Last August it felt like we were all in this together. "This" meaning, for musicians like me, that none of us, no matter where in the world we lived, were playing concerts. Some of us, used the time to develop more technique, write music for people who were in need of ways of connecting to others, and make amazing videos answering burning questions about the "how" and "why" of violin playing (like Augustin Hadelich).
I was incredibly productive (that link goes to the pieces in my catalog from 2020, minus a bunch of pieces not listed that are still awaiting premieres or publication), and incredibly fortunate, because there were people all over the world posting videos of the solo pieces I wrote, as well as posting videos of pieces I wrote for two or more instruments (some assembled remotely, and some made with real-time partners at home). It did help me feel unusually connected to the musical world outside of my town, my area, and my country.
There was also, in the absence of concerts to play, perhaps, a hightened awareness of how blatant and omnipresence in American society racism is, which propelled a great many musicians into learning about how non-racially-diverse the usual "classical" repertoire is, and how few women have music that makes its way into orchestral concert programs. I got to see stabs at remedying this problem. In July I started learning about performances of my string orchestra transcription of Florence Price's "Adoration," and new performance videos continued through the remainder of the academic year. It was tremendously exciting.
Things are different this August. Vaccinated people are playing concerts again. Most of the musicians I know in the world outside of our area of downstate Illinois are vaccinated, and they are able to engage in performances for a masked and vaccinated audience. The Delta variant of Covid is frightening, but we do know that being vaccinated and wearing masks when sharing indoor air with people who may or may not be vaccinated will keep us safe until it is time for a booster.
While the rest of the musical world is getting on with their lives as usual, and living their musical lives less online (which is certainly a good thing), I am feeling more and more like a remote and forgotten composer. I suppose that is the way of the world. I'm proud of the work I have done, and I'm proud to have made my music so easily accessible, but composers are now kind of a dime a dozen in these musical internets, and I'm starting to understand that composers who are female may have had a brief moment of acceptability during this past year, but musicians (of all stripes) will more than likely default to thinking of composers to take seriously as being men. I'm not the squeakiest of wheels. I do what I can, but it is not in my nature to promote myself like many other living composers.
And now, here in "Covid," Illinois, where only a third of the population of our county is vaccinated, and only half of the people I see in the grocery store wear masks, there are big spikes in cases (don't get me started on our US representative--the 15th district of Illinois for the curious--I don't want to sully this blog with her name or even a link to her). Coles County has the same daily average that we had last August, before we had vaccines available.
I'm sorry to have made such a lousy post, but there isn't that much that can offset the general lousiness of this particular time for me.
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2 comments:
To your "lousy" post, life has its ups and downs. You write, "I am feeling more and more like a remote and forgotten composer. I suppose that is the way of the world." No more remote and forgotten than one writing a response this day.
The nation, and indeed the world, seems stuffed to the gills with composers. ASCAP alone (with about 800,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, so they say) and sister BMI tally quite a list. Mix in American Composers Alliance, National Associations of Composers, International Alliance for Women in Music, Sacred Music Composers Association and American Music Project, and the population of composers seems enormous, when all are considered together. Moreover, with students being taught on Finale and Sibelius and MuseScore and Capella and others, everyone is grinding out enormous numbers of scores.
Your feelings are therefore apt. And factual, no doubt. The way of the world, you say? I push back from this, because composing is still a private domain, when all is said and done. Some will find a work by a "worker" and perform it. That too is the way of the world.
But I think to join the public relations game and dive deep into marketing and such doesn't seem a way forward, at least emotionally.
How's this? People didn't bother to preserve all those cantatas of Bach. Forgotten. One could list many examples, and the lesson is the same. Seeking the "way of the world" seems a folly.
Among my advisors, if this doesn't sound too spiritualist, is our Emily Dickinson "a prolific writer," says Wiki as I cut and paste, had " during her lifetime... 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems, and one letter." That's rather remote. And yet not forgotten.
I wrote a comment for you in 2014 for which perhaps re-reading is advised. https://musicalassumptions.blogspot.com/2014/06/musical-freedom.html
There are so many examples of losing one's way, artistically, and I think your "lousy" post is a bit on the wrong path. The right path is to persevere. That too is the way of the world.
Our previous century had so many true horrors that the noisy present seems but a bump in the road, unless one careens full speed into the bump and breaks an axle. All will be well enough, and so the answer -- for me, lest you conclude you are the only of the remote and forgotten -- is to persevere. Dear composer, persevere.
A world filled with composers -- from great to awful, and talented to dull, is still a world in which another Emily Dickinson has her place. From 2014 to 2021....
Bets wishes.
Thank you so much for your comment, my Anonymous friend! I have just returned from getting a Haydn Quartet "infusion," (Opus 2 #2 in E major) and now feel much more like a human being.
You are so on point about everything. And for me the real joy is in the doing, when it comes to writing and arranging, and in the learning and communicating musically when it comes to playing. I do indeed feel fortunate to have friends to play music with (it was our first time playing Haydn together since a warm day in November when we played masked and outside), and feel fortunate that the musical puzzles I contrive for myself keep me amused while I wait until I feel like writing something new.
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