At age 77, I am beginning to feel the urge to look back over my life and ask, what was that all about? I enjoy re-reading the thoughts I have assembled from my journals over the last 20 years or so, and I feel that they contribute something to thinking about music, and to a larger conversation about aesthetics and the role of the artist. As my philosopher friend Andrew said to me many years ago, it is the questions that remain interesting, not so much the answers. Below is a pdf file.
Playing Bach in Social Isolation
Thelma Stein (1910-2006)
My aunt Thelma was a pianist and teacher who frequently performed in Washington DC in the 1940’s and 50’s. After about 1958, she no longer performed in public. When she died, she left dozens, maybe more than 100, of journals dating back to the 1920’s. These journals, with the exception of one of the earliest, whose pages were roughly torn out, had an extraordinarily limited content: they were a meticulous list of every piece of music that she had played each day, alone in her studio. She kept these journals, almost to the end of her life, as a kind of diary, completely incomprehensible to anybody but her.
When we emptied out her house, I took the journals home in several boxes, but seeing that they were pretty thoroughly uninteresting, I threw them out. Occasionally I would think to myself with some anxiety that I did not want to end up like aunt Thelma, a non-performing pianist needing to boost my self-esteem by counting up my private repertoire.
Like everybody else today, I am in “social isolation”, which means no rehearsals, no concerts, no audience. So it is down to the basement to rifle through my boxes of musical scores, looking for what I might want to play, just to soothe my soul, so to speak. I began with Brahms, a set of variations very dear to me, that Bonnie Thron had suggested could be arranged for string sextet. The next day it was Bach’s Art of the Fugue, Contrapunctus I, somber, steady, otherworldly - dictated on his deathbed. I also had the idea to arrange a movement from the Brahms Requiem, after listening tearfully to the Kempe/Fischer-Dieskau/Grümmer recording. Yes, I guess I was shook up and depressed, like many others. I brought up box after box of scores, sifting through them, trying out which things fit my mood. Very moving were a set of Milhaud pieces written in 1944, The Household Muse, reflecting gratitude for daily life in a time of war. They included a piece called “Caring for the Sick”. Talk about resonant - I almost fell off the bench!
Today it was a Beethoven Allegro, sturdy, nonchalant, stoic, joyful. And then back to Bach, a prelude that I recall as the dark and foreboding theme music from an Alec Guinness spy series.
I write down the names of these pieces in my journal, and they reflect to me who I am, what I do, and how I feel. Ah, Thelma!
IF ANYBODY ASKS - Poem by Kay Lindsey
This poem was read by Kay Lindsey on February 22 at the Music of Black Composers concert at Ascension Church.
If Anybody Asks, Photomontage; Kay Lindsey poet, Trish Simonite, photographer, Carlos Chavez, printer
If Anybody Asks, by Kay Lindsey
Oliver Nelson
Oliver Nelson - Saxophone Sonata
Oliver Nelson (June 4, 1932 – October 28, 1975)
Oliver Nelson was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. You may know his name best as a jazz composer/arranger. One of the most significant jazz recordings in jazz history is his album The Blues and the Abstract Truth (1960), and Nelson's composition, "Stolen Moments" is key to that recording and has become a jazz standard.
Nelson was in the Marines (playing woodwinds in the band) and while stationed in Japan attended a concert by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and heard Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and Paul Hindemith's Symphony in E Flat. Nelson later recalled that this "'was the first time that I had heard really modern music for back in St. Louis I hadn't even known that Negroes were allowed to go to concerts. I realized everything didn't have to sound like Beethoven or Brahms. It was then that I decided to become a composer'".
Upon his return to Missouri from military service, Nelson studied music composition and theory at Washington and Lincoln Universities. He graduated with a master's degree in 1958. Composers who he studied with include Elliott Carter, Robert Wykes and George Tremblay.
In 1958, after completing his degree, Nelson moved to New York City and played with an amazing array of jazz legends and bands including Erskine Hawkins and Wild Bill Davis. The west coast followed, where he played with Louie Bellson big band, and began recording for Prestige Records and briefly played with Count Basie and Duke Ellington and the Quincy Jones big band.
Nelson was also involved in writing music for the television and movie industry and in 1967 moved to LA to be closer to that work. He composed background music for television and film including Ironside, Night Gallery, Columbo, and The Six Million Dollar Man. Films scored by Nelson include Death of a Gunfighter and Skullduggery He was also the arranger and producer for albums for Gato Barbieri, Nancy Wilson, James Brown, the Temptations, and Diana Ross.
Oliver Nelson died of a massive heart attack in 1975 at the age of 43. Those close to him knew he was spreading his talents too thin by going from the East Coast to perform, and to the West Coast for music-arranging jobs. His was a great talent that left us too soon.
Sharon Burton
Interesting questions from Sharon Burton
Sharon Burton is writing a book, and posed a series of curious questions to artists. I was privileged to be asked, and so I have posted my answers below.
1. Have you tried micro-movements or something similar to reach your creative goals? How did that work for you?
This is a tough question for me, for some reason. Everything seems like a micro-movement, especially when you are stuck. Sometimes it is just, do something, anything - start anywhere. But I also have a very strong and reliable inner guide - a sense of when a thing is right, and when it is wrong. There is no doubt what is "yes" and what is "no". Many times there has seemed to be no way forward, but I am very persistent - to a fault - and adaptable. I have had to be.
2. Have you ever had to confront feelings of fear in completing a creative project? How did you get past it?
Yes, quite often! And it is the closest projects, the ones that are most important to me, the most central, that intimidate me the most. It's like Kafka's story of the gate that is open but guarded, and one is told to wait for permission, which never comes, and it turns out the gate was meant only for you. I somehow confuse the importance to me of a project with an impression of its impossibility. I have put off projects for years, just because they mean so much to me that they seem forbidden. I still have such projects, in boxes in the basement. Alas! Nevertheless, I have overcome these feelings (I guess through a kind of grace) in individual instances, and reached my goals. I think of the fairy tale in which the hero is so blinded by love that he does not even see the distractions along the road to his beloved.
3. How do you make time for your creativity with all of the demands on your time? Do you use any tricks or strategies to do this?
I was a musician until the age of 26, when I went back to school to get marketable professional training in another field. Within a couple of years, partly to my surprise, I found that I could not shake or tame my first love, music. I managed with considerable difficulty to fan the flames little by little until I was able to shape a life that included both work and music. It was a drive, a compulsion, not tricks or strategy. At age 56 I took early retirement and became once again a full-time musician.
4. When was the first time you considered yourself an artist? Was this a natural process or did you have to work on yourself to identify yourself as a creative?
Despite my inner drive to play music all my life, strangely enough I did not consider myself an artist until quite recently. Partly this is because I am married to a visual artist, and in that world only composers, but not performers, are considered artists. At some point, there was the "Duh, I am an artist", moment, that explained much about my life. But this probably only happened in my 60's.
5. What has your experience been with setting goals and intentions in the past and how has that affected your creative practice?
Goals and dreams need to be constantly refined. One says "fame and fortune", when what you really mean is just three colleagues who respect your work, and enough resources to get by. I have become better at consulting my inner driver, who is often quite loud and clear. Sometimes I frame it as, "Just the swoony stuff", of which there is a great deal. Nevertheless, I am full of plans, grandiose and small - I list them every day in my notebook, and see some of the same ones appear year after year. But the small goals are like shopping lists - they get done. My wife used to say my big dreams take 3-5 years to materialize, but they usually do eventually materialize - I would say, about 60% of the time.
6. What steps did you take to get the courage to share your work? What would you do differently?
I have always had a very strong drive to be heard. At the age of 21, I realized that there was nothing to fear, and I had nothing to lose. Don't imagine that this made things easy for me! Regrets are impossible and meaningless. This is the life that I had, and it is truly wonderful. I would have been kinder to myself if that had been possible.
7. Who supports your creativity? How do you find support for your creativity?
My marriage has always been based on mutual support of our creativity, and it has served us both for almost 50 years. Psychotherapy has also been essential. Successful accomplishment of my work requires compatible colleagues, loyal audiences, supportive allies, public venues, and funding. Each of these has been a challenge in its own way.
8. Is self-care important as a creative? How does it affect your creative output?
Absolutely! Eating, sleeping, walking, seeing family and friends, travel, household chores, reading, listening to the birds … having a real life. I make use of amazingly wonderful health professionals to keep my body and especially my hands and arms functioning at age 70. But equally important at this age is a backward look at what this life was all about, and for this I am assisted by two wonderful psychotherapists.
9. How do you handle disappointments with your creative work? For example, share a time when your work was not accepted or received a lot of critical comments. What did this situation teach you about handling disappointments?
I have said, only half joking, that disappointments are my bread and butter. Rejections, negative reviews, hostility and sabotage from competitors, and a host of other unpleasant types of interaction between the world and my art have been constant for my entire career. I am learning not to take these things (exclusively) personally - rather, they reflect the human situation and specifically the situation of the artist in these obviously difficult times. A reviewer once described my piano-playing as "overly insistent sound", and I fretted over this comment for years. Eventually I came to a couple of insights: one, he was expressing a covert anti-semitism; and two, I was trying too hard to be heard. I took this to heart and have lightened up a little.
Some Notes for the African-American Composers Program
George Theophilus Walker - Violin Sonata #1 (1958). "To my Mother"
George Walker, 1922-2018, studied at Oberlin College, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Eastman School of Music, and was a pupil of Serkin, Scalero, Menotti and Boulanger. He was a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1996.
From "George Walker: Reminiscences of an American Composer and Pianist", Scarecrow Press, 2008:
Epigram: “I cannot always stand upon the peak and touch the stars.
Sometimes the wind is thick with snow and bleak.
And there are scars of sorrows that are long since past.”
- from Stars by Susan Keeney
“My mother, Rosa King, obtained a job in the Government Printing office in Washington, DC, after graduating from M Street High School (later Dunbar High School) when she was sixteen. She was able to support my grandmother, a single parent whose second husband died when my mother was a young child. My grandmother's first husband was sold at a slave auction and was never seen again. She fled north with friends in the middle of the night from a plantation in Virginia. When they approached Washington, DC, they encountered the Union Army and freedom. They had successfully escaped the despicable tyranny and inhumanity of the Confederacy. When I ventured to ask my grandmother what it was like to be a slave, she replied, "They did everything except eat us."
My mother's gifts were apparent to all who knew her. Her mind was remarkably agile. Her speech, flawless (without any regional accent) and quick to respond, dominated every conversation. Slang, even the ubiquitous "okay," was never used by either parent. She had a very special talent for arithmetic, and she was a superb bridge player. The unassuming bond between her and my grandmother was remarkable.
There was an unusual, innate directness about my mother that was evident in her gaze and her ability to convey an opinion that was not coated with malice or envy. She enjoyed laughing about the foibles of others while understanding the fragility of their situation. She was a magnet to which persons with problems gravitated because they sensed her empathy. She also had psychic powers. Forseeing in a dream the closing of banks by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first days in office in 1933, she withdrew our savings the next day.”
Maritza Rivera, poet in residence
Maritza Rivera’s poem, written at the Musica Viva 4/17/19 concert:
Piano Magic
Music descends
the stone steps of night
and fills our empty crevices
like water in a glass of pebbles.
It is alive and echoes
like hello in a dark cave.
It is the call of a dinner bell
that nourishes us
so we gather obediently
lest it stop playing.
We look and listen in wonder
but mostly we imagine each note
drifting gently like whispered wishes
never wanting such magic to end.
(from Wojnarowicz, at the Whitney)
August 2018
In August I seem to be grappling with piano-playing and identity issues.
June and July, 2018
In June and July I was reading Kant and thinking about composers, music, families, etc. Here are my notes:
Journal March-May 2018
Comforting sign in Bonnie Thron's music studio
Self-filling watering can by Lonnie Holley ("JG Thirwell's Tumblr", Mass MOCA, 2017)
Carl's journal, 2017
I have collected my journal entries from the last year, extracting music-related, poetic, and philosophical writings, and leaving behind shopping lists, concert planning, public relations, etc. Mostly single sentences, in chronological order, about music and life. Some of them I continue to mull over. Some of them, even I don't know what I was thinking. I am posting these because some of the ideas may be useful and/or entertaining to you, and I find it helpful to have them collected in one place. Here and there I see the germs of new projects. For instance, the magic watering can image/idea led to the commissioning of new works by local composers. They are posted in three pdfs:
Feature Article About Us
Ellyn Wexler published this terrific article about us and our upcoming March 31 concert.
News from Raleigh
Bonnie Thron and Bill Robinson will come up for the March 31 concert at Church of the Ascension.
Check out Bill's "Autobillography"
Rehearsal photos
Mei Mei also shot a lot of great rehearsal photos.
Ascension Concert
Artist Mei Mei Chang was at the October 21 concert at Church of the Ascension. Here are some of her photos.
More photos from Mei Mei
Photos from 9.18
Artist Mei Mei Chang took some photos at the house concert:
House concert
Last night's house concert was pretty amazing. The Brahms Quartet was everything one could wish for, better than in any of the rehearsals. It felt very good to musicians and listeners alike. Matt Testa and Bobby Hill were in the audience. I posted the recording at: http://www.dcmusicaviva.org/recordings/
Mei Mei Chang took photos, which I will post later, and Marilyn got a good video clip that she put on Facebook and Instagram. Maybe I can post it here too.
WOWD Testa interview update
Here is the interview, recorded from my computer while I was in the studio.
WOWD Radio interview
Matt Testa has started an experimental music program on Takoma Park's new micro radio station, WOWD 94.3 FM. It airs Wednesday nights at 6 pm. He will interview me about WMV on Wednesday September 14 around 6:30 pm. I will bring some of our best, way out there stuff. Here is a clip from a piece by James Brody, based on the DNA sequence of a dopamine receptor (commissioned by WMV in 2002).