Week 5
Sonar (August 3, 2007)

Evolution is a topic on my mind lately:

— With my collaborator Melissa Grey, I am embarking on a major new performance project about the ocean. We are reading and researching this topic from many angles, including its role in the development and evolution of life on Earth.

— My own life is in a transitional moment. The only way forward is to grow, to change, to evolve.

— As I listen back to 60×365, I contemplate the evolving changes in my practice that have made me the composer I am today (who would be virtually unrecognizable to a much younger me.)

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”
― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

This week’s piece is Sonar, composed for Boris Willis’s Dance-A-Day project. If you recall, it was a conversation with Boris that inspired 60×365. For the entire period that our projects overlapped, we collaborated every Friday. One week he would send a video for me to add music; the next week I would send music for him to add video.

During my time at The Ohio State University, I was fortunate to collaborate with choreographers in the Dance Department on four MFA dance projects:

• Triage: Part 1 (Ashley A. Friend)
• Where Is Tokyo? (Esther Palmer)
• fragments of figments (elucidated) (Amiti Perry)
• Abandoned Revolution (Boris Willis)

The opportunity to undertake these collaborations came at a moment of creative crisis for me. I was struggling to find performers that I connected with and I was beginning to feel like I had taken music about as far as I could go with it in the direction I was heading. Working with these choreographers exposed me to a world of new ideas and perspectives. It was a catalyst that changed my practice.

During that time I could feel the change beginning to happen, but could really articulate what it was.

Now, with the benefit of time and continued growth, I can come closer to finding clear words.

As a young composer I was principally interested in the ideas of music, particularly rhythm and form. Every composition was driven by manipulations of these ideas, and everything else was a distant second in my creative approach.

Today, my creative worldview is more open. I am much more interested in the sounds of music—and the sounds of sounds—than I used to be.

“I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.
— John Cage, “The Future of Music – Credo”

I am also acutely aware of the experience of listening to sounds and music, and how the act of listening can be engaged creatively. These new understandings work alongside the ideas of rhythm and form in my evolved creative practice.

The evolution came slowly. It started with these four dance collaborations, wound its way through 60×365, and continues through recent collaborations and relationships with composers and musicians. A year ago, I began composing and performing with my trombone after a 15 year break from the instrument. I approach playing very differently now. The trombone is now both a result of my evolution, and the motivator for future growth.

It’s hard to predict how music will continue to unfold in my life. I know that I’m excited to keep going.

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