pilgrims. One of the defining qualities of American music is its diversity. Ours is probably most variegated musical culture the world has ever known. American music embraces traditions from all over the world.

At the same time, we’ve given the world musical commercialism the likes of which it’s never known. The same recording industry that brought the musical traditions of the whole world into our living rooms now threatens to overwhelm authentic local voices in the melting pot of global commerce.

Throughout history, all cultures have borrowed from other cultures. But the extent and pace of this in the U.S. today is unprecedented. In this environment, how do we distinguish between appropriate acculturation and casual appropriation?

Human cultures are like ecosystems. To sustain themselves, they need a balance of diversity and integrity. In a world of mass marketing and global commerce, how do we promote diversity and sustain the integrity of ancient musical traditions? How do we encourage the creation of genuine new musical voices that integrate different traditions?

We rarely think twice about an American string quartet playing European music, or an American composer writing a symphony. Is it any less valid for an American musician to play the koto, or for an American composer to write for gamelan?

How have the musical traditions of the world shaped the music you perform, compose and listen to?