Joy in the Congo

Tue, 8 May 2012 07:26:36 -0700

You may already have heard about a Congolese musician named Armand Diangienda. Without any government funding, he teaches adults in his village to play classical music on western instruments. The project became so popular that word got around and free instruments were donated. Next, two German choral directors heard about it and went to Africa to coach the villagers in classical vocal techniques and form a chorus.

     Here’s a link to the story: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7404678n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

I was deeply moved by this video, and even somewhat envious. These Congolese are feeling the raw excitement of music-making, which attracted me to music in the first place. That kind of sheer joy can easily go missing in our professional musical world.

No one gets paid to sing or play in the Congolese orchestra. Their faces show that their reward is—dare I say it—purely spiritual. Asked what this music meant to her, one participant said, “It takes me away from everything.” Doesn’t music at its best transport us all to another place?

     Which got me thinking: the best way for music graduates to sustain their love for the art may be to keep one foot in some kind of social experiment in music. Do your thing in established ensembles or live by teaching, but stay in contact with the excitement of the raw, first beginnings of making music.

     If I were still playing, I would do it for the sheer love of performing. As a composer, I can imagine writing for such a group pro bono if I felt their musical joy. I remember that gut feeling from playing jam sessions as a drummer in my early years and from performing two summers at Tanglewood.

The excitement you’ll see in the eyes of the Congolese players and singers will haunt you and it still brings tears to my eyes when I recall it.

Please let me know if you have been active in introducing music at a primary level or have come across examples of this kind of joy.

80 Laps Around the Sun

Mon, 9 Apr 2012 09:55:38 -0700

I can hardly believe I’ve been on this Earth for 80 years this April 22nd. I used to think of 80 as really old, and looking in the mirror I can see some things have changed. I’m not as agile, but mentally I feel ageless and free to create. I’m at home with nine-year-olds (and sometimes act like one, says my wife) and teenagers, when I teach them how to write music.
As a young man, I read that Verdi wrote his most popular operas between ages 80 and 84. I wanted to be like that — using all those years of experience and keeping body and mind in working order in my 80s. So I stopped smoking and started eating right.
I jogged until I was 70, then turned to swimming and even found a trainer to add cardiovascular workouts to my routine. Actor James Cagney inspired me with his secret to long and healthy living: “Never surprise your heart.”
One difference with age is that I value my time more — it’s becoming more precious as the last years draw increasingly near. Though I don’t believe it, there is solid evidence that my life on earth will actually end one day. Or I should say my “lives,” because I feel I’ve had several already — from being a kid in Brookfield, Illinois, to young jazz musician to percussionist, composer, husband, father, mentor and friend.
From the start, my life has been about creativity. My subconscious is my greatest ally, which may explain why I don't always seem totally present in conversations. The ability to look like I’m paying attention when I’m really mentally elsewhere started way back in elementary school, when teachers tried to interrupt my attention with things like math, history and geography. “Michael, pay attention!” was the mantra of my teachers. But how could I explain to Miss Markwell that I was much more interested in things that didn’t yet exist. If I was that kid today, they’d have me on Ritalin from the first day of school.
And now I have eight decades behind me and excellent health, so I’m ready for some new projects. Move over Giuseppe, here I come!

Making Small Concerts Pay

Mon, 2 Apr 2012 21:07:06 -0700

In my last blog I talked about the power of intimate concerts in small venues. But I wonder how musicians can make a living doing that. A solid chamber music career is hard to come by, unless you’re the Kronos Quartet. Legendary sax player Lee Konitz surprised me by saying he has to travel outside New York on gigs to pay the bills.
But I think there are ways for dedicated chamber musicians to boost their income. For one thing, private house concerts can charge at the door. I imagine an ambitious group of musicians could form an alliance offering regular house concerts for pay, which in fact some are already doing.
Further out of the box, I know of nightclubs on Dover Street in London hosting classical gigs. I attended one myself at a Toronto venue called the Bovine Sex Club on Queen Street. The audience was pierced and tattooed and dressed in lots of leather. Looking at the crowded room, I expected a lot of talking and bar noise, but people were transfixed by Haiou Zhang — dressed in red from top to toe — as he played Haydn, Mozart and Schubert on a rented piano. It was definitely high art in an unlikely place, because Zhang later appeared as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic.
     Of course subsidies from private and public sources would help tremendously, especially for small venues that bring in limited gate revenue. We could also use a Steve Jobs-type entrepreneur in music who would invent ways to make small venues pay for themselves. Perhaps if we all start thinking about it and want it badly enough, ideas will start spreading and new solutions will appear. Or we could dig a little deeper in our pockets for tickets.
     A great idea I read about was having musicians play for patients in a veteran's hospital in Fresno. A psychiatrist there said patients are much calmer after listening to classical music: "When we have live music, they come to me far more relaxed. It's like an amazing miracle."
     Of course we know that music therapy has been helping patients with autism, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and victims of brain trauma who lost their ability to speak. I'm sure music also serves as great preventative medicine for the mind and body. As more and more is discovered about the powers of music, it might take the place of the old advice — “Take an Aspirin and go to bed” — and turn into, “Take a Schubert song and go to bed.”
Here is a good read on this topic:
    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ptsd-music-20120116,0,1657849.story

Small Is Good

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:56:12 -0700

“Big is not necessarily bad.” Those words came from Richard Nixon when he was president of the United States. I thought a lot about that remark and finally came to the conclusion that big too often is bad. We saw the cost of banks and corporations “too big to fail” in the Wall Street debacle. US military actions abroad have ballooned. And giant food and pharmaceutical industries control our nutrition with chemicals that are often poorly checked.
     But for me the subject of Big vs Small takes on special significance when talking about music. In the arts, we tend to measure success by the business it creates. The bigger the concert hall and size of audience, the more prestigious the event. So a performance by a symphony orchestra is considered highly significant, whereas performances in smaller halls are usually not. In Toronto, they mostly go undetected and rarely rate a review in the media.
     My listening habits are pretty intense — three to four nights a week are spent in performing arts venues. I have nothing against large orchestra and opera performances and do attend them, but increasingly I am finding my most satisfying experiences are in smaller places that can only be found through the social media or friends.
     Looking at just the last few weeks, the performances in Toronto that impressed me most were a saxophone and voice duo concert at the Gallery 345 by Wallace Halladay and Xin Wang (audience around 50) in daring contemporary repertoire; John McLeod’s Rex Hotel Orchestra at a packed Rex Hotel jazz bar; and most recently an exciting event with Bruce Cassidy improvising on the electronic valve instrument (EVI) with sitarist Anwar Khurshid and percussionist Waleed Abdulhamid in a studio loft at 301 Richmond Street. About 50 people were riveted by this blend of sounds from Canada, Pakistan and Ghana.
     Back at Gallery 345 a few nights later, I heard violist Rivka Golani in a recital with pianist Stephan Sylvestre. Again I was no more than 10 feet from the performers, this time enjoying the excellent performance of traditional repertoire. A friend in the music business said, “This concert should have been attended by 600 people. Just ten years ago, it would have been in a larger hall.” A selfish voice inside me cried “NO! It wouldn’t have been the same.”
     This opens the door to another issue: how can our supremely talented musicians make a living playing in the small venues I love so much? But that is another though very important discussion.
     Music begins in an intimate setting, the composers’ or improvisers’ minds, and will always be looking for venues that convey the intended emotional language. The big pieces fare well in large concert halls with good acoustics. The smaller works are best felt, seen and heard in smaller places.

The Power of Mentors

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:21:38 -0800

Some time ago I wrote a blog about the teachers who had influenced my way of thinking and creating. I mentioned briefly my percussion teacher at the University of Illinois, Paul Price, but didn’t emphasize the importance and long-range effect of his influence.
     On the classical music scene percussion players were at the lowest end of the music hierarchy. Price was determined to change that and wanted percussion players to be recognized as equal to other musicians. His main activity toward that goal was the development of the percussion ensemble.
     He started his ensemble by playing early works for percussion by John Cage, Henry Cowell, Edgard Varese, Henry Brant, Lou Harrison and a host of other lesser-known composers. Most of their pieces were languishing forgotten on the shelves of the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music at the Central Library in New York. Price’s power was such that hundreds of pieces for percussion were written for his ensemble, and he premiered them wherever he could find an audience.
     Other schools copied this recipe for success. Now we take it for granted that most of our colleges and universities have fully accredited percussion ensembles, and our orchestras have excellent percussion players who are on par with the other musicians.
     What an accomplishment! Price not only trained percussionists and inspired composers to write for them, but he started the first percussion publishing business.
      I was perhaps his most impossible student, but he turned me around. He certainly altered my life by convincing me to take classical music studies seriously. I went from a single-minded young jazz drummer to a composer with a much expanded career in music.
      I sometimes think of where I would be without this encounter with Paul Price. Most of us can point to a teacher, guide or mentor who opened new doors and gave us confidence to walk through them. How do you thank a person like that for what he did for you? Especially when he’s no longer around?
     My way is to give free private lessons to teenage composers who are full of enthusiasm for orchestral music. I often urge absolute novices to compose in graphic notation, which is “goof-proof” (there are no “wrong notes”) and gets them into the creative process immediately. At the moment, I’m working with an entire high school class that’s creating a work for orchestra. When I see an “A-ha” on their faces and feel a sense of accomplishment, that’s my reward.

Music 24902

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:36:25 -0800

I’ve been reading about two people who broke with tradition in their professions: architecture and business.
     One is British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, who oversees more than 200 companies that he built largely from personal conviction and intuition. As far as I can tell, he bypassed the ordinary routes of doing market research and following the money. He describes his success as being “about people using their skills and figuring out ways of using the assets of their business to drive not only profits but a better world.”
     Branson (B is for $-billions) wants his businesses to benefit society in general and continually, not as a charity. He calls this global idea “Capitalism 24902,” because that number is the circumference of the world.
     We don’t often hear billionaires talk that way. Bill and Melinda Gates are in the same ballpark of understanding the need to improve health and development around the world through their foundation. But Branson is going a step further than philanthropy, suggesting that business can and should rest on two levels: making the world a better place and making a profit.
     Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has developed his own philosophy in architecture and city building. He is young and gives new meaning to thinking outside the box. Rather than delivering a golden concept of a building, he grinds it out of a process that accepts needs of the neighbourhood, sustainable energy, alternate uses and designs that make people live and think differently.
   You can watch him speak here on YouTube or read his book “Yes Is More,” designed like a spunky comic book. ”Rather than whining about resistance, obstacles or failure, we say yes to reality, the city, life, when we bump into it. And get so much more in return.”
     Can the music world take something from Ingels or Branson? From a business standpoint, neither seems very reasonable and yet they flourish. We know all the important words such as recession, cutbacks, downsizing and financial forecasts — so different from what Ingels cheerfully calls “sustainable hedonism.” The world of music sits on a great mountain of tradition, but can it cut loose and reinvent itself?
     Most of us know the example of one music experiment that defies logical business models: El Sistema that was created by Venezuela’s Jose Antonio Abreu. He gave inner-city children instruments and taught them music with astonishing results. I just saw Gustavo Dudamel (a Sistema product) conduct Mahler’s 8th Symphony from Caracas. The orchestra and the 800-member choir also sprung from El Sistema. The alternative for many of them would have been a life in poverty or crime, but instead they have changed society and made a model for other countries to follow.
      Some traditional music institutions — such as major symphony orchestras and opera companies — are doing very well, but others could do better. Many musicians can’t find a place for their talent.
      Working in the arts is already a risky business, but it is also a world of great creativity that can spur great ideas. Maybe the Bransons, Ingels and Abreus can serve as models to inspire new kinds of musical activities that will integrate music into society everywhere, in venues large and small.

What Drives Artists?

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:42:15 -0800

“Give it up. You lack the fire.” Those discouraging words came from a piano virtuoso to a young prodigy, when his mother brought him to the master for an expert opinion.
     Years later the boy became a successful concert artist himself and returned to the master. “Remember me? You told me to give up the piano because I lacked the fire.” “Oh, I tell that to everyone,” he said.
     Of course all artists want encouragement, especially in the face of great competition in the performing arts and the scarcity of opportunities. But is it essential for the artist to continue?
     I think artistic talent is paired with a special ingredient in genuine artists, which keeps them going through discouragement and other adversity. It’s like a circuit breaker that automatically kicks in when negative thoughts threaten the creative output.
I was thinking about this while reading “Straight Life,” a biography of the brilliant jazz musician Art Pepper. I can’t imagine a more impossible upbringing than he had. He was an unwanted child (his alcoholic mother tried to abort him) and his abusive father was an itinerant dockworker, rarely home. But isn’t a loving and responsible upbringing necessary to create a healthy foundation for kids’ development? And all that talk about nurturing an artist?
Yet Pepper’s childhood was a saga of neglect by the worst parents you can imagine. He survived in an awful gang-infested neighborhood where he became an alcoholic and drug addict. Despite all, he emerged as a beautiful and sensitive artist—some say the greatest alto saxophone player jazz ever produced. Why wasn't his creativity short-circuited?
     I was also inspired reading about the lives and struggles of Charlie Parker, Vincent van Gogh and others who had uphill climbs. A part of me would cry out as if cheering at a ball game, “Go, baby, go! Your game is too good, you can’t give up.”
Perhaps artists are born with an inherent instinct to create. Their work is not just a job but a way of life, almost a necessity. I have great friends who have succeeded in business and loved every step of the challenge. But they were guided mostly by reason and made practical choices, and they had many. Artists just don’t seem to have that. Creating seems predestined for artists—they have no choice.

Can Classical Music Match the Power of Movies?

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:12:21 -0800

A few spin-off thoughts from last week’s blog on Music and Imagery: I find it ironic that films have made some obscure contemporary classical music famous by association. Stanley Kubrick chose four works by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti for his famous film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Before this movie, few people had heard of Ligeti, whose works were played mainly on new music concerts. Kubrick wanted to convey a feeling of timelessness, which he found in Ligeti’s “Lux Aterna” and “Atmospheres.” Suddenly music that was generally considered “weird” became accepted as sensitive and a great conveyer of emotions.
     Much good and very compelling modern music like Ligeti’s goes unnoticed, especially by orchestras. It could struggle in relative obscurity unless imaginative filmmakers pair it with an appealing story. A scary thought.
     Walt Disney’s film “Fantasia” put Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” on the map with the general public. Listeners who might have been confused or closed their ears to “Rite” in a concert hall were suddenly intrigued when these wild rhythms and dissonances accompanied volcanoes and dragons.
     And consider what the film “Amadeus” did for Mozart, who was a staple in the music world but suddenly gained almost pop status everywhere. The slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 became very popular after it was used as theme music in the love story of “Elvira Madigan.” Some symphony orchestras even started advertising their concerts with the “Elvira Madigan Concerto.”
     It makes me wonder how classical music, past or present, attracts people with sound alone. Are some people simply gifted with a “listening gene”? Is sensitive listening a national trait, a social habit or learned through education? Or is it passé?

Music and Imagery

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:36:34 -0800

I just saw The Artist, and was struck by how essential music was to silent film. Even though some of The Artist was schmaltzy, its music supported the film’s exaggerated mime-acting very well. It probably contributed a lot to the standing ovation the film got at the Toronto International Film Festival.
     But I wonder why Hollywood felt it was necessary to continue using excessive musical accompaniment with talkies. Most real actors are offended by music that tells the viewer how to feel, since they can convey those emotions themselves. Granted, music creates an atmosphere, but does it have to mickey-mouse scenes, with heroic brass instruments and drums accompanying war, or sentimental strings signaling the feelings of lovers as they look longingly in each other’s eyes?
     I also wonder if this habit of doubling the visual with music is behind a question I often hear from music listeners, especially in North America: “What should I see when I listen to your music?" I usually tell them, “You’re not intended to see anything in particular." But Hollywood and TV have conditioned listeners into thinking of music as accompaniment, not an art that stands by itself, as it has in Europe for centuries. The ability to listen to symphonic music for its own sake is rare in North America. Even pop music is driven by lyrics to hold people’s attention.
     So I think it’s not by chance that much of today’s symphonic favorites are associated with story and visual imagery: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Debussy’s Afternoon of a Fawn, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Contemporary symphonic works too: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Copland’s Billy the Kid, and Charles Ives' Housatonic at Stockbridge with its romantic theme accompanied by soft dissonant chords. Ives’ complex and dissonant Symphony No 4 is embraced by many because it mixes marching bands and church hymns, recalling small-town America.
     My own experience as a composer bears this out. Arctic Dreams with scenes of the aurora borealis and the sun reflecting off of icebergs arouse quick responses from listeners, who report that they can easily relate to the music — even though much of it is abstract and dissonant. (See a video excerpt on colgrassfilm.com or my blog’s homepage.)
     This reluctance to listen without visual images is important for classical musicians and composers to understand when forging a career in music. After all, music is communication. Because our education systems rarely teach children about music, we must become the educators. When speaking to audiences, we can point out the visual "hooks" of music: the colors or any imagery or story that might aid the listening process.
     The future will be interesting because of the ways children use their senses. They generally have a livelier imagination than adults and will easily make up their own visual world to suit the music. They are also more open to new music than they are to the classics, which — ironically — may come from the variety of music they hear with films, games and TV.

Is Music Therapy?

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 07:23:11 -0800

In my second year at university, I exhausted myself in an effort to catch up in my classical music training. I was overtired and depressed and even had student counseling, but that didn’t help me overcome the feeling that I was failing. I was on the brink of quitting school. Then I got a scholarship to Tanglewood to play in the Berkshire Festival Orchestra, a nearly professional ensemble made up of students from around the world.
The first piece we rehearsed was new to me: Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” The sheer beauty of the rich orchestration ringing in the hall was the first thing to hit me, and then — as the piece unfolded in various segments — I was inspired by the story the music seemed to tell. By the end of the week, a new and much brighter vision of my future had developed. Whenever I felt a little down thereafter I would play the recording of the Bartok “Concerto” (Philadelphia version with Eugene Ormandy) and feel uplifted again. That music became a sure-fire medication for me.
Those memories returned this week as I read about the death of Clive Robbins, the founding father of music therapy. He developed methods to treat many ailments, such as autism, psychological problems, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and other disabilities with music.
But the term “music therapy” seems almost redundant to me, because I’ve always thought that music affected mind and body one way or the other. It never seems just neutral — even elevator music, which drives me mad! The melodies, harmonies and rhythms of great songs and compositions have both a physical and mental effect on anybody who listens to music. It has an addictive quality, much like my Bartok self-medication.
I have had many other experiences with music renewing and strengthening my spirit. That’s why I think music is more than an entertainment, but may even be necessary to good health. Take a moment and recall a time when music healed your mind or body or helped redirect your path in life. I’d love to hear about it.

Great Memories in Music

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:50:13 -0800

As musicians we often complain about the hardships of our profession—funding problems, lack of appreciation for quality, and the intense competition for employment. But when we're together, we usually share stories about the fun and sheer enjoyment of making music.
     In thinking over my many exciting memories as a performer and composer, one stood out especially — for combining great music, fine performers and near disaster.
   The work before us was Les Noces with the composer, Igor Stravinsky conducting a concert at New York’s Town Hall in December of 1959. This incredibly exciting work for chorus, soloists, four pianos and six percussion, requires a razor-sharp conductor as well as four pianists with the highest technical precision. As always, Stravinsky was less than incisive in wielding his baton. The four pianists were all big names as composers: Lukas Foss, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and Roger Sessions. Foss was an excellent pianist, but Copland, Barber and Sessions — though all great composers — played what is referred to as “composer's piano,” suitable for composing and maybe a little accompaniment, but not up to the virtuosic demands of a work like Les Noces. I organized the percussion and felt confident that our section could handle the demanding piece.
   Everything went fine in rehearsal until the climactic section where the four pianos play thunderous chords in unison, along with the tubular chimes. These chords require the sharpest beat from the conductor to help the pianists play together. As I watched Stravinsky with his usual loose approach to beating time, I knew we were in for trouble with the entrances. Sure enough, he gave a vague downbeat for the first chord so that the expected sharp ringing “BONG” sounded more like “ge-bong.” Stravinsky glared at the pianists as Sessions looked the other way, Barber shrugged, Copland muttered something under his breath and Foss shook his head, raising his hands in helpless resignation. It was almost pointless for Stravinsky to say ”Together gentlemen.”
   When played well, the color of four pianos playing unison octaves and ninths along with the chimes and crotales creates a beautiful, brilliant ringing sound that cuts through any hall at the climax of the work. Here our unison attacks sounded more like a large plate glass window falling down a flight of cement steps. As Foss bounced up and down on his piano seat trying to get the other pianists to play with him, I quietly writhed in pain, wondering where exactly to play my chime notes amidst the spray of piano chords. Another percussionist also played unison with these chords on small metal cymbals of very high pitch (crotales). Suffice it to say, we were waiting for divine intervention. Between rehearsals I would quietly smile at the irony of five great and demanding composers struggling helplessly to perform this rhythmic feat. Somehow we got through the performance and the whole memory warms my heart, standing as one of the great musical experiences of my life.
   Incredibly, the chorus and ensemble were taken to a Columbia Artists recording studio a few days later in a hopeless attempt to salvage this historic event on tape, to be included in the “Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky” series of recordings. But to no one’s surprise it had to be re-recorded later with new pianists.
     I’d love to hear some of my readers’ most memorable and inspiring stories as musicians, so please add them to this page.

Is Talent Enough to Succeed?

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:32:30 -0800

If you are an extraordinary musician you will succeed in the music business. What could possibly stop you? A group of young musicians looked for answers last week at a panel called “Career Moves” organized by Ann Summers Dossena of the International Resource Centre for Performing Artists. Music writer William Littler was moderator of a panel that had music critic Colin Eatock, artist manager Robert Baird, publicist Liz Parker, along with two musicians, conductor Marco Parisotto and myself.
I prepared myself by making a list of principles that have guided my own career, which has been varied and required many decisions off the beaten track.
It seems to me that individual approaches and new thinking about careers in music are even more important today. Only a few musicians with ambitions to become soloists with major orchestras will be able to succeed, so new ideas are essential.
Here was the list I had in my back pocket for this panel:
—PRIMARY DECISION: Are you sure you want to be in the music profession? If it is just one of several career choices, you may not be bitten enough by the music bug to stick with it.
—PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Learn everything you can about your instrument or voice or conducting technique; perform at every opportunity in all kinds of music, and practice diligently so you’re ready for anything anytime.
—ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Form or find new groups to play with, choose interesting repertoire and places to perform. Be daring and commission and search for new music to show how unique you are.
—INTUITION: Trust your gut reaction in all matters, professional and personal. The more you follow your intuition the stronger it becomes. When it feels right, the energy flows and overcomes what might have looked impossible at first.
—PERSONAL CREATIVITY: I create music for a living; but building a satisfying life is the most challenging creative act I know, and that’s the one I’m proudest of.
—MONEY: Pay for everything as you go and buy only what you can afford; don’t want things you can’t afford; save at least 10% of everything you make.
—LOVE, MARRIAGE, FAMILY, FRIENDS: Personal relationships strongly influence the outcome of your career. The beliefs and attitudes of people closest to you influence you and help determine the quality of your decisions.
—HEALTH: As a musician your body is your primary instrument; develop, tune and maintain it in top order.
—MODELING: Imitate those you admire and learn how they do what they do, either by meeting them, listening to them or reading about them.
—DOING AND BEING: Keep doing separate from being; first define your basic identity as a human being, your individual nature, what you are; and then create your activity, what you do. What you do is not what you are.
—CREATING OPPORTUNITY: Though I never promoted myself as a composer, I always hoped that quality work would open doors. That has not always worked for me, especially in Canada. My wife jokes that in the US I’m known as Superman, and in Canada I‘m Clark Kent. I could probably learn from the young people today who are connected by social media and are far more media-savvy than I. They have wonderful new tools and talent for promotion. Still, the strongest elements in your career are talent and that gut feeling that you are in the right place and enjoying it.

My Latest Inspiration

Tue, 8 Nov 2011 08:50:10 -0800

My main inspiration these days comes from my work with children creating and performing music using graphic notation. Also I have been involved in the challenge of writing pieces for young band.
     What?! Is this me talking? Up until several years ago writing music for middle or high school band was the farthest thing from my mind. Then I got a commission from Bandquest of the American Composers Forum and I saw that they were very serious about commissioning professional composers to write for 7th and 8th graders.
     So I took this on as a challenge. Could I write a piece for that age group that would sound good? I went to a local middle school and started listening to their band and was not too excited. It would be an uphill battle to write music of emotional and intellectual value for musicians who could hardly play their instruments, especially after I spent years writing for professionals who can play beautifully. But the music these kids played was poor and I thought they should have something better. So I got interested.
     I struggled with a draft of an idea that failed miserably on the first try. How could I make them sound good in spite of their lack of experience? Uncertain, I put the piece aside and decided to help the kids write their own music. I showed them how to compose by making marks on the blackboard that represented sounds (graphic notation) and singing what they wrote. They had a lot of fun with that, and we formed a little “composition group” and wrote many graphic pieces.
     Meanwhile I was listening more and more to their band play and noticed how the kids warmed up individually before rehearsals. I started to get ideas I could use in my own piece. I was finally able to complete my composition, “Old Churches,” and they liked it. So did Bandquest, which made a DVD of it and published the piece with distribution by Hal Leonard. The next thing I knew it was being played all over the place, even by some college bands. And more commissions started to come in from middle school band directors who were pleased to see that I took this seriously.
   Since then I have written six more pieces for young band and developed the graphic notation idea with kids to a surprisingly satisfying level of sophistication.
   Through this work I have met many school band directors who are energetic, imaginative and idealistic about improving the level of music for children to play, and who are determined to raise the standards of music education in general. And I met many parents active in saving school music programs threatened with cuts. These encounters have been among my most stimulating experiences as a composer. My next will be at Mt. Horeb High School in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, later this month.
     Through all this I have seen that music education doesn’t mean just letting the schools do the job. Professionals can and should help out by offering their own level of expertise. In the matter-of-fact world of symphony life, such involvement can enliven professional musicians and rekindle their enthusiasm for music.

Force of Nature

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:15:09 -0700

“If I auditioned today for one of these top music programs at the level I was when I entered college some years ago, I wouldn’t be accepted,” said one outstanding instrumental teacher at the University of Miami School of Music this past week. We were discussing the incredible level of the wind ensemble players in the performance of my “Urban Requiem” for four saxophones and wind ensemble, with Gary Green conducting. We chatted about the entry level of percussionists today. They need to audition not only on one percussion instrument, like snare drum or timpani, but also on the marimba, and even demonstrate some skill playing with four mallets. When I auditioned for music school in the previous century, I didn’t even know where C was on the treble clef. (Who needs that in jazz drumming?)
    Craig Kirchhoff made a similar point following a rehearsal of my highly demanding “Winds of Nagual” at Ohio State University, when I asked him who was playing first flute. He pointed to a young woman in tattered jeans and T-shirt with a baseball cap on sideways. When I marveled at her fabulous playing, he said, “Oh, yeah, I’m turning away kids today who would have played first chair for me 10 years ago.” That incident with Craig took place in 1986. When I repeat this story to other wind ensemble directors at top schools they always say, “Same goes for me.”
     When we discuss where serious music is going, we talk about audiences, donors, boards and managements as if they decided the future of music, but I believe musicians will decide it. These extraordinary young people, who are willing to pay 40 to 50 thousand dollars a year tuition for a music education and who are working so hard to play their instruments, are like a force of nature. Their overwhelming determination to make a life in music as performers is a constant inspiration to me as a composer.
When most adults would say to them, ”But don’t you want to eat?” they forge ahead anyway and insist on doing what they love and believe in. That kind of willpower and talent is like a force of nature and I believe it cannot be denied any more than a hurricane. What will they play, who will they play with and where? I don’t know, but I believe they will create new opportunities outside the traditional concert world. Not only that, but as citizens, parents and politicians they will represent a new level of culture and interest in the arts in society.
I visit frequently with students at university music schools like Michigan, Northwestern, Texas, Arizona, Colorado and Tennessee. Their performances are often breathtaking. They represent a flowering of a musical idealism and integrity that few seem to talk about, but in years ahead we will probably say, “Oh, that’s the generation that changed music performances.” I believe they will forge their own careers and should be encouraged at every turn.

     I can identity with them, because I was once a bullheaded student who was often advised by well-meaning adults to get a degree in something more practical that would pay the rent. But deep down it didn’t feel right. I can’t wait to see how the new crop of musicians will up the ante and expand the music world as we know it.