capital C, capital P

I closed out my MM years the last two nights with the Ears, Eyes, and Feet concert at UT, on which I played Ian Dicke's new piece Get Rich Quick for piano and prerecorded accompaniment, with six dancers onstage throwing shoes at each other. It was a blast, and I got to wear a top hat and spats--the latter being a wonderful old-school wardrobe item the existence of which I hadn't previously been aware. The greatest lessons are always unexpected, eh?

This semester culminated a general tendency during my UT years toward performance, specifically of new music and jazz, over what I've been calling "capital-C Composing." When I pulled into Austin in August '07 I was in the thrall of my most compositionally productive year--I pumped out pieces in '07 and the first half of '08 with no regard whatsoever for quality or editing. I had so many piece ideas that it was all I could do to tear through a first draft, throw it into Finale, and then move right on. I've slowed down since, probably healthily, partially because my time here has called my attention to a lot of questions that I hadn't previously considered. In some ways I consider the second year of my Master's--during which I only finished three new pieces--a running start into the leap I hope to now take.

Regardless of psychological issues, the central practical reason for my slower compositional pace was an increased devotion to playing. I have a hard time thinking I'll regret this choice; I had the opportunity to play a lot of new music with a lot of awesome performers this year, and that's not a chance I'll have as readily when I'm out of school. Composing, by contrast, I can do by myself in a shed somewhere (and plan to). But playing Eight Songs for a Mad King with the UT NME and John Duykers? Giving the second performance of Gabriela Frank's New Andean Songs? Rocking out Louis Andriessen's M is for Man, Music, Mozart with a crew of badass horn players? Spending a month combing over the details of Sebastian Currier's Vocalissimus? Not to mention doing Music for a Summer Evening with a group of dancers and a three-story set of scaffolding, and playing music by my composer friends, which is always particularly rewarding. These are experiences I was only able to have because of UT, specifically I suppose because of Dan Welcher and the New Music Ensemble, and I'm grateful for them.

One of my personal mantras has been, leaving school, that I want to regroup and develop a new approach to composing that grows organically from the playing of music. Living in Austin, where every party seems to include a jam session, has confirmed the necessity of this. For the moment it may involve moving away from scores, and toward putting together music for live performances or recordings. But largely I really don't know what the stylistic results of this new approach will be. I proceed not out of dedication to an abstract, unrealized ideal, but in pursuit of a particular energy whose ends I can't entirely envision. This is exciting.

It's also always hard to say what will happen when I get back to Colorado again. I have a history of writing big pieces in Grand Lake; my two orchestra pieces were drafted during my two summers in the mountains. Maybe I'll catch that bug again. For now, I have three pieces in the works for friends, about which more details soon. So for at least the next couple months I'll still have a foot in "capital-C composing." I think it'll feel a lot different outside the confines of school. One older composer describing my generation used the metaphor of a drunk falling asleep on a pool table, then rolling off in the middle of the night; when he eventually woke up, the room still dark, he thought he was still on the table, and so began to crawl about tentatively, feeling for its edges. It's a bizarre analogy, but for some reason I really like it.

Also, the Austin Chronicle recently did an interesting piece on our local composers, academic and non-. There has been a good amount of press recently examining our growing new-music scene, and the energy seems to be positive and productive.

I leave Austin in a few days, at least for the summer; my schedule after that is a bit uncertain. I do plan to be back here, but nonetheless things are shifting, and it is time to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of these two confusing, enriching years. I think I spent most of my time here just getting my bearings, but that's been a pattern in life, really--each phase seems to end around the time I get comfortable with it. At least this keeps me on my toes. And the seeds planted in each phase can still come to blossom in the next. Cheers to that.