Call it good timing or a lucky alignment of circumstances. But given that very little is just pure luck anymore, I’ll suggest that composer/pianist Timo Andres and his team knew exactly what they were doing when they lined up the release of a new album on Nonesuch Records, the world premiere of his fifth piano concerto, Made of Tunes, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and his perform with five other pianists at Walt Disney Concert Hall of the 20 etudes by Philip Glass. All in one week.

On March 19th, Andres joins fellow pianists Anton Batagov, Lara Downes, Jenny Lin and Maki Namekawa to perform Glass’ Etudes 1-20. On March 22nd, Nonesuch Records releases The Blind Banister. That’s Andres’ recording of his third piano concerto. it also includes his Colorful History and Upstate Obscura. That same day the Los Angeles Philharmonic will give the world premiere of Made of Tunes which Andres composed for pianist Aaron Diehl. John Adams conducts all three performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

That gave me plenty to discuss with Andres when we spoke last week. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To watch the full interview with Timo Andres, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Made of Tunes was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and you composed it with Aaron Diehl in mind as the soloist. What are the qualities that Aaron Diehl possesses as a pianist that most influenced how and what you composed for him? 

That’s a great question. Whenever I write a piece for anyone, I’m trying to think of their specific qualities as a performer and how I can sort of highlight those and work with those and bring them out. In the case of Aaron, I’ve known him about a decade now. I’ve heard him play many, many times. His sound and his style was very much in my ear. And also his repertoire, because I think the music that he chooses to play and that he engages with has been as much a part of his voice as anything.

That really is kind of a broad history of American piano music going back to the earliest ragtime and the stuff that we would pinpoint as saying, this music sounds American for the first time as opposed to European. That whole tradition is very inspiring to me as well. I’ve always felt myself to be specifically an American composer.

On your website, you wrote that “Aaron’s part includes opportunities for improvisation, sections in which I pass him a tune or rhythm or harmony, and he responds with something I wouldn’t have thought of.” How much freedom does he have to improvise? Which I guess is in the tradition of cadenzas going back to Beethoven’s day.

What I’ve tried to do is a little bit trickier and a little bit, certainly rarer, in that I don’t actually have an improvised cadenza. The section that you would maybe call a cadenza is completely written out. And the improvised sections are actually playing with the orchestra. That, to me, was more interesting in a way, because it’s very much what one hears Aaron do when he’s playing with a singer or a trio or in an ensemble. It’s that responding to the other people. Not just responding to the musical cues, but responding to what else is going on in the room.

The orchestra part is totally written out. I had an idea that I would maybe be able to incorporate some improvised or aleatoric bits in the orchestra part, but it’s really just too risky in terms of portability.

The orchestra is remaining on course with the notated music. Then Aaron, I always pass him something, whether that’s a chord or a series of chords or a melodic motif or literally just verbal instructions. I’m always giving him something to go on and that is very much how improvisation typically works. It’s not this idea of total freedom. You’re using certain frameworks and then replacing the things on top of those frameworks with your own ideas. That’s the skill of a great jazz improviser and that’s what I wanted to give Aaron the opportunity to do. 

As you were composing the piece, were you allowing yourself to play with some improvisations you might come up with if you were the soloist? 

I’m not an improviser. I do improvise as part of my compositional process sometimes, but it’s not a huge part of it. I think that’s one of the things that fascinates me and that I’m slightly in awe of with Aaron and people who can who can really do that on such a high level.

Maybe one day down the road I will end up performing this piece myself. In that case, I’m not quite sure what I’ll do in those sections. I may give myself a little bit more of a written framework; leaving some flexibility for what may happen in performance. But I don’t have that kind of confidence to give myself that total freedom in front of other people.

Do you have the confidence to add sociopolitical statements in your work? The reason I ask is in the description of Made of Tunes on your website you talk about the second movement, American Nocturnal, having six variations of original theme. That was all taken from a mishmash of the notes used in “the hokey patriotic song America the Beautiful.” Is that something that allows you to hold a mirror up to who we are as a country, by taking those notes so closely associated with how we present ourselves patriotically?

It’s not something that I want to make explicit. I would say that the whole piece sounds very American to me. I think the way that the piece ends, perhaps, says more than I want to say in words about that. When you hear what happens in the end, you can draw your own conclusions. I think the final orchestral gesture basically feels apocalyptic.

I read an article an interview that you gave the L.A. Times in 2009 when the L.A. Philharmonic was giving the premiere of Nightjar. You mentioned that you were obsessed with John Adams. The title for Made of Tunes is derived from a lyric in a Charles Ives song (The Things Our Fathers Loved). Adams, who is conducting the premiere, wrote a piano concerto called Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? Is there a wink and a nod to John Adams built into the title? 

Absolutely. Of course, John has a piece called My Father Knew Charles Ives and I know [him] as an admirer of Ives’ songs. John’s music was, and is, a huge influence on me. We’ve both developed and changed so much as composers even over the past 15 years. I think there is an aspect that we share in this sense of Americanness and this sense of a fluidity between all of these different kinds of music that make up the American identity. I think maintaining that fluidity is very important to both of us. I think you’ll hear a kind of rhythmic drive, especially in the first movement, that I very much think of as being something I learned from John’s music.

As we’ve been working on the piece together he actually told me yesterday that there’s something in it that reminded him of a song of his called I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky. Which is a little bit of what you might call a cult classic among John’s works. 

I that same story in the LA Times you said about the LA Phil’s commission of Nightjar, “If you would ask me what my absolute dream commission would be, I probably would have said something along those lines. I mean, it’s Los Angeles. They’re pretty much where it’s at in terms of good music.” How has your perspective evolved since that time and where you are today with this new commission from the LA Phil?

It really feels like part of the same journey in a way. That Green Umbrella commission was one of my first commissions period – from anyone. It happened when I was still in grad school which was a vote of confidence in a way.

With everything that’s happened in the past few years, it seems like orchestras might be having a little bit of a tougher time. In general I see a kind of retrenchment into a kind of artistic conservatism.

For someone like me who’s a composer and an enthusiast of anything that’s new, that can be a little bit discouraging. But I do see the commission of this new concerto as kind of bucking that trend.

It’s actually my first subscription series appearance with the Phil. And my first piece that I’ve written for the full orchestra. It’s still a dream ensemble. They’re the the most new music friendly of the major American orchestras by far, and I think the most comfortable with a lot of the more demanding things that new music in general, and my piece particularly, asks of them.

Nonesuch Records is releasing your new album, The Blind Bannister on the same day that this concerto is having its world premiere. That’s a concerto that had its world premiere in 2016. How has your relationship with that piece evolved? How did that influence how you chose to perform it?

The Blind Banister is my third piano concerto and Made of Tunes is my fifth. So it’s kind of a week of piano concertos here. The Blind Banister was also a piece that was written specifically for Jonathan Bis. I think that piece has much more to do with a kind of classical romantic lineage and how I place myself in that as a 21st century American. I just performed the piece last month; four times in Oregon.

It’s still, I think, a piece where I figured out certain things compositionally that I can mark as a tent pole in my catalog in a way. I think formally I tried some things in that piece that I had never tried before. It’s this continuous 20 minute stretch of music, which I think at the time was the longest continuous stretch of music that I had attempted to write. I think, in general, it succeeds at articulating that amount of time in a way that’s compelling and that leads the listener through a kind of journey. It has its particular demands and difficulties and sections that are tricky to put together and balance. But the rhetoric of the piece and the formal journey of it kind of explain themselves.

During your recent NPR Tiny Desk concert of Philip Glass’ Etudes you performed etudes six and five in that order. On March 19th you’re going to be performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall as one of five pianists doing Philip Glass’ Complete Etudes 1 – 20. You edited the published edition that recently came out. When you’re working on something from an editorial perspective are there new discoveries that you were able to make, new understandings, that are separate from what you understand as you’re playing a piece of music?

I’m someone who’s very grounded in notation. I think already that puts me in the minority of musicians in the world. Most music is not made via notation. Notation is not only how I deal with music most of the time, but it’s inescapably how I think about it. Like when I hear music, I’d see notation and vice versa. All the music that I interface with I understand something more of it by seeing the notation. Very often, especially when I’m playing new work, I will actually go and re-notate certain things. Not because it’s notated wrong. It’s just there’s certain opinions that I hold, esthetically or taste wise, or just from a practicality standpoint that are sort of the differential between how a composer might think of a piece, might conceive music and then the ways that a pianist might approach that music. 

With Philip, I think his notation always has a wonderful kind of clarity to it. So it wasn’t so much about clarifying anything in particular. You can read these pieces off his hand-notated manuscripts, pretty much with no problem. This was more about meeting somewhere in the middle between a totally liberalized, typesetting of those manuscripts and then reading from the manuscripts. I think there are aspects of both documents that are useful.

You posted on your website on January 4th of 2023, “Thanks to all the artists and record labels who asked me to write about their recordings. Doing so always teaches me new ways to listen and think about music.” If we fast forward 30 or 40 years and somebody is editing your work or asking to comment on them, what would you like them most to know about who you were at this particular time in your life as a person, a composer and an artist?

I’m not really someone who likes to self-mythologize. I don’t think autobiographically. It’s not really a question I’m prepared to answer. And I don’t think it’s my job to answer it. I think of myself as someone who works very hard. My life is really about all the different aspects of the work that I do. Whether it’s writing a piano concerto or playing the work of another composer, or writing about the work of other musicians, arranging the work of other musicians. All of these different ways that I can get my hands dirty with music, so to speak. I’m up for it and I don’t stop to really interrogate what my project is in a sense for or even who I am. Do any of us really know who we are?

I think when you start to think about that, you’re becoming your own publicist. In a way you’re marketing yourself. Which is a necessity in the modern world of constant pressure to be sharing content and sharing yourself online and simultaneously the complete destruction of any kind of critical apparatus in the mainstream press or any real critical discourse that goes on in the mainstream. In the field that I work in it’s tempting to try to pick up the pieces and try to do it yourself. I have a website. I have Instagram. I have Twitter. I do all these things. But I also don’t know if they truly say anything about who I am as an artist. I think I would rather leave it to the professionals to come to their own conclusions. 

Or let the music speak for itself.

It’s a little bit cliche to say, I guess, but yeah, listen to the music. If you’re curious, it’s all in there. I don’t think it says particularly anything autobiographical. I’m not that kind of composer. But, I think you can connect the dots if you really listen.

To watch the full interview with Timo Andres, please go here.

Main Photo: Composer/Pianist Timo Andres (Courtesy Colbert Artists Management)

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On Wednesday, July 6th, the Chilean-born conductor will lead the LA Philharmonic New Music Group in performances of works by Gérard Grisey, Vivian Fung, Juan Felipe Waller, Gabriella Smith and Kaija Saariaho. On Saturday, July 9th, he’ll lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in performances of the classical works of Devonté Hynes.

None of this material is anywhere near as well-known as Mozart’s opera. So the challenge Bortolameolli faces is how to excite audiences as much about music they don’t know as he can with music they do. Which is exactly what we spoke about last week in a Zoom call. What follows are excerpts from our conversation. You can see the complete interview on our YouTube channel.

I want to start by asking you about your TEDx talk, which I thought was really terrific. You begin by asking how do you prepare a child to attend a classical music concert for the first time? My question is how do you prepare an audience today for a concert that features exclusively contemporary classical music that they probably have never heard?

The last part of your sentence is the key one, because when you invite someone is because you really want that people to be amazed, surprised and enjoy. The one who delivers the invitation is the one that it’s already there, the enthusiast. So my first advice is always try to infuse your enthusiasm into your people. Because if something moves you, that’s why you want to share with them. 

I feel that new music is actually more linked to us than maybe a Mozart symphony. Music, art in general, somehow evolves with us in the way we experience the world, in the way we experience the sounds, the rhythms and how artists are so inspired by their surroundings. It’s kind of like a perpetual reflection of our structure.

What surprises you most about contemporary classical music?

I would say the most obvious aspect of the surprise is that we cannot expect something that we still don’t know. When you attend a premiere everything’s so new. How can I be safe? How can I be rooted to something that I know it’s going to happen. When you make this prediction, it’s like safe place, like finally tonic after a dominant [chord.]

The surprise in the contemporary music is everywhere. That’s also what makes it so fascinating, because the other thing is that our brain is so wired and we cannot change it because our hardware it’s the same. So the way we are wired is to make predictions, is to find something, “Now I understand this and this makes me feel good.” So since we cannot change that, the invitation is then enjoy it and enjoy the crazy ride and just try to let yourself go.

On the heels of graduating from Yale School of Music, you not only commissioned a new work as part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of The Rite of Spring, but you also raised $10,000 for it to be performed – which is a pretty ballsy thing to do right out of school. What is it you’re looking for in new music?

Every single piece such as The Rite of Spring was a new piece. Some of them were a really subtle continuation. Other ones were breakthroughs. The new aspect of music and performing new music, it’s been always there. For me it’s essential to keep that spirit alive in every thing we do as musicians. If we only look back then we are missing the point. And the point is we are not only performing, we are pushing creation every day because that’s what it’s all about. This a life organism with an unstoppable pulsation of creativity. 

If you’re conducting The Rite of Spring you can’t have a conversation with Stravinsky. With these new works, however, you can discuss intention with many of the composers. What difference does that make for you and how you approach a given composition?

To have the chance to work with the composer is like a dream because then you understand the whole creation process. The composers know that even if they own the piece it has to be performed. So at some point they have to let it go. When you have the chance to be aligned in the same space for the rehearsals then you understand the whole process.

Even for for composers listening to a rehearsal is such an important moment, a key moment, because they make corrections, because they change things, because they actually understand how it works. Even the most experienced composer knows that the piece will behave differently. The paper is just a map; this is what I want. For us, who could be the most authorized voice than the composer? Then [it will be] much better, not only in terms of performance, but in terms of the experience, the ritual of doing this together.

You’re describing the conductor as cartographer.

I think it’s always kind of like that at the beginning. We always try to respect the score the most we can. We try to be as precise as we can. But at the same time you’re an interpreter, right? You make your own interpretations of every single aspect of the score. There are just few things that you cannot change: meter, rhythm, notes. That’s a definite aspect. But the rest of it, it’s what do you think about that? What is the thought of it? Nobody measured a forte, you know, in decibels. Even a metronome mark, which sounds to be or looks to be exact, it’s not because the way the music behaves in a particular acoustic theater with the audience will affect the shape of the counter, the phrasing. So all these kind fixed parameters, they’re not fixed. We have to try to be in the mind of the composer and extract that information.

You’re in Barcelona conducting The Magic Flute. What is the process by which you leave the world of a work composed over 230 years ago and enter the world – just a few days later – of these new/newer works?

I feel it’s the same. It’s an easy answer and almost a cheap answer. I don’t want to be cheap. I’m just saying that when you face music you’re putting together sounds, shaping the tempo, the phrasing, you’re understanding colors, you’re understanding balances, reacting to the energy of your players, reacting to your audience. So when you talk about those elements of music and you make it kind of like an abstraction above the repertoire, you find yourself doing exactly the same thing. The difference will be in terms of the score. But the way you face it, I always find it’s pretty similar.

I want to conclude where we started, which is with the one of the last things you said in your TEDx talk. You said that immediately on the heels of your father taking you to that concert at age seven it changed your life so profoundly that you wanted to spend of it changing our expectations. What are the challenges of changing our lives with music we don’t know versus changing in our lives with the music with which we are familiar?

I think the answer it’s more about how you experience the music more than the music itself. I deeply believe that our biggest challenge these days is to keep the flame on. Like the bonfire, where you sit around and you contemplate something that’s happening there and you are surrounded with people that will experience it at the same time. Then it will fade and will keep in your memory, in your heart, in your subconscious. You embrace the importance of that, which makes it so human. It’s part of our core nature to share an experience, to be there with a group of people. Then you realize that it’s far more about that than what is actually performed.

If it’s the right energy, if it’s well-performed and there is passion and commitment on stage, you could be incredibly moved by a piece that you never heard before. Even if it’s because you were shocked, you were provoked, or you were seduced by the sounds or the storytelling or the shape. I just encourage people to go with an open heart, an open mind. Go and experience the experience. Because there is a high chance that the experience itself will change your life.

Paolo Bortolameolli will lead the San Francisco Symphony in a program of works by Aaron Copland, Kevin Puts, Johann Strauss, Jr., and Richard Strauss on July 14th and 15th. On August 4th he return to Los Angeles lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program of works by Camille Saint-Saëns at the Hollywood Bowl. For his full schedule, please go here.

To see the full interview with Paolo Bortolameolli, please go here.

Main photo: Paolo Bortolameolli (Photo ©Marco Borrelli/Courtesy of the Artist)

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This concert, part of the LA Phil’s Green Umbrella program, finds the LA Phil New Music Group performing. That group was formed in 1981.

Mälkki and Josefowicz were both friends of Knussen (who died in 2018). In our interview with Josefowicz she talked about how important this concert is for her and how therapeutic it is as well.

The program the two have come up with combines work by Knussen and those by other composers:

Colin Matthews’ Hidden Variables opens the program. That is followed by Knussen’s Reflection. Helen Grime’s A Cold Spring follows. A piano quartet by Huw Watkins then precedes two Knussen compositions: Ophelia Dances Book 1 and Two Organa. The concert is scheduled to close with Jonathan Harvey’s Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco.

These composers were selected because they were Knussen’s friends, colleagues and/or students.

Josefowicz will be performing. Also appearing in this concert is pianist John Novacek.

If you recently attended the LA Philharmonic performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and enjoyed it, this is a good follow-up concert. Knussen’s work is equally challenging and equally satisfying on both an emotional and intellectual level.

For tickets go here.

Photo of Leila Josefowicz with Oliver Knussen by Rikimaru Hotta (Courtesy of LeilaJosefowicz.com)

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There are two world premieres as part of this concert. Partite Requiem, composed by Marc Sabat is the first of the two new works being performed. The second work having its first public performance is Swarm Collecting by Sky Macklay. Both works were commissioned by the LA  Philharmonic.

Also on the program is Gabriella Smith’s Carrot Revolution for string quartet; pianist Eric Wubbells’ gretchen am spinnrade and Tristan Perich’s Formations for solo cello and electronics.

The program was curated by Adams and cellist Jay Campbell. In a 2015 review of a recital Campbell gave in New York, Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times, “For such a slight-framed young man, Mr. Campbell has a robust sound, though the delicacy in his playing was just as captivating.”

Campbell is very passionate about new music. According to his bio he has premiered close to 100 works.

Adams, of course, needs no introduction.

The Green Umbrella program that the LA Philharmonic offers gives audiences a chance to experience new and exciting work that doesn’t find its way into traditional repertoire. This is music for the adventurous. The results are quite often stunning.

For tickets go here.

Photo of Jay Campbell by Beowulf Sheehan courtesy of Schmidt Artists International

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To mark both anniversaries, Camerata Pacifica began a Why Beethoven? project last year. The two-year celebration concludes at the end of their just-started 2019-2020 season with a performance of the Beethoven String Quartet in B Flat Major, Op. 130 with its original ending. Last season concluded with the same quartet, but with its revised ending.

I recently spoke by phone with Spence about his original goals for Camerata Pacifica, where he sees the ensemble today and through it all I got insight into his views on classical music today and the role Los Angeles plays in its future.

How was Camerata Pacific carved a place for itself in the classical music world in Southern California?

What we’ve done much more generally is bring a mainstream audience into the 21st century with us. Our mission talks about affecting positively how people experience classical music. At the end of every season my goal is to make the audience more capable listeners than I had at the start of the season. I think we’ve done that. Over three decades this has become a well-honed audience. If you don’t want to come and lean in and listen, because I expect you to do that, don’t come. There are a whole bunch of other groups I can recommend to you.

What was your vision in 1989 and how does Camerata Pacifica today reflect what you envisioned?

I’m glad to say that we’re living the dream. You are a writer in the classical music business, you understand and this is no indictment of you personally, but no other industry writes so poorly about itself like the classical music industry. Tobacco does a better job and they kill people. I don’t think it is as bad as it was. This is the golden age. This is the second renaissance for classical music. 

We’re immersed in this whole Beethoven notion, but we’re still presenting concerts by rules established in 1800 and the wheels are coming off that machine. The large paradigm institutions have to make massive corrections. Filling a 3,000 person concert hall is a problem, particularly for regional symphony orchestras or operas. Filling smaller halls is being lead by chamber music and it offers a broader range of repertoire. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be a part of. If you can’t listen to Toru Takemitsu, then you’re not hearing Beethoven. That’s been an assertion of ours for 30 years.

How important is the pairing of well-known composers with lesser-known composers in order to grow appreciation of classical music?

I think it is critical for the audience. In the latter half of the 20th century you had a small number of white males deciding who was going to be listened to and what was recorded and broadcast and that’s all collapsed. And that’s fabulous. The arrival of the iPod shuffle is brilliant. Young people are not defined by genre. They listen to what they listen to with an open mind. Classical music is always going to be a minority participation sport because it requires greater participation. We’re never going to get a market share of 95% – it will always be 1 or 2 percent. But that share will always be there. There are always smart people who want to think for themselves. Whether Millennials or Gen X or what you want to call it, you are going to have smart curious people. If you have smart, curious people they can be brought to our product. We are stewards of this art form and we, too, as audience members, should be handing it off to the next generation better than we received it. This is what I think about every day.

You have a unique way of looking at what an audience is and/or should be.

I’m not interested in the music lover. A music lover has fairly rigid ideas of with they think is good or bad music. They are usually thinking of 18th or 19th century work written in a linear manner. What I’m interested in are the intellectually curious and it’s going to be Beethoven and George Crumb and Huang Ruo and they will ask “Why?” I want to reach those people. I believe there is a massive audience of intellectually curious who don’t come because they think of it as dusty or boring. Why the hell you’d drop 50 or 100 bucks on that I don’t know.

How would you describe the state of the arts in Los Angeles as we move into the 2020s?

Nobody has asked me that question before. I think Los Angeles is where it is at. I think the LA Philharmonic is doing a superb leadership job. The growing work done, particularly by Esa-Pekka Salonen, that was superb work that has helped create an audience whether happily or unhappily, they expect to be presented with new music on a regular basis.

I think the future of classical music is looking west into the Pacific. And I think Los Angeles and Southern California is poised to do that. Even in the time that we’ve been performing here there’s been an explosion of chamber music groups. You look at Yuval Sharon’s The Industry, some of the off-stage stuff LA Opera is doing – which is critical, Green Umbrella, Jacaradana, we’re trying to work together and show audiences what’s out there and present it collaboratively.

When you see so much going on – good ideas and bad ideas – whether  all these things survive, that’s the sign of a healthy artistic musical environment. Because that’s what you want – constant new ideas and most of them, by the nature of being, aren’t going to work. The more you have, the more that will work. That’s just simple. I think in Southern California we’re seeing that, which is exciting.

All photos courtesy of Camerata Pacifica

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When something becomes taboo, it’s like the forbidden fruit. You know you aren’t supposed to try it, but inevitably you will. The realization of that cause and effect seems to be lost on politicians. As it was on Jesse Helms and others when an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe in Cincinnati became the front line in the culture wars in 1990. Not only did it capture the media’s attention, it became a pivotal moment for a then fourteen-year-old Bryce Dessner.

Dessner is known as one of the members of the rock band The National. He’s also known as a composer who has collaborated with the likes of Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Philip Glass, Sufjan Stevens and Paul Simon.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will offer the world premiere of Triptych (Eyes of One on Another). The work is part of the Green Umbrella Series and was inspired by Dessner’s recollections of the controversy surrounding this exhibit and Mapplethorpe’s work. This premiere is the concert version of Triptych. A larger presentation, with full staging, sets and costume design, will have its premiere on March 15th at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Dessner wrote Triptych in collaboration with librettist Korde Arrington Tuttle (featuring words by Essex Hemphill and Patti Smith) and with the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth in mind.

I recently spoke with Dessner about Triptych, Mapplethorpe and the new recording of his Piano Concerto for 2 Pianos featuring Katia & Marielle Labéque.

What do you remember most about the controversy and shutting down of the Mapplethorpe exhibit?

As a teenager born and raised in Cincinnati, those events really marked the city in a way that stuck with me. It was later on when I got into college and studied art more seriously that I got to know better his work. 

What is it about defining art, particularly the way these photographs were, that provokes greater interest?

I think it absolutely backfired. There is a beautiful essay, The Invisible Dragon [by Dave Hickey] where he talks about on some level Mapplethorpe needed Jessie Helms in terms of how it amplified his work and it became so much more scrutinized and into the bloodstream. It had the opposite effect.

How has Triptych evolved as you near the premiere and do you anticipate making changes before the subsequent performances?

I think the score has evolved dramatically. The process and timing was a bit later than I would normally be comfortable with. It’s a tricky subject matter in terms of getting a solid structure to what we wanted to say. It took a lot of revisions. The music has been shifting up to the last week. It will keep evolving. There’s a bit of pressure with a premiere like this. Ideally we could keep workshopping it and make it better. In June it comes to New York. Before then I would imagine I will revise the score quite a bit.

You’ve chosen to use a lot of vocals accompanied by a chamber orchestra. How did that decision come about?

My challenge on this piece, which is text driven, the libretto is substantial and important and a lot is said with unbelievable poetry. I hope my music measured up. The piece does have a wide range of sounds. I wanted the music to be heard. But here I was very focused on the text to the extent the piece is clear and can be sung. 

There’s a statement about Triptych that says the work “examines how we look and are looked at, bringing us face-to-face with our innermost desires, fears and humanity.” How did writing Triptych bring you face-to-face with those same things?

I try to let the piece guide me and to listen to my collaborators and the great musicians who are singing it and performing it and come to it with an open heart. And to be aware that these conflicts are in me, too.  Just because I’m making this piece, I’m not exempt from confronting these pieces the way others do.

You have a new recording coming out in April featuring your Concerto for Two Pianos and El Chan (also the name of the CD). The Labéque Sisters seem to be a muse for you. What is unique about them and your collaboration with them?

Katia and Marielle have been playing music together since they were kids. They also work 8-10 hours a day together. It’s a joy to make music with them. They’ve been through enough and seen enough and they are open-minded and supportive. It’s been a beautiful experience.

Mapplethorpe said, “My whole point is to transcend the subject…to go beyond the subject somehow so that the composition, the lighting, all around, reaches a certain point of perfection.” As a composer, do you aspire to do the same thing?

I get great joy when the notes on the page, through the interpretive experience and collaborative experience of mounting the performance with performers, almost lift off and I no longer own them. That’s definitely the case with the singers in this project. I hear them sing ideas I had in the studio, but it’s almost a new piece through their interpretation. That feeling is what keeps me going and why I keep doing this.

Main Photo by Shervin Lainez

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