Art serves many purposes. I want to write about two today: life-enhancement and identity. I’m not going to define life-enhancement. We all have an idea of what that can mean, for ourselves and for others. In some cases it may be a simple appeal to our pleasure receptors – sounds, sights, ideas that we respond to favorably. And by “favorably” I don’t necessarily mean that we like them: sometimes … [Read more...]
What Happened
If you find yourself in the middle of Virginia this Saturday night, check out the Garth Newel Piano Quartet concert: they are playing a piece of mine from 2004 called What Happened. What Happened was premiered in Paris by the Atlantic Ensemble; it is in three movements: Gathering, Congregation and Scattering. The second movement carries a delicious Daniel DeFoe quote from 1703: Wherever God … [Read more...]
Unpacking your piano
My colleagues and I taught a seminar on writing for piano last Friday. Referencing a wide range of thinking going all the way back to Cristofori, we focused mainly on innovations of High Modernism to the present. High Modernism came in the form of Webern, Copland, Sessions and Boulez, which established our baseline. From there we looked at Crumb, Ligeti and beyond. Over the course of this … [Read more...]
American Festival of Microtonal Music
We have a very busy week here, with the American Festival of Microtonal Music coming to town. Curated by two of our alumni, the festival has three concerts in three different venues on consecutive nights. My interest in microtonality has been that of one surveying a lovely, distant vista, as opposed to someone tilling the ground in hopes of a harvest. But I love giving my students an opportunity … [Read more...]
a-musing
I’m off to Ann Arbor this weekend to work with violinist Danielle Belén for a recording session. Danielle is one of the newest faculty members in the School of Music at the University of Michigan. We have been collaborating since 2008, when she first contacted me about recording a disk of my music for Naxos. The experience of working with Danielle on that disk gave me tremendous respect for her … [Read more...]
Master Teacher
I’ve long been accustomed to using the word “master” in relation to music. I’ve driven myself to master certain aspects of my craft, I’ve recognized the hours required to attain mastery, I’ve encouraged my students to do the same. And, of course, I’ve ushered many a student toward a Master’s degree in the 30+ years since I received my own. Living in North Carolina, though, brought to my … [Read more...]
Politics and music
Some art engages the politics of its day. This happens when artists have both strong reactions to political environments and the freedom to express those reactions. It can also happen when artists feel discouraged by the limitations of art, the sense that art is inessential, a feeling they compensate for by tying their art to a larger political fabric. Both of these engagements between art … [Read more...]
Dirges and Dances
A lot of my work from the 1990s referenced my relationship with my father, who died of a brain tumor when I was two years old. His youthful death could easily lead many to assume I had no relationship with him, but even no relationship is a kind of relationship, with repercussions and ramifications. Certainly the tangled emotions that occupied my home at a time when I could scarcely be expected … [Read more...]
Another Happy New Year
We had the first gathering of our Composition Department here at UNC School of the Arts yesterday. Twenty-two of us in the room, ready to get started, full of aspirations and enthusiasm. We went around the room introducing ourselves, and saying a word or two about what we had been working on over the summer. As I heard the wide range of answers (MAX-MSP, cello concerto, songs with banjo), I … [Read more...]
The discipline of the green bar
Got to hear a seminar presented by Armando Bayolo last month at the Charlotte New Music Festival. Armando is one of those composers who travel in circles I travel in (as I wryly told him, “circling the same drains”), but somehow we had never met before. I really appreciate what he has accomplished in his music, which is vivid, precise and engaging. One of the students asked if he composed on … [Read more...]