Via pulchritudinis

On November 22, 2009, in the Sistine Chapel, Benedict XVI delivered an address to an audience of 250 singers, musicians, writers, painters, architects, sculptors, actors and film producers. The address, "You Are the Custodians of Beauty," suggested the possibility of "a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry."

Not surprisingly, the pontiff affirmed the work of artists in bringing beauty into the world and elevating our gaze above its negative elements, combating the decline into resignation and despair. He emphasized the importance of the arts in the realm of faith and vice versa.

As I began to read the address (in translation), I admit that I braced myself for a reduction of art to the attractive and pleasant.

I am thankful to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While Benedict XVI did use the word "beauty" or "beautiful" forty-four times in the short speech, and while his only mention of music was "in the service of the liturgy," it is to his credit that he affirmed even more art's power to challenge and shock, using this quote from painter Georges Braque: "Art is meant to disturb, science reassures."

He went on to say that art "pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path," and stated explicitly that he is not promoting easy, escapist art. This acknowledgment of difficult art was balanced by a rejection of "gratuitous provocation" and of "seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others."

I wonder how many artists feel, as I do, a constant struggle to find what it can possibly mean for me to make art that could lead hearts toward the infinite. Perhaps there is some help to be found in Benedict XVI's words: "The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity."

Could it be in the nature of art itself, the effort to create something meaningful and share something about the nature of being alive--could it be intrinsic to making art? Surely not, or all art would draw us deeper in faith. Is it some mysterious transference of my struggle toward faith that finds its way into my work without any direct intention on my part?

No, I think artists make decisions. Not always--there are surely many mysteries, many happy accidents. But I think it is possible for me to choose to make a destructive work, a work that discourages, that incites rage, and so on. Likewise, I think it is possible for me to make a positive work, not merely "happy" but a work that engages with the nature of life and meaning in some small but beneficial way.

To whatever degree I make these choices, I want to make good ones.

Shane Prine, eximposition.
Michael O'Brien, You Sought Me.
Anonymous, Jesus graffiti on a pier.

Kodak (Hall) Moment: the world premiere of OCTOBER SUNRISE

I am very happy to report that the Eastman Wind Orchestra gave a beautiful world premiere performance of my October Sunrise on the 21st of October, 2009.

Conductor Mark Davis Scatterday programmed the work for the Eastman Wind Orchestra, the first- and second- year students at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, rather than the Eastman Wind Ensemble because the work is less challenging than the repertoire typically studied by his student musicians in later years of their undergraduate studies. Mark Scatterday said he would consider October Sunrise a work of difficulty level 4, meaning that it would be appropriate for the stronger high school wind ensembles. He had very complimentary things to say about the work and had clearly bought into it long before putting it on stage, as the group sounded very well prepared when I was invited to eavesdrop on their rehearsal.

On the morning of the performance I had a couple of free hours. I wandered into the music library at Eastman and discovered a large display of ephemera from the early history of the wind program at Eastman. The idea of a virtuoso Wind Ensemble, as distinct from a large military-style band, was pioneered by Frederick Fennell, starting with his establishment of a band program during his student days in the late 1930s and evolving into the first modern Wind Ensemble by the early 1950s. (Continued after the jump.)

If I wasn't already excited about the EWO performing my music, I was certainly moved when I stopped to reflect on the group's history, to read letters from Fennell outlining his goals for a wind program at Eastman School of Music, to see early photos from rehearsals, and to see commercial recordings of the group from the 1950s onward.

I admit it: the placement of the word OCTOBER on this large banner near the entrance to the hall was not, in fact, to announce the performance of my OCTOBER SUNRISE. The Eastman Theatre, built in 1922 by Kodak founder George Eastman as a concert hall and movie palace, had its grand reopening just a couple of weeks prior to my performance there. The restored hall, renamed Kodak Hall, is breathtaking. The acoustics are a bit bright for wind ensemble, favoring the percussion more than might be ideal, but of course the hall is also home to the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra whose complement of strings is probably very well served by the rich high-frequency reverberation. Still, the Eastman Wind Orchestra are settling into their remodeled home and I very much enjoyed the beautiful, rich sound palette they create in that space.

Ironically, there are signs prohibiting photography in Kodak Hall! No one seemed to mind my taking a few snapshots of the group, the conductor, and myself before and after the event, so I will assume that is intended to discourage photography during performances. I will post a few small interior images here. In any case, my blurry snapshots could not do justice to the space. For better photos, I would refer the reader here.

I express my thanks to Mark Scatterday and every member of the Eastman Wind Orchestra for an excellent performance of October Sunrise, and to a very gracious Rochester audience for welcoming the piece into the world.

I also want to thank Dr. Harlan Parker and the Peabody Wind Ensemble for reading through the work in rehearsal shortly after I wrote it; your reading gave me a better sense of scale that led me to clarify the pulse at the beginning, and was very musical and rewarding in its own right.

October Sunrise is friendly, accessible music; my friend and fellow composer Samuel Burt teasingly accuses me of being a populist. Perhaps it is telling that my least experimental composition to date has also earned the highest-profile performance to date, and I have no complaints about that. I built a series of unfolding musical ideas into this little piece that I find interesting, and wrapped them in what I consider an appealingly honest, straightforward sound. I am very grateful to have heard that sound realized in a public performance.

And, for the record, I am slightly taller than Maestro Scatterday; he stood on his toes just before the photo was taken.

(More snapshots can be seen on flickr.)

I'm in! Walden School NY Composers Forum

It appears my name has been added--in facebook posts, anyway--to the list of "featured composers" on the upcoming Walden School Alumni Composers Forum in New York.

The Walden School is an amazing program, connecting musicianship pedagogy with the nurturing of creativity. I am an alumnus only second-hand, having attended two Teacher Training Institute sessions, but Walden has a very fond place in my heart and I am deeply grateful to be included.

If you are in New York City on the afternoon of November 15, please join us, 3 to 5 p.m. at The Gershwin Hotel, 7 East 27th St.

American Consumers Orchestra?

It isn't often as a composer that I feel that I am faced with an ethical dilemma over multinational corporate sponsorship.

But american composers orchestra has managed to give me pause, with this new partnership with LVMH - the French holding company for Louis Vuitton (luxury leather goods and accessories), Moët (mass producer of champagne) and Hennessy (favorite cognac of rappers and of Kim Jong-Il).

It's not that I think any of these storied products is inherently wrong. But these companies sell a "livin' large" consumerist lifestyle image that is the opposite of thoughtful new music. Of course, from their bottom-line perspective, we avant-nerds are just a gap in their market share. I'm debating whether I should bother to voice my disappointment to ACO.

Facebook your way out of any problem!

Huh?

Two girls in Australia posted their facebook status as "trapped in a storm drain" and they were rescued? Wow, fb is the solution to everything!

Status: "is late for work" - and someone will come along with a helicopter!

Status: "is not yet finished grading those papers" and all my students would skip class! (Actually, that might work too well.)

Obama should post "is battling unemployment and trying to provide health care," and the Oval Office would be overrun by brilliant economists and investors with viable solutions! (I wonder how much help he could marshal with "is battling intransigently partisan politicians"?)

Tsvangirai should post that he won a democratic election but his economy is dysfunctional and a dictator refuses to abdicate and the military is a vast mafia. Maybe the west would notice if he posted it on fb.

Maybe Christ's followers need to post, "struggling with lukewarmness." I know I do.

~m

Like ears to my music

Alright, I know I am probably being silly about this, but it is sort of a big deal to me, and I am very very thankful for it: in a matter of hours my October Sunrise for wind ensemble will receive its world premiere from a fantastic group, the Eastman Wind Orchestra. It is my first performance of a "work for large forces" (and don't get me started on the military metaphors in music organizations).

If I start listing all the people and things I am thankful for I will sound even sillier--no one is handing me an Oscar--so I won't do that.

I got a call a couple of hours ago from the conductor, Dr. Mark Scatterday, and he tells me rehearsals have gone well and the performers really like the piece, which is just about the best possible news to me--like ears to my music! A week ago I was still worrying that something might go wrong in rehearsal that would lead them to drop the piece--one must worry about something, I guess--and maybe I still don't quite believe it that this little piece will finally have a performance!

If this performance doesn't go well, then the piece probably does not work--but I'm pretty sure it will. I can be confident, not because I think it is a profoundly great piece, but because I was fairly conservative. Sure, I asked for some difficult things--just not all at once. And of course I can be confident because Eastman invented the wind ensemble.

They said they're enjoying it, right? Which means it's working, right? They're not having to fight with the piece to try to make music out of it, right?

Such a strange thing, to be so deeply involved with the music and yet completely disconnected from it.

The Exeter Sacred Harp Singing: a capella heavy metal!

Jennifer and I did something new yesterday. Or, to be more exact, we did something very old, which was new to us. We drove up into rural Pennsylvania to the Exeter Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Grounds. It was so fun! We really appreciate Elizabeth and Ted Stokes and the Pennsylvania Sacred Harp singers for organizing the event.

Even though I'm originally from north Alabama, an area with a long history and an ongoing practice of Sacred harp singing, also known as a "fa-so-la" singing or "shape note" singing, and even though I had heard of it at least since college, I had never gotten around to checking it out. Last week I decided I wanted to go explore.

This all-day Sacred Harp singing in Pennsylvania was in a small white wooden church building, a Friends Meeting House built in the early 1900s. The old hardwood pews were built in a "hollow square" arrangement, so that the leader stands in the middle (near the stove that still heats the building in winter) with all the singers facing the middle. The trebles, altos, basses and tenors sit by section, on the four sides of the square. The tenor has the primary melody, but that melody is buried in a contrapuntal texture so that all the parts are more-or-less equally important melodies.

There were about 60 people there, which filled the building. Those very old a capella songs are sung with a strong beat, and everyone sings at the top of their lungs! Also, the desired sound is nasal, bright and reedy and very exciting.

Today I have been thinking about that sound, and about the visceral appeal of the music. The contrapuntal texture and intense, focused vocal projection make a wall of sound, and the practice seems to favor making the sound as loud as possible. The music has a strong beat, and many of the singers keep the beat with their arms as they sing. Leaders tend to lead the songs rather quickly, and they also take turns very quickly, so that the sound comes in bursts of just a couple of minutes, with very little pause between.

An intense wall of sound, as loud as possible, with a powerful beat--my response would be very much the same if you asked me why I enjoy certain heavy rock music. It makes me think - and this is purely conjecture - that there is something deeply pleasurable about both because that's how our mind-body works; that there is something about us that finds that kind of intensity pleasurable.

I have also been thinking about how this intense experience (and I'm sure it won't be my last Sacred Harp singing) will influence my composing. More thoughts about that later. ~ML

Orchestra Stops Mid-Performance, Composer Sues

If the story circulating in the press follows the general outline of events, it reflects astonishingly unprofessional orchestra management.

It's old news now, but somehow (something to do with finishing my DMA! Yippee!) I didn't hear about it at the time: noted composer Nathan Currier hired the Brooklyn Philharmonic to perform his massive new work of higher ecological consciousness, The Gaian Variations, in April 2004. Currier believed that all the performance details were settled. At the second intermission, the orchestra's CEO pulled him aside and explained that, contrary to their prior communications, the work was going to keep the orchestra on the job past the standard three-hour union call, requiring overtime pay that the organization simply didn't have. She insisted that he make cuts to the score on the spot. The biggest disaster, though, was that, instead of using his cuts, the orchestra resumed performing after intermission and then... just... stopped.

Currier, who paid the orchestra $70,000 for their performance, is suing them, but insists he will drop the suit if they'll give the work another performance.

Paying the orchestra out of pocket for a performance (rather than just a recording) is not unheard of when a composer has lots of money and wants a particular performance badly enough. As I understand it, the absolute top-shelf orchestras and organizations--NY Phil, the Met--will not take on that sort of arrangement, for fear it undercuts their credibility. That's not to say that the Brooklyn Phil are slouches; for 55 years they've been an important part of the NYC music scene, with very famous directors giving important premieres of major new works.

The NY Post article gives the impression that this was Nathan Currier's "big break." That's not exactly accurate. Currier has won major awards and gained substantial recognition, with a commission from the Berlin Philharmonic and performance by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, an American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the Rome Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and on and on.

But getting a performance of a huge composition is a very big deal, and very hard to get. It's not as if composers normally write more than a handful of super-long works in a lifetime. Most orchestra composers, even those who are getting performances, generally shoot for the 15-30 minute range, not 2-3 hours!

It seems unwise for Currier to be stating publicly that he will drop the charges if they will perform the work again. He's giving away his bargaining position.

What would you ask for? I'm not the litigious sort. Or, rather, I am learning that defending my rights is not the way to happiness.

But it seems he'll need more than just another performance if he hopes to undo the damage. Rightfully or otherwise, this unpleasantness will surely attach to him, even if he was clearly in the right, making other performing organizations reluctant to work with him.

If he is serious about a suit, I would think he should be asking for three or four rehearsals, then a performance, plus non-exclusive audio- and video-recording rights so that he can re-purpose this work and have a little more control over the way it is presented next time--plus an apology in the Times and other statements from the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

Of course, I haven't seen the contract. Who knows how he got himself into this.

In any case, tragically, it will probably be impossible for the orchestra to make this right even if they want to. The Brooklyn Phil is broke, and, for the foreseeable future, closed for business.

~m

Dora at Baltimore Theatre Project (review)

The Peabody Chamber Opera's production of Dora by composer Melissa Shiflett and librettist Nancy Fales Garrett (Baltimore Theater Project, April 23-26, 2009); review.

Saturday's cast gave Dora an excellent performance, with superlative singing and fine acting through the story's considerable emotional range. The orchestra likewise provided estimable support in their reading of the conservative tonal score. Expert vocal writing showed the singers to good effect in solo arias and ensemble numbers, with the sextet "What Do Women Want?" an especially well-constructed example. The use of violin harmonics beneath the disturbing revelations of the K's children was a notable touch of effective orchestration in an otherwise thickly homophonic and unvaried texture.

Regrettably, by intermission it was clear that Dora's creators had missed the opportunity to engage with the profound implications of Freud's work, choosing instead to reduce one of the great thinkers of modern times to the usual caricature of a walking double entendre. I declined to stay for the second act, having seen that theatrical impact in Dora was achieved at every turn by the crude rather than the thoughtful, and artistic director Roger Brunyate missed no opportunity to foreground the lurid still further. (For an example of profound treatment of a great mind, consider Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's groundbreaking Einstein on the Beach.)

Even more troubling than the failure to offer intelligent insight into psychoanalysis is that Dora, in exaggerating the offenses of our cultural phallocentrism, re-inscribes and reinforces those offenses by objectifying women, quite literally in the conclusion of Act I and in only slightly more subtle ways throughout. Woman is presented as either frigid corpse (Frau Bauer), virgin (Dora) or whore (Frau K), projected through costumes of black, white and red. Taken together, even these color choices tacitly associate the feminine with the demonic.

Freud's Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria still awaits a truly perspicacious treatment, and I look forward to hearing and seeing the extraordinarily gifted Peabody Chamber Opera staging more discerning works in the future.

Happy Easter!

Be strong and take heart,
all you who hope in the LORD (Psalm 31:24).

Re-focusing

Hello, world,

Prior posts to this blog have ranged from the arts to politics to economics to faith to religion and back to the arts, to who-knows-what. Today I am turning over a new bloggy leaf and focusing a little more on the artistic-spiritual-creative life, since this blog is an extension of my "online presence"--makes me feel like a ghost--my online presence as a composer (www.marklackey.net). For me, the artistic-spiritual-creative life connects to practice, in forms such as prayer, and so a prayer can still have a home here, as I envision this. I still have political opinions, but I'll put them somewhere else. And, no, that's not an invitation for you to tell me where I should put them. :)

~MAL