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.
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