Category: Field Reports

Souvenirs from a Parallel Universe

I owe most of the stamps in my passport to my trips with the Eastman BroadBand. I’ve played with the group since its first project in 2007, a recital at the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia, Mexico. That fall, I also played with the group in a series of performances with the Garth Fagan Dance Company. I stood six feet from Fagan’s lead dancers in the Joyce Theater during our performance of Edge/Joy, a piece accompanied by a suite of Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon’s music. I toured with the ensemble to Chihuahua, Mexico, in 2008 and played with the group on an album for Bridge Records in 2009. I’m getting better at anticipating the special demands of these projects, but I’m hardly an expert.

The group is affiliated with Eastman, and directed by professors of composition Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez. Many of our players are Eastman alumni—like me, they played with the group while they were in school and return for projects like our most recent tour to the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato. Others are still current students. Because most of us (including our conductor, Juan Trigos) don’t live in Rochester, rehearsals are crammed into a hectic week-long period at Eastman. The schedule on the road is just as demanding—late nights onstage, early mornings on planes or buses, rehearsals at all hours.

I’m not complaining about the hard work—in fact, I relish it. Nothing makes you feel like you’re living the good life more than when you realize that you woke up in another country yesterday. That was yesterday, right? For me, projects with the BroadBand have always been something like a visit to an extraordinary parallel universe, one in which there are no day jobs, no classes or lessons, no cats to feed or house plants to water. It’s a little like the vacation I’ve always dreamed about, one that erases any memory of my mundane responsibilities back home. During our week of rehearsals in Rochester, I’d get the occasional text from my cat sitter and for just one millisecond before I responded, I’d think, “I have a cat?” Buried at the bottom of my suitcase were souvenirs from courses I’m taking, things I should be reading, plans I should be making. I’d glance at their titles every morning as I fished out a clean pair of socks with the same curiosity as an amnesiac reading his grocery list. Remind me why I packed all that stuff about Paganini and Schumann?

Something about my experiences with the BroadBand forces this question—not specifically the one about Schumann, but a more general one about the world I’ve left behind in favor of these projects. Can I reconcile these two lives? I certainly do not need to defend Schumann—or the other details of my cat-feeding, book-reading lifestyle, for that matter. I love Dichterliebe as much as I love my cat. But what can compete with performing alongside many of my closest friends, playing with some of the leading artists in contemporary music, engaging audiences in concert halls all over the world? How much better does it get? If I had to cash in my cat, my students, my master’s degree, and all but a suitcase of my possessions to live forever in this wide, brightly colored alternate world, I’d do it without hesitation. I wouldn’t even feel guilty. But that’s not how this thing works. You have to go back. In fact, returning, saying goodbye, reentering your routine is a big part of the experience. You watch your life contract again. I suppose this is obvious even for novice travelers—it’s built into all vacations, this feeling that your life billows and shrinks, stops and starts. But knowing that doesn’t make it much easier.

Guanajuato, for me, is a special place for this feeling. Embedded in a narrow valley, the city feels guarded, hemmed in. Streets fold in on themselves and rise steeply. Most of them are paved in stone or brick, and some are lined with worn stairs. Many avenues are only navigable on foot, narrow, terraced alleys leading always upward. The old colonial sewers have been cleared out to accommodate a complicated system of underground roads. The town is a maze with high walls painted yellow and blue—somehow I managed to walk only uphill all week long.

But sometimes the city relents. You hike up and up, around a corner, your bearings long gone—and a vista opens up just on your right, a view of the entire city and all its colorfully painted buildings. The tour van jostles up a hillside in first gear, barely inching by the cars parked on either side of the street, and suddenly the buildings give way and the valley spreads out against the passenger-side windows. Even our hotel was a life-sized puzzle, rooms tucked away in remote corners, courtyards linked to each other through a complicated network of stairs and passages—but from the roof you could see the entire city, at night a hillside studded with many tiny white lights.

I shouldn’t force the analogy, but Guanajuato seemed an appropriate place to be working out this problem of my two lives. These surprise views of the city remind me very much of the feeling of this instant expansion in the midst of the everyday. The same feeling that’s built into working with the BroadBand. We rehearse for nine hours a day, penciling in diligent notes, perfecting the details—and out of nowhere, just one moment on stage expands, opens up onto rich and satisfying experiences, a kind of broad vista. Even a delicious taco can spark a revelation; it can crack open your life for a full second, in only as much time as it takes you to chew and swallow. In a moment you realize you haven’t called your parents in two weeks, you’ve ditched your students, your cat, your books, you’ve been staring at music twelve inches from your face for the better part of six days—and a late night of salsa dancing makes itself available at exactly the right time. I know I can’t live in a world of ecstatic taco eating and salsa dancing, but thanks to the BroadBand, I have just a few of these experiences to live on for a while.

Of course there’s nowhere to eat a life-changing mole in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Now that I’m home, I also feel the acute absence of my close friends and my favorite players. But to expect my life to deliver the same constant excitement and beauty of our recent tour would be more than a little unfair. I’ve got to figure out a way to compromise, to close the rift separating these two selves. So this week, I’ve been engaging in little games with myself, setting tiny traps. Who says these sudden, spectacular expansions in my life are triggered only by the finest foreign foods, the most excellently preserved colonial towns, the most eminent concert halls? I’m certain that under the right circumstances—if I could surprise myself, if the day unfurled in just the right way—the details of my own mundane life might ease up in their crowding, open for a second or two. I had the whole week in Guanajuato to perfect my technique in seeking out these rare panoramas—I’m certain I’ll discover some of my own here, even as I empty out my suitcase and reenter my normal life.

An Interview with Robert Morris

For me, performing Bob Morris’s music is a tricky balancing act. The score is very, very specific in terms of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and phrasing. I suppose most musical scores are, but for me, the experience of performing Morris’s music is special. Here, the key is to adhere to the particulars of the score and still avoid sounding mechanical and listless. In fact, the challenge is not simply to avoid a cold reading of the score’s details, but to use its very specificity to inspire a special kind of sound. The Eastman BroadBand performed Robert Morris’s chamber work Roundelay in programs at the Eastman School of Music on October 31, and at the Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato on November 5. Morris’s notes about the work read:

Roundelay, as the title implies, has a returning feature—a polyrhythmic rocking starts and ends the piece as well as punctuates the flow; another form of return involves the interplay of lighter, transparent passages for one or two instruments, versus thicker, more complex moments for all six instruments. The piece has affinities with an earlier piece (1994) of mine for the same instrumental combination called Broken Concert in Three Parts. In that piece, three pairs of instruments share the same material; in Roundelay, each instrument has its own material, consisting of characteristic gestures, rhythms, and harmonies.

Furthermore, a “roundelay” is a 16th-century song or poem in which a line or phrase is repeated as the refrain. My piece’s rondo-like features are relatively rare in my music. The connection to “broken consort” (another 16th-century musical term) goes back even to earlier works (Traces for flute and piano, and Pari Passu for violin and percussion). In the last 10 years of composition I often write pieces that reflect on aspects of earlier works, a sort-of intertextuality where one piece of music connects with another. This may change the way you hear the referential, earlier piece, too.

Morris has written extensively and beautifully about his own music, and was kind enough to correspond with me about this work.

DH: What do you imagine is the main difficulty in interpreting and performing the piece? Does it call for any special skill or attitude from the players?

RM: Roundelay is moderately difficult for new music players, but not as hard as some of my solo pieces, or those of composers writing in the new complexity movement. The main thing is to play musically with rubato within the pretty specific rhythmic notations found in the score. (In any case, there isn’t much precise homophony or homorhythm in the piece.)

DH: Would an audience benefit from any special preparation before listening to Roundelay?

RM: The program notes will help. But an open mind is the essential requirement. Also, thinking of music as flow, rather than as musical things in certain formal arrangements, gets closer to my intentions. In general, my music is designed so each listener can have a different set of impressions and perceptions of the same piece—like in a garden, where one can take different paths, have different views, and even make different uses of the same place, except my piece is in motion rather than relatively unchanging.

DH: In a 2001 interview with 21st Century Music, you refer to an essay you wrote to accompany a piano piece, Meandering River. The excerpt compares a hiker’s experience of a river—its constant changes, its mossy banks home to insects and frogs—to a listener’s experience of music. In what way does the comparison apply to Roundelay?

RM: This is like the garden metaphor except in Meandering River the experience is a little more rugged, bordering on bushwhacking. All these outdoor images and similes are meant to suggest something of a person’s relationship to the outdoors and to nature itself.

Here’s another way to intimate the same type of experience. Shunryu Suzuki roshi, a Soto Zen master, has said, “Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony.”

***
Professor Robert Morris has served on the faculty at the Eastman School of Music since 1980. Before his appointment at Eastman, Morris taught composition, electronic music, and music theory at the University of Hawaii and at Yale University, where he was Chairman of the Composition Department and Director of the Yale Electronic Music Studio. He was also Director of the Computer and Electronic Studio, Director of Graduate (music) Studies, and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh.

Visit Robert Morris’s website for more information about his work. There, you will find the full text of the 2001 interview with 21st Century Music.

An Interview with Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez

For me, performing the music of Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez is risky. To say that his works are touchy is an understatement—in performance, they have the feel, for me, of being held together only on faith. Irregular patterns, unexpected accents, and awkward grace notes give the impression of a mechanism operating near its breaking point. It’s no wonder, then, that so many of Sanchez-Gutierrez’s works take machines as their inspiration—the concerto for piano and marimba …Ex Machina is based on the delicate moving sculptures of Arthur Ganson, for example. He writes about the piece:

I think of …Ex Machina as a sort of eight-movement circus act that reflects on a number of artworks I greatly admire, notably the kinetic sculptures of Arthur Ganson. The piece employs a menagerie of “technological” devices (in the case of my music, these are rhythmic and structurally “imperfect” mechanisms) that, while precisely engineered, also seem to be realized with a high degree of precariousness. These movements are single-minded and multifaceted; simple, yet intricate. Like the best circus acts, they also attempt to be a bit funny. But, most importantly, they try to be very dangerous!

During the Eastman BroadBand’s most recent tour, soloists Michael Burritt and Cristina Valdes brought to the score a tense, scary accuracy in performances in New York City, Guanajuato, and Mexico City. The ensemble also performed Five Memos for Pierrot ensemble plus percussion, Sanchez-Gutierrez’s newest work and a response to the “values” proposed by Italo Calvino in Six Memos for the Next Millennium. The program notes shed some light on the piece’s significance:

Lightness, speed, visibility, exactness and multiplicity are qualities that have pulled me to appreciate art for as long as I can remember. They are the values that make me listen to Mozart and Donatoni, look at Morandi and Klee, or read Murakami and Potocki.

Like Calvino, I prefer art that raises above the weight of the world. I also favor direct, clear, visible gestures that, while mysterious, speak to me with precision and assertiveness. I like the precarious line that separates drama from comedy, and celebrate the fact that an author can make a hat become the main protagonist of a funeral with the magic touch of a sudden gush of wind.

I am a somewhat chaotic thinker, and my impatience (which I would hardly describe as a value) makes me gravitate around a narrative that is fast, direct, terse, and to the point, and whose intensity is multifaceted, like the ecstatic anguish felt by a soccer fan before the execution of a penalty kick…

Sanchez-Gutierrez wrote to me at length about both works, their respective inspirations and styles.

DH: Would you consider it perhaps more typical that a particular instrument or performer motivates the composition of a concerto? How does the idea of these delicate machines relate to your ideas about the piano and marimba in …Ex Machina?

CS-G: I decided to write for piano and marimba for a very simple reason: Cristina and Makoto Nakura are dear friends and wonderful musicians who, I knew, would take my music very seriously. The older I get, the more it matters to me that I write music for musicians I know personally.

Concerning my having chosen marimba and piano, there is something else that is very hard for me to express, and must be the reason why I constantly gravitate towards those two instruments. I do know, for example, that I pretty much discovered “contemporary music” upon listening to Stravinsky’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. I thought, “This is the kind of music I want to write.” The rest has just been me trying to reach that ideal. The fact that I have this weird interest in the dramatic and narrative power of observing machines that work in strange ways is very much what informs the way in which marimba and piano relate in this piece. They are in conflict as much as they are in agreement. They build as much as they destroy.

DH: This point you make about the piano and the marimba as themselves “contemporary” is fascinating—and it helps me to put my finger on a quality I’ve identified in your music before. I find that, in preparing the flute parts in your music, I have to strive for the same accuracy and immediacy that is available to a marimbist or a pianist, a kind of sound that is articulate and clear in every register, at any speed, at any volume. It’s a challenge that is, for me, special to interpreting your music. In your mind, is this quality an intended part of your style? Is it related to the inspiration of Stravinsky’s music or of Ganson’s tiny machines?

CS-G: For better or worse, I am afraid I indeed think percussively more often than not, regardless of what instrument I am writing for. It’s just the way I “speak” musically, I guess. I don’t think I have much of a lyrical vein (which probably explains why I have written very little vocal music), and this affects the way I make choices concerning gesture, articulation, and instrumentation. And yes, everything I write somehow carries the imprint of both Stravinsky and Bartók, and is also a projection of my fascination with intricate, yet fragile objects of beauty, such as Ganson’s sculptures or, for that matter, Calvino’s short stories or Klee’s drawings. It’s all there, all the time, somehow.

DH: In what other respects is …Ex Machina an unusual concerto?

CS-G: I would only call …Ex Machina a concerto in the sense that it brings together two soloists and a large ensemble. But both the structure of the piece and the way in which the instruments are treated are only marginally related to the established “concerto form”. The piece is virtuosic, but doesn’t attempt to showcase that aspect in a particular way. Similarly, the orchestra is hardly an accompanying group and is intensely engaged throughout the piece.

DH: In your notes about Five Memos, you indicate that the piece follows a “fast, direct, terse” narrative. In what way do the movements of the piece relate to each other narratively? Or don’t they?

CS-G: The way in which I used “material” in this piece involves a certain “personal archeology” process. I wanted these movements to begin with a simple, direct gesture that would pretty much single-handedly trigger the entire musical narrative (Calvino talks about this sort of thing when describing the concept of “visibility” in Borges’ short stories, for example.) It had to be a gesture to which I could respond naturally and unselfconsciously, so I thus chose to “rescue” kernels of leftover material from previous pieces of mine. Most of these gestures came from sketches, and some from actual, finished pieces but, regardless of where they came from, it was important that these gestures would be “visible”, in that it should be a tangible—yet unfinished—musical object with a basic “personality” I could feel I understood well. So, I dug up distinct gestures I thought were attractive, and then simply focused on following whatever dormant energy I could detect lying inside them. The different movements, therefore, relate in that all of them were composed following a similar, basic, procedure: to engage the energy of an initial, visible gesture, and to create a dramatic line that made that energy palpable, understandable, and emotionally intense.

DH: For the performer, the piece requires incredible agility, not only because it is difficult, but also because it sometimes demands instantaneous shifts in character and sound quality. At one moment, its ultra-fast tempos require a light, effortless approach—and at the next, the score calls for extreme brutality and shrillness. How are these rapid shifts consistent with your reading of the Calvino, the work’s inspiration?

I think these qualities (and challenges!) are as consistent with the way I compose, with my “compositional voice”, as they are with the “qualities” expressed by Calvino in his Six Memos: lightness, speed, visibility, exactitude, and multiplicity. However, the reason why I wrote this piece in the first place has to do precisely with the fact that I am aware that all of my music works pretty much the same way, and naturally emphasizes the very same qualities expressed by Calvino. These are precisely the qualities I have always valued in most of the art that resonates with me, and they are what I have tried to inject into my music for as long as I can remember. But in Five Memos the characteristics you mention are perhaps more apparent because I really was trying to write a piece where the most dramatic qualities of the gestures were very salient, in line with what I mentioned earlier concerning my desire to “unleash” the dormant energy of my material.

***
Composer Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez was born in Mexico City in 1964 and now lives in the New York Tundra, where he teaches at the Eastman School of Music. He studied with Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, Steven Mackey and Henri Dutilleux at Yale, Princeton and Tanglewood, respectively. He has received many of the standard awards in the field (e.g. Barlow, Guggenheim, Fulbright, Koussevitzky, Fromm, American Academy of Arts and Letters.)

Visit the composer’s website for complete information about his work. There, you can view videos of all of the kinetic sculptures that inspired …Ex Machina.

Travel Tips from the Eastman BroadBand

Don’t be careless, but don’t be afraid to strike out on your own for a little while
Mariel Roberts, cello

When you’re in a group of 30 people, its a little hard not to look like a tourist. Although I am not advocating wandering off to dark and seedy corners alone, there’s something to be said for breaking the group seal! In an hour I had between lunch and rehearsal I wanted to go check out a shop I had seen downtown. Since it was a short break, I just headed down by myself and wound up: being recognized from our concert the previous night and interviewed for Mexican news in Spanish (I speak at approximately a kindergarten level), tasting fried spicy grasshoppers, learning about what makes a great mole seasoning, trying mezcal for the first time, and making a local friend who was amazingly patient with my struggling conversational skills and gave me a free tour of the downtown area!

Take pictures of the moments, not the sights
Isabel Kim, clarinet

You will want to remember the push-up contests, the long bus rides, the kids who ask for your autograph, the sketchy restaurant that made you feel like death, and the embarrassing things your colleagues did after drinking tequila. If you forget what Guanajuato looks like, Google it or make good friends with whoever’s booking performers for the 2011 Cervantino Festival.

Always seek out the local bakery and buy more than you think you can eat
Hanna Hurwitz, violin

Over the past few years of working and traveling with the Eastman BroadBand, I have come to notice that if we’re not rehearsing, we’re eating. And it seems that no matter where we go, I am lured by the scent of the local bakery. Even when the BroadBand is rehearsing in Rochester, flutist Deidre Huckabay and I can be found frequenting the Little Bakery on early mornings before a long day of playing. On the BroadBand’s 2007 trip to Sardinia, I patronized a different cafe every morning, sampling as many different breakfast pastries as I could without putting myself into a coma before rehearsal. This past trip to Guanajuanto proved just as delicious. With one of the city’s best bakeries only a five-minute walk from our hotel, we indulged in an array of Mexican pastries that many of us had never tasted before. At this point, I fear I may be in danger developing an unhealthy Pavlovian response connecting the music of Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and the taste of delicious, regional baked goods.

Keep things in perspective
Pete Fanelli, trombone

Sure, you had to get on a bus at 3:00 a.m. the past few days to drive to the airport, so you’re working with only a few hours of sleep. Not to mention, it was a nightmare to reschedule those students, missed classes, and your day job back home. You haven’t eaten fresh vegetables in a week, you left your wallet in a taxi, and you found a scorpion in the hotel shower. Despite all the hardships (read: adventures) of touring, keep the big picture in mind: You’ve been given the opportunity to explore new places, play music, and spend time with wonderful people. What could be better?

Never turn down an invitation to eat, drink, or dance
Deidre Huckabay, flute

Yes, you have an important rehearsal early tomorrow morning. Yes, you had six or seven of them today, too. Under normal circumstances, you would forego a glass of beer and another taco, you would graciously excuse yourself and get back to work. You’d get to bed early, wake up and take your vitamins. Under normal circumstances, you might just make a brief appearance at a dance club, say all the necessary hellos, and get out before midnight without breaking a sweat. But these are not normal circumstances—thankfully! When will you next enjoy a frosty Negra Modelo in the exact context in which it was intended, alongside a succulent pork taco? When will you next get to dance with every single member of your orchestra in turn? When you’re on the road and someone offers you food, drink, or dance—if you hesitate to decline, it means that you should say yes.

An Interview with Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon

The music of Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, requires an especially cooperative attitude on the part of the performer—her own part is only a small portion of his concern, as at every moment an intricate contrapuntal structure is being advanced. The player continually engages with other members of the ensemble—and never only one or two at a time. On each performance, he discovers further consequences of his part, understands its cause and its function anew. On our recent tour, the Eastman BroadBand performed several of Zohn-Muldoon’s works, including his newest, Pluck. Pound. Peel. for three soloists and chamber orchestra. He writes about the work:

The original version of Pluck. Pound. Peel. was written for the Syracuse Society for New Music, thanks to a commission from Meet The Composer. The work is based on texts by Mexican poet Raúl Aceves, and is dedicated to my wife, harpsichordist Josephine Gaeffke. The settings of the text aim to parallel their concision. Thus, the voice line avoids repetition of words and melismatic elaborations. Instead, the expressive power of the words is projected through instrumental commentary, which at times takes over for extended passages. The harpsichord plays a central role in this commentary, and the particular orchestration of the work is designed to amplify and project the harpsichord’s discourse.

The ensemble also performed Zohn-Muldoon’s Comala Songs and NiñoPolilla, both operas in miniature. Zohn-Muldoon summarizes the libretto for NiñoPolilla, written by Mexican playwright Juan Trigos, Sr.:

In NiñoPolilla, a father and a mother scold their son, who has contracted a strange disease: a virus that is reducing him to dust. As the scene unfolds, bits and pieces of the boy fall (i.e. a finger, an ear, etc.). He occasionally coughs, expectorating yellow dust, which he is ordered to clean with a broom. Father and mother tell the child (while they occasionally whack him) that this disease is the well-deserved divine punishment for his bad behavior (i.e. refusal to attend Mass or do his homework, spying on the maid, reading “evil” books, etc.). In contrast, they assert, God’s punishment has evidently spared them to reward their decency and goodness. In the end, the boy collapses and dies amidst clouds of dust. The parents, gratified with this outcome, deliver a brief “moralistic” epilogue for the edification of the audience. The work is extremely satirical, humorous yet cruel and nonsensical.

During the BroadBand’s recent tour, soprano Tony Arnold was featured in all three works. In NiñoPolilla, Arnold was joined by tenor Scott Perkins and baritone Thomas Lehman. Harpsichordist Josephine Gaeffke and guitarist Dieter Hennings performed alongside Arnold in Pluck. Pound. Peel. The composer wrote to me extensively about his works and his experience with the BroadBand.

DH: What parts of the text motivated you to write NiñoPolilla? Are the morbid or comic elements of the text especially appealing?

RZ-M: The libretto for NiñoPolilla was written specially for this project. My friend Moritz Eggert invited me to participate in a “collective opera” project for the festival he directs in Munich (A/Devantgarde). The project was called “The last days of the V.I.R.U.S.” He asked five composers to each compose an operatic scene around this theme, with the understanding that he (Moritz) would compose the “context” narration. I asked Juan Trigos Sr., one of the most prolific and inventive playwrights living today, for a libretto. Mr. Trigos wrote the miniature opera NiñoPolilla. Some time later he turned this libretto into a full-length play, but my setting is circumscribed to the initial text. I find the text extremely compelling. It is very funny, but also very cruel. One cannot read it without laughing, while also feeling very guilty about laughing at this.

DH: Elaborate on your treatment of the text in the piece. What were the major challenges of realizing the text?

RZ-M: The text is very musical. Mr. Trigos wrote the libretto in verse, with abundant use of creative neologisms and inner repetitions that gave a natural musical phrasing. There are three characters (mother, father, son) that interact in rapidly shifting solos, duets, and trios, which is very helpful in terms of musical flow. The delivery is mostly syllabic, since it is very important that the text be conveyed clearly, despite the frenetic musical pace. One of the main ideas for the musical setting that occurred to me early on, was to reflect the gradual disintegration of the boy with a parallel disintegration of the ensemble. So, I decided that the “virus” would gradually infect each section of the ensemble, until only the piano and percussion were left to accompany the singers. The problem with this idea was that it produced an “anti-climactic” curve, which did not suit the trajectory of the text. So, I came up with the solution of bringing back the ensemble towards the end, but only as “coughing chorus (thus, the nickname that friend gave to this work: “Cantata Estornudata,” or “Coughing Cantata”). I also tried to inflect the sound world of the piece with the sound of coughing and wheezing, and that gave me a very good sense of the orchestration.

DH: On our recent tour, soprano Tony Arnold sang NiñoPolilla and two of your songs, El Mar and Nunca Sueno. Describe your experience working with her.

RZ-M: It is really a pleasure and a privilege to work with Tony. She is gifted not only with a beautiful voice and superb musicianship, but also with an unusual musical imagination. Her sensitivity to timbre is magical. She is able to internalize the timbral situation in which she is singing, and to interact (or blend) with the surrounding instrumental colors through her mode of singing and tone production. At times, one almost gets the impression that she has a whole orchestra of voices within her vocal cords. Tony is very concerned with expressing the deeper meaning of the text, and she truly interprets when she sings.

DH: What was your motivation to write Pluck. Pound. Peel.? If the piece indeed began as a concerto for your wife, harpsichordist Josephine Gaeffke, why is there also a soprano soloist in the piece?

RZ-M: The original impulse to compose Pluck. Pound. Peel. was to write a work for my wife, Josephine Gaeffke, featuring the harpsichord in a concertante role. Josephine is a very special musician in that her playing genuinely connects to her feeling for the music in a way that I have seldom witnessed. She makes the harpsichord sound full of life, energy, and color. My idea was to set her harpsichord inside an ensemble that could partner its complex musical personality, including the oppositional possibilities afforded by the two manuals. Thus, I designed a concertino group comprising a pairing of mandolin and steel string guitar to match the normal “nasal” sound of the instrument, and another pairing of classical guitar and harp to complement the harpsichord’s lute stop. Then I added two string quartets in support of these pairings: for example, one quartet could be muted (to match the guitar/harp pair), while the other could play sul ponticello (to match the mandolin/steel-string guitar pair). Finally I added two percussionists, and a contrabass to complete the ensemble. The title of the work is meant to represent the instrumental “mechanics” of the ensemble: the plucking of the concertino group, the pounding of the percussion, and the “peeling” action of the bow on the strings (think of the bow as a gigantic potato peeler). The soprano came into the picture when I had the idea to base the piece on aphorisms by Raúl Aceves, a wonderful poet from my native Guadalajara. I wanted to be true to the concise nature of the texts, and thus avoided repetitions of words and mellismatic elaborations in the musical setting. The interventions of the soprano are then like small “windows” in the flow of the music. The soprano sings the main musical ideas, which are then “taken for a spin” by the instruments, with the harpsichord leading the way. The five movements of the work are very tightly related, as the sung lines of the soprano are treated like voice leading “archetypes” in the fabric of the instrumental counterpoint. The work was written for the Syracuse Society for New Music, thanks to a grant from Meet The Composer. For the BroadBand tour, I wrote a new version of the work for a radically different instrumental configuration (essentially a sinfonietta, with the addition of the harpsichord, guitar, and soprano). This was extremely challenging, as the original work was so tied-in with the peculiar scoring. But, when there is a will, there is a way…

DH: For me, the faster movements of Pluck. Pound. Peel. require a special rhythmic quality—as I player I must strive for extreme precision but also incredible lightness and clarity. It’s very challenging, as your intricate rhythmic writing might tempt a player to pound out every change in meter, to overplay accents and other articulation markings. Is this lightness, in your mind, a common element of your style? How has it developed?

RZ-M: It is very interesting for me that you remark on that aspect of the music. From my beginning steps as a composer, I was aware that “rhythm” made things much more fluent for me. I fought this impulse early on, as it seemed “out of line” with what contemporary music “should be” in my student days. But this made my creativity really stutter. I gradually found a way to compromise with the impulse by intellectualizing it, thus coming up with rhythmic and metric schemes that appeared more interesting and more “sophisticated” than the initial impulse. I suppose that this had a positive aspect, in that it helped me develop technically. However, it was exhausting to keep restraining and “re-voicing” what surfaced naturally to my imagination, and at some point I realized that I was much happier with my music when I embraced it and really developed it. I think that the lightness that you refer to has to do with the fact that I treat rhythm motivically: as “pattern” and “phrase”, not just as pulsation, and definitely not as the “articulation” or ornamentation of a harmonic/melodic background. I feel that rhythmic motives that are readily perceived and internalized allow me to construct rich contrapuntal interplays, setting them in myriad relations to each other, rather than to a “primal pulse” or barline. Thus, the music has lightness, but it does require precision because the identity of the patterns has to be clearly characterized for the counterpoint to come to life. Much of the music that I dearly love operates very similarly, such as Mexican folk music from the area around the Gulf of México, and the music of Bach.

DH: I can’t say that I took up this light quality of sound in response to any indications in the score—of course that reveals some ignorance on my part, but I do remember the moment that this special lightness was made explicitly clear to me. I had been playing a suite of yours for months (with another conductor) when, in a later project, Juan Trigos described it to the ensemble. His observation changed the piece entirely and all at once—it was a significant and sudden revelation about your music, for me. Are there other elements of your style that might work like this—passed along almost as part of an oral tradition accompanying your music?

RZ-M: Juan is a very unique conductor, and a spectacular composer. I don’t think that I have ever really talked to him about how I want my music performed, as I have often done with other conductors. This is because Juan has an uncanny ability to get into the music and understand what the expressive intention is. I love his interpretations of my music. As for “oral tradition,” I have to say that I try to include everything I want in the score, but evidently this can only go so far. Among the issues that come up, in addition to the rhythmical aspect you describe, is the question of the “tactile” quality of my musical ideas. As you know, I compose with very defined motivic ideas, including a particular attention to timbre. Thus, I employ at times “extended” techniques in my instrumental writing, usually well-known ones (i.e. extracting harmonics from the piano strings, etc.). It is very important for me that these sounds are produced with as much “quality” as the normal sounds, because I never use the special timbres for their own sake, but rather to clarify, highlight, or develop a musical idea. Another aspect that I often find myself talking about in rehearsals is the interplay among the instruments. Many of the lines and gestures in my compositions are “compound” constructions, where the part of an instrument may be the intersection of several lines circulating in the ensemble. So, each instrumentalist must be very aware of their place in this interplay for the music to flow and make sense.

DH: Describe your experience with the BroadBand, now or in the past. In what way is working with the group different when compared to your experience with other ensembles? Do you have a good “tour story” from one of our other trips?

RZ-M: Working with the BroadBand counts among my most rewarding experiences as a composer. I find that the highly talented and young musicians in the ensemble are all firmly connected with the reason why we all became musicians. They are committed, enthusiastic, and clear about the value of music in their lives. Everyone in the group (including the composers) participates because they desire to make music together at a high level. The traveling adds an element of “uniqueness” to each project, and allows everyone to share a sense of discovery in the larger sense: new music, new locations, etc. It is a great privilege for me to have my music treated with such seriousness, and affection.

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Mexican-born composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in 2002 as associate professor of composition. Prior to joining Eastman, Zohn-Muldoon held positions at the School of Music, University of Guanajuato, Mexico, and the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. He received his undergraduate degree in guitar and composition from the University of California at San Diego, and both a master’s degree and PhD in composition from the University of Pennsylvania, where his principal teacher was George Crumb. Zohn-Muldoon’s honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Tanglewood Music Center (Omar del Carlo Foundation), Camargo Foundation, Endowment for Culture and the Arts of Mexico, a Mozart Medal from the Embassy of Austria in México, and commissions from the Fromm Foundation, U.S./Mexico Fund for Culture, and other noted institutions and ensembles in México, the U.S., and Europe.

Visit the composer’s website for further information about the composer and his work.

Amsterdam: Home to Floating Festivals, Squatted Buildings, and Gnarly Ensembles

On any given day, the opportunities to hear live music in Amsterdam are vast; free-improvisation at a squat, experimental electronic music beamed to the moon and back at the local zoo’s planetarium, seasoned street performers, and world-class contemporary music are just a few of the flavorful events this city has to offer. The scene in Amsterdam can be overwhelming at times, with concerts every night of the week, but its navigation proves easier once you get a handle on the basic lay of the musical landscape.

The world-renowned Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ is the main stage for contemporary music in the Netherlands. This stunning building, located on the banks of the IJ, is home to a wide variety of contemporary music concerts, festivals, exhibitions, and educational programs. Housed inside are multiple concert spaces, a pair of restaurants along with rehearsal space, and offices for many of the top Dutch new music ensembles. Leading contemporary groups like the Ives Ensemble, Asko Schoenberg, Calefax, and the Nieuw Ensemble frequently perform at the Muziekgebouw. The Klankspeeltuin, an interactive sound garden, located near the entrance, engages younger children to play and learn from a variety of sound installations. Jutting out from the side of the Muziekgebouw is the Bimhuis, the best venue in town to hear local and international improvised music.

Muziekgebouw

If you know where to look, there is often a free concert in town. Every Wednesday around noon, the Concertgebouw opens their halls for a free lunchtime concert showcasing local and international artists. Monday Match, a free music and dance improvisation series, takes place the first Monday of every month at the Bimhuis. The free lecture series, Musiclab, along with other events at Pakhuis de Zwijger, offer a wide variety of activities revolving around music, technology, and film.

Concertgebouw

One of Amsterdam’s defining characteristics is a very large and active squat culture. Residents of Amsterdam and nearly every other city in the Netherlands have been taking advantage of a legal squatting law, taking over unoccupied buildings throughout the city and turning them into interdisciplinary art centers; some with music series recently funded in part by the Dutch government! Venues like Zaal 100, OT301, Occii, and others are wonderful spaces that provide artists like myself venues in which to experiment. A short ferry ride from central station will get you across the IJ to NDSM, an area of artist-designated land larger than ten football fields. The focal point of this underground cultural hub is the NDSM Hall, a hangar-like structure 20,000 square meters in size that houses artist studios, a skate park, and many other hidden gems.

Muziekgebouw
Local improvisers Anne La Berge, Ivo Bol, Dana Jessen, and Oscar Jan Hoogland team up with visiting turntablist DJ Dubble8 at OT301

There is an incredibly vibrant electronic music scene in town anchored by STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music). Still going strong after over forty years, STEIM is home to residencies, user groups, workshops, concerts, and other happenings. They have a full-time staff working on a variety of projects from hardware development to their own software, LiSa X and junXion. There is a guesthouse for visiting musicians, a set of nice studios, and a wonderful concert space in the building. Across town at the Smart Project Space is DNK, a bi-weekly series that also favors electronic music.

STEIM
Entrance at STEIM

As locals come out of winter hibernation and the sun starts to shine again, the Dutch music festivals kick into high gear. The biennial World Minimal Music Festival seems to be picking up some steam after an exhilarating four-day debut in April 2009. The next one, in April 2011, features music from the usual suspects: Phil Niblock, La Monte Young, Steve Reich, Gavin Bryars, and countless others. Gaudeamus Music Week, which has been thoroughly written about on these pages before, brings together young and emerging composers from throughout the world and teams them up with the top Dutch new music ensembles. The Grachtenfestival peaks in late-August with the annual Princengracht concert. This outdoor concert, held on a temporary stage built on the canal, is attended by thousands of people and broadcasted nationally. The largest artistic festival in the country is the annual Holland Festival, a solid three weeks of music and art that saturates the town.

As Christopher Trapani put it so aptly in an article for NewMusicBox in 2008, “…written a piece for twelve melodicas? Or amplified triangle? How about four bass clarinets and two music boxes? Send it to Amsterdam.” Octets and nonets seem to lead the way with ensembles like the New Trombone Collective and Cello8ctet. The Four Baritones, a low-end saxophone quartet, is in the process of putting together a baritone saxophone orchestra for performance next spring.

There are equally interesting unconventional venues too. Brug9, an art gallery and occasional concert space, is located in a tunnel underneath a bridge on the Singel. The Karnatic Lab, run by Ned McGowan and Gijs Levelt, showcases everything from microtonal compositions to south Indian classical music. One of my most memorable concert experiences to this day was hearing Steve Reich’s Four Organs at the Orgelpark, a venue that might be the only place in the world with four full size organs! The Huygens-Fokker Foundation, a center for microtonal music, houses another interesting instrument, the one of a kind, 31-tone Fokker organ.

This celebration of the city’s musical riches comes with a caution, however. The Netherlands is on the verge of loosing its grip as one of the most vibrant places for new and experimental music in Europe. The incoming right-winged government combined with the recent economic downturn and squatting ban is hitting Amsterdam hard. With the proposed funding cuts, some of these ensembles, festivals, and venues may not last another year.

What’s in a Band? Getting There

Video by Reed Nisson

This week, I’m in Rochester, New York, rehearsing with the Eastman BroadBand, a contemporary chamber orchestra at the Eastman School of Music, in preparation for our upcoming tour to Mexico. I’ll write from Rochester during the rehearsal period this week and send dispatches from Mexico when we hit the road next Monday.

Most members of the Eastman BroadBand are experienced travelers at this point, able to rehearse despite exhaustion and jet lag, prepared to perform in cramped pits or damp churches, experts in packing, hauling, and unpacking equipment. But the circumstances of their November 1 concert in New York’s Miller Theater will be extreme, even by the BroadBand’s standards. The twenty-member orchestra, its five soloists, and its conductor and artistic directors will fly from Rochester at daybreak on the day of the performance and spend the morning at the Mexican consulate in New York City. Each member of the group must apply in person for the necessary visas to travel to Guanajuato, Mexico, the ultimate destination for their latest tour. And the flights to Mexico City the following day? They leave before sunrise, too.


The Eastman BroadBand, a contemporary chamber orchestra at the Eastman School of Music

BroadBand’s performance at Miller Theater prefaces its tour to the Festival Internacíonal Cervantino, Mexico’s most dynamic artistic and cultural festival. Juan Trigos will lead the orchestra with soloists soprano Tony Arnold, pianist Cristina Valdes, percussionist Michael Burritt, and guitarist Dieter Hennings. Performers endure the extreme rehearsal and travel schedule to perform rewarding new works—many of them “signature pieces” for the ensemble. The program in New York will feature works by Latin American composers Silvestre Revueltas and Alejandro Viñao, but also the music of a contemporary generation of Mexican artists, Trigos and artistic directors Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. Hennings is featured in Trigos’s unusual guitar concerto Ricercare VI, which borrows its form from the simple harmonies of the Cuban Son. Valdes and Burritt are featured in …Ex Machina, a frenetic double concerto by Sanchez-Gutierrez, and Arnold sings two songs from Comala, a cantata by Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon based on a text by Mexican author Juan Rulfo. Arnold is joined by tenor Scott Perkins and baritone Tom Lehman in NiñoPolilla, Zohn-Muldoon’s miniature opera about a boy who is visited by a terminal disease when he disobeys his saintly parents. Ultimately, the child (Perkins) literally disintegrates in a fit of coughing and sneezing. The program will open with Fanfare by Baljinder Sekhon, II, a young American composer and one-time percussionist in the ensemble.

Eastman BroadBand has previously performed in Mexico at the Morelia and Michoacan New Music Festivals. In addition, the group was the resident ensemble for the contemporary music component of the 2008 Festival Internacíonal Chihuahua. The ensemble has also performed at the SpazioMusica Festival in Cagliari, Italy, and with the Garth Fagan Dance Company at New York City’s Joyce Theatre. The group can be heard on Cantos, with music by Zohn-Muldoon, on Bridge Records.

Ultima Contemporary Music Festival: Two Extremes

Over forty concerts in two-dozen venues scattered throughout Oslo! The second week of Ultima was exhilarating, as it splintered off into several smaller festivals. One of the more successful ventures was the two-part Ultima Noise Fest. The first happening took place at Sukkerbiten, a makeshift venue on the docks of the Oslo Opera House. Taking in the scene before the show, I noticed a few seemingly out of place guys dressed in suits, awkwardly circling the stage. Enter Guds Söner (The Sons of God), a Swedish noise group that thoroughly pummeled us with a highly visceral, ankle-numbing set of low frequency, analog drones. They were accompanied by a full contact, lawn chair-equipped dance duo (this video is a good introduction).

Sons of God
Swedish noise group Guds Söner flips out

The second night of Noise Fest moved across town to the graffiti-covered venue Blå. I am really starting to dig Oslo, feeling hints of the underground, squat culture I have become accustomed to in Amsterdam. It was an amazing evening, highlighted by a set from the Portland, Oregon-based noise artist Daniel Menche. On stage, he was perched atop a large wooden crate, with a nice spread of gear and a long, wooden stick laced with contact mics. He created large waves of distortion and feedback by beating this wooden stick against his chest and pressing it against his throat while screaming.

Daniel Menche
Daniel Menche waves his magic noise wand
More Noise
More noise at Blå

With a duo of noise concerts under my belt, it was time to move back to Ultima’s more traditional concert spaces. Saul Williams presented excerpts from his book Said the Shotgun to the Head in an awesome collaboration with composer Thomas Kessler, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, and ten young Norwegian rappers. The success of this performance came from Williams’s eloquent and rapid-fire delivery of poems from his book. As a fellow saxophonist, it was also nice to hear Olav Anton Thommessen’s Tuba mirum for saxophone quartet (all doubling on baritone saxophone) and orchestra on the program, a very welcome addition to this repertoire. Over at the Opera House was a fully produced version of Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragmente.

Halfway through Kurtag's Kafka-Fragmente
Halfway through Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragmente
Halfway through Kurtag's Kafka-Fragmente
Vocalist Salome Kammer and violinist Carolin Widmann taking their bows after Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragmente

Another strong focus during the second week of Ultima was the choir festival Tenso Days. Though I heard it was great, I unfortunately missed the opening performance of Zad Moultaka’s L’autre rive by the French ensemble Musicatreize. I did, however, catch a double bill with the Nederlands Kamerkoor and Det Norske Solistkor. There was a really nice piece on that concert by Eivind Buene that teamed these ensembles up with Gjermund Larsen, a traditional Norwegian fiddle player.

Ultima Festival sign

A pair of concerts at the Uranienborg Kirke brought the festival to a close. The absolutely stellar Latvian Radio Choir sang an entire world premiere program of microtonal choral works. Once again, the Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen hit me just right with his folk-inspired Mythes étoilés. Martins Vilums’s thrilling composition Abar panjom ardig abag gaw ek-dad kard had the entire chorus walking a very thin tightrope, with each member singing their own distinct part.

The final concert of Ultima was the world premiere performance of Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje’s Crepuscular Hour for three choirs, six noise musicians, and organ. Bringing everyone together, this massive, evening-length piece felt as though it could have single-handedly carved out the Norwegian fjords. I became a bit disoriented and started to lose track of time at what felt like twenty to thirty minutes into the piece. Surrounded on all sides by a choir of noise, the piece continued to snake its way through the expansive church. After a long, gradual build, it gave one last roar before quietly sending us home.

Crepuscular Hour
Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje’s epic Crepuscular Hour

An Australian in Santa Cruz: An Insider’s Report from the 2010 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

[Ed note: The annual Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California, is one of the most enjoyable new music events in the United States. This year, every composer but one who was programmed on the festival was in attendance to hear his or her music. Some travelled from elsewhere in the state, like John Adams, whereas others like Elena Kats-Chernin journeyed all the way from Sydney. Since it was Kats-Chernin’s first-ever visit to Cabrillo, we asked her to keep a diary of her experience there. Reading her day-to-day activities, as well as her emotional ups-and-downs about the work of hers being performed, offers a rare inside look into the mind of a composer as events unfold. It’s also a fascinating outsider’s view of this event—an account of an important American festival through the eyes and ears of a composer from halfway around the world.

In addition, we asked Kevin Puts to describe the performance of his Piano Concerto at the Festival which was one of the more memorable events in recent music history.—FJO]

 

Prologue

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Elena Kats-Chernin

In January 2010 I get an email from Ellen Primack, executive director of the Cabrillo Festival, telling me that my piece Heaven is Closed has been chosen by Maestra Marin Alsop to be performed at the final concert of the Cabrillo Festival in August 2010. I am very excited and try to make it possible to fly there. I am not yet immediately sure I can, since I have a ballet workshop in Brisbane, the dates of which are not finalized yet; it would be a pity if it was to be in August, just at the time of the festival. But somehow it all works out and I book the flight and am anticipating the trip.

H.I.C. is an older piece; I wrote it in 2000 for Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and I have not really heard it in a concert since then, even though it has been performed in different places around the world. So I feel disconnected to it somehow and I have to get reacquainted with it after all this time. But I still have a couple of trips to make first, seven weeks in Antwerp for rehearsals of my new opera The Rage of Life, then to Canberra for some performances, then to Brisbane for a ballet workshop, then to Adelaide, then back to Brisbane for another workshop. I am almost never home. The time flies.

 

Saturday, August 7, 2010 – From Sydney to Santa Cruz

I leave home around 9:00 a.m.; the flight is at 12:30 p.m. Alexander, my partner, comes along to the Sydney Airport to see me off. We have this ritual where we sit down at the food court at the airport and have coffee or—if it is later in the day—we have a meal. It is a “good luck” omen and we always do it, unless prevented by a rehearsal or an event of some sort. Alexander is from Berlin and is often in Europe, working as a lighting designer in European opera theaters, so he flies back and forth often. And sometimes I am in Europe for this or that performance, so we have our “airport meals” quite often. It softens the stress of the flight a little.

The flight from Sydney to San Francisco is about 14 hours and I manage to see a few films, one of which is I am Love. I’m pleasantly surprised by the great music and then see the name of the composer: John Adams. I am aware that his piece City Noir is going to be performed at the Cabrillo Festival and I am looking forward to it so very much! I also see The Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould. It’s so fascinating to have an insight into his life and work. What an amazing person he was! I just love his painful attention to detail in everything he undertook. The film is full of interviews with interesting people including Glenn Gould’s big love: Cornelia Foss, the wife of a brilliant conductor, pianist and composer Lukas Foss, and also interviews with Foss’s children. The film is so impressive that I can not watch anything after that and spend time thinking and occasionally sleeping.

I arrive in San Francisco airport and get into a queue (more than an hour long) at the passport control for non-US citizens. There are a couple of queue lines to choose from, I pick the one that looks the shortest, but as my luck always has it, it happens to be the only line which is operated by just one officer. I enviously look at the row next to me and all those people who arrived way after me; they are already being processed. Finally out, I pick up my luggage fairly quickly. I am met by Mary and George Reynolds, who is on the Board of Directors of Cabrillo Festival. They are very nice and ask me if I want to be driven via the scenic route or just any other route that might be a little faster. I choose the scenery. I can’t be sure when next I would be able to visit Santa Cruz, so I want to see it all! We have a beautiful coastal drive, I see a lot of green on my left and water on my right, but am too tired to remember it all.

I arrive at my host’s place around 1:00 p.m. As expected I am completely jet-lagged, but I stay awake while my lovely host Susan Hillyard tells me what I need to know about the house. (She is a photographer, and does great work.) Susan has set up a laptop so I can use the internet in my temporary room. That is a surprise and I am very happy; it is great to be able to be in touch with the world while I’m so far away. But I soon realize that my Australian Cell Phone does not get reception in USA; luckily my German one does. Unfortunately I am missing the mid-day session in which Marin Alsop and composers have a discussion with the audience. However, there is a concert in the evening which I definitely want to hear. So I feel I now need a few hours to catch up on sleep.

 

Later that evening

Susan and I drive to the concert. I see the Civic Theatre for the first time, there is a street market in full swing, but I have no time to look at anything, even though I love looking at the colorful things which seem to be in abundance at the stands. I get introduced to many people. Then, just before the concert, I meet Mark-Anthony Turnage along with his wife Gaby. I have always admired Turnage’s music and meeting him is a thrill for me. He is very warm and he does not seem nervous at all. I think that some composers are just not nervous, or they don’t show it. In Turnage’s case he doesn’t need to be nervous—he’s brilliant.

The concert starts. It is fun to hear introductions and Marin Alsop has a very witty way to introduce the composers. The first piece is Anna Clyne’s Rewind; it is a very energetic and vibrant piece and the audience loves it. Then comes Jennifer Higdon’s Grammy Award-winning Percussion Concerto, played magnificently by the soloist Colin Currie and the Cabrillo Orchestra which is just amazing. This was the first time I’ve ever experienced Marin Alsop live in concert and what a dynamic personality she is; the performance is also wonderfully precise. The percussion writing is fantastic, unbelievably virtuosic and inventive. I love those bass marimba tremolo chords in the opening; at one point it gains texture and sounds like an organ—very surprising.

Then, in the second half of the concert, comes Mark-Anthony Turnage. He is a giant of contemporary music and I am just blown away by what he writes. Two pieces of his are played: Chicago Remains and an older work, Drowned Out, which is an absolute masterpiece. The way melodic material made up of small intervals moves like a snake throughout the piece with the most stunning colors and rhythms is just pure perfection.

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At the 2010 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, pictured from left to right: Pierre Jalbert, Elena Kats-Chernin, Marin Alsop, and Anna Clyne

 

Sunday, August 8

Two concerts to go to today. But before that, in the morning, a group of us go to a place called Chocolate where a lot of food is made with chocolate, even cooked dishes like chicken, and they have myriads of different hot chocolate drinks. Sinful heaven!

Then the lunchtime concert: The Composer is Dead with libretto by Lemmony Snicket and music by Nathaniel Stookey. A really fantastic piece for families with children, but also for adults it is real fun. We laugh a lot. And the music is very fitting and inventive and very skillfully done. The composer is the actor/narrator and he is amazing. I have not met many composers who could have pulled this off; he is a born actor. He tells me later that his mother is a drama teacher.

We have some time before the evening concert and so I tag along to the Bonny Doon Vineyards’ wine tasting room. There are wonderful wines that I have never heard of, one amazing wine chasing the other. It is an inspiring couple of hours and I feel very, shall we say, relaxed afterwards; it is my first taste of alcohol since I arrived.

I still have a dinner planned with Don Freund, a composer from Indiana who is a professor at the Bloomington School of Music. We have not seen each other for 12 years and so it is a wonderful get-together with him, his wife Sandra and their friends/hosts Henry and Carol. We have a nice dinner at a place called Gabriella’s Cafe. We catch up on their family news, and reminisce about the time they were in Australia. Don and I taught composition for one week at the National Academy of Music in Melbourne, in August 1998 and on one weekend Sandra and Don stayed over at our place in Coogee, Sydney. Don is a wonderful composer and a wise and inspiring teacher. And I remember how my children just loved spending time with Sandra who has a real gift with children; she is a born educator.

The evening concert is a double bill of eighth blackbird and the Kronos Quartet. I love the pieces 8bb play, specifically the amazing flexatone writing in Stephen Hartke’s Meanwhile, which is the last piece on the first half of the concert. During the intermission I meet Jennifer Higdon and Blackbird pianist Lisa Kaplan, and I manage to take a photo of them. Both are so warm and welcoming. Then Kronos. It is the first time I’ve heard them in concert, so this is really special. I love the first piece Aheym by Bryce Dessner the most: for its high energy drive and great harmonies. And I manage to meet David Harrington after the concert. We met previously on the phone and via email but never in person, so it is really great to be able to actually meet face to face. I hope to see/hear them when they tour Sydney in a few months.

 

Monday, August 9

This is a free day for me. On Saturday I bumped into Hannah Addario-Berry, a beautiful cellist whom I had met at Other Minds Festival two years earlier, when she played as part of the Del Sol Quartet. They played some pieces of mine then and I just loved Hannah’s playing. To see her here was just great. We made a plan to meet for breakfast on Monday. So we met at 10:00 am at Cafe Brazil with Hannah and her boyfriend Loren Mach who is one of percussionists with the Cabrillo Orchestra. The cafe is full and we have to wait a little to get a seat. It’s a hearty meal in the morning, with omelette and potato things on a plate (which is OK for me, as I still feel a little jet-lagged and this feels like dinner time). Hannah tells me that she now has a duo with a violinist and we discuss ideas for pieces (there are a few in my head already), perhaps also including percussion. Since seeing/hearing The Composer is Dead on Sunday, I am starting to have ideas for a children’s piece. So we throw some ideas around.

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Hannah Addario-Berry, Loren Mach, and Elena Kats Chernin

Later in the day Susan takes me to the city library. There is a section downstairs for second hand books, I find a couple of books that I like, including an educational book about music by Wynton Marsalis. I buy it for my partner who just created lighting design for Berlin Philharmonic’s “Music and Dance” project with Marsalis’ Swing Symphony. We then go to another book shop and I buy Silence by John Cage. I wanted to have this book for ages but never quite got around to getting it, so seeing it right here is very inviting. But there is a limit to how much I can carry in my luggage back to Australia, so I resist buying any more books.

Then Susan takes me on a scenic drive, showing me the coast and then the university. I feel tired enough at the end of the day (without really having done anything) and I am looking forward to falling into deep sleep at a normal hour by now, so that I get used to the Santa Cruz rhythm, but fat chance; again I struggle with jet-lag and only manage to fall asleep at 3:00 a.m.

 

Tuesday, August 10

I wake up around 9:00 a.m., but not really… as I do not have any appointments, I just fall right back into sleep and then just read all day, until it is time to go to the first rehearsal of my piece.

First Susan, her friend Sarah, and I go to Oswald’s for dinner. She made an arrangement with her friend Sarah to have dinner there, so I just come along. I am in a bit of a hurry to get to the rehearsal on time in order to manage to convey some small mistakes/’edits to the librarian Ella Fredrickson. Often my biggest worry is that I don’t get a chance to correct anything upfront or during or after a rehearsal. The orchestral parts can be hard to get hold of as they are still on the music stands and the players are already rehearsing another piece and you can’t disturb them. Or the parts get whisked away in a box to another venue (if it goes to a concert or another rehearsal space). Sometimes players take some parts home; that happens occasionally, albeit rarely.

Earlier in the day I phone Ella and we arrange to meet at 6.50 pm. I ask how I will recognize her. She replies, “I am the lady with the pencil behind my ear.” I already like her a lot! And I do find her quickly (although, of course, there is no pencil where she said it would be, but she has everything she needs for errata lists). She is as I imagined, very clear and calm and I am sitting there admiring her composure and skill and the manner with which she goes about entering revisions into score and parts. Usually I do this myself; this is the first time that I am working with a librarian directly in rehearsal. It is such a luxury (even though I can so get used to it and I wish it was like this everywhere).

We go through everything quite quickly and then I manage to tell Maestra Alsop a few of those things before the rehearsal and so I feel prepared. In fact, some mistakes have already been corrected in the parts, but not in the score. I have not witnessed a performance of this piece since the year 2000 and so it is useful to check the score with fresh eyes. Many new imperfections literally stare me in the face.

All of the rehearsals, except for the dress rehearsal, are open to the public, which is a great thing; it is always fascinating to witness how the piece develops and improves with each reading. The rehearsal of my piece starts and, as usual, I get a shock that it sounds so different, like an old lost or forgotten friend that you have to get to know yet again and you are not quite sure if you are going to have anything in common after all this time.

I wrote Heaven is Closed ten years ago in response to my middle son Alex’s schizophrenia which was so severe that it was very difficult to treat and I felt like there was no way out for us and things looked very bleak for my family. I felt that in order to write a piece about this illness I had to approach it from different angles. Ideas tumbled over each another. The emotions were very complex and moving from dark to optimistic. Even if it was mostly a tragic circumstance, sometimes there were times when my son would say some very funny things and I could not ignore the humor. So the piece moves between dark and light, insistent and uplifting, all the contradictory emotions all at once.

After the initial first “read-through” Marin works on a couple of sections and then there is a rehearsal of another composer’s piece: Pierre Jalbert’s In Aeternam. It is to be played at the same final concert of the festival and the concert is named after this piece. I am so taken in by its beauty and emotion and by the gentle manner of the composer who explains how the piece was written in response to his niece being stillborn and to how he recalled hearing the heartbeat of his yet unborn son. Just hearing it once I can tell it has a masterful orchestration and beautiful harmonic language, very contemporary yet drawing on some baroque chord sequences, albeit in a much more complex manner. The piece has a kind of an arch form, with huge climactic brass and percussion passages that go straight to your heart. It is a very satisfying experience to hear this piece, even at its first reading by the orchestra. I guess when something is so well written, it sounds good immediately, even at the first run. I was lucky enough to also be able to have a look at the score; there is a pile of scores on the table.

Then the orchestra gets rearranged and expanded and they do a section from the amazing City Noir by John Adams. The Saxophone writing (Timothy McAllister on sax) is the most virtuosic thing I have ever heard. What I am hearing of the piece is a non-stop high activity with immense colors and attention grabbing stuff. I want to hear more, but I’m still struggling with jet-lag, so I leave just a couple of minutes into it.

 

Wednesday, August 11

I am really intrigued about Philip Glass’s Cello Concerto and I decide to go to its rehearsal at 10:00 am. I am not sure in which order the pieces are being rehearsed. I’m at the Civic Theatre at 9.15 to catch Ella again and perhaps have a chance to improve on something. There is one spot that I am concerned about. I am annoyed at my own inadequacy, but excuse it by my inexperience at the time of writing the piece, no matter what age I was when I wrote it. I am just realizing that H.I.C. is only my 4th orchestra piece ever and in fact only the 1st that I consider an actual orchestra piece of mine worthy of performing, the previous three—Stairs (1984), Transfer (1991), and Retonica (1993)—are more or less student works or works by someone still trying to figure out what orchestra is or can do.

During the Tuesday rehearsal I noticed that at one spot the oboe is playing a melody after the trumpet solo and somehow it is not strong enough to counteract the trumpet’s vitality; it needed a reinforcement, in the form of a clarinet. So I ask Ella to copy the oboe part and she magically added this material to the clarinet part. And together they sound strengthened and much more prominent. There is then another spot where I notice the “magnifying” clarinet can also be useful, and so we add that in also, for the next day’s rehearsal. I love it when it is possible to correct and everyone is supportive and not complaining that things are changing. It is a normal composer’s activity and I think that while a composer is alive there will always be room for improvement.

At the Civic Theatre, there is a board which has the schedule pinned to it. My piece was to be rehearsed on Thursday next, but surprise! I see my name written by hand, added into the morning rehearsal. I am very happy for two reasons: one, that it is being rehearsed again, as it really needs it, and second, that I did not miss this important rehearsal, that would be so embarrassing (so I thank Glass’s concerto for this). Apparently no-one could reach me to tell me overnight about this extra rehearsal.

After my piece gets rehearsed, I hear the rehearsal of Philip Glass’s Cello Concerto and am blown away by the beauty of its harmonic and melodic language and the clarity of colors and the impeccable timing. I love Wendy Sutter’s playing, she is amazing and so glamorous and I can’t wait to meet her. But I am too shy to say hello on that day. She just arrived here and I am always aware that people need their privacy and need to concentrate on the task at hand. So I go to my temporary home with the melodies of the cello concerto swirling in my head. It is truly addictive music and I can’t wait to hear it the next day.

Susan and I decide to go for Chinese food tonight. She is doing research and we decide to go to a place in Capitola. So we drive there and I decide that after an important rehearsal day I need a reward in form of some nice dessert. Susan suggests Bittersweet Bistro, a little further than Capitola, not sure what the town is called. I know that I am in a chocolate mood, so I go for some chocolate mousse kind of thing, just because even reading it is mouthwatering and I love anything that has hot chocolate sauce. The other thing we choose is crème brulée, but it’s not as good as we expected. Somehow I hoped for a hot crust on top but it is all cold and the texture inside a bit lumpy. Still the sweet tooth is satisfied and I am very happy to have given my body a sugar hit it deserved.

We get home and again I can’t sleep until 3:00 a.m.; this seems to be a daily “falling asleep time.” My jetlag is still not letting up. Before going to sleep I have a look at the H.I.C. score again to check if anything else needs adjusting.

 

Thurdsay, 12th August

The 10:00 a.m. rehearsal starts with my piece. I think I get there at 9.15 or something exaggerated like that. That is typical as I always want to be early everywhere, for no particular reason, but sometimes I just want to be there in case there are questions or I need to correct something. There is a particular dynamic in the bass clarinet part as well as in the trombone that I want changed from mf to f, to lift up their melodies. And then there is one in the trumpet also, so I go the player and ask him to change it in the part. All the players are great and very supportive of the piece. I think the piece is growing with each rehearsal.

Marin has transformed it in a matter of two rehearsals and it just acquired a sparkling sound; it is so satisfying to listen to it. At the end Marin says to the orchestra, “If you have something interesting to play, bring it out!” (Later I see on Twitter that someone from the orchestra tweeted this quote.) Sometimes my dynamics do not reflect the importance of particular material, perhaps due to a mistake in thinking or a mistake in typesetting, and Marin, by saying this, makes it clear to everyone that if there is a melody in a part, it should be a higher dynamic than it is written. I must say that those kinds of dynamic undervalues or other thinking mistakes are things that today I don’t quite do, but 10 years ago it was a different matter. In any case there are not many such spots and mostly it is actually working fantastically well.

A violin player comes up and says that she is having lots of fun playing the piece and asks why there is no sadness in the piece, it is quite upbeat and optimistic. I start thinking about this question and it is true: it is not a sad piece. I do not believe in writing whining music, but at the same time the piece is about my son’s illness and there is no fun about that, so maybe I missed the point? This starts worrying me. But then this piece is a snapshot stemming from a particularly tumultuous time and what I recall is that there was little time to be dwelling on the sad aspect; I needed strength and energy to keep everything together. The mind does not play by the rules really; one might think sad thoughts but that is not necessarily what comes through in a piece.

In the evening there is a concert called Music in the Mountains. It involves food and wine tastings from different restaurants in the Santa Cruz area and then a concert in the beautiful setting. It is a fund raising event for the Cabrillo festival and it seems to be running like clockwork. I am picked up by the lovely Mary Reynolds. The food is mostly small nibbles—some particularly tasty—brought in by different restaurants, and the wine is poured in small portions, for tasting. It is nice to interact with people who support the festival. I also see some of the composers—Anna Clyne, Michael Shapiro and Pierre Jalbert. We all feel so well treated and enjoy the setting and people.

The concert is made up of three pieces: First, a trio for clarinet, cello, and piano by Emily Wong—a lovely piece. Then Jennifer Higdon’s intense and extremely virtuosic piece for flute solo, rapid*fire, amazingly played by Tim Munro (another Aussie). Finally Wendy Sutter playing the beautiful Poems and Songs by Philip Glass who wrote this suite for her. The players all talked before playing and it was really fun to listen to them describe the pieces and, as in case of Wendy, how she came to play on this particular Stradivarius Cello, which looks and sounds amazing.

After the concert I get a chance to meet Wendy Sutter and I introduce myself and she says how nice it is to meet me. She was familiar with my music through my piece Pro-Motion, which she played when she was a member of the Bang On A Can All-Stars and she says such nice things that my little composer’s heart jumps with pride. How amazing is that: here I am, all the way from far away Australia and I don’t expect anyone to know who I am and here is this amazing cellist who knows my music. Life is good.

 

Friday, August 13

At 10 am there’s a dress rehearsal of the whole concert. My piece is first. It sounds great and when Marin asks for comments all I can bring out is that in a quiet section in measure such and such we could have the harp dynamic raised and that I really am truly happy and have no other comments. Sometimes I feel that if I have nothing to say then I am not critical enough, but sometimes there is just nothing more to be done to improve on anything. The playing of the piece has reached the point where I have no more wishes for anything, which is actually quite rare; I usually always have something that I am not happy about. Mostly this has to do with my own writing that I would like to improve.

Michael Shapiro, a New York composer/conductor, whom I met the previous day, has listened in and says nice things. He thinks it sounds Jewish. I personally think it has rather an Italian flavor. Not sure why. Later in the afternoon I am back at Civic and I listen in at the rehearsal for Saturday concert. Michael’s piece is very short, it is called Roller Coaster and is about the terrifying thrill of being on one. It is very smart piece and I like it a lot. I can hear everything that he describes in the program notes: the suspension of thought at the beginning when fear overtakes you and then the terrifying ride. (But I must admit no-one would ever drag me onto one of those things!) Then back to my temporary home again.

Susan and I go to dinner at La Paloma, a Mexican restaurant. I have not eaten Mexican food for years. We find a nice table and I choose nachos. Susan says that I am not adventurous enough, but I do not want to risk ordering something that I would be unfamiliar with and might not enjoy and I can count on nachos. I say something about how it is nice to have a quiet evening, when suddenly I see a band getting ready to play music. My brain says “Oh no!” and I feel guilty about this immediately. When I was a student in the 80s in Hanover, Germany, I earned a living by playing piano in cafes and hotels. However, when I go out, I prefer no music at all, be it live or from the speakers. I guess that music is so much of my life that when I go out I usually like to have a conversation and I hate it when we have to scream and I get a sore throat. I guess that I am in the minority and musicians need to earn their money and I should not be so snobby or intolerant. Anyway, the band goes to each table and sings a song, then they come to us and I am horrified, but they understand when I say: “Please, we would not like any music, thank you.” They go to the table next to us and sing a song to those people who look very happy. The performance is good and they sing well and in tune (and loudly!), and I have mixed feelings of guilt and relief when the song is over and we can resume the conversation.

Susan orders some kind of soup with a name I can’t remember, I try it but it is not my kind of thing, so I am happy with my “unadventurous” choice. The plate is huge and it takes a while to get through. By the time we finish with our plates, there is a big queue for tables, so we feel that we ought to leave quite soon.

Back home, it is great to know that I do not have to wake up too early next morning, as my job is more or less done and I am looking forward to the concert on Saturday night. I read some of John Cage Silence; I love it even though I don’t always get the meaning of everything, but hey am I supposed to? For the first time I fall asleep before 3:00 a.m.: jet-lag is starting to wane…. slowly…as usual, towards the end of the trip.

 

Saturday, August 14

I wake up around 7:00 a.m. and suddenly decide that I should look at the score of Heaven is Closed again (what’s new?!!?!), just because I feel that something is bugging me, not sure what. I get this nagging feeling of being not quite satisfied with something. I know that there is one bit where the low frequencies disappear for a very brief moment and by the time you realize it, it is back with tuba and double basses. On one level, I like that feeling of a suspended “hole” of sound. But on the other hand while it is sounding, I feel: “Oh dear, I forgot that low instrument there somehow…. Why did I take it out of this spot? Or, what possessed me to omit those low notes?” Considering that the piece was written in 2000, it is impossible to remember what happened. In 2000 it did not seem to bother me, but today I like the sound to be more balanced and full and not so scattered around as I used to have it 10 years ago.

And OH SHOCK HORROR I see a couple of bars in Horns in the wrong clef! I often wondered about that spot and thought that something was quite odd there and not making harmonic sense, however it did not sound bad at all and I thought that I was just making too much fuss about something, but now I realize why this spot kept my attention—because I could not work out what those notes were doing in that chord. They did not belong in the bass clef, but they would have worked in the treble. I decide to make the best of the situation and keep it in the bass clef but just add a couple of accidentals so it will fit the harmony. Of course, I am worried about getting the chance to input these changes into the parts. While I am contemplating the right course of action (I realize that today is a big day with a huge program for tonight’s concert, so I can’t bother anyone with MY piece, which is tomorrow!), suddenly there’s ANOTHER MISTAKE! This time it is in the second violins: they have a high G in an E major chord, so the G sharp accidental is missing. I secretly hope that they heard it and input it themselves. (Later I find out that this is precisely the case; that is why I never heard the wrong note!)

But the main thing that is bugging me, I finally realize is—and it has actually bugged me from the start—I don’t like the very last attack of the piece. I look at the score and realize that what it is missing is a punchy hard and loud percussion attack to go with the last sound. What I see in my score (and it is truly sometimes feeling like I am looking at someone else’s score and wonder how on earth that person could have made such a stupid decision) is a mezzo forte temple block and a tremolo on Chinese cymbal, also with moderate dynamics, without any kind of an accent on the last attack. I can’t believe I missed the opportunity to end the piece titled “HEAVEN IS CLOSED” with a last final “KNOCK ON THE DOOR OF HEAVEN”.

So now I am starting to get anxious about how I can convey my newly found ideas to the players. O.K., first I make a list of suggestions and write them all down, and already I feel better. Then I call Ella, the wonderful librarian, and while I know that she is in the middle of the rehearsals, I leave a message saying that I have to ask her about some small changes and if it would be possible to implement them before the performance. It is not always acceptable to make changes just before the concert, without any more rehearsals, but this is actually all small stuff even though it will have a big impact.

In the middle of my contemplation and anxiety I suddenly see the absurd side. Here I am thinking about the importance of one final chord! And what really matters is the whole project, the whole piece, the whole festival. This little chord is such a small detail in the scheme of things. I start thinking about floods, earthquakes, fires, hunger in the world and the indulgence of my thoughts is starting to feel embarrassing. However, sometimes it does feel like the most important decision in the world, the one last chord in the piece or any other spot, you spend months writing a piece and put your whole heart and self into it and everything matters. While the piece is being played, many people in the audience are listening to your most intimate thoughts and your compositional imagination. In those minutes of the piece’s duration nothing else matters to a composer. It is the ultimate moment of truth about everything that one does. You will evaluate your life as a composer each time there is a performance and the self-doubt can creep up instantly if something is wrong with the piece.

I manage to find Ella before the concert and am eager to give her the revisions list and am amazed that she does not blink an eye and says no problem. We both have a bit of a chuckle over the wrong clefs in the horns, and I feel a thousand times better that the percussion players will get my last minute ideas for the “final” note of the piece.

The hall at the Civic is full and we (Pierre Jalbert on my left and Anna Clyne on my right) realize that John Adams is sitting right behind us. What an honor to be so close to composing royalty. I’m full of anticipation. The first half of the concert is made up of three very different pieces: Michael Shapiro’s Roller Coaster, Sean Hickey’s Dalliance, and Kevin Puts’s Piano Concerto; it is great to hear such variety and flights of imagination. Kevin is the piano soloist in this highly virtuosic concerto which is very refreshing and full of beauty. I love that I can hear the piano so clearly, the balance is brilliant. Each time I write a concerto, for me the main challenge is to make sure that the soloist is heard. It is really not easy to make one instrument sound louder than the whole orchestra, but that is where the fun is, to work those things out.

But then something weird happens. The third movement starts with the most amazingly speedy “flying” notes—I’ve rarely heard anything played at this speed, a kind of a “super-toccata”, the audience hardly breathes. And we are all going along with this, until suddenly, out of nowhere, it all stops and Kevin says something along the lines “Sorry we have to start again” and Marin says “Oh? and it was going so well”. I think at this point the whole audience feels for Kevin and I am wondering what is going on in his mind. I imagine that the most important thing for him at this point is to actually recall the spot where he lost the connection to the next bit, but also to play the previous bit all over again and not lose thread at any other “new” spot. I have seen this happen to performers before. Memory lapse is so understandable in such a big work, with so many components and directions.

Along with everyone else we are at the edge of our seats and breathe even less! This time around it is a perfect performance. Not sure if this is actually so, but I feel it is going even faster than before. It is in fact great to hear this movement again! The whole event of the memory lapse makes the performance actually truly exciting (of course, it was exciting before! but this adds another element of a thrill) and, while I think that Kevin might not be so pleased with himself, I think that we, as a music community and audience, realize that we will remember this performance and the piece stronger. What happened makes the whole experience warmly human and connecting.

But the question might be asked: why not use the music if there is a chance of such a memory slip… For years this has been an interesting question for me. One time when I had problems playing something from memory, my sister Laura asked me how is it possible that I forgot a spot when it is I who wrote it. When I write a piece, at any one point there are many turns and modulations, sometimes it is hard to remember which choice I made some time ago, it is impossible to remember everything and the more intricate the modulations, those sometimes tricky key turns, the more chances to forget. I perform occasionally, mostly with other musicians, and my pieces are not so very complex. I always prefer the safety net of the music on the stand, even without looking at it. However it creates new problems. One is page turns, you either have to have someone sitting next to you (this adds to all sorts of problems and yes, I did once have a page turner drop all the music to the floor! and it obstructs your space, especially if you are using a lot of the low register). If, like me, you create your own kind of reduced score and stick it on the cardboard, you make it very hard on your eyes and the chance of losing the spot on the music is also there. Sometimes I created such tall cardboard scores which work very well on my upright piano, but when I got to the grand piano at the concert hall, it became so tall that my neck hurt from looking up all the time (and because the notes were so small I could not really see very much). But, I think, the most important issue is: if you play without the music, somehow it makes you more free with the performance itself, you are yourself with the instrument and without the paper in between, somehow it is liberating. I know a lot of performers who absolutely detest using music. And the perception out there is that the audience expects the soloist to play from memory.

During the intermission I get to meet John Adams, but there is no time for more than hellos. There are so many people all trying to meet him and I don’t think he hadchance to get out of his seat the whole time. I wonder if he will remember any of the people he met.

City Noir starts after an introduction by Marin Alsop and John Adams. The piece is a whirlwind of non-stop sound with the unbelievable Timothy McAllister on saxophone; it is such an amazing journey, terrifyingly virtuosic with very complex rhythms and it just sweeps you along and does not let go. The audience erupts into a huge big cheer and standing ovation. Another concert ends and people are outside for a cake and wine reception on the street. We composers see a cake that has the print of the Cabrillo Festival brochure front cover. I manage to take a photo before the pieces with our faces make it onto plates and into stomaches. I never had my face on a cake before, so I’m amused.

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Cabrillo Cake, photo by Elena Kats-Chernin

Pierre, Anna, some others and I go to Vida on Pacific Ave. There are many musicians there who just played this amazing performance, the mood is buzzing. The line for the drinks is very long and slow. Pierre is getting a beer for us, while I sit myself at a table. I am always quite shy and can’t just plonk myself at any odd table of any musician. There is always this tingling thought: What if that particular musician hates my piece and might hate the idea of me sitting at that table. My self confidence is really truly lacking, so I just sit alone. There is something very calming about that. You can think a lot of thoughts without having a feeling that anyone is looking at you or thinking about you, because everyone is engaged in their own conversation and excitement of the moment. But one lovely viola player named Claudia comes up and says nice things about my piece.

I then manage to throw a short remark to Timothy McAllister, who is sitting at the neighboring table, about how amazing his saxophone playing was in City Noir and he is nice to come up to the table and sit down. It is great to have a conversation with him. I find out that he was involved from the start of the composition process. He has played the piece 12 times and is very comfortable playing it. I wonder if he can play it by heart. I think he can, but it is truly so virtuosic, fast and complex, I am not sure how one can memorize that, but Timothy is brilliant and has lived with the piece for some time.

Pierre comes with the beers! Very welcome! After a while Timothy introduces his wife, Roshanne Etezady (a composer), to me; they are expecting their first child, so we talk about that. She is a very vibrant person, so I imagine that her music must be lots of fun. I often wonder if the music always represents the composer’s personality or not. Usually I find that this mirroring exists. And that it is more prevalent in the older composers; it gets more obvious with age. But, of course, it is not a rule.

Some other musicians walk by and say hi, including Ava Ordman, the unbelievable trombone player—I love how in my piece she plays a brief but distinctive solo molto vibrato in the high register. She sings the melody while she walks past my seat; I find that really funny and warm-hearted and it makes me feel good. I want to say hi to my fellow Aussie Tim Munro. We have elections in Australia coming up next week. He needed an Australian to sign the witnessing of his signature on the postal vote paper, so I did this earlier in the week. I go to the table where he is sitting with other people, including the assistant conductor Rob Boardman, Nicholas Photinos from eighth blackbird, and Anna Clyne. Then back to my table. And then home. It is not very late.

 

Sunday, August 15—Morning

It’s a big day ahead. I get up and think of what to wear and feel how shallow that might be. But it is important to wear something that I will feel comfortable in. Also I always wear a necklace or some other detail from a previous successful premiere or concert, just out of superstition; it is a kind of a ritual. I ask Susan for advice on the choice of a jacket. The choice is either a velvet, flowery kind of a jacket that I bought in May or an old—probably 10 years old—shiny black velvet jacket. She says to go for the black, so that is what I wear.

The concert is today and I am nervous. I’m always nervous. No matter how many times a piece has been performed or how well it is all going, what matters is the moment itself. I am aware of the fact that there is a service in the Mission just minutes before the set-up can happen, perhaps only 50 minutes or so before the start of the concert. I also know that my piece is first on the program and that the first time the orchestra hears itself is with the first note of my piece. Marin did mention this fact that the sound might be surprising to everyone but, of course, she knows the Mission well, from many previous performances, and she said that it would be a fabulous experience. I love the fact that the concert will be repeated, it will probably be two different performances.

 

30 minutes before the first concert

The orchestra players are going to be seated in quite a cramped situation, the setting up is at full speed and I feel compelled to find the percussionists just to find out if they know about that very last bar in my piece. I jump over some cables and try very hard not to stumble over double basses or anything else precious. I get to the players and, while I know that Ella would have given them my message, I still want to thank them ahead of time and also just to see what they are going to do there. I feel really grateful that a player would allow for changes so close to a performance. And so really I only mainly want to walk there to tell them that I appreciate it a lot. I feel a little guilty talking to them, however; they are still setting up and the energy is high.

 

The two concerts

I see Philip Glass enter the hall. I can’t believe I am in the same hall with him—for me he is the greatest living composer of today. I just adore his music. No matter how many times I heard his cello concerto in rehearsal, I am so much looking forward to hearing it in concert. And to share the concert with him is a special privilege!

At the Friday dress rehearsal Marin told the composers that we would not be introducing the pieces at the Mission concert. I am relieved—it seems that each composer mentions how much speaking is the part they are most nervous about. I can so appreciate this sentiment. However, everyone in the Civic concerts spoke very eloquently and it was great to have those introductions, it tunes the audience into the performance in a very personal way. A few years ago I had a performance of a piece at a Festival in Switzerland. I happened to ask the organizers if I would be talking before my piece and the reply was “Why?” Some people believe that one does not need to talk about the piece; the piece should speak for itself. But in Australia it is common to give such introductions about compositions. I am quite used to it really, but it is never easy and it also depends on how good the sound system is and how well you can see the faces of the audience from where you are standing. It is easier if the atmosphere is more intimate.

I know that once the piece starts, I will get less nervous. And this is what happens. It sounds great. I was so worried that the “alive” sound of the Mission would make all the detailed percussive sounds “muddled” but this is not at all the case; I can hear everything very well and Marin and the orchestra are giving a fabulous performance. Everything sounds vibrant and alive and the audience gives the piece a warm reception, I am very happy!

Now I can relax and enjoy the cello concerto of Philip Glass. Wendy Sutter comes out and the performance is luminous; the piece is as magnificent as I recall from rehearsals and even more moving when you can feel the audience so focussed and quiet. The audience goes wild and stands up in cheer at the end of the concerto. I gather my courage and come up to Philip Glass in the intermission. I say how much I enjoyed the concerto and he is so humble and says that it is Wendy’s playing that is amazing and the orchestra and Marin. And then he tells me how much he liked my piece and I am flabbergasted by his generosity.

After the intermission there is a piece by George Walker, Foils. It is a powerful work, masterfully written. Due to his advanced age—he is 88 years old, he is the only composer not present at the festival; all the other composers have made it here for their pieces.

Then comes the last piece of the festival, In Aeternam by Pierre Jalbert. It is a most beautiful and very well-written piece. It won the “Masterprize” some years ago. And I understand why and so does the audience. Everyone is elated about this wonderful end to the festival and they all stand up for him and also for Marin Alsop and the orchestra, there is a real wonderful spirit in the air and everyone is really happy.

Now the question is how to spend the hour between the two concerts. I join a picnic table. But I did not take any food along; I was really only thinking about the concert and did not anticipate that I would need food between the concerts. A lot of people share their food with me. George and Mary and also Ella says that I am welcome to taste whatever is on the table. I am enjoying the hospitality in the outdoors and look forward to the repeat of the concert.

The second concert is at 8 pm: My piece sounds much more energetic, more powerful, faster and louder; it really profits from this boost and I am even happier than I was at the afternoon concert. In the intermission people come up and say nice things about the piece. Susan, my host, is in the audience and she says that she enjoyed my piece. In the days prior to the concert she heard some of my music on the CDs that I gave her and those pieces are very different from the one on today’s concert. A lady comes up and says that her name is Ellen Kimmel and she is my sponsor. And she says that she is so happy that she liked my piece. I am very grateful to her and also relieved that she liked the piece. What a generous and nice person. It seems that Cabrillo Festival has so many wonderful supporters.

The whole concert is great. Then everyone goes to a place the name of which I cannot remember but it had a lovely outdoor area where food and drink was set on the tables, along with some amazing desserts. This is the time to enjoy the final chats and say goodbyes and thank yous. I say thank you to Marin, I say thank you and bye to the wonderful Ella and am feeling sad that tomorrow I would be flying off. Pierre drives us both back to Santa Cruz. We say goodbye and exchange email addresses and will be in touch. I want to hear more of his music; he is brilliant.

 

Monday, August 16

This is my last day here and I want to enjoy it as much as possible. The great thing is I can sleep in, but I still wake up at 6:00 a.m. or so. I hear a door bell and then a phone rings. I find out later that the gentleman who is going to drive me to the airport in San Francisco—Richard Fabrikant, also on the Board of Directors of the Cabrillo Festival—had mistakenly thought that he was picking me up at 6:00 a.m., not 6:00 p.m. Susan was very nice about being woken up and I feel so sorry that Richard had to get up so early for no reason. And, of course, I re-check my ticket to see if maybe, just maybe he was right and I am wrong and I missed my plane. But no, all fine, I fly in the evening.

I check emails and start packing. All the little bits and pieces start making their way into the suitcase. Each time I do this I look at my old blue suitcase, full of holes and kind of falling apart. My partner Alexander always laughs at me when he sees how I put every piece of clothing or scores into their own plastic folders or bags. It is because once upon a time I was going on an overseas trip and it rained while the luggage was stored outdoors by the luggage handlers and so all my things got wet inside, including scores, so I learnt my lesson. It is time to get myself a new one, but then I feel so attached to it, it has been traveling with me for the last 15 years and I remember paying 30 Australian dollars for it, so I anticipated that it was never really going to last, but I really like it with all its flaws. I only separate myself from objects once they completely fall apart.

Susan takes me to Y studio where an exhibition of her photos is being displayed. And the photos from the 1960s of the band The Grateful Dead are striking, the atmosphere of the music is somehow mirrored in the photos. I am impressed with the experimental nature of some of the photos, while other photos are quite realistic. Susan and I decide to go for lunch at Aqua Bleu. They have a happy hour, everything is really cheap and it all tastes great. I love it.

Then we only have one more task and that is for me to buy socks to wear on the plane. This may seem odd to some people, but while you are on the plane for 14 hours, it is nice to not wear shoes the whole time. The days when the airlines provided you with socks are over. And even when they did provide them, they were if the most disgusting texture. But on the way to San Francisco I forgot to take socks along. So Susan takes me to a shop that only sells socks. It is a paradise for sock lovers, the choices are amazing and the imagination of the people making these socks is unbelievable. I buy one more pair (a very colorful pair, I might add) for my cousin who had a birthday recently, now I have this great present (or is it? Well, it will be one of a few presents).

We get home and it is time soon to leave. I am waiting to be picked up by Richard. I say goodbye to Susan and we are off on the highway to San Francisco at around 6:00 pm. Richard is a lovely companion, we talk about Australia and his time in Tasmania all those years ago. We talk about how great the Cabrillo Festival is and how it keeps developing and getting better and better and the great support that it enjoys with the generous people of Santa Cruz.

I am at the airport at 7:00 p.m. and I look for the check-in counter, and see that the check-in starts in fifteen minutes and there are already at least 30 people in front of me. It is early, considering that the flight is around 11:00 p.m. But I like to be early and I don’t ever mind hanging around in airports, I can always write or read or just observe. I hate being in a hurry and worry about rushing to anything. Peace of mind is terribly important to me, even if this infuriates all my companions, as people find my pedantic “over-punctuality” extreme, unnecessary and counter-productive. For example, Alexander says that the reason why my suitcase usually comes out last is because it is one of the first to go inside the plane, so it ends up in the back. (I am not sure if I agree with this theory, as it probably undergoes a few stages in which the order of the luggage changes around, but hey, this will stay a mystery, and, as long as I do get my suitcase in the end, I am not complaining.)

I go towards the gate and see a very long queue for the customs, everyone must take the shoes off and, as usual, laptops out of the cases and all the jackets out etc. My stuff takes up 4 boxes, and everyone is in a rush to get through; I feel like all my stuff is taking up time and space. Everyone gets to “enjoy” a body x-ray, what a procedure!

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Getting ready for the long journey home

I am on my own. There is still some time and I contemplate the past week and just wonder what awaits me at home. I am really looking forward to seeing my family: Alexander and my young son Nick. I also wonder how my other sons are doing, Ilya and Alex.

In the plane I find out that, while I fly economy, I actually get an economy premium seat, a pleasant surprise. Not sure why, but I’m not complaining: these seats have much more space and go back lower and have something that I find terribly important, a foot step. I love it and immediately fall asleep, even before we take off.

I’m back in Sydney. My suitcase is one of the last ones to arrive. Once I’m home it all feels like a dream—it was an amazing week and I can’t believe how fast it just flew by. Hopefully the dream is a recurring one.

Lapse

[Ed note: Few new music performances have been as close to high stakes sports events as Kevin Puts’s performance as the soloist in his own Piano Concerto with the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop at the 2010 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California. Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin has provided us with a day-to-day account of the entire 2010 festival, but we also wanted to share Kevin’s own account of what happened that night.—FJO]

 

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Kevin Puts
Photo by J. Henry Fair

I don’t know where I am…

Suddenly and inexplicably I am lost. In the orchestra to my left, the piccolo plays a staccato high C, the highest one possible, then a low B-flat spat out sforzando by the contrabassoon, some parallel triads orchestrated with winds and strings pizzicato. I can’t remember how my part fits into that. Marin Alsop stops conducting; the audience is utterly silent. I think I say, “Sorry, I have to start the third movement again.” Marin for sure says, “Really? It was going so well.”

I gather my nerves and start again. I dive into the virtuosic torrent of sixteenth notes that begins the movement, emerging from the bass of the keyboard at about quarter equals 160. At least it’s supposed to be around 160. I must have been closer to 200. Speed kills. Another train wreck. Horror. Now what I had imagined as audience confusion at the initial disruption of the movement’s steady current is beginning to feel a lot like sympathy. I imagine them collectively shaking their heads, “Damn, that’s a shame…”

My own head is awash with confusion and disbelief. How could this be happening? I always play my best when it’s concert time. I had played the concerto every day for eight months, performed it from memory with horrible MIDI and a click track for my students, for other people’s students, for my wife Lisa, for my four-month-old son whom I ran from the piano to entertain during orchestral tuttis. The dress rehearsal that morning had gone splendidly. Sure, I haven’t performed a concerto from memory in about twenty years, sure I’m a little sleep-deprived, but…this can’t be happening.

How do I get myself into these things? I had asked myself that very question fifteen minutes earlier as I checked myself in the mirror of the dressing room at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, home to the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra each summer in August. This is one of the few places in the world I may actually have a following of some sort. Marin Alsop invited me in 2003, did a beautiful and impassioned performance of my Symphony no. 2 at Mission San Juan Bautista, where the orchestra traditionally plays its last concert of the two-week-long festival. Since then, she has had me back almost every year, and Cabrillo has begun to feel like a summer home for me. Many of the musicians, who come from orchestras all over the country, have become friends, and if not friends, colleagues with shared respect for one another, and I feel the Cabrillo audience—an eclectic mix of critics, composers, performers, new-music aficionados, surfers, hippies, and innocent bystanders—and I have a certain rapport, almost a sense of trust which I suppose sprouted that first summer at Mission San Juan.

So how could I do this to them? As a composer, the thing I strive for above all else is flow, inevitability, the sense one has when hearing Mozart that one moment flows seamlessly and organically into the next without contrivance or effort (I try and conceal the effort).

Well, if it was there, I have destroyed it, I say to myself. What’s the point of going on?

I begin to hate the sympathy I am imagining from the audience, from Marin, from my friends in the orchestra. I have got to make this happen. I try to feel the weight of my arms into the keys. I do what Lisa had suggested the night before, to exhale rather than inhale before beginning a passage. I begin to feel solid again. I think about what John Schertle—the clarinetist in the orchestra whose year-round job is associate principal in the Hong Kong Philharmonic—had said a couple of days ago: Rather than try to dazzle with every passage, to just play the notes and let the piece do the work. I remember what Matt Albert—the violinist for eighth blackbird who also plays in the Cabrillo orchestra’s violin section every summer—had mentioned offhand a few days before when I was trying to adjust to playing with an orchestra: When playing in an orchestra, the thing to do is to wait until the very last possible moment, at the very precipice of being late, to play the note. Sound advice. The piano speaks so quickly. I mustn’t rush. I feel slow, but I trust that I am fast. Marin has been reigning me in all week, “No faster, no faster!”

I start the third movement again, and I begin to feel a wonderful thing, a welcome and excellent sensation, one that almost eclipses the disgust with myself I am battling at the moment.

They’re rooting for me.

I make it to the end in one piece, finally, and the audience bursts out of their seats. I am not sure I feel elation at this moment. I am mad at myself, though I am trying to smile. I am embarrassed. Marin gives me a nurturing hug as we take our bows. Backstage I hug people numbly, a few orchestra members are telling me stories of similar memory slips at Carnegie Hall and so forth. I see their mouths moving. I am trying to smile. Mason Bates whizzes by and says in my ear “What a response!” John Adams grabs my arm on his way out and says, “You have nerves of steel.” Lisa’s smile is huge and warm, but she knows what I’m feeling.

What truly pours over me at this moment? Renewed respect for what performers endure when I ask them to play my difficult notes six weeks after I hand them the score, or when I decide a concerto which is already demanding needs—on second thought—to be longer and even more demanding. Respect for the shape they have to get in and stay in, for the galvanized nerves they must have every night, for the tricks they must play on their brains to peak at the right moment, to be their best on the big day. How easy it is in the living room, with Sibelius 6 playing the orchestra part and my son, Benjamin, batting at his toys. Composing is hard, but it rarely comes down to one moment.

I am looking for the next opportunity to play the piece. Maybe I will use the music.