The Fredösphere

Some weeks ago, I mentioned Joshua Shank while blogging about several choral composers who are writing interesting music right now.  Today I am very pleased to reintroduce him as a guest blogger at The Fredösphere.  Joshua is going to describe his approach to composing.  Part one of his essay follows; part two will appear in a few days hence. 

And by the way, Josh's kind words about The Fredösphere are sufficiently extravagant that I feel the need to assure you that he is a real person, and not some product of my overactive, overly needy imagination.  Without any more ado, take it away, Josh!

What do you do when a great, musically-oriented blog asks you to do a guest post?  You just end up writing about what you know and, in my case, it’s my own music.  I tend not to think too philosophically about my music-making or where it belongs in grand scheme of things (I currently make my living teaching 7th-9th grade choral music in a suburb of St. Paul, MN) and so anything I would have to say to the Fredösphere would have to be about my own experiences as a musician.  Yes, I definitely have opinions about a few things but I don’t think I’m smart enough for anyone to want to hear them (despite this, these opinions will more than likely sneak there way into what you’re about to read).

In my experiences singing or conducting a choral work I have always found that, for some reason, the music comes alive much more when you discover a personal connection to the piece you’re performing.  This personal connection could be something fairly innocuous or something much more profound and emotional.  So what follows is the story of a piece I wrote in the winter of 2004 from the initial commission to its eventual publication.  As a composition takes different forms in a variety of stages, I have separated this essay into sections which deal with these periods in the life of a choral work written by yours truly.  I hope you like it.  If you don’t then you’re probably just really jaded and cynical…and also ugly.  Just kidding.

As an addendum to this essay, you may view the score as well as listen to the premiere performance by the Choral Arts Ensemble under guest conductor Dale Warland.

AUTUMN: The Evolution of a Choral Work Which Was Written by a Stereotypically Romantic and Somewhat Quirky Composer

The Commission
From September 2003 until May 2004 I had the wonderful privilege of being able to sing with the Choral Arts Ensemble of Rochester, Minnesota.  I had a great time singing and blowing off some steam while I did my student teaching in a neighboring town and, due to it being a season of transitioning conductors, was able to sing under some incredible guest artists who came in to helm the choir (Weston Noble of Luther College, Robert Morris of Macalester College and Dale Warland of the Dale Warland Singers!).  Traditionally, there had always been 2 commissions a year with this particular ensemble—a “Christmas carol” every year in memory of a great friend to the choir and another work for the spring.  That year the honors fell to local composer named Kevin Dobbe to write the carol and Pulitzer Prize-winning, Grammy Award-winning composer Dominick Argento to write the other one.  The interim conductor and members of the group knew I was a composer but it never entered into my role with the organization…until late November (please play a loud diminished chord on a piano here for dramatic effect).

I received a phone call on a November afternoon from the commissioning club (which, by the way, is an amazing thing…a group of non-musician professionals in a town in Minnesota who are willing to pay for a new choral work).  This phone call informed me that Dr. Argento had decided not to write a work after all and that my name had instead been suggested and eventually accepted for the task.  This sent me on the journey you’re about to read about.

The Terror
Usually, when I’m commissioned to write a work I end up completely procrastinating.  However, to this date I have never missed a deadline…something which gets harder and harder to do the more and more works I have to write in a year.  Well, I suppose there was this one time I asked for a 3-day extension but, in the end, I worked my tail off and made the original deadline.  (Interesting note: their fax machine broke when I tried to send the work in…presumably because all my tone clusters wouldn’t fit through the dang thing).  Despite all this procrastination, the commission ends up being something akin to Edgar Allen Poe’s “tell-tale heart” that lingers in the back of my mind nearly 24 hours a day until it’s done.  Aside from the commission money, the main reason I finish pieces is just to exorcise them from my brain.  (Note: the main point of this little diatribe is that being commissioned to write a work on a deadline can be a blessing as well as a curse.  Anyone who has experienced this knows exactly what I mean.)

The Text
I am always reading poetry.  For a non-English major, I have an impressive-if-nerdy collection of poetry books which I’ve bought or received as gifts from people.  Consequently, I always have poems that make it into my computer files as possible ones to set to music.  The interesting fact is the ratio of poetry books in comparison to the amount of poems I find which are “settable” to music.  For example, I came up with 3 out of Walt Whitman’s entire Leaves of Grass. 

So, in this particular case, I clicked open my “poems” file on my horrible, P.O.S. computer that got me through college and combed over what I had.  After many hours of searching and reading and re-reading, I ended up with 2 things: an exquisite English translation of a poem by Rumi entitled The Water Wheel and Rainer Maria Rilke’s German poem Herbst (also translated to English).  We’ll take these texts one by one.

The Water Wheel
By Rumi (1207-1273)
Translated by Coleman Barks

Stay together, friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made
of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water
and turns and gives it away,
weeping.

That way it stays in the garden,
whereas another roundness rolls
through a dry riverbed looking
for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury.

I had originally been attracted to this text just based on the commission itself.  It was to be in honor the Ensemble’s music director in the interim year, Robert Giere, in appreciation for his amazing service to the organization (the choir is traditionally directed exclusively by their music director…Bob prepared it for 3 guest conductors and did the Christmas concert by himself).  As such, I thought a poem about service, giving and thankfulness would be appropriate…hence, the Rumi text.

Autumn (Herbst)
By Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Translated by Edward Snow

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far off,
as if in the heavens distant gardens had withered:
they fall with gestures that say “no.”

And in the night the heavy earth falls
from all the stars into loneliness.
We are falling.  This hand is falling.
And look at the others: it is in them all.

And yet there is One who holds this falling
with infinite softness in his hands.

I connect with very few poems as viscerally as I connected with this one.  At the time I first saw this text I was sitting in Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center waiting for the premiere of René Clausen’s 9/11 commemoration piece, Memorial, with the Concordia Choir and Orchestra (awesome piece—worth checking out).  In the program there was this text.  Dr. Clausen did not set it as part of the work…it just stood out on the back cover in simple black-and-white.  It was amazing and, consequently, set me off on a quest to find more Rilke poetry (did you know he wrote in both French and German?).

After many days of soul-searching, I decided on the Rilke text for some intangible reason that justified my choice.  In the end it’s just a beautiful text (as all of his poems are) and I thought it would be better to just write something truthful instead of using a poem I was half-heartedly connected to only for the subject matter it contained.

Thanks to Josh, and as for the rest of you, keep watching this space for part two.