What does it feel like to be a composer during a performance, listening to your own work on stage (or screen, or in speakers, or what have you) and hoping it goes well? You are somewhere between a participant and an audience member. You can't run up on stage if a player drops a page (well, unless perhaps it's a total disaster, and we don't want that). I reconnected with Raechel Sherwood to see if any of her ideas about her piece Boss had changed since we last spoke. The Tesla Quartet at this past week’s Pendulum concert played Sherwood’s work stunningly. Sherwood gave a brief introduction to her piece that included a couple lines of dialogue from the play from which Boss originated. The mood was perfectly set for Tesla’s entrance, carrying coffee cups, briefcases, and wearing business suits- the everyday grays so many employees wear to work. They took their instrument parts out of their briefcases. Even before they started playing Sherwood’s work, I was captivated.
I asked Raechel what passed through her mind while her piece was being performed. Could she even enjoy the performance, or is it too nervewracking? And once the piece was over, did her opinions of her work change? Did it sound different when on stage versus on paper or in rehearsal? So often I think composers are so absorbed by the details of the work that it is difficult to step back and enjoy one’s labors. Sherwood said she tried to enjoy the premiere as much as possible, and the Teslas made the experience free of nail-biting moments. The Tesla Quartet
“has an energy and focus that is riveting during a performance and I think it takes an audience to reciprocate that kind of intensity. I think my perspectives on the piece shifted in opposite directions after hearing it aloud. On one hand, during certain parts of the piece I realized the life that it has and the potential it give performers to really perform it. But on the other, at times I heard all the possibilities it could still have. Overall though, I'm very happy with it and it taught me a lot about my own music.”
What would happen if Sherwood acted on the possibilities for change that she felt the piece contained? I spoke once to a composer (Christopher Theofanidis, to be precise) about ‘life after performance’. Theofanidis told me that he never goes back to look at previous works. The versions they are printed in first represent moments in time that can’t really be changed all that much. A composer grows and changes so much with each new work that for him it felt like someone else's work entirely. Sherwood’s response differs.
“I don't think I have any problem going back and changing pieces after they've been performed. I think since I am constantly growing as a composer, my pieces should as well… I have not yet had a piece that I did not write in anticipation of coming back to it several times throughout my life. I think that might be partly because of the type of music I write and the fact that I want to combine it with other mediums, which often occur far beyond a one-time performance.”
Thanks to Raechel for her thoughts (twice!) on her work. Here’s to another successful Pendulum concert, and we hope to see you at the next, on February 22nd in the ATLAS Black Box Theatre.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Questions for Raechel Sherwood: Before the Show (Nathan Hall)
Some Questions for Raechel Sherwood: Before the Show (Nathan Hall)
CU undergraduate composer Raechel Sherwood premieres her work BOSS tomorrow night, written for string quartet and performed by the College of Music’s Tesla Quartet. I asked Raechel to share some insight into her piece, and what she was thinking in the moments leading up to its performance. I also told her I would be back again after the concert to check in, seeing if any of her thoughts or feelings about the piece changed.
Sherwood is very active in the theatre scene, and primarily works in theatrical and musical genres. For the last Pendulum concert, Raechel wrote and performed a short solo monologue with the working title ‘Boxes’, focusing on the minutiae of every day life and our struggles to comprehend and conveniently organize our existence. Similarly theatrical in origin, BOSS began its life as an on-stage accompaniment to a one-act play, a sectional piece used for incidental music. The work, she tells me, “was inspired by the message of the play which brought attention to the mundane-ness of life and the endless cycle that our lives seem to fall into, regardless of how often we make plans to break from it.” This year Sherwood reworked the piece into a through-composed quartet that “still attempts to takes the audience on the journey to find meaning behind what they do every day.”
Some of Pendulum’s most exciting concerts feature performances by the Tesla Quartet. Formed of graduate string players, the group is one of the premiere ensembles in the College of Music and has been making national and international waves. Sherwood tells me that working and rehearsing her piece with ‘the Teslas’ has been a pleasure, as the quartet has “brought a musicality to this piece and lifted the notes off the page even in our first rehearsal together.”
While Sherwood was up to the tasks of re-composing a work for an intimidatingly talented ensemble, a new audience, and a new context, she still found it a challenge to think of the piece as fresh. Will the work have the same effect for its listeners without the integration of the spoken word of the play from which it came? (Raechel welcomes any feedback from the audience and her fellow colleagues if you decide to let her know.) The piece will be an experiment that Sherwood hopes will enlighten future collaborations in theatre, refining her own personal style along the way.
CU undergraduate composer Raechel Sherwood premieres her work BOSS tomorrow night, written for string quartet and performed by the College of Music’s Tesla Quartet. I asked Raechel to share some insight into her piece, and what she was thinking in the moments leading up to its performance. I also told her I would be back again after the concert to check in, seeing if any of her thoughts or feelings about the piece changed.
Sherwood is very active in the theatre scene, and primarily works in theatrical and musical genres. For the last Pendulum concert, Raechel wrote and performed a short solo monologue with the working title ‘Boxes’, focusing on the minutiae of every day life and our struggles to comprehend and conveniently organize our existence. Similarly theatrical in origin, BOSS began its life as an on-stage accompaniment to a one-act play, a sectional piece used for incidental music. The work, she tells me, “was inspired by the message of the play which brought attention to the mundane-ness of life and the endless cycle that our lives seem to fall into, regardless of how often we make plans to break from it.” This year Sherwood reworked the piece into a through-composed quartet that “still attempts to takes the audience on the journey to find meaning behind what they do every day.”
Some of Pendulum’s most exciting concerts feature performances by the Tesla Quartet. Formed of graduate string players, the group is one of the premiere ensembles in the College of Music and has been making national and international waves. Sherwood tells me that working and rehearsing her piece with ‘the Teslas’ has been a pleasure, as the quartet has “brought a musicality to this piece and lifted the notes off the page even in our first rehearsal together.”
While Sherwood was up to the tasks of re-composing a work for an intimidatingly talented ensemble, a new audience, and a new context, she still found it a challenge to think of the piece as fresh. Will the work have the same effect for its listeners without the integration of the spoken word of the play from which it came? (Raechel welcomes any feedback from the audience and her fellow colleagues if you decide to let her know.) The piece will be an experiment that Sherwood hopes will enlighten future collaborations in theatre, refining her own personal style along the way.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Anthony Green and 'Weightless'
Another Pendulum Concert approaches on November 30th, and I sat down with Anthony Green to chat about his upcoming premiere Weightless, written for alto saxophone and piano. Written in the summer of 2010, it will be played on sax by Benjamin Sorrell from Los Angeles, CA.
Weightless is part of an ongoing series of Green’s works that contain multiple compositional or philosophical ideas of some of Green’s favorite composers, such as Stockhausen, Scelsi, and Cage. This piece in particular showcases ideas and influences from Lee Hyla, who is the featured composer of this Pendulum concert and a former composition professor of Green’s at New England Conservatory. Green says that Hyla’s influence can be found in many places in Weightless, including a careful attention to pitch (for example, Green avoids or skirts around the pitch F-sharp throughout the piece and then ends the piece on that particular note); rhythmic fluidity, and use of minor thirds. All of these ideas appear in much of Hyla’s music.
With a piece called Weightless, I wondered if the audience would be able to hear a certain ‘floating’ quality in the music, or if this would be built more into the composition structure. Green says that he’s working with both sonic and structural “weightlessness”. The piece is built around quasi-serialist processes, not so much in deciding which pitches will appear in certain orders, but in avoiding certain tones and using “incorrect” resolutions of harmonies. There are also musical gestures that always move upwards and never come back down, giving piece a sense that it never quite arrives back where it started. The audience should be able to hear that the piece is highly organized and structured, even if the compositional technique is not audible. In a sense, the listener is aware that the composer is “up to something”.
When Anthony is not composing, his other interests tend toward the detail-oriented. Green loves learning the structure and syntax of languages, and is currently learning Dutch in preparation for moving abroad after his time at CU. Green is also studying the Japanese instrument the koto; he says the sound and meditative resonance of that non-Western instrument may also be creeping into his compositions. I'll wait and see if these sounds and syntaxes continue to make their way into Green’s future work, which include an upcoming opera. Until then, please come to hear Green’s work and all the pieces on next week’s Pendulum concert, November 30th at 7:30pm!
Weightless is part of an ongoing series of Green’s works that contain multiple compositional or philosophical ideas of some of Green’s favorite composers, such as Stockhausen, Scelsi, and Cage. This piece in particular showcases ideas and influences from Lee Hyla, who is the featured composer of this Pendulum concert and a former composition professor of Green’s at New England Conservatory. Green says that Hyla’s influence can be found in many places in Weightless, including a careful attention to pitch (for example, Green avoids or skirts around the pitch F-sharp throughout the piece and then ends the piece on that particular note); rhythmic fluidity, and use of minor thirds. All of these ideas appear in much of Hyla’s music.
With a piece called Weightless, I wondered if the audience would be able to hear a certain ‘floating’ quality in the music, or if this would be built more into the composition structure. Green says that he’s working with both sonic and structural “weightlessness”. The piece is built around quasi-serialist processes, not so much in deciding which pitches will appear in certain orders, but in avoiding certain tones and using “incorrect” resolutions of harmonies. There are also musical gestures that always move upwards and never come back down, giving piece a sense that it never quite arrives back where it started. The audience should be able to hear that the piece is highly organized and structured, even if the compositional technique is not audible. In a sense, the listener is aware that the composer is “up to something”.
When Anthony is not composing, his other interests tend toward the detail-oriented. Green loves learning the structure and syntax of languages, and is currently learning Dutch in preparation for moving abroad after his time at CU. Green is also studying the Japanese instrument the koto; he says the sound and meditative resonance of that non-Western instrument may also be creeping into his compositions. I'll wait and see if these sounds and syntaxes continue to make their way into Green’s future work, which include an upcoming opera. Until then, please come to hear Green’s work and all the pieces on next week’s Pendulum concert, November 30th at 7:30pm!
Monday, October 24, 2011
A Short Chat with Steve Sachse (Nathan Hall)
Steve Sachse is about to premiere his piano quintet ‘Joy, Gifts, Sleeplessness’ at this week’s Pendulum concert, performed in part by one of CU’s most ambitious ensembles, the Tesla string quartet. I sat down with him to ask how his preparation for the concert has been going. Without even needing a prompt, he finishes with a great plug for Pendulum, an excellent reason to come show your support at this month’s concert!
Nathan: Where were you when you wrote this piece, physically and mentally?
S: After completing my undergraduate degree I stayed in my local area where I was very fortunate to be able to make a living through gigging and teaching guitar. But eventually the desire to return to composition studies really became something bigger that I had to address. The decision to leave the privileged situation I felt that I had found myself in and move to another state was a very difficult one to make. I had discovered a number of pieces during that time that really floored me, and the inspiration they stirred up was an overwhelming factor in the decision I wrestled with for some time. Each of the words in the title of my piece refers to things I was reflecting on concerning where my path in music had led me to that point, and the difficulty I had in making the decision to leave my home state and surroundings behind.
N: Did you have any musical role models in mind while writing? What was on your playlist?
S: I was certainly inspired by a number of quintet pieces during that period. In particular, I had also discovered a number of foreign composers who I really felt were able to display their cultural identities through their art in very organic and interesting ways. Composers such as John Psathas, Gareth Farr, and Jack Body were frequently part of my daily studies and musical experience, along with Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Karen Tanaka, and a few others.
N: How do you go about rehearsing your piece?
S: So far I’ve had two rehearsals for the piece, and the group’s progress has been steady. I would say that the piano part is by far the most technically demanding. Usually during the first rehearsals for any piece, I try to avoid nitpicking things and focus on whether the broader gestures are taking shape, as well as addressing any questions or potential issues the performers may have concerning the notation. After a couple of rehearsals, and as the players become more familiar with the music, I can talk more directly about expression and intention. It has been a fantastic opportunity to work with a group such as the Tesla quartet, and to be involved in the incredibly dynamic and supportive composition program here at CU.
Nathan: Where were you when you wrote this piece, physically and mentally?
S: After completing my undergraduate degree I stayed in my local area where I was very fortunate to be able to make a living through gigging and teaching guitar. But eventually the desire to return to composition studies really became something bigger that I had to address. The decision to leave the privileged situation I felt that I had found myself in and move to another state was a very difficult one to make. I had discovered a number of pieces during that time that really floored me, and the inspiration they stirred up was an overwhelming factor in the decision I wrestled with for some time. Each of the words in the title of my piece refers to things I was reflecting on concerning where my path in music had led me to that point, and the difficulty I had in making the decision to leave my home state and surroundings behind.
N: Did you have any musical role models in mind while writing? What was on your playlist?
S: I was certainly inspired by a number of quintet pieces during that period. In particular, I had also discovered a number of foreign composers who I really felt were able to display their cultural identities through their art in very organic and interesting ways. Composers such as John Psathas, Gareth Farr, and Jack Body were frequently part of my daily studies and musical experience, along with Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Karen Tanaka, and a few others.
N: How do you go about rehearsing your piece?
S: So far I’ve had two rehearsals for the piece, and the group’s progress has been steady. I would say that the piano part is by far the most technically demanding. Usually during the first rehearsals for any piece, I try to avoid nitpicking things and focus on whether the broader gestures are taking shape, as well as addressing any questions or potential issues the performers may have concerning the notation. After a couple of rehearsals, and as the players become more familiar with the music, I can talk more directly about expression and intention. It has been a fantastic opportunity to work with a group such as the Tesla quartet, and to be involved in the incredibly dynamic and supportive composition program here at CU.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
October 26th Performance
Please join us on October 26th, for a great new Pendulum concert -- with music by Buckner, Ingraham, Muhly, Mazzoli, and Sachse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)