Urban Modes
Music and Life in New York

As a member of ETHEL I have been working with Jacob TV for a few years now, and I continue to be blown away by the originality and visceral energy of his music.

This coming Thursday I have the great pleasure of performing an entire program of music by Jacob TV as part of WNYC's New Sounds Live series at Merkin Concert Hall in NYC.

Jacob was nice enough to answer a few questions on his way over from Holland:

Dufallo: Can you name some of your musical influences?

TV: Blues, blues, Beethoven, Bartok, Muddy Waters, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Steve Reich, and then some more blues.


Dufallo: Many of your pieces involve pre-recorded text/voices. Can you discuss your creative process?
Do you choose texts because of their inherent musicality? How do you find the music in the words?

TV: I listen to the sounds of this world like a photographer watches its shapes and colors. When I find a sound byte that is touching, I get inspired by it, and analyze its melody and rhythm, listen to its color, and add my music to it, using my computer as a scratch book. These grooves come into being through an intuitive trial & error process, and are literally composed together to build a piece of music.


Dufallo: You have been described as a "musical terrorist." What is your response to this?

TV: I know that my music can be controversial, it's just the way it is... but to be honest: I was shocked by it. I write music to move people, to make them laugh or cry, not to threaten them. I am using esthetics which combine beauty and decay in such a way that it may confuse people. I had written CITIES CHANGE THE SONGS OF BIRDS, a triptic for harp and boombox, using the voices of drug addicted homeless women. It was very touching in my opinion, but some people said I brought the heavenly harp that David played in the old testament to the gutter. But is that musical terrorism?


Dufallo: How might you describe the role of the creative artist in our emerging global community?

TV: They are the griots of our time. Creative artists can make the world a better place.


Dufallo: Do you have any advice for young composers?

TV: Nobody is out there waiting for you, but people are always longing for good music, so
listen to tour spinning world, speak with your heart and follow your nose,
and don't forget your most important tool is silence, which is where it all comes from and goes back to.

Here is a fascinating interview with Zhou Long, whose first opera, Madame White Snake, will be premiered by Opera Boston this coming February 26, 28, and March 2.

Although I have not yet worked with Zhou Long, I am very interested in the crossing of Chinese and Western music. I was thrilled that he took the time to answer my questions.


Dufallo: What are some of your biggest musical influences?

Zhou Long: My conceptions have often come from ancient Chinese poetry. There are musical traits directly reminiscent of ancient China: sensitive melodies, expressive glissandi in various statements, and, in particular, a peculiarly Chinese undercurrent of tranquility and meditation. The cross-fertilization of color, material, and technique, and on a deeper level, cultural heritage, makes for challenging work.


Dufallo: Your work draws extensively from the richness of Chinese music and culture. Can you describe your creative process? What is your personal approach to the ongoing dialogue between Eastern and Western culture?

Zhou Long: In the last decades, Chinese new music has become an important feature at many music festivals and concerts in the West, and Chinese/Chinese American composers have gained enthusiastic recognition. The flourishing of Chinese new music in the West had its roots in the controversial movement so called xin chao (new tide) in China, centered around a group of composition students who were among the first enrolled at the conservatories after the Cultural Revolution in the late 70s. Shocked and inspired by the newly introduced music by the twentieth-century Western and Japanese composers such as Bartok, Lutoslawski, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, George Crumb, and Toru Takemitsu, this group of composers abandoned China's established compositional practice of “adding Western functional harmony to pentatonic melody.” The raw energy and unfamiliar dissonance in their composition greatly stirred the ears of music critics, music circles, and the public. The xin chao movement animated both excitement and frustration, provoking ideologically charged criticism. Amidst heated debates, a good number of these composers left China in the mid 80s to pursue further studies in the West and eventually established themselves as Chinese new music composers in America and Europe.

In their searching for musical expressions that are at once Chinese and universal, Chinese new music composers have carried out a deeper and more comprehensive exploration on Chinese culture, both elitist and folk. A fascination with the historical and “authentic” (pre-mid nineteenth century) China is one of the most distinctive aesthetics of Chinese new music. Composers draw upon their ideas and lyrics from legends and historical stories, ancient poems and texts, as well as concepts of classical philosophies and cosmologies. For Chinese, the past does not freeze in time, its spiritual and philosophical essence flows continuously into the present as an unbroken long river, transcending historical boundaries. Through artistic imagination, the past becomes not only the past, but an imagery reflecting and mirroring the present. This romanticized approach towards the past, interestingly enough, bears the dominating impact of the nineteenth century European intellectual tradition on Chinese art and music.

The age-old tradition of Chinese instrumental music has bequeathed us immortal classical music and folk arts with rich native taste and spirit. The question facing composers and musicologists devoted to the creation of new Chinese music, then, is how to carry on and enhance this splendid heritage. Small instrumental ensembles of regional style and solo music have been the favored genres in China through the centuries. In most cases, these are program music. Their titles usually refer to pre-existing tunes, natural scenarios, or historical stories. Writing new music for ensembles of Chinese instruments or mixed ensembles of both Chinese and Western instruments have provided composers rich opportunities to experiment with texture, timbre, gesture, and performance technique guided by new concepts and ideas.


Dufallo: Please tell us a bit about Madame White Snake. How did you begin this project, and why did you choose this particular myth? How did this project develop from initial idea to completed work?

Zhou Long: In the end of 2006, I received an email from a friend in Boston asking if my wife [the composer Chen Yi] and I would like to work on an opera. We were both very busy, but I thought maybe I could work on it if it were a small project. Chen Yi and I met with librettist and project originator Cerise Lim Jacobs in New York City. We discovered that we were born in the same Chinese year of Snake; a fact that I believe we knotted together in the project. As I read the libretto, I felt that I already had the music in my head. Madame White Snake is a faithful and emotional retelling of a legendary Chinese folklore classic. The libretto was beautifully written.

When I have committed with Opera Boston to the project, Madame White Snake quickly expanded from a single-act to a full-length opera. The result brought up farther excitement and a need for me to seeking additional support on the commission and the production for the project. I met conductor maestro Long Yu (president of the Beijing Music Festival Arts Foundation) in Beijing, and proposed the Madame White Snake project to him. He was interested and committed to co-commission and co-production on the project.

I have worked closely together with Jacobs on the libretto draft. The musical structure should relay on the drama and the text. We have exchanged many ideas for revisions to the libretto, occasionally asking for permission to move words and syllables around. Since the opera is four acts, we needed to significantly revise the portion on each character. The 20 minute prologue of narratives by Xiao Qing (the Green Snake) was reduced to 12 minutes and we added more arias into Act IV (Winter) for the Madame White Snake.

Later, we met with the director of the opera, Prof. Robert Woodruff at Yale, who also gave constructive comments. In spring of 2008, Opera Boston hosted me in Boston where I visited the Cutler Majestic Theater and the administrative offices. I felt a lot of warmth and support from the company. They have given me freedom and space to concentrate on writing the music.

The music themes created onto dramatic characters needed to be explicit. Some folk elements are used. Even the Beijing Opera uses percussion rhythm patterns in their orchestration here and there. There is a lot of rhythmic detail, as well as focus on linear narrative. The use of some Chinese traditional instruments in the orchestra brings in fresh sounds, and also illustrates exotic styles both musically and the media. It is first time I write for a male-soprano as Xiao Qing, the little Green's part, I have chosen to strongly differentiate between the musical gestures of Little Green's narrations and the vocal style I employed when I am directly involved in the plot. The range of Michael Maniaci could go as high as a real soprano, but in the end I had to manage many revisions in the prologue and the ending to keep the voice relax and natural. The tonal and textual variety, as well as the dramatic complexities of Little Green, will make for a most fascinating and enjoyable challenge as we bring this role and production to the stage. I am very excited about it. For the arias of Madame White, there was much modulation involved for the melodic development. To avoid song cycle or musical like results, most melody lines are open cadence to support the dramatic continuity.


Dufallo: What, in your opinion, is the creative artist's role in society? How does the art of music fit the concept of "global citizenship?"

Zhou Long: Thinking about what we could do to share different cultures in our new society, I have been composing music seriously to achieve my goal of improving the understanding amongst peoples from various backgrounds.

Today multimedia and technology provide so many possibilities for creative artists. Still, musical inspiration is often born from the beauty of nature. Verses of poetry may give you the frame; the movements of calligraphy may give you the rhythm; an ancient dark ink painting may give you space, distance and layers; a variety of sound sources may give you the color. Finally, craft ensures your own full expression.


Dufallo: Do you have any advice for young composers who are just starting out?

Zhou Long: The world could be one world, but the culture will never one culture. Your expression should be from the heart, to respect and to share.

Photographer: Michele Clement

During my trip to the west coast in mid November, I was fortunate enough to meet up with Joan Jeanrenaud -- cellist, composer, and former member of the Kronos Quartet (for 20 years!). Many of the recordings that she made with Kronos made a huge impression on me when I was a student; those CDs helped me to gain the enthusiasm and focus necessary to pursue a career in contemporary music. In the last couple of years, her work has inspired me again: her recent (Grammy® winning) CD, Strange Toys, is a phenomenal piece of work - a great example for anyone interested in the art of solo string recording.

Dufallo: What are some of your biggest musical influences?

Jeanrenaud: Peter Spurbeck, Fritz Magg, Pierre Fournier, Kronos Quartet, Janos Starker, David Baker, Jacqueline Du Pre, Pablo Casals, Joe Henderson, Charlie Mingus, Jaco Pastorius, Buddy Guy, old blues guys in Memphis, and of course Elvis! But of course there are all the composers -- from John Cage, Witold Lutoslawski, Elliot Carter to Steve Mackey, Terry Riley, Kevin Volans to Frank Zappa, John Zorn, Annie Gosfield.....this list could go on and on.

Dufallo: How does your career as a performer of new music inform your compositional process?

Jeanrenaud: It totally informs my compositional process. Since I really only began seriously composing after I left Kronos, my time with the group performing countless new works was my education. I did study one semester of composition at IU with Fred Fox. But playing so much contemporary music along with some study of improvisation with David Baker, Joe Henderson and Hal Stein were the catalyst for turning my hand at composing.

Dufallo: When did you start composing and why?

Jeanrenaud: I started composing in 1999 when I had left Kronos. I have always considered myself a cellist first (since I began playing in 1967) and now a composer second. I was interested in exploring electronics and improvisation when I was on my own and these two pursuits lead to composing. Perhaps also the continued desire to hear four parts prompted me to use looping devices to perform several parts at once but on my own.

Dufallo: Can you discuss the concepts and creative process behind your recent CD Strange Toys?

Jeanrenaud: Strange Toys is selection of compositions I created in the beginning years of my composing career (2001-2007). I chose what I thought were the strongest works so it was a documentation in a sense. Also it was representative of the ideas I had been working with.....multiple cellos, electronics and looping with me performing all the parts.

Dufallo: Do you have any advice for performers who would like to start composing?

Jeanrenaud: Fool around, improvise and have fun with your instrument! If you like something, write it down, record it or remember it. Then just keep working with it. It is a blast!!

Photo by Erika Harrsch

Also posted on ETHEL's Blog

The Italian born composer Paola Prestini has been an inspiration to me for many years. Our paths first crossed at the Juilliard School, back in the 1990s. Her collective ensemble, VisionIntoArt (VIA), served in some ways as a model for my own composers' collective, Ne(x)tworks.

Although we have only started collaborating recently, I have admired her multimedia projects since our Juilliard days, and I am thrilled to be working with her this season. Back in November ETHEL joined with VIA for 21c Liederabend, an amazing celebration of recent vocal music that was listed on Time Out New York's "Best of 2009" list!

This winter/spring I'll be performing twice in Paola's series, VisionIntoArt: Ferus, at Galapagos Art Space: On February 24th I'll be playing the music from my CD Dream Streets, and on April 2 I'll be joining in a performance of her chamber opera, Oceanic Verses.

At the end of this interview, Paola outlines her ideas about the collaborative process.


Dufallo: Can you discuss a few of your musical influences?

Prestini: I listen to a wide variety of music, yet I have noticed that lyrics and text are often my point of entry. Pieces that have formed lasting impressions are the motets of Palestrina and Victoria, and Giacomo Carissimi's oratorio Jephte (specifically the final grand chorus, "Plorate Filii Israël"—one of the most gorgeous examples of choral writing). I admire the clean, instrumental approach to the voice, and the drama that recitative passages evoke in the baroque style.

Glass’s use of speech in Einstein on the Beach (specifically the "Prematurely Air-Conditioned Supermarket” section) is one of the most enlightened uses of spoken text performance I have heard. The repetition in text allows the voice’s color and rhythm to serve successfully as counterpoint and informative device.

More recent in my aural bank: Einstürzende Neubauten’s industrial-style clustered sounds and their use of “found” instruments, the deep timbre of Leonard Cohen’s speaking voice on the opening track of Glass’s Book of Longing (which immediately prepares the listener for the impending emotional ride), and the made-up language of Sigur Ros, which supplies the music with the joys of articulation sans the weight of literal meaning and associations. The rhythmic power and thrust of spoken text is as appealing to me as the lyrical qualities of the human voice. Therefore, when writing for that instrument, I rarely use text; it distracts me from the timbre, which I want to use independently from the words.

Reich’s immensely moving Electric Counterpoint is a timeless favorite of mine. Glass’s The Screens—a collaboration with Foday Musa Suso—is a perfect display of his uncanny ability to create complex layers with absolute clarity, his ability to collaborate across disciplines (the music was for the Jean Genet play directed by JoAnne Akalaitis), and perhaps even more importantly, his integration of African and Western patterns which opened for me (at an early age) a window into the world of cross-cultural synthesis.

I also love John Zorn, the Italian singer Fabrizio D’Andre, anything Fado, and the anthemic choral songs from South Africa... there is a slew of GREAT african groups such as Zola, Only the Poor Man Feel It, and others, many of which I learned about from Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony (2002), a movie I can not recommend highly enough. I also like pop music (Black Eyed Peas), and adore film music. I identify strongly with opera and film traditions. In general, I like music that has a powerful emotion impact, and music that's just fun. I could go on... and it changes every day!


Dufallo: What is your work process? Do you compose regularly (every day, or particular times), or do you wait for ideas to come to you?

Prestini: I would love to compose every day! These days I write 4 times a week in 4-6 hour chunks. I balance my work with running my nonprofit (VisionIntoArt), and the education, performing, and recording initiatives that I direct. Additionally, I teach, produce, and curate... so it's generally a balancing act. Ideas for my musical and multimedia projects tend to come from all aspects of my life. I am open to any source of inspiration, and I feel fortunate to be a receptacle. I am constantly recording sounds on my ZOOM recorder, and every day I collect texts or ideas that I think will one day amount to a project. This way, when I have a commission or decide to self produce a work, I have a bank of inspiring ideas that have been germinating for some time. In general the hardest part of writing for me is the very beginning, when I am creating the language rules (as abstract as they are in my music, there are still rules having to do with intervalic patterns, counterpoint, and harmonic and tonal colors). Then, a feeling of flow kicks in, and the years of practice pay off. Many times I do not even remember writing certain passages. That is always fun. The orchestrating process is also great fun as it is like completing a puzzle.


Dufallo: Can you discuss Ocean? What was the initial inspiration for this project, and how has it developed?

Prestini: Ocean stems from my recent work Oceanic Verses, which was commissioned by Carnegie Hall. This work began in truth several years ago when I was at my friends residency program, Sound Res, in Lecce, Italy. I was there for another project, but I was also doing education work at a local foster care home. My friend and the curator of the program, Alessandra Pomarico, suggested I do a musical composition project with the kids. I decided to record their voices and interview them; we created a sound scape dedicated to their surroundings and their memories of childhood. They introduced me to beautiful songs from their region, and this began my new love affair with Italy.

As a child and young adult growing up on the Mexican-American border, I had often drawn on Mexican folk music; it now feels right that as an adult I am researching the music of my Italian ancestry. I am continuing my search for a musical identity that pays respect to my roots. By examining and researching the Salento region which maintains many ancient traditions and still speaks a much forgotten language, I am trying to create a work that illuminates the complex ethnic mosaic that has shaped my cultural heritage.

The story of is derived from the texts of the songs chosen and also intermittent poems from a variety of Italian poets through time such as Vittoria Colonna, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Dante Alighieri and Aleardi. Oceanic Verses is sung in various dialects including Griko, Byzantine Greek, Arabic, Ladino, and Bourbon Spanish, coloring the work with the ethnic influences of the Salento region.

Each tableau illuminates a different ritual, ranging from weddings to curative rituals. I combine my original music with fragments of folk traditions, ancient music (dating as far back as 3000 BC), and field samples from my research in the Salento region. The result is a semi-staged opera that explores facets of a woman's psyche told through two timeless characters: a Mother, and an ageless Queen (who also serves as the work’s narrator). The women passionately intertwine throughout the work while the ocean surrounds and binds their tales. The ocean serves as a metaphor for the expanse that can separate cultures while simultaneously connecting them. In this way, the ocean becomes a sonic and visual narrator, guiding listeners through a personal journey into a culture I left at a young age. The work is a collaboration with the fascinating filmmaker Ali Hossaini. It will be performed by New York City Opera in April-May for VOX, and at Galapagos on April 2 during VisionIntoArt: Ferus, the festival I am curating there this spring.


Dufallo: You are known for your fascinating multimedia projects. Have you always been drawn to mutimedia art, or (if not) how did you find your way to this area?

Prestini: I have always been drawn to collaboration. Whether it is with an unknown author as in my songs, or a present artist I am creating with, I find the dialogue of learning through another artist’s disciplinary language fascinating.

About ten years ago, I began VisionIntoArt (VIA) with another composer (while we were both students at the Juilliard School). With VIA, I wanted to create a collective in which we could explore interdisciplinary ideas, keeping music at its core—a school that would continue beyond school. I knew that being part of a larger whole would help us learn techniques across disciplines, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in a safe playground. VIA is a multimedia company that promotes new music collaborations. It is an ensemble and a production company. Over the years, I have learned that collaboration can be an arduous process, and it is the balance of respecting people's ideas, and knowing how to let certain ideas go that allows one to avoid compromising one's artistic integrity. Each new artist and art form I collaborate with opens a new world in me and makes me feel like I am continuing my education.


Dufallo: Do you have any advice for very young composers who are just starting out?

Prestini: Flexibility in today’s presenting world is essential. I have learned that each work one creates should have the ability to be modified for different venues and for different types of events. This will help you find opportunities to share your art with the widest possible public, and in the most effective manner for each performance. Ask yourself, is the focus more on performance, installation, or perhaps education?

I have written about the "Stages of Collaboration." Here is a small sampling from a larger document I created for NY State Alliance on the Arts "Bootstraps Program:"

1. Encounter/Commitment

During this phase, artists get to know each other, commit to a project and to a slot of time in which no product is created and there is no definite goal in mind.

This time needs to be free; many differences will emerge, and it will not always be easy. We are used to living in a product driven society, so the idea of free time seems crazy.

This phase is where you set up your mode of working, and your language and rules. Press packets, mission statements, slogans, logos, and a distribution of roles needs to be discussed. These roles and this type of work is constantly being refined throughout the work's evolution.

Take advantage of your partners different training, background and terminology. This is one of the steepest learning curves you will experience in the process.


2. Exploration/Negotiation

Each artist works in different ways.

After finding an artist who inspires you and with whom you want to work, you will enter the discovery period of how each of you work and how you will work together.

Actively engaging in each other’s practice is the fruit of this stage.

To be successful, the partners must be inventive and playful, suspending a rigid sense of traditional practice and investing an extended period of time.

Without sufficient space during this period, you may not benefit fully from what you can learn from your collaborators art form and experience.

The exploration phase is time when you work individually and collaboratively. It is the time to solidify the direction your project will go in.

3. Composition/Production

This is the production phase. At this point you have a clear idea of your product, and it is on its way to completion. This is the phase that most often gets funded and that we are most familiar with. Documentation and post production work needs to be discussed.

Learning and development should happen in all the phases. Have fun!

I met Huang Ruo in 2008 when I first performed his solo violin piece, Four Fragments. Although it is a very difficult piece, I really enjoyed working on it with him; I particularly enjoyed the insights he gave me into the folk music of northern China and Mongolia. It was inspiring to hear him speak about these places. I recently revisited Four Fragments in Journaling (part one), and I hope to play it again soon!

Dufallo: Can you describe some of your musical influences?

Huang Ruo: My musical influences are very broad, ranging from the Renaissance to the present; from world music, to rock, avant-garde, and noise, etc.

Dufallo: Your compositions often fuse different styles and genres of music into an organic whole. Can you describe your creative process?

Huang Ruo: I like to find the fundamental "cells" of various things, and then to create new things based on those "cells." Sometimes, two styles or genres might seem to be very different on the surface, but their basic "cell" could be very similar. What lies deep inside is what really matters ...

Dufallo: Can you describe the process of composing Four Fragments? What ideas came to you first, and how did you develop and change them?

Huang Ruo: With Four Fragments, I played with the idea of re-interpreting my abstract memories.

Dufallo: What do you feel is the role of the artist in modern society?

Huang Ruo: An artist is not just an entertainer, but also is someone who leads society in the creation of new cultures, while also re-interpreting history.

Dufallo: Do you have any advice for young composers?

Huang Ruo: Speaking as one of the young composers, I am always amazed at how creative my colleagues are. I will say this: let's all keep up with what we are doing, while not asking too much about what we are doing. Unconsciousness sometimes can bring great results.

Violist Stephanie Griffin is selling her original and quirky holiday greeting cards online very cool!!

Also published on ETHEL's blog.

Rick Baitz is a composer with an extremely diverse range of influences, but consistently focused musical intentions. This summer he began a great new piece for ETHEL entitled Chthonic Dances.

On October 15 ETHEL went to the studio to act as "resident quartet" for Rick's excellent "Composing for the Screen" workshop. We recorded several versions of the same film cue - a scene from the film Zodiac. You can see the final cues at the "Composing for the Screen" Facebook page.

We have enjoyed spending time with Rick this fall - rehearsing with him and performing his music. It was cool to see a different side of his personality as he worked with the students. A couple weeks ago I sent him some questions:


Dufallo: Can you name a few of your musical influences?

Baitz: My musical influences are extremely varied. I grew up listening to rock music -- incessantly -- but my father was a classical and jazz pianist and there was a lot of classical music in the house. As a teenager and adolescent I spent time living in Brazil and South Africa, where I had powerful musical experiences, so I'd have to say that Brazilian music, in many of its forms -- samba, choro, forro, bossa nova -- is one of the strongest influences, particularly in terms of its rhythmic syncopation, complexity, and drive. South African music, especially the hybrid African and rock form known as "township jive", has had an infectious influence as well, with its powerful juxtaposition of African dance rhythms and real-life, everyday lyrics. I think that my early exposure to music of the world triggered an innate curiosity about different kinds of music, because I have spent lots of time absorbing various ethnic forms, most prominently North Indian music. Despite the ethnic influences, I consider myself a composer squarely in the Western tradition: I like to process materials that may have dance-like or folkloric origins into larger forms. I have a particular affinity with the music of Mozart and Beethoven -- especially the fieriness of Beethoven -- and of Stravinsky. I'm deeply versed in the 20th Century classical tradition and have a touch of the atonalist in me, although I'm a pretty tonal composer. But having studied with several 12-tone composers, including Charles Wuorinen, Mario Davidovsky, Ursula Mamlock, and George Perle, I'd have to say that I'm interested in all the ways notes can work together, and Perle in particular inculcated a sensitive ear to contemporary harmony.


Dufallo: What are chthonic spirits and what made you want to write a piece about them?

Baitz: I think I was writing about chthonic spirits before I'd named the piece Chthonic Dances. In fact I have a confession: the name came to me in a kind of free-associative state, when I wasn't even trying to think of a name for the piece. And I wasn't sure I knew what the word meant, at least consciously, but it was somewhere in my unconscious lexicon and made its way to the surface. When I researched the word I found it fit my intentions perfectly. "Chthonic" is a rare word in the English language, and refers to subterranean deities: spirits of the underworld. But this is a metaphor for the earthier elements of our own subconscious -- those impulses that may be considered "low", such as lust, envy, sensuality and rage. In a psychotherapeutic sense, chthonic spirits are the parts of our selves that when integrated with our "higher" impulses, such as love and generosity, create a balanced, healthy soul. My music, and in particular this piece, is a kind of reflection of such integration. I was struck by the cathartic force of dance in such places as South Africa, where the music may sound joyous and irresistibly motivate the body to dance, whereas its lyrics may speak of the unimaginable challenge of daily existence. The act of getting up and dancing has healing properties -- not to escape one's emotional reality, but to experience it. Dancing unlocks feelings trapped in the bones and muscles. The catharsis of dancing one's pain is a force in transcending it.


Dufallo: Can you describe your creative process for Chthonic Dances? What came to you first and how did you develop it? What are your plans for the rest of the piece?

Baitz: I began by compiling a set of themes that I'd been thinking about for a while -- some for years. I had sketches of a piece for solo flute that I'd written on a beach in the Florida Keys almost 20 years ago; this became the main theme for Chthonic Dances, Part 1. It's based on a kind of refracted "baião" rhythm, from Bahia, in Northern Brazil. A second theme -- a kind of pure "mbaqanga" (South African township jive") has been reserved for the upcoming Chthonic Dances, Part 2. During the creation of the intro, to lead into the "baião" theme, I started hearing a series of rapid, repetitive 16th notes, and after a while a kind of harmonically ambiguous but rhythmically driving melody emerged on top of that ostinato -- you could call this Theme 1. Theme 1 is really where the George Perle influence comes in, consisting of a 4-note tetrachord that can be twisted and turned to imply various, temporary tonalities.

The entire piece will be in three large sections without pause: one long movement. Its structure is a kind of fractured sonata-allegro form, in which the traditional model of presenting several contrasting themes, followed by their development or variation -- and then returning to their original configurations -- is subverted. When the "baião" theme first appears, it is as a development of its original shape -- which won't appear until Part 2. The transition from Part 1 to Part 2 consists of a development of the "mbaqanga" theme, which won't be heard in its original form until later in Part 2. In both cases, the development occurs before the theme. So in Chthonic Dances, I take the parts of a traditional structure, put 'em in a bag and shake it up, changing the order of events. Eventually all themes return, transform, and interact, merging in Part 3. I'd like to think that this non-linear deviation from conventional structure will ultimately present a deeper listening experience than the classical mold of exposition, development and recapitulation.


Dufallo: You are quite an accomplished film composer. Has writing for film changed your approach to concert music in any way? Can you discuss your role as director of BMI's "Composing for the Screen" program?

Baitz: I recently ran into Ralph Jackson, head of concert music for BMI, and he asked me if it was difficult to return to concert composing after 15 years of composing for film. Thinking about it honestly, I had to say that it was, at first. Writing for film, I gained a fluency and immediacy that was necessitated by deadlines; more profoundly, film has served as a medium for me to express a lot of the music stored up inside that may not have had other means of expression. I've done a lot of ethnic documentaries that call on my ability to embody the music of another culture or period, from Schubert to Native American to Indonesian gamelan. In addition, film composing caused me to become very fluent with technology, and to learn the skills of a music producer, arranger and engineer in addition to those of composer. I was able to bring all of this to the table in returning to concert music.

The primary distinction between film and concert music is that the structure of film music is generated by the external force of the film -- its drama, dialog, editing, sound, and rhythm -- whereas the form of concert music is self-generated, emerging from the materials of the music itself, like a seed sprouting into a flower. Coming back to concert music, I needed to re-capture the reflexes of creating music that could self-generate, and re-think who I was writing for. Speaking of unconscious forces, we all, as artists, have deeply hidden super-ego images floating around in our brains, whether of our parents, colleagues, or old music teachers -- and every artist has to come to grips with these (sometimes judgmental) voices and images, whether to accept them, reject them, listen to them as old friends, or absorb them into a greater esthetic whole. Writing Chthonic Dances has enabled me to re-enter that process with new tools under my compositional belt, but not without a bit of soul-searching. I think my sense of structure and clarity is more honed from having gained the communication skills required in film composing. And returning to concert music has caused me to re-visit my own artistic impulses, and clarify them to myself with the maturity of time, distance and experience.

The "Composing for the Screen" program is a workshop for emerging film composers who want to explore and strengthen their craft. So for six weeks I lead a group of fine young composers through an exploration of film music. A primary focus is on how music works as signifier: what connects meaning to music, whether it's a reference to something previously heard, or if meaning is created by virtue of a theme's attachment to an image on the screen, like a leitmotif. We study how different composers of the past and present achieve different effects, from love scenes to action sequences. We look at the compositional techniques of 20th Century classical composers, from Stravinsky through Bartók, Ives and John Adams, and study their effects on such film composers as Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo), Don Davis (The Matrix), Thon That Tiet (Scent of Green Papaya), Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and David Shire (Zodiac). We take a detailed, analytical look at actual scores, both of film and concert music. Every week the students have small composing assignments, culminating with writing a cue for a live ensemble. This last year I had my students compose a string quartet cue for the film Zodiac -- recorded by members of ETHEL -- and David Shire himself came in and gave us the benefit of his Academy Award-winning expertise and wisdom in helping evaluate the students' cues.


Dufallo: Do you have any advice for young composers?

Baitz: Follow your instincts because they know a lot more than you do. Don't be afraid to write what you want and what you know. Challenge your teachers when you feel they are quashing your creativity, and honor and revere them when they give you the skills to teach yourself. So much of the world revolves around relationships: write for your friends and colleagues, and be out in the world, connecting to people and events. Try to adhere to a schedule and don't let the world stop you from composing, even when it wants to. If you're interested in composing for film or theater, again, it's about relationships: try to meet people in those fields and do a few gigs -- if you believe in the project -- for free. And always: be yourself.

Photo by Josh Gosfield

I first encountered Annie Gosfield in the year 2000, when, as a member of the Flux Quartet, I recorded her piece Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery. At that time I was fascinated by her ability to translate factory noise into instrumental music. I continue to be impressed by her unusually effective use of string instruments. In recent years Annie's music has been a source of inspiration to me as a composer.

Last spring I had the pleasure of perfoming her piece Lost Signals and Drifting Satillites, and I'll be playing it again on November 29 at The Stone. Also on the program will be works by Corey Dargel, Anna Clyne, Alexandra Gardner, and Huang Ruo. This will be a wonderful opportunity to hear Annie's work live, in the context of other new and recent violin music.

Annie also writes wonderfully about music and composition.

Dufallo: Can you name a few of your musical influences?

Gosfield: I’m so fascinated by the everyday sounds around me that my primary musical influences are often non-musical: traffic noise, distant voices, machine sounds, and the intricate layers that build as these sounds overlap. I find it much more compelling to listen to the sounds that I hear on the streets in New York than to block them out with an ipod. But I do also listen to music at home. When I start a new piece, I usually go through a period of immersion, in which I work closely with a soloist or group, and listen to pieces of a similar instrumentation. Some of the composers I look to in this process are Ustvolskaya, Scelsi, and Varese, along with earlier composers whose orchestration I admire: Stravinsky, Beethoven, even Rimsky-Korsakov. John Zorn has been an influence, not only for his uncanny ability to sound like himself in so many different contexts, but for his fearless and uncompromising approach to music, and his no bulls**t approach to running a label and venue.

To be honest, I couldn’t come close to naming all of my musical influences; everything I listen to creeps into my grey matter. I’ve always listened to a lot of soul, blues, and rhythm and blues. My parents and older siblings raised me on many types of music: jazz, rock, blues, soul, funk, anything from New Orleans, and not much classical. It allowed me to grow up with an open mind, and let me approach classical music as something new.


Dufallo: Your work often explores unconventional sounds. Can you describe your process when working with these sources? Do you listen to the sounds until you hear music in them, or do you search for sounds that compliment pre-existing musical ideas? Both? Neither?

Gosfield: The other day I recorded the sound of a cement mixer in front of my apartment and built a piece around it. The racket was driving my boyfriend crazy - one person’s noise is another person’s music. I don’t employ a single compositional method. I’m always surprised by how different the process is with every new piece, which helps to keep it fresh, exciting, and occasionally frustrating. I usually think about the instrument or ensemble first. Then, if I’m using other sound sources, I think about what would work with those instruments. If I’m composing for myself, I normally start with less conventional sounds, since my main instrument is a keyboard sampler. Sometimes a wonderful idea leads to nothing, and a throwaway thought opens new doors. The process is still impractical, unpredictable, and inefficient, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dufallo: Your violin piece Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites uses recordings of satellites, shortwaves, and radio transmissions. Can you describe what inspired you to write this piece and what images come to mind when you hear the music?

Gosfield: George Kentros, who originally commissioned the piece, asked me to write a piece for “violin and something” and brought over a now-defunct digital processing unit. It’s hard to build a piece around hardware - everything becomes archaic eventually - so I considered writing a piece for violin and tape instead. Up until that point, I had resisted writing “tape” pieces because a performer can’t have the same dynamic interaction with a recorded track that he or she can with another live musician. This was a good opportunity to finally tackle a piece for a solo instrument plus “tape” (now it’s on CD or a hard drive, but old terminology dies hard). I loved the idea of having two very portable sound sources. In its most low-tech version, a violinist with a portable CD player could perform this piece in a cornfield or a concert hall, yet the simple format still allowed me to of combine acoustic and electronic sources, and mix traditionally notated music with noise. Because it’s not dependent on a sampler, computer, or a specific piece of hardware, there have been a lot of interesting performance possibilities for this piece.

While researching Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites, I read about Sputnik, and how lone ham radio operators listened to the satellite’s transmissions using bulky radio equipment in remote, rural areas all over the world. I was taken by the image of a man or woman alone in an isolated field, lost in a night sky littered with satellite noise, listening rapt to the abstract blips and bleeps broadcast from the spinning basketball sized hunk of metal. It brought to mind each individual’s interpretation of this seemingly random noise, and how each radio operator might hear it differently. I hope that each violinist who performs Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites has a similar experience, hearing his or her own hidden rhythms and melodies in the noise, informed by past experiences, and finding their own dynamic interaction with a backdrop of bleeps, blips, and static, creating a new duet with this phantom collaborator.

Dufallo: You also have a fascinating career and history as a performer. Can you describe how, in your experience, performing influences composition, and vice-versa?

Gosfield: I started taking piano lessons as a kid. Then I studied composition. Then I went back to focusing on performance, since it was the most expedient way to get my own music played. Then groups started inviting me to compose for them, so there I was back at composition. I’ve always had to balance performing live with composing for others, which has been very healthy. Since I began my professional life as a musician performing my own work, a sense of physicality became an important part of the compositional process for me. When I was first starting out and writing for my own group, I could always feel it in my fingers, so the mechanical aspect of performance was always in the forefront. As a composer/performer, my ideas were based on my own musical interests, instincts, and technical abilities, rather than on a preconceived notion of what the music should sound like. Improvisation has always been an important part of my musical vocabulary as well. My experiences with improvisation have given me the freedom to explore unfamiliar musical territory, and to try to come up with unusual dialogues between musicians. The discipline of composing in traditionally notated forms has given me a certain degree of patience, and a great appreciation for the times that I can just get out there and play.

When I was working on my second CD, "Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery," I was editing the recording of EWA7, a concert-length piece composed for my band at a site-specific concert in a factory in Nuremberg. Soon after, I had to quickly shift gears to revise the score to Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery, a double quartet for strings and percussion influenced by factory environments. I was surprised at how similar the two processes were, and how similar the music was, even though the language used to communicate it to the musicians was very different. It was just a matter of sculpting sound, sometimes on paper, sometimes in audio, but the thought process was the same.

Having a varied career has led to a lot of interesting cross pollination. A live improv gig might inspire me to bring some noise into a notated piece, for example, or a slow, extended section of a string quartet might bring new harmonic ideas to a live improv. I have learned to accept the fact that all creative experiences have an impact on future work: usually it's positive, occasionally it's negative. It's important for me to strike a balance between avoiding past mistakes, while forging ahead, trying something different, and taking a chance on making some brand new mistakes along the way.

On October 5, 2009, the New York arts community was shocked and saddened by the tragic news that Suzanne Fiol, Artistic Director of Issue Project Room, had passed away. Suzanne died of cancer, much too young.

I first met Suzanne in 2004, when I performed at Issue Project Room (IPR) with the poet Edwin Torres. Later that season Suzanne invited my ensemble, Ne(x)tworks, to perform a concert there. At the time, IPR was a small room in the east village – half of an office space, really. Thanks to Suzanne's tenacity and idealism, it has since grown to a full size venue at 232 3rd Street in Brooklyn. We were all thrilled when Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz recently granted $1,133,000 to IPR so that Suzanne could move the venue to its future home at 110 Livingston.

Over the years I have been involved in so many fascinating concerts at IPR. I worked for great musicians like Butch Morris and Anthony Coleman. Suzanne gave my ensemble, Ne(x)tworks, a residency at IPR in 2006. She provided the opportunity for me to try out some of my first pieces for solo violin and sonic background around the same time. Last season, Suzanne lent IPR to ETHEL, so that we could prepare for the world premiere of Phil Kline’s SPACE.

I always loved being around Suzanne, talking about life, children, music, and art.

Suzanne, you did so much for us all. You provided a haven, a cultural oasis. You gave us inspiration to explore, endeavor, and grow. Your generosity, humor, depth, and keen intelligence will be sorely missed. Indeed, New York will never be the same without you. You live on in our hearts and in our music, poetry, and art. Thank you. We can never thank you enough.

Date: September 29, 2009
From: Corey Dargel
To: Cornelius Dufallo
Subject: Possible Titles

Cornelius,

Okay, I've thought about it and asked around a little for others' opinions, and I think that I prefer "Every Day Is the Same Day." I like it because it hints at the emotional/psychological reasons behind disaster fantasies and, at the same time, it's more open to interpretation than "Platitude After Platitude." However, I still would like to try to incorporate a platitude into each song.

Tomorrow, I'm recording REMOVABLE PARTS in Yonkers, and I think this is a good place to stop our discussion for now. I'm going to get back to composing and writing lyrics, and I'll be in touch as soon as I have some music to share with you.

Love,
Corey