Alexandra Gardner (Kathleen Supove at the piano)

I have admired Alexandra Gardner's work ever since Ne(x)tworks premiered her quartet, Coyote Turns, in 2007. I just revisited Coyote Turns with ETHEL here at the Grand Canyon Music Festival, and I'll be performing her wonderful piece for violin and electronics entitled electric blue pantsuit on November 29th at The Stone.

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

Gardner: Hearing the music of Steve Reich made me want to become a composer. The first time I listened to his early tape piece Come Out, I was completely blown away by the notion that one could take a recording of someone talking about a subject like a volatile political event, and transform it into something beautiful. I wanted in right then!

There are many others... my composition teacher from college, Annea Lockwood, continues to be an inspiration. Also George Crumb, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Pauline Oliveros, Brian Eno, Meredith Monk, John Luther Adams. I spent several years intensively studying and playing Afro-Cuban percussion, which dramatically transformed my sense of rhythm. Various experiences in nature have strongly influenced my musical thinking and practice as well.

Dufallo: Your bio says that you draw inspiration from mythology and poetry. How does your understanding of a myth or poem translate itself into a musical idea, and what is your working process for developing that idea?

Gardner: I tend to use bits of language as stepping stones for the development of a musical composition. I'm especially drawn to mythology and legends because they are stories that cultures tell to explain aspects of life, or of the universe. The music isn't programmatic as much as it uses an idea or concept as the inspiration for a work.

Often when I'm reading I'll latch onto something that conveys a particular mood or ambience - it could be an entire book or poem, or simply a phrase. Something that for whatever reason awakens a sense of curiosity and wonder. It's a very intuitive process. Usually I begin by writing words, or making drawings - doing a random "brain dump" of ideas that arise from the material that caught my interest. Much of this initial stage is describing musical ideas, so I can get them down quickly before I forget. As long as I write down the ideas I know I can go back later and flesh them out. At this point I might also work out a general harmonic scheme. Then I will go to a keyboard, or to my computer (depending on what's going on) and, keeping the "vibe" I want in mind, hit record, and start improvising. Next I listen back, sifting through the material to find bits and pieces that work. Then I go back and do it again, until I have enough raw material assembled to start putting the bits together, figuring out what works with what, and developing the ideas into a full piece.

Dufallo: In the program note to electric blue pantsuit you mention that it is "as if the violin is dreaming about a celebration in which it is talking to friends, meeting new people, engaging in animated discussions and dancing." How did you illustrate that idea musically?

Gardner: Well, one of the things I really enjoy doing with this series of pieces for solo instrument and electronics is making the electronic part exclusively from recordings of the acoustic instrument. So all the sounds in electric blue pantsuit are made from violin recordings. The sounds are (pre)processed in lots of different ways, and sometimes the result sounds like a violin (though often it is behaving quite differently than the live violin), while other times it is unrecognizable. The electronics serve as an extension of the acoustic instrument, or as I like to say, it is the violin imagining what it could do if it had super powers!

When I was working on this piece, one of the first electronic sounds I made and decided to keep was a rapid "stomping" sound. At the time it sounded to me like flamenco dancing! Shoes pounding out rhythms on a wooden floor. Because the sound had a dramatic, celebratory feel, I paired it up with some big gestures for the live violin, and ran with it - there is a lot of spinning and swaying and jumping in the piece, contrasted with smaller, quieter phrases that are a bit more introverted, like one-on-one conversations.

Dufallo: When and how did you become interested in electroacoustic music?

Gardner: I became interested in electroacoustic music in college, when I signed up on a whim for an electronic music class. I was totally hooked after day one! Although I had been very involved in music growing up - playing piano and singing in choirs - making my own music didn't start until this point. For me it was the perfect way to begin, because I loved the physicality of recording things, fiddling with buttons and faders, cutting tape (yes, I am that old), and actually building a sonic experience.

I spent about 10 years after college composing primarily for modern dance, which provided plenty of opportunities to combine electronic music with the music I was writing for acoustic instruments.

Dufallo: Do you have any advice for young composers?

Gardner: Listen to everything you can, and keep your ears open. There is something interesting to be discovered in every type of music, or for that matter in every sonic experience. Forge relationships with musicians, and learn as much as you can about them and about their instruments. Write music for them, play music with them, and listen to their feedback. Learn to play an instrument that is very different from whatever you currently play - you don't have to become an expert, just give it a whirl. Think very carefully about what you want your music to say, and how it "serves the universe"... then write the music that is most important to you, and never hold back!