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London City Orchestra autumn concert

This autumn I was invited to guest conduct the London City Orchestra, a fabulous, well-run orchestra made up of professionals, amateurs, and high-level music students, in their 10th anniversary year. The programme was big and varied: Ravel’s ‘La Valse’, Britten’s ‘Sinfonia da Requiem’, and the 8-movement version of Tchaikowsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ suite, to which we added the Finale to round things off, the famous tune thus bookending the ballet music.

The LCO and I have known each other for a few years now, with me coming in sporadically as a coach for different sections, and the occasional tutti rehearsal. But this was the first time they’d entrusted me with an entire project, from 1st rehearsal to public performance on Remembrance Day, which -we couldn’t have known at the time the schedule was drawn up -happened also to coincide with the largest Humanitarian/Ceasefire-in-Palestine march in the UK’s history. Trying to find unblocked roads through the capital on my rented bike with the scores and baton in the basket after busses, tubes, and taxis proved unavailable, I was half an hour late to the dress rehearsal.

This project was a good opportunity to implement my Orchestra Redefined approach. At its heart, the source of the approach is respect and love for others. If this seems like a dreamy, mystical claim and the reader would prefer that I spoke more technically or pragmatically, I’d say that my conducting, orchestral, and rehearsal techniques are merely the outward manifestations of a core that seeks to plunge into the orchestral players’ musicianship, outlooks and life experiences, and help them bring them out, channelling them into their playing as part of a large team. Contextualising the music, and relating it to our own experiences, from the most exalted to the mundane -often at the same time- is key.

The conductor here is one quite literally, a primus inter pares; no longer a despot, or at the very least, the archetypical figure of total power. A good degree of power the conductor may be perceived to end up with, in this approach, comes through the relinquishing of it to the players; in creating avenues for the individuals’ expression in concert with those around her/him/them: a kind of anti-power, more a Zen modus operandi.

Naturally, I have a firm, as-informed-as-possible artistic vision of the works we’re engaging with, and I’ll straighten the orchestra out whenever they need to be. I tell them off if I have to, and never accept anything less than the absolute best they (or any orchestra) can give. I always insist, albeit with kindness, empathy, relaxed humour, pulling their leg, self-deprecating, or other means, whichever fills the need on the spur of the moment. But the more collaborative pathway, with highly trained orchestral musicians, often for the first time in their lives, being both invited and then shown ways to bring their hard-won musicianship into the symphonic context, reaps a joyous musical-human garden of sorts. The people within the players emerge, their voices are heard, their experiences and outlooks are validated, and this is shared with others and with myself in musical conversation. The artistic results are of a very high standard, the people behind the instruments being happy, motivated, and engaged, with a sense of being valued.

The concert, with a brief speech from me relating our music to the day’s commemoration as well as current events, was a powerful, joyous affair that received a standing ovation. Later, the orchestra kindly wrote some of their thoughts on the term’s work. Their most used were: thanks, love, inspiration, fun, energy, passion, joy, insightful, relaxed, personable, and dynamism, and many mentioned how much they had learned. To them, and for the opportunity to share all of this with them, I am deeply grateful.

photo credit: @tradephotographer

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CONCIERTO CON LA LONDON CITY ORCHESTRA

Este otono fui invitado a dirigir la London City Orchestra, una fantastica orquesta, bien gerenciada, compuesta por profesionales, amateurs y estudiantes del mas alto nivel, en la temporada de su decimo aniversario. El programa fue grande y variado: 'La Valse' de Ravel, la 'Sinfonia da Requiem' de Britte, y la suite grande del 'Lago de los Cisnes' de Tchaikowsky, a la cual le agregamos el Finale del ballet para redondearla.

La LCO y yo nos conocemos desde hace algunos anos ya, conmigo visitandolos como maestro preparador de varias diferentes secciones de la orquesta, y el ocasional ensayo tutti. Pero esta fue la primera vez que ellos me confiaban un proyecto complet, desde el primer ensayo hasta el concierto final en el dia de conmemoracion del armisitico de la primera guerra mundial; dia que -habria sido imposible pronosticar- resulto tambien ser el dia de la marcha pacifica mas grande del Reino Unido en defensa de paz y pidiendo alto el fuego para el pueblo palestino. Tratando de navegar calles bloqueadas a traves de la capital en una bicicleta alquilada cuando buses, subtes y taxis no estaban disponibles, llegue media hora tarde al ensayo general.

Este proyecto fue una buena oportunidad para implementar mi enfoque 'Orquesta Redefinida'. En lo mas esencial, la fuente del enfoque es respeto y amor por el projimo. Si esto parece como algo muy mistico y no puntual, y los lectores preferirian que hable de forma mas tecnica y pragmatica, les diria que mi tecnica de direccion, de orquesta y de ensayo son simplemente manifestaciones externas de un centro que busca zambullirse dentro de la musicalidad individual, los puntos de vista, y las experiencias de vida de los musicos de la orquesta, y los ayuda a hacer a estos emerger a la superficie, canalizandolos en su ejecucion, como parte del grupo sinfonico. Contextualizar la musica, y relacionarla a nuestras propias experiencias de vida, desde lo mas exaltado a lo mas mundano -a menudo simultaneamente- es clave.

El director aqui es muy literalmente, un primus inter pares; no mas un despota, o al menos, la figura arquetipica de poder de antano. Una buena parte del poder que puede decirse se percibe que tiene el director, emana, en este enfoque, del darselo a los musicos de la orquesta; en crear avenidas para la expresion de los individuos, en concierto con quienes la/lo rodean: una especie de anti-poder, mas como un modus operandi Zen:. 'Mi autoridad emana de vosotros y ella cesa ante vuestra presencia soberana'.

Naturalmente, tengo una vision artistica clara, firme, y lo mas informada al momento posible de las obras que interpretamos, y los pongo en su lugar cuando lo precisan. Los reto si tengo que hacerlo, y nunca acepto menos de lo absolutamente mejor de lo cual ellos (y cualquier orquesta) son capaces. Siempre insisto, pero con carino, amabilidad, empatia, humor, tomando el pelo a ellos o a mi, o cualqier otro medio que me surja en el momento. Pero el camino mas colaborativo y menos vertical, rinde una espeice de jardin musical-humano de profunda alegria. Los musicos, muchos por primera vez, son consultados en como pienan que tal o cual pasaje o textura debe tocarse.

El concerto, mas breves palabras mias relacionando la conmemoracion, mas los eventos corrientes, fue un evento poderoso y feliz, que recibio a la gente de pie. Mas tarde, la orquesta me escribio sus pensamientos y sentimientos sobre el trabajo. Las palabras que mas emplearon fueron: gracias, amor, inspiracion, diversion, energia, pasion, alegria, iluminacion, relajamiento, amabla, dado, y dinamismo. Muchos expresaron cuanto habian aprendido. A ellos, y por la oportunidad de compartirtodo esto con ellos y el publico, estoy profundamente agradecido.

foto: @tradephotographer

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COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATION FOR WORKSHOP LEADERS

A workshop leader tasked with leading groups in collective improvisations can be 99.9% sure that with zero prompting or ‘rules’ set beforehand, the shape of the improvisation -every time- will be: a quiet, tentative start from one, several joining in an ever noisier crescendo until all are playing; full sound/noise sustained for a period, followed by a decrescendo, as people play quieter/drop out until silence. The first collective improvisation of this particular group has concluded.

I have done this exercise as a starting point for all kinds of different people, musicians, professionals, and students, and the ‘shape’ result has always been the same, while obviously, the particular notes played have always been different. I tell the group they will do a collective improvisation, and they can play what they like, when they like, for as long as they like. I will not even tell them when to begin, or end. I tell them I have finished what I had to say and wait.

Why is the shape invariably the same? It can’t have to do with the type of music the people are used to playing or listening to, or age, gender, culture, or other characteristics. To be so universal, it can only be down to our experience as human beings.

Participants are gathered in a room, instruments in hand, theirs or random ones. The workshop leader explains that they will now do a collective improvisation. There are no rules. But there is a hidden directive already: because the workshop leader is speaking, the participants are silent, and when the workshop leader finishes speaking, the prerequisite silence -or more accurately, performer music-related inactivity- has already been established, necessary for the improvisation to begin, signaled by the first sound from any performer.

It is physically almost impossible for two or more people to coincide to start playing at once, much less in a confident manner, as you would at the start of, say, a rock band concert, or a classical symphony. The human nature in us makes people first look around questioningly, wondering, not daring to take the first step.

There will always be one person who will take the first step. There will always be several, who will join whoever has taken the first step. As they produce sound, they become more free, creative, and daring, while the remainder join the music-making.

This is normal human experience. We are not built to jump confidently and/or collectively into the unknown without a prior plan or cue, nor are most of us built to do the same on our own. The natural instinct in us is to behave as above. In musical terms, this translates into a ‘piece’ that starts with a steady crescendo.

At the other end, when the crescendo has ceased happening for some time, people can’t see more development, tire, question what is happening, wind down, and drop out until the last person has stopped. There is no reason why people can’t rejoin the ‘piece’ and restart something new. But again, this has never happened in my experience. People instinctively feel that ‘that’ is the end of the improvisation. There has still been no instruction of any kind from the workshop leader.

When the workshop moves on to a collective composition, the first improvisation serves to show the kinds of things that come organically and naturally to us humans and those that do not. Many that do not, form an integral part of crafting an interesting piece of music: the aforementioned collective starts, the use of silence, establishing an accompanying cushion for a solo instrument, organised motivic development, and alternating textures, to name a few. These are all musical and technical devices that require individual thought and sharing with others, to be adopted, adapted and/or discarded. By our sheer human nature, they cannot be a part of the first improvisation. Participants learn to dig within themselves, and to listen to others, to find and share ideas that don’t present themselves organically in what is the natural outcome of a free improvisation.

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El publico canta! Musica e identidad: el proceso es tan importante como la obra

Mas temprano este ano, lidere un cuarteto de cuerdas en un concierto en una galeria de arte, sobre el tema ‘arte emergente’. Con este termnio la galeria queria significar arte y artistas nuevos, y tambien artistas mas viejos los cuales, por motivos de genero, etnia y raza, han sido negados historicamente un lugar en las plataformas publicas mas establecidas.

Queria evitar el cliche de programar una serie de obras de compositoras femeninas, o no blancas, o no heterosexuales, etc. Esta forma de programar siempre me parecio una reencarnacion de los ‘15 minutos de fama’ de Andy Warhol: solo porque presentamos musica de mujeres en este concierto, o en esta serie, o solo porque hay 2 o 3 peliculas de consumo masivo donde los principales son personas negras (ver Marvel), esto no indica que un cambio mas grande o permanente este ocurriendo. Con este tipo de accion, si, una pequena traslacion de la ventana Overton ha ocurrido, pero no hay ninguna garantia que este pequeno movimiento no sea temporario, ni es indicativo de un cambio mas permanente. Lo que sucede en estos casos es que los grupos de poder han ‘permitido’ que estos ‘otros’ tomen un primer plano por un breve momento, mientras el verdadero control y poder permanecen intactos, sin pasar a otras manos.

En vez, me interesaba explorar mas en profundidad que podia llegar a ser eso ‘otro’ mas alla de la superficie. Individuos no blancos, no masculinos y/o no heterosexuales, y aquellos no pertenecientes a grupos establecidos mainstream del ‘Global North’ terminan haciendo arte y musica a traves de un proceso que se relaciona siumltaneamente con su entorno y con el establishment patriarcal blanco. Es la persona, tanto como el proceso que atravieza, lo que produce la obra final que termina siendo escuchada en estas arenas establecidas, las cuales han decidido, por un momento, y cada una por sus propias razones, abrir este espacio ‘inclusivo’.

Un concierto, entonces, simplemente ofreciendo una sucesion de artistas ‘emergentes’, contaria solo una parte de esta historia. Es importante para mi involucrar -lo mas posible- al publico en alguno de los procesos que fueron involucrados en la creacion de alguna de las obras a ser escuchadas. Entender algo sobre estos procesos, muestra un cuadro mucho mas completo que una simple sucesion de obras, llamadas temporariamente ‘emergentes’.

Como rioplatense, tengo experiencia de primera mano de lo que es no ser un hijo del Global North, a pesar de haber vivido en el mas de la mitad de mi vida. Tambien tengo experienca de primera mano de tener mi etnia negada por otros que solo ven mi color, y basado en el, deciden por mi cual debe ser mi etnia. Hacer suposiciones basado estrictamente en el color de piel es una de las manifestaciones mas comunes de racismo, y es algo que me sucede a diario, sin que el culpable se de cuenta.

Mi raza es blanca, mi etnia un tipo particular de latinoamericano. La musica rioplatense por excelencia es el tango, pero tambien, y mas aun, una mezcla inseparable de este con candombe, murga, folklore, y rock. La musica del rioplatense decididamente NO son otras formas de musica, igualmente mundialmente famosas que el tango, como bachata, cumbia (a diferencia de la cumbia rioplatense), salsa, samba, merengue, danzon, y rumba.

Nuestras estaciones son contrarias a las del Global North, y hablamos otro idioma europeo que el de los grupos de poder dominantes. Debemos cruzar el ecuador y un oceano, quienes estamos, o tenemos familia, en Europa invirtiendo grandes cantidades de dinero y tiempo cada vez que queremos rescatar unos pocos dias preciados cada tantos anos con nuestros seres queridos. El Rio de la Plata es un lugar remoto, aislado. Y sin embargo, paso por blanco, aparentemente en mi elemento dentro del ambiente reinante de musica clasica, mi verdadera identidad invisible.

Esta malainterpretacion da lugar constantemente a situaciones donde se me ve o bien demasiado blanco para los propositos ‘inclusivos’ de organizaciones predominantemente blancas (y para sus fotoshoots), o no suficientemente blanco para formar parte de los grupos de poder. Estas dinamicas informan mi vida, y consecuentemente toda mi produccion artistica, asi como mi relacion con agentes, promotores, managers y editores. En mi caso, me he enfocado, entonces, no en lo que nos separa, sino en lo que es universal y nos hace humanos.

Porque entiendo estos obstaculos de primera mano, siento la necesidad, de alguna forma, de traer a la superficie algo de los procesos, tanto como las obras de estos compositores, asi el publico siente en carne propia algo de como estas obras fueron forjadas.

Logramos esto a a traves de cantar juntos.

La obra principal fue el cuarteto ‘Americano’ de Dvorak, elegido por tener sus melodias basadas en la escala pentatonica, ligada a los ‘spirituals’ de los esclavos negros de EEUU. Esta fue precedida por el spiritual anonimo ‘Deep River’, en un arreglo mio para cuarteto de cuerdas basado en la armonizacion de Harry T. Burleigh. Entre Burleigh y el 1er movimiento de Dvorak, el publico canto una improvisacion pentatonica liderada por mi.

El trafico pedagogico entre estos dos compositores en los 1890s era en ambos sentidos. Oficialmente, Dvorak era el director del recien fundado Conservatorio Nacional de Musica en Nueva York. Extraoficialmente, Burleigh introdujo a Dvorak a incontables melodias negras, de la misma forma que todos quienes conocen esta musica lo han hecho: cantandoselas. La musica que Dvorak conocio en EEUU de los indios nativos americanos, y de los esclavos negros, versiones de las cuales incluyo en su musica contemporanea (la sinfonia ‘del Nuevo Mundo’, la sonatina para violin y piano, el concierto para cello y orquesta y este ‘Cuarteto Americano), todas tenian las dos mismas caracteristicas fundamentales: 1. Dvorak las conocio a traves de la tradicion oral y 2. eran pentatonicas.

Musica pentatonica -musica basada en una escala de 5 notas- no es exclusiva de los pueblos de Norteamerica; muchas culturas en el mundo tienen musica de base pentatonica. Pero para el compositor de minoria etnica bohemia Dvorak, quien habia integrado exitosamente en sus obras de musica ‘culta’, musica folcorica (no pentatonica) de su region, el ver que lo pentatonico era un rasgo tan ubicuo en estas musicas folcloricas americanas, fue razon suficiente para adoptarlo como un sello, en sus reinterpretaciones para sus propias obras compuestas durante su breve estadia en los EEUU.

El concierto comenzo con ‘Deep River’. Luego me levante, puse el violin en mi silla, y le ensene al publico, a traves de un juego, la escala pentatonica. Inmediatamente improvisamos juntos. A esto le siguio el cuarteto de Dovrak. El publico reconocio instantaneamente la naturaleza pentatonica de las melodias de este, habiendo sido minutos antes expuesto a este tipo de musica, y a su aprendizaje de exactamente la misma forma en que Dvorak lo aprendio de Burleigh: en forma oral.

El cuarteto de cuerdas de Dvorak luego recibio dos visitas sorpresa entre sus movimientos: dos obras de compositoras vivas, femeninas, de etnias poco representadas.

Primero, un trio por una compositora de britanica de ascendencia de Sri Lanka, que habia sido puesta al tanto de los objetivos y metodos de este concierto. Peninpanayagam compuso una obra especialmente, usando exclusivamente la escala pentatonica, con una salvedad. ‘We Folk Disquieten’ (’Nosotros, los Pueblos, Inquietamos’) traza graficamente las voces dispares mas simultaneas, que estan ocurriendo en el mundo entero hoy, en pos de igualdad de genero y razas, y en defensa de nuestro ambiente (cada una representada por un instrumento tocando su propia escala pentatonica), hasta una culminacion donde las voces, ahora aunadas, muestran el poder que puede tener un pueblo global unido.

Segundo, ‘Piramides en un Paisaje Urbano’, por la mexicana Syrse, incorpora instrumentos precolombinos al cuarteto de cuerdas, creando una mezcla tipicamente (para quien puede reonocerla) mexicana. Al principio, nos preguntamos porque estos instrumentos extranos han irrumpido en una forma tan tradicional y establecida como es el cuarteto de cuerdas. Pero luego nos damos cuenta que las piramides y los instrumentos precolombinos son quienes estaban ahi antes, y es la civilizacion occidental la que invadido alrededor de ellos. En este marco, los ancianos instrumentos el ayoyote, la maraca y la ocarina se convierten en un grito de identidad, una voz que clama ‘aun rodeados y casi ahogados, aun estoy aqui’. La identidad contemporanea mexicana es, y por mucho tiempo ha sido, tal compleja amalgama.

Como se explico anteriormente, esto no fue un caso de programar una obra de una compositora viviente latinoamericana (o de Sri Lanka) por el hecho de anadir otra obra de alguien ‘emergente’ por su novedad o etnia, sino que se trata de entrar dentro de la perspectiva de quien ha surgido desde las mismas ciudades donde esta invasion cultural tomo lugar, y las consecuencias de tal dinamica sobre la identidad propia hoy.

Para terminar el concierto, nuevamente descanse mi violin y guie al publico, acompanados esta vez por el trio de cuerdas, en cantar una de las melodias mas famosas de Dvorak, la (casi) pentatonica melodia del 2o movimiento de la sinfonia ‘del Nuevo Mundo’.

…

Analizando a posteriori el ensayo y concierto, puedo decir que tanto a los ejecutantes como al publico se le presentaron una serie de desafios.

El desafio mas grande para los musicos fue entender como iba a funcionar el tema de que el publico cantara, y su rol en esta parte. Durante el ensayo lucharon con lograr no hacer fluir la pieza, como es normalmente el objetivo primario, dado que yo habia anticipado (correctamente) que el publico podria necesitar detenerse aleatoreamente y sin aviso, en cualquier nota para afirmarse un poco mas en ese momento. En lugar de tocar la pieza como normalmente, los musicos se encontraron que Tiempo, el factor mas fundamental de toda obra musical (mas aun que las notas) estaba siendo alterado en otra dimension, forzandolas a adaptarse a un nuevo paradigma. Las notas en si eran tan sencillas que cualquier estudiante de 1er ano podria tocarlas.

Las nuevas obras y nuevos instrumentos presentaron tambien desafios, pero estos fueron mucho mas manejables. Si bien tecnicamente eran enormemente dificiles, estos desafios entraban enteramente dentro de ‘lo usual’, y los musicos no requirieron del mas minimo esfuerzo de imaginacion a niveles filosoficos mas profundos para encontrarle la vuelta.

El publico reacciono aun mejor de lo que habia anticipado. Quiza ayudados por estar en un lugar menos tradicional como una sala de conciertos (si bien dentro de un marco oficial de una gran organizacion cultural del Reino Unido), y con una copa de vino en la mano, se sumaron inmediatamente a la propuesta ludica de cantar, sacando tanto mas provecho de la situacion gracias a lo que invirtieron en ella.

Es posible que publicos en ambientes alternativos estan mas abiertos a elementos inesperados. Sin embargo, publicos usuales tambien muestran avidez en ir mas alla de la oferta basica de conciertos: vienen a charlas pre-conciertos, se suman a suscripciones y otros grupos, y generalmente despliegan curiosidad, asi que evidentemente hay apetito alli tambien, para ofertas de este estilo.

Evite musica rioplatense a proposito, porque esto no se trata de mi: se trataba de arte y artistas emergentes, y lo que eso puede significar. Si la musica en si era rioplatense, de Sri Lanka, mexicana, checa, o de los negros esclavos de los EEUU, o de otra parte enteramente diferente, era irrelevante.

Una persona del publico mostro gran reticencia durante el concierto. Se nego a cantar en la improvisacion, y se le veia expresar desagrado cuando la musica contemporanea irrumpia en el armonioso Dvorak. Sin embargo, cuando al final todos los elementos se conjugaron, integrandose en el momento en que el publico canto con los musicos profesionales, en otra melodia, famosa, que unia el hilo conductor de todo el evento, alli esta persona por fin sucumbio, y se largo a entonar la musica con todos los demas presentes. Habiendo viajado juntos por aguas tanto conocidas como extranas, los ejecutantes y el publico se convirtieron en uno, y en ambos, simultaneamente.

Continuare tocando y dirigiendo conciertos que miran mas en profundidad, que invitan a la introspeccion; conciertos que nos hacen preguntarnos, y crecer; conciertos que no perpetuan el status quo, cuando el status quo esta equivocado. No voy a darle a grupos negros, o rioplatenses, o a nadie, sus 15 minutos. Solo me subire al escenario para que cuando me baje de el, todos hayamos sido cambiados, aunque sea en pequena medida, para mejor.

[adrianvarelablog]

The audience sings! Music & identity: the process is as important as the work

Earlier this year I led a string quartet performance in an art gallery on the theme of ‘emerging art’. By this, the gallery meant both new art & artists, as well as older artists who, for reasons such as race, ethnicity, and gender, have historically been denied equal footing on establishment platforms.

I wanted to avoid the cliched, lip-service treatment of programming a series of works by non-white, non-male composers. This approach has always struck me as a version of Andy Warhol’s ‘everyone will be famous for 15 minutes’; just because we present works by women in this concert, or in this series, or there are now 2 or 3 mainstream films -take Marvel- where black ethnicity is central, this does not signify that a larger change is happening. With this kind of action, a marginal shift in the Overton window is admittedly signified, but there is no guarantee that this shift is not temporary, much less indicative of something more permanent. What actually happens here is that the same power-controlling group has allowed ‘others’ to enjoy the limelight for a moment, while control behind the scenes has stayed firmly rooted in place. Nothing has really changed.

Instead, I was more interested in getting under the skin of what the experience of this ‘otherness’ might be. Non-white, non-male and/or non-heterosexual individuals, and those not belonging to Global North establishment groups, end up making art and music through a process that relates simultaneously to both their environment and to this white patriarchal establishment. It is both the person, through the process, that produces the final work that ends up being heard in these more and less established arenas which have now decided, each for their own reasons, to open up this ‘inclusive’ space.

A concert featuring just final works by ‘emerging’ artists would, then, only tell half the story. It was important for me to engage the audience -within the realm of the possible- in some of the processes involved in the creation of some of the works they were to hear. An understanding of the processes involved paints a more complete picture than a simple succession of works by artists fitting the temporary, fleeting label of ‘emerging’.

As a Rioplatense, I have first-hand experience of what it is like not to be a child of the Global North, despite having lived in it more than half my life. I also have first-hand experience of my ethnicity being denied by ‘others’ of all races who see just my colour, and decide for me what my ethnicity, in their view, ought to be. Making assumptions about a person based solely on colour is one of the most widespread forms of racism, and it is something that happens to me, without the culprit (whatever their colour) realising, on a daily basis.

My race is white, my ethnicity a particular kind of Latin American; a Rioplatense’s music par excellence is Tango, but also and more so, a mix of candombe, murga, folklore, and rock. A Rioplatense’s music is most definitely not other equally famous types of Latin American music such as bachata, cumbia (as opposed to Rioplatense cumbia), salsa, samba, merengue, danzon, and rumba.

We have the opposite seasons as the Global North, and speak a different native European language than the main power groups. We must cross the equator and an ocean, investing large amounts of both money and time every time we try to scramble a few precious days every few years with our extended families. The River Plate is a remote, isolated place. And yet I pass for white, seemingly at home in the mainstream classical music environment, my real identity invisible.

This misinterpretation constantly leads to all kinds of situations where I am deemed either too white to serve certain organisations’ ethnic minorities box-ticking and photo shoots, or not white enough to form part of the prevailing power class. These dynamics inform my life, and consequently all my artistic output, as well as relations with agents, promoters, managers, and publishers.

Because I understand these obstacles first-hand, I felt the need to somehow bring to the fore both ‘emerging’ composers and some of their processes, for the audience to come into direct contact with some aspects of how these pieces of music came to be.

We did this through singing.

The main work chosen was the Dvorak ‘American’ string quartet because of its basis on pentatonic, spiritual-flavoured melodies (more on this later), preceded by the opener, Harry T Burleigh’s rendition of the spiritual ‘Deep River’, arranged by me for string quartet. Between Burleigh and the 1st movement of the Dvorak, the audience sang a pentatonic scale improvisation led by me.

The pedagogic traffic between these two men in the 1890s was a two-way street. Officially, Dvorak was Burleigh’s Director at the newly founded National Conservatory of Music. Unofficially, Burleigh introduced Dvorak to spirituals and other black music the same way everyone else who knows this music had learned them- by singing to him. The native American and black music Dvorak came across in the USA, versions of which he then introduced into his contemporary works (the ‘New World’ symphony, the Sonatina for violin and piano, the cello concerto and this work, the ‘American’ string quartet), all displayed the same two fundamental characteristics: one, Dvorak came to know them strictly through oral tradition and b) they were pentatonic.

Pentatonic music -music based on a 5-note scale- is not exclusive to black or Native American peoples; pentatonic music is widespread in many folk cultures on all continents. But for the Bohemian ethnic minority composer Dvorak, who had successfully integrated Bohemian (non-pentatonic) folk music into his ‘serious’ compositions in Europe prior to crossing paths with Burleigh in New York, the ubiquitousness of pentatonic music in the folk music he encountered in the USA, meant enough to him for the pentatonic scale to form the basis of the melody, and some of the harmony, of these (North) ‘American’ works.

We opened the concert with ‘Deep River’. I then put my violin down, got up, and taught the audience, via a game, the pentatonic scale, on which we then improvised together. This segued into Dvorak 1st movement -the audience instantly recognised the pentatonic nature of the main themes, as it now had a first-hand understanding of what it was like to come to know this type of melody by having come into contact with it via the same means as Dvorak and Burleigh himself: the oral tradition.

The Dvorak string quartet received two surprise visitors in between its movements: two pieces by living, female composers of underrepresented ethnicities.

First, a trio by a British-born Sri Lankan composer, who was aware of the objectives of the concert. Perinpanayagam composed a work especially, making exclusive use of the pentatonic scale, albeit with a twist. ‘We Folk Disquieten’ graphically charts how contemporary societies are separately and simultaneously taking up conversations about the environment, misogyny, and racism (each represented by an instrument playing its own pentatonic scale), and proposes how, as these voices coalesce, power can emerge from the people.

Second, ‘Pyramids in an Urban Landscape’ by the Mexican Syrse incorporates pre-Colombian instruments into the string quartet, creating a very typical and quintessentially Mexican (for who can recognise it) contemporary construct. At first, one wonders why these strange instruments have been invited into the established string quartet formation- until one realises that the pyramids and the pre-Columbian instruments were here first, and it is the West that has encroached around them. The ancient ayoyote, shaker and ocarina become in this light, a cry for identity; a voice that says ‘even surrounded and almost choked, I’m still here’. The contemporary Mexican identity is and has been for a while, such a complex amalgamation.

As explained above, this was not a case of performing the work of a living, female, Latin American composer for the sake of putting forward an ‘emerging’ artist just because of their ‘newness’ or their ethnicity, but instead, it it about going inside the perspective of one who has sprung from the very cities where this encroachment, and whose ancestors’ and contemporaries’ fight for identity took, and continues to, take place.

To finish the concert, I put my violin down again, and led the audience, accompanied by the string trio, in a sing-along of Dvorak’s most famous (almost) pentatonic tune, the world-famous theme from the 2nd movement of his New World symphony.

…

Analysing the rehearsal and concert, I can say that both the audience and the players were presented with a number of challenges.

The greatest challenge for the players was actually getting to grips with the idea and dynamics of how the singing parts would work. During rehearsal for the final piece, they struggled to not play the piece with its normal flow, as I anticipated (correctly) that the audience would need a moment to find or adjust a note at any given time and without warning for the players. Instead of a beautifully flowing piece, in rehearsal the sense of time, the founding stone of music, was completely altered into a separate dimension, forcing the players to adapt to a new paradigm. The notes themselves could be played by any 1st year student.

The new works, new instruments, provided challenges, but much more manageable ones. Even though they were technically hugely difficult, they fell within the realm of the usual and were as such well managed by the players, needing no stretch of imagination at a deeper philosophical level.

The audience responded even better than I anticipated. Perhaps aided by the non-traditional setting of, for example, a concert hall and a glass of wine, they sprung to the challenge of singing, getting much more out of the experience because of what they put in.

It may be that audiences in alternative spaces are more open to unexpected things. Having said that, traditional audiences do flock to interesting pre-concert proposals, sign up to friends and subscription schemes, and many are genuinely generally curious, so there is evidently an appetite for more than just what one might expect from regular offerings.

I avoided Rioplatense music because the experience was not about me; it was about ‘emerging’ art and artists, and what that might mean. Whether the music was Rioplatense, Sri Lankan, Mexican, Czech, Spiritual or any other, was irrelevant.

One audience member was visibly against the initial singing improvisation and did not take part. Neither was she keen on the Dvorak being split up by contemporary music interjections. However, when in the final moment everything came together with the audience singing and the quartet playing as accompaniment, this audience member was finally won over, and became one, with everyone else in the room. Having journeyed together through both familiar and strange waters, performers and audience became at the same time one, and both.

I will continue to play and conduct concerts that look deeper, that invite introspection in both the audience and players; concerts that make us question, and grow; concerts that do not perpetuate the status quo, when the status quo is wrong. I will not give blacks, or Rioplatenses, or anyone else 15 minutes of fame. I will only go on onstage so that when I come off it, we have all been changed, even if in a small way, for the better.

[adrianvarelablog]

Reflexiones sobre un taller de composicion multi-disciplinario

Conexiones a traves del tiempo y generos: en un reciente taller de composicion, The Cure sirvio para ayudar a estudiantes a entender mejor el contrapunto de Bach, y y se revelo que la estructura que sostiene 'Someone Like You' de Adele, la cual se puede encontrar dentro de Beethoven a da Vinci, proviene del aun mas remoto pasado de antigua Grecia. Herramientas externas nos muestran mas claramente quienes somos, y nos pueden convertir en mejores compositores y ejecutantes.

Cual es el enfoque?

Fui invitado recientemente por la Directora de Musica de una escuela secundaria, a realizar un taller de composicion para alumnos de los dos anos finales.

Mi practica se basa en reencuadrar al objeto de estudio dentro de parametros nuevos y diferentes: especificamente, ver como la musica popular actual, que los estudiantes conocen tan bien, tiene raices profundas que se pueden trazar cientos y hasta miles de anos atras; y al reves, como aspectos de musica historica que se estudian en el aula de clase, son aplicados por todas partes en la musica de hoy, sin que ellos se hayan dado cuenta de ello.

Esta exploracion se realiza a traves de una de-, o re-contextualizacion del tema en cuestion, lo cual permite que ciertos aspectos musicales se puedan estudiar mas claramente, asi tambien como el uso otras herramientas, tales como practicas y tecnicas de las Artes y las Ciencias, para aclarar y descubrir elementos dentro del analisis y la practica musical. Aqui, la interaccion y participacion de los jovenes es un componente vital, cuando se navegan las intersecciones entre estas musicas diferentes pero interconectadas, y los temas que surgen a traves de la polinizacion a traves del transitar entre diferentes generos y tiempos musicales. Las semillas de este enfoque fueron sembradas durante mi maestria en la Royal Academy of Music (y mucho antes en conversaciones informales con amigos), y han evolucionado desde entonces a estos talleres.

Como funciona?

El taller de composicion en cuestion tomo la forma de 3 sesiones en una sola jornada de 5 horas. La primera sesion se dividio a su vez en 3 partes, donde se guio a los estudiantes en 3 grandes temas musicales: textura, desarrollo y estructura.

En el primer segmento, el de textura, se les introdujo a traves de su propia ejecucion, a un reencuadramiento del concepto de contrapunto, a traves de cierta musica popular. Despojado de su peso y connotaciones historicas, los estudiantes experimentaron un entendimiento mucho mas inmediato de contrapunto, como funciona, que funciona y que no, y como convertir una textura intencionalmente en mas o menos clara. Luego, tambien divorciado de su contexto historico, analizamos un recurso sorprendentemente simple usado extensivamente, mas exclusivamente, por Beethoven con fines de desarrollo narrativo, como potencial herramienta para el armamento composicional de los estudiantes. Finalmente, aplicamos ciertos principios celebres que normalmente solo se aplican a las artes visuales y la matematica, a la musica. Esto nos mostro como estos principios estan tambien operando a traves de la vasta mayoria de la musica escrita en los ultimos 400 anos, popular o no, si bien estos principios parecen ser invisibles hasta que uno los ve. En particular estudiamos un numero famoso de una pelicula musical, conectando su estructura con el periodo clasico y mas alla, y mas ampliamente observando sus raices en matematica, drama y filosofia griegas; en una palabra, nuestra herencia cultural comun, lo que nos muestra porque las obras musicales que admiramos -del pasado, presente, y nuestros propios esfuerzos- son como son.

Habiendo abierto el espacio con estos materiales alternativos, la 2a sesion se dejo mas libre, para que los estudiantes ofrecieran sus dudas. Ofreci como posibles puntos de partida un foro abierto para hablar desde lo mas tecnico a lo mas abstracto, un 'laboratorio de armonia' y hasta un 'taller de intervalos' -que hacer en la 2a sesion, se los deje enteramente a ellos. La directora propuso criticar las obras que los estudiantes estan en proceso de componer, yendo de una computadora a otra, como un maestro de ajedrez en una exhibicon. Dada la recurrencia de ciertos temas en las obras, y las limitaciones de tiempo, se decidio, luego de mirar 3 o 4 bosquejos, tomar una de las obras estudiantiles para trabajar en profundidad sobre ella en el pizarron grande, con toda la clase. Aqui vimos como varios temas de las 1a sesion recurrian aqui, y con la ayuda del prisma de la re-conteztualizacion, estos fueron facilmente identificables, y corregidos, resultando en obras mas fuertes y organicas; es decir, mejores composiciones.

Para la tercera y ultima sesion, habia planeado continuar mirando tecnicas de composicion, esta vez con medios no basados en computacion o en secuenciadores, sino formas mas libres de creacion musical. Pero la directora hizo una interesante sugerencia: porque no componia yo, abiertamente y ahi mismo, delante de la clase, algo totalmente nuevo? Asi podria observarse los problemas, desafios y soluciones a temas tecnicos, artisticos y otros, y los estudiantes podian aprender de ver el proceso en si. Acepte el reto, y con participacion de los estudiantes, escribi un fragmento 'para acompanar una [hipotetica] secuencia de persecucion de una pelicula' para un pequeno conjunto de camara.

Como respondieron los estudiantes?

Para mi, el crear y pensar sobre conexiones nuevas, diferentes, entre el pasado y el presente, entre musica popular y 'seria', y el poder trasmitir a los alumnos estas, asi como trasmitirles el poder y potencial de este tipo de virtuosismo inter-genero y pan-temporal, son experiencias que me enriquecen como pedagogo, compositor y ejecutante. Pero aun mas electrizante es el esuchar expresiones de incredulidad, exclamaciones, y ver transformarse las caras en el aula, a medida que van viendo, y se van iluminando, al darse cuenta que maniobras exquisitas estan ocurriendo debajo de la superficie de una musica que creian conocer tan bien desde toda la vida, o descubrir que Tchaikowsky y Queen tienen exactamente el mismo comando en cuanto a generar y manipular expectativas, y ellos nunca antes se habian dado cuenta.

Es realmente necesario salirse de la musica clasica para estudiarla?

Recontextualizacion, descontexctualizacion, y fertilizacion cruzada de recursos de otros generos musicales, y de otras disciplinas dentro y fuera de las artes, tales como la matematica, son armas poderosisimas al momento de analizar musica, y de analizarla con vistas a ensenar a componer y ejecutar musica -y tambien para uno mismo, naturalmente. Es una forma de traer juntas teoria, historia y sociedad, para contextualizar la musica, tanto contemporanea como historica; y para entendernos a nosotros mismos mejor en lo que estamos haciendo, al reconocernos en el pasado.

Desde un punto de vista puramente practico, encuentro util tener un vasto, y permanentemente creciente, arsenal de armamento tecnico, musical, cultural y filosofico, para que cuando el taller, como un rio, cambia de curso en el momento y en la direccion que sea, poder seguir apoyando el aprendizaje con una base cultural y de trans-polinizacion amplia, tanto desde el punto de vista de lo historico/contemporaneo, como de musica 'seria' a polular.

Esta es la uncia encarnacion posible de este taller?

A mi entender, una jornada de 5 horas, para un grupo de bachillerato, es suficiente para introducir estos conceptos en forma primaria, y seguir las puntas de los profesores, pero no mas. Quiza si uno se enfoca en uno o dos de estos conceptos, los estudiantes tendrian la oportunidad de comenzar a aplicarlos, ademas de solo ser introducidos a ellos.

Estudiantes de nivel universitario, tanto de grado como de posgrado, tienen un nivel de madurez que les permite absorber estos conceptos y tomarlos como herramientas mas rapidamente. Tembien a este nivel, estan mas conscientes de su lugar en el mundo, y de la necesidad de explorar fuera de los limites cada vez mas estrechos trazados por los algoritmos que rigen sus medios sociales, descargas, etc., y que tan efectivamente los acorralan y aislan progresivamente sin parar.

Para una etapa previa al bachillerato (14 a 16 anos), solo una de las ideas expuestas arriba seria mas que suficiente para un dia de trabajo.

Otra alternativa, para todos los grupos etareos, podria ser planear mas de un taller a lo largo de uno o dos anos. Esto permititria a los alumnos entrar en contacto con las ideas, y aplicarlas en su trabajo academico, ideas que luego pueden continuar siendo desarrolladas mas adelante, independientemente o no.

Alguna reflexion final?

Encontre sumamente gratificante trabajar en equipo con los profesionales a cargo de los jovenes, dado que ellos son quienes estan mejor posicionados para elegir, de esta cornucopia de recursos, cuales elementos les serviran mejor a su grupo en este momento en particular. Hay miles de ideas mas para intercambiar. Volvere a ellos pronto.

[adrianvarelablog]

Reflections on an interdisciplinary composition workshop

Connections across time and genres: in a recent composition workshop, The Cure informed students’ understanding of Bach’s counterpoint, and the structure underlying Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ was revealed to stretch, via Beethoven and da Vinci, all the way back to ancient Greece. External tools show us more clearly who we are, and can make us better composers and performers.

What is the approach?

I was recently invited by the head of music in a secondary school to lead a composition workshop for A-level music students.

My practice is based on reframing the object of study within new, different parameters: specifically, how the contemporary popular music the students are familiar with, has deep roots reaching hundreds and thousands of years back, and conversely, how aspects of historical music that are studied in depth in the classroom, are applied ubiquitously without them realising it, in the music of today. This exploration is undertaken through a re-, or de-contextualisation, of the issue at hand, which allows for individual aspects of music to be analysed more clearly, as well as through other tools, such as drawing parallels from tropes from the Arts and Sciences to elucidate musical analysis and practices. In this setting, interaction with the students and their invaluable input, are vital components in navigating the intersections of these disparate, albeit connected, musical worlds, and of the issues this cross-pollination uncovers. The seeds of this approach as a practice were planted during my Master’s degree at the Royal Academy of Music, and have since evolved into these rewarding workshops.

How does it work?

The Composition Workshop I refer to here took the shape of a 3-session, 5-hour day. Session 1 was in turn split into three parts, where students were guided through three large areas of music: texture, development, and structure.

In the first, textural portion, they were introduced, through their own performance, to a reframing of the concept of counterpoint through contemporary pop music. Stripped of its historical baggage, students garnered a deeper, more immediate understanding of counterpoint, how it works, what works and doesn’t, and how to make a texture intentionally clearer or murkier. Then, we analysed a deceptively simple developmental device free from its historical context, used exclusively -albeit ubiquitously- by Beethoven, as a potential tool for their own compositional toolkits, applied specifically to narrative development. Finally, we applied certain well-known tropes in the visual arts and mathematics to the analysis of musical structure, discovering how these ideas, hiding in plain sight, underpin the vast majority of both small and large-scale structure of most Western popular and art music of the last 400 years.­ This was done through a famous musical number, tracing its structural blueprint forwards from current popular music and film, all the way back to the Classical period and beyond, with roots in ancient Greek mathematics, drama, and philosophy; in a word, our common heritage, and a clear show of why the musical works we value -past, present and our own- are as they are.

Having opened the space with these alternative materials, Session 2 was left more open, for the students to bring their concerns to the table. I offered several options including an open forum, ranging from the most technical to the abstract, a ‘harmony lab’, and even an ‘intervals boot camp’ -this session was left entirely up to them. The head proposed critiquing each student’s work at their computers, going from one to the next like a simultaneous chess exhibition. Because of recurring issues in their work and time constraints, after looking at 3 or 4 of their pieces, one piece was selected to be put up on the main board to be analysed, critiqued, and worked on in depth. We saw how some of the issues of Session 1 were at play underneath the surface of their compositions, and how through clearly identifying them with the aid of these re-contextualising prisms, their work could be made stronger and more organic -in a word, better compositions.  

For the third and final session, I had originally planned to return to further compositional techniques, by looking at some non-digital means, to explore creativity free from the restraints of sequencer-based software. But the head made an interesting suggestion: in order to demonstrate the challenges of the actual process of composition, could I please there and then, compose something new, in front of the whole class? I took on this unexpected challenge, talking through the brief, the compositional process, questions, challenges, and potential artistic and technical solutions to the task at hand while I wrote, with the aid of student input, a passage of music to accompany a theoretical ‘chase scene in a film’.

How did the students respond?

For me, creating and thinking about stronger, and new, connections between past and present, and between art and popular music, and being to be able to convey to the students, the power and potential of this type of cross-genre, pan-temporal virtuosity, are challenges that make pedagogy, composition, and performance hugely rewarding. But even more rewarding, is hearing audible gasps, ‘Whoah!’s, watching jaws and pennies drop, and other expressions of amazement in the room, as the students suddenly hear, or realise, that something exquisite is happening inside music they’ve known all their lives, or how Tchaikowsky and Queen both knew how to manage and subvert expectations in the exact same way, yet none of this had registered with them before.

Is it really necessary to step outside classical music to study it?

Recontextualization, decontextualization, and cross-fertilising resources from other types of music and from other disciplines in and outside art, such as mathematics- are powerful tools, when wanting to analyse music, and when analysing it with a view to developing students’ composition and performance skills, as well as one’s own. It is a way to bring theory, history, and all society together, in order to contextualise contemporary and historical music; and to understand ourselves and what we are doing, better, by spotting ourselves in the past.

From a purely practical standpoint, I find it handy to have a vast, perpetually growing, arsenal of technical, musical, cultural, and philosophical weaponry, so that when the workshop -like a river- takes whichever direction it does in the moment, it can be followed and supported by a wide cultural, cross-fertilising foundation, both contemporary and/or historical, and via popular and/or ‘art’ music.

Is this a one-size-fits-all workshop?

On reflection, one five-hour workshop day for an A-level group, is just enough time to introduce these concepts at entry level, and to then follow the teacher’s lead, but no more. Perhaps focussing on just one or two of these concepts per workshop would enable students to get to grips with them, and actually be able to begin to explore their application.

Undergraduate and post-graduate-level students have more maturity to grapple with these ideas and run with them; they are also a bit more aware of the world around them, and of the need to explore outside the constraints of the ever-narrowing bubbles their social media, streaming, etc. algorithms so effectively -and unwaveringly- seek to isolate them in.

For GCSE, only one of the ideas above, per workshop, would likely be more than enough.

Another alternative, for all age groups, could be to plan more than one workshop over one or two school years. This would enable students to absorb some of these powerful techniques and apply them to their course requirements, ideas that could then continue to be developed on their own, further down the line.

Any final thoughts?

I found it hugely rewarding to work as a team with the professionals in charge of the youths, as they are in the best position to select, out of this cornucopia-come-toolbox, what would better suit the students in their charge at this stage.­­­ There are tons of ideas to exchange. I’ll be returning soon.

[adrianvarelablog]

Emerging artists

Cromwell Place Art Gallery

28 Jan 2023

Blog

By Adrian Varela

In 1892 Dvorak landed in the USA, newly appointed director of the National Conservatory of Music of America, in New York City. During his three years in the USA, he was also tasked with the job of spearheading the synthesis, or creation, of a truly (North) ‘American’ musical form of expression. Though still a post-colonialist viewpoint -widespread quintessentially North-American music already existed in the form of the music of black and native peoples- the choice of Dvorak, as a composer who might be able to do this was within the realm of art music, was an inspired one. Dvorak had for years made music of his native Bohemia an integral part of his compositional output. Children of this effort include his symphony no.9 ‘From the New World’, the cello concerto, and the ‘American’ string quartet, performed tonight.

At the Conservatory, one of his black students, singer, composer, and arranger Mr. Harry T Burleigh frequently shared black, and other native music, with Dvorak. It was through Burleigh that Dvorak came to feel that much of this music was (as still is much native music in many other parts of the world) based on the pentatonic scale. Every theme in the ‘American’ string quartet is pentatonic, as is the anonymous negro spiritual ‘Deep River’.

The British-Sri Lankan composer Yshani Perinpanayagam has based her ‘We Folk Disquieten’, here a world premiere, also on the pentatonic scale; or rather, several. There is really only one pentatonic scale, which can be anchored to any given note, ie played ‘higher’ or ‘lower’. Perinpanayagam, giving each instrument a distinct pentatonic scale, represents the local voices of different peoples in different parts of the world, gathering them in a single, powerful, unified voice as the work unfolds.

‘Pyramid in an Urban Landscape’ by the Mexican (hence North American) composer Diana Syrse is given here its UK premiere. In it she combines the use of traditional string quartet instruments with pre-Columbian ones. At first, one may wonder why these pre-Columbian shapes and sounds are irrupting into the old, established order of the string quartet- until we realise it is the ‘West’, the colonisers, who have encroached around the pyramids, the ayoyote, the ocarina and the shaker, all of whom were there first.

The title of the concert, ‘Emerging’, evokes the idea of the new: new music, new paintings, new art. But these final expressions cannot be understood without also delving somewhat into the different processes and cultural environments, which lay out the conditions in which artists work, to generate this new art. We invite the audience to join us in being a part of the process that underpins the genesis of some of the works we perform today.

[adrianvarelablog]

Surco: Abu Dhabi Blues

La deshonesta economia del petroleo solo desaparecera cuando se funda: cuando seamos honestos con nosotros mismos, y estemos dispuestos a subsistir sin sus ventajas. Tiempo de lectura: 5' Apuntes: diario de viaje 

Un concierto que toque en uno de los países productores de petróleo, al cual no nombrare, involucro firmar un contrato de confidencialidad, prohibiéndome mencionar donde toque, ni para quien. Vi las caras del publico, e incluso reconoci varios de ellos, pero ni los huéspedes ni los anfitriones querían que se supiera publicamente que ellos estaban tan próximos, a gusto, codo a codo en este ambiente privado exclusivo.

Para llegar al complejo, fuimos conducidos por autopistas a través del desierto. En determinado momento el autobús doblo y se metió por varios kilómetros por campos petrolíferos. En cierto momento, el conductor paro, se bajo del autobús y nos dejo allí en medio del desierto, caños y bombas petroleras. Su permiso de conducir lo habilitaba hasta ese mojón. Al tiempo apareció otro vehículo desde el horizonte. Se bajo un hombre, quien se subió a nuestro autobús, se sento en el asiento del conductor, y continuamos nuestro viaje. Al entrar al complejo fuimos recibidos por personal militar con ametralladoras, y sonriente staff de cocina y servicio.

Fuera de esta experiencia, el resto de la gira fue mucho mejor a lo que normalmente uno experimenta en giras. El publico a menudo cree que las giras son glamorosas, pero en realidad son increiblemente duras y exigentes físicamente tanto para los músicos, el staff y las familias que quedan atrás en casa. Pero en esta gira, al igual que todas las giras a países petroleros sin excepción, nos alojamos en un excelente resort turístico, la comida era sensacional, y podía disfrutarse de la piscina y playa privada dado que los otros conciertos quedaban a corta distancia.

Giras a territorios como Europa, los Estados Unidos y Japón no llegan ni cerca al nivel de lujo (y cuento aqui cosas básicas como tiempo y cuidarse el bienestar como ‘lujos’) del Medio Oriente. Las economías de los destinos mas habituales lo hacen imposible. Nuestro grupo disfruto el quedarse en el resort, comer bien, descansar, todo lo cual contribuyo directamente a poder actuar al mas alto nivel de nuestras capacidades. Nadie quiere calentamiento global, y todos los secretos en torno al concierto privado fue bastante extraño, pero vamos, todos estamos de acuerdo que los dulces de aquella gira fueron fantásticos, no?

Otras giras, otros países petrolíferos. Un denominador común es que el alcohol es o bien restringido, o prohibido para los locatarios. Ni tanto, aparentemente. Los lobbies de los hoteles nunca están sin hombres, siempre y solo hombres, super-autos estacionados afuera, quienes, como si de bar en bar, van de hotel en hotel, de lobby en lobby emborrachándose cada vez mas, servidos diligente y discretamente por el staff del hotel.

Otras restricciones son interesantes. Nos hicimos amigos de la banda que tocaba en el pub irlandés. Nuestra pregunta sobre si podíamos traer nuestros instrumentos para unirnos a ellos -algo de todos los días en los pubs irlandeses del mundo entero- cause espanto en los músicos y el gerente del pub, quien nos explico que todos ellos podían perder sus licencias si otros (nosotros) tocaban en el predio sin licencia, aunque fuera solo una nota. 

Extremo como nos pareció, y sin embargo aceptando que naturalmente cada país tiene derecho y deber de imponer sus propias reglas, el incidente me hizo prestar atención un poco mas de cerca a otras señales mas inocuas: las mujeres tenían permiso de manejar, pero casi ninguna lo hacia. Las mujeres podían trabajar, pero en los únicos ámbitos donde se veían unas pocas mujeres trabajando era en hoteleria y catering, y no en cargos de responsabilidad. Mujeres, nunca solas, únicamente se veían mas en los shopping. Estas señales se repetían en diferentes lugares, en diferentes giras.

Siempre ha sido muy, muy difícil, o imposible, ver ‘el otro lado’ de la pared erguida para ‘dar la bienvenida’ al extranjero. Como en un Truman Show viviente, he realmente querido conectarme con los locatarios, ver como viven, compran sus necesidades básicas, van a la escuela. Pero esto esta totalmente fuera de lo posible. Debo quedarme en mi resort disfrutando de la comida deliciosa, alcohol, piscina, 200 canales en la TV y el paseo turístico ‘autentico’ obligatorio a la gran mezquita y el mercado; quien seria tan tonto de desear algo mas que estas riquezas? A quien no va a conformar esta abundancia, este lujo? Pero, me pregunto, ‘donde esta el verdadero país, las vidas de la gente común?’ Estas sociedades y espacios están construidas para que esas personas, y esas vidas, permanezcan permanentemente escondidas, inaccesibles e invisibles, casi como los Morlocks contra los Eloi, a quienes se les muestra la vidriera, herméticamente encuadrada por vidrio y acero.

Este conjunto me turba. No puedo aislar el hecho que los lujos y el confort que mis colegas y yo disfrutamos vienen de la misma fuente que lleva a nuestro planeta mas allá del punto de no regreso para la extinción de múltiples especies, la perdida de hogares y trabajos, pobreza y hambruna que sin ninguna, duda sabemos que vienen.

No puedo separar el hecho que estas sociedades donde las libertades están tan gruesamente demarcadas por shoppings resplandecientes, están controladas por hombres, hombres que promulgan una economía explotativa mientras sus mujeres, sus iguales en términos humanos, no son tratadas como tales. Las naciones occidentales con quienes negocian, son igualmente cómplices.

Me viene a la mente los ‘Cuentos de las mil y una noches’, una colección pobremente escrita de historias cortas, pero de imágenes que aun capturan la imaginación occidental, donde se refuerza una y otra vez el espejismo milenario que riqueza material equivale a éxito en la vida y felicidad. Cuando uno critica esta falacia, la respuesta argumentativa a menudo es una acusación de celos; seguramente el único motivo por el cual pensas eso es porque tu estas celoso de no haber conseguido esas riquezas para ti mismo, el cual es el objetivo de toda persona aunque ni se lo admitan a si mismos! Seguramente estas tratando de reducir la disonancia que te produce el querer ser rico, y no serlo?

No. El planeta esta literalmente quemándose. En el mundo entero, el ámbito de acción, los derechos y las voces de las mujeres continúan siendo amenazados con ser restringidos. Racismo esta vivo y coleando. La economía de continua explotación de recursos naturales y humanos  no esta funcionando.

Pah, pero mira ese auto!

La musica:

Abu Dhabi Blues es un surco verdaderamente autentico, ilustrando perfectamente la dicotomia descrita arriba.

Hay mucho de autentico musical y humanamente: la secuencia de blues de 12 compases; la evocacion ‘medio oriental’ que sin llegar a ser folk autentico, contiene suficientes elementos para evocar el ‘aquello exotico’ indicando claramente la región a la cual nos referimos; el hecho que las improvisaciones y todas las líneas del violín son ‘toma 1’, ya que quería que la ‘voz’ fuera enteramente autentica, con todas sus imperfecciones, así hay al menos una cosa en todo esto que no es pulido y presentado al visitante como perfecto, como la voz del personaje ‘el salvaje’ en ‘Un Mundo Feliz’ de Aldous Houxley.

Esteticamente, el clave parece añadir a la confusión cultural, pero es en realidad una decisión artística deliberada, una reflexión que fusión no tiene que ser necesariamente el superficial ‘este y oeste’, donde se preservan entidades separadas, interactuando. En vez, un tipo de fusión mas rico puede construirse al integrar este tipo habitual de cruce de caminos (blues, falso-Medio Oriente, violín virtuoso) con un instrumento que pertenece enteramente a otro ámbito, y al hacerlo, ampliar aun mas el mundo musical haciendo referencia de esta forma a surcos como ‘Teardrop’ de Massive Attack y ‘Handbags and Gladrags’ en versión de Stereophonics.

[adrianvarelablog]

Track: ABU DHABI BLUES

The oil economy will only disappear when it goes bankrupt: when we are prepared to subsist without its advantages.

Reading time: 5' Notes: travel diary

A concert I once played in one of several oil-economy-based middle-Eastern countries I’ve visited, which here shall remain nameless, involved signing a confidentiality agreement whereby I am to this day not allowed to say where I performed, nor to whom. I saw the faces of the audience and recognised some of them, but neither the hosts nor the foreign guests wished it to be known that they were enjoying themselves cushily together in such a setting.

In order to get to the location, our group was driven in a coach down the motorway for a period of time. The coach then took a turn off the motorway, driving through working oil fields. At some point, the driver stopped, got out of the vehicle, and left us there in the middle of the desert. His authority to drive expired at that marker. Presently another vehicle came toward us from the direction we were driving towards, a new driver stepped into our coach, and we continued our journey further and into the destination complex, where we were greeted by military personnel clutching machine guns, and smiling catering personnel.

Outside this experience, the rest of the tour was streets better than what one usually experiences on tour. Normally tours seem glamorous experiences to the general public, but in reality, are hard graft of travel and work under difficult conditions. They are usually very tough, not just for the players and staff physically, but also for our families back home. But on this occasion, as with all tours I have done to oil-based countries without exception, we stayed at a pleasant holiday resort, the food was sensational, there was a swimming pool and a small private beach, and there was no more travel, as the other concerts were all close by.

Tours to territories such as Europe, Japan, and the USA have nowhere near the level of luxury (I’m including basics such as time and well-being as ‘luxury’ items here) as in the Middle East. The economies of the more regular touring destinations prohibit it. Our group loved staying in this resort, being well-fed, and being given the chance to be rested, all of which contributed to performing to the best of our ability in public and private concerts. No one wants global warming, and the secrecy around that private concert was a bit weird, but hey, everyone agreed, the goodies on that tour were fabulous, right?

Different tours, different oil-based countries. One common denominator is alcohol is either restricted or banned for locals. Not so, apparently. Hotel lobbies were never empty of men, supercars parked outside, who in the middle-Eastern equivalent of a pub crawl, would hop from hotel to hotel getting more and more drunk, diligently and discreetly served by staff.

Other restrictions were interesting. Some of us befriended a band at the local Irish pub. Our query about whether we could bring our instruments to play with them was met with horror by the band and the manager, who explained to us that they could all potentially lose their licenses if unlicensed (for a particular venue) musicians performed even one note.

Extreme as that seemed -Irish pubs welcome this kind of thing the world over- and acknowledging that each country has its own right to its own rules, the incident did make me pay more attention to other limitations: women were legally allowed to drive, yet hardly any did. Women were allowed to work, yet we only came across men working, except occasionally in catering. Women, never alone, were only ever seen in numbers in the shopping malls. These patterns repeated themselves in different places, on different tours.

It has always been very, very difficult, or impossible, to see ‘on the other side’ of the wall erected to ‘welcome’ the foreigner. Like a living Truman Show, I have really wanted to connect with the locals, to see how people live, shop for basic needs, and go to school. But this is totally out of bounds. I must stay in my resort and enjoy the fabulous food, alcohol, pool, and 200 channels on TV, and the obligatory tourist-facing trip to the mosque and market; who be stupid enough to ever wish for anything else when provided these riches? But, I ask myself, ‘where is the real country, the real people’s lives here?’ The society and space are constructed so that these people, these lives, remain perennially hidden, inaccessible, and invisible, becoming almost Morlocks to the Eloi, who are shown only the shop window, hermetically framed by glass and concrete.

This package is for me disturbing. I cannot isolate the fact that the luxuries and comforts enjoyed by myself and my colleagues come from the same source that drives the planet beyond the point of no return for the extinction of some animal and plant species, loss of livelihoods, poverty, and famine that are with no shadow of a doubt to come.

I cannot separate the fact that these societies where liberties are so strongly demarcated by resplendent shopping malls are run by men, men who promulgate an exploitative economy while their women, as fellow human beings their equals in every respect, are not treated as such. Their Western partners, because they’re partners, are equally guilty.

I am reminded of the ‘Tales of the 1,001 Nights’, a poorly written loose collection of stories, but of imagery that still captivates Western imagination, where the thousands-year-old mirage of monetary success equates to success in life and happiness. Criticism of this fallacy is answered with accusations of jealousy; surely the only reason why you think this is not the way to go, is because you have not achieved this level of ‘success’ and riches, which is everyone’s goal even if they don’t wish to admit it! Surely you must be trying to reduce the cognitive dissonance caused by wanting to, and not being, rich?

No. The planet is burning. Literally burning. All over the world, women’s spheres of action, rights, and voices continue to be constrained. Racism is alive and being fuelled further. The economy of continued human and natural resource exploitation isn’t working.

But look at that cool car!

 

The music:

Abu Dhabi Blues is actually a very authentic track. It illustrates perfectly the dichotomy described above.

There is plenty that is also musically and humanly authentic: the 12-bar blues sequence; the evocation of Middle-Eastern ‘otherness’ in a language that Western audiences can understand, without stepping all the way into actually authentic folk music; the fact that the opening improvisation and all violin lines are ‘Take 1’, as I wanted the ‘voice’ be actually true, with its warts-and-all imperfections in the opening improvisation, so that there is at least one thing in all of this which is not glossed over, like the character of ‘the native’ in Aldous Houxley’s ‘Brave New World’.

Aesthetically, the harpsichord seems to add to the cultural confusion but is a deliberate choice, a reflection that fusion does not necessarily have to mean the superficial East-meets-West preservation and interaction of separate boxes. Rather, a richer kind of fusion can be brought about by integrating into this type of crossed paths (blues, faux-Middle Eastern, virtuosic violin playing) an instrument that belongs to an altogether different environment, and in so doing, also referencing an even wider musical world containing Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ and ‘Handbags and Gladrags’ as performed by Stereophonics.

[adrianvarelablog]

Surco: THE MUSE IS GONE (LA MUSA SE FUE)

‘La musa’ es un concepto explotativo misoginista arcaico, que debemos consignar a la historia lo mas rápidamente posible. Tiempo de lectura: 5'  

Apuntes: la musa

‘The muse is gone’, o ‘la musa se fue’ es una oración que, a primera vista, evoca sentimientos de tristeza; como la musa se ha ido, el artista ya no es mas capaz de crear gran arte. Nada podría estar mas lejos de lo que esta frase significa para mi.

‘La musa’, en nuestra herencia cultural, y como parte integral de un proceso creativo, es en primer lugar una cosa, no una persona. Habitualmente es una mujer quien la representa, si. Pero no es la mujer. En vez, es la objetivizacion de dicha mujer, cuyo valor yace únicamente en aquello que ofrece en relación al genio artista, quien es usualmente blanco, hombre, heterosexual. La mujer existe, sin duda. Pero no sabemos su nombre, ni nada sobre ella, ni hay nada de ella de ninguna importancia, excepto en relación al hombre, y a lo que ella puede hacer por el. Una vez que la hemos reconocido como una cosa -una cosa útil e inspiradora, pero una cosa y nada mas- volcamos nuestra atención al hombre, quien no esta objetivizado, y lo admiramos como el gran creador, donde entonces desechamos a la mujer, quien ya no tiene mas uso posible dentro del proceso creativo.

Esta dinamica es problematica desde varios puntos de vista. En un primer lugar, como acto de objetivizacion de la mujer, negando su nombre, sus cualidades personales, y todo aquello que no tenga que ver con servir al hombre.

Segundo, entre las cosas que esta dinamica niega, es el potencial y la habilidad creativa de la propia mujer. La dinamica no se interesa por escuchar lo que la mujer tiene para decir. O mas precisamente, la dinamica esta activamente interesada en no escuchar lo que la mujer tenga para decir: solo en lo que tenga para ofrecer al hombre, ya sea pareciendo físicamente atractiva, sexualmente u otros medios, generalmente no intelectuales. Contenido dentro de lo que la mujer tiene para decir -y que ni al artista, ni al publico cómplice le interesa saber- es lo que ella quiere expresar en términos artísticos, si así lo quisiera hacer. Negar a la mujer especificamente como creadora, mientras se le hace participe activo e integral del proceso creativo, contribuye a reforzar aun mas el imbalance.

Tercero, la dinamica refuerza el enaltecer al hombre como genio artista, negando, minimizando a todos los demás, incluido la musa, el publico y la maquinaria promocional. Todos estos se desvanecen en un todo nebuloso, mientras el artista sigue creando, intercalando aquí y allá arte no inspirado por la musa, todo lo cual hace crecer su cachet de ‘genio’ en general. La ‘marca’ mas amplia del artista se ha visto beneficiada, ha crecido, gracias al arte inspirado por la musa. La influencia visible de la musa termina en las obras que ella ha inspirado, pero el ojo del publico es dirigido a la totalidad de la obra, cuyo cachet ha trepado gracias a la influencia de la musa. La percepción del artista crece. La de la musa cae mas aun en el olvido.

Cuarto, reduce al ‘genio hombre artista’ al nivel de persona sustancia-dependiente. Si sus poderes creativos son despertados por la musa, su genio para crear estas, y otras obras, depende no de lo que trae desde dentro de si, sino que, como un adicto, dependen del poder tener la pitada, el sorbo, la inyección. Esta es la ‘triste’ situacion descrita al comienzo de este articulo. Como un atleta tomando una droga que ayuda al performance, el artista no es tan fuerte ni creativo dentro de si mismo, como cuando tiene la ayuda de una sustancia externa, como una droga, en este caso, el uso de otra persona. Este cuadro romantico y evocativo ha perdurado en nuestra sociedad, pero desde un punto de vista de valorarse a uno mismo, deja tanto al artista como al miembro del publico que se deja seducir por este discurso, en una luz muy pobre.

Todo lo previo no significa que un hombre no puede, o no es a veces, inspirado por una mujer. Los hombres pueden, lo son, y estos roles tambien se intercambian. Y tambien, hombres y mujeres pueden, y muchos estan, involucrados en relaciones interpersonales toxicas. Algunas de estas personas crean arte. Algunas personas no involucradas en este tipo de relaciones, tambien crean arte.

Mi punto es que ‘la musa’ -la objetivizacion de una persona, normalmente una mujer, como herramienta para la creacion artistica por parte de otra persona no objetificada- es una dinamica enfermiza, patriarcal, anticuada, innecesaria e indeseada en una sociedad que cree en la paridad ente los seres humanos independientemente de su genero, raza, y otras características potencialmente divisorias. La musa no es necesaria para crear gran arte, ya sea el artista hombre, mujer, o de cualquier otro genero. Por supuesto que otra persona puede inspirarnos a crear arte, sin la necesidad de ser objetivizada y luego descartada. Pero eso no es ‘la musa’.

Mi musica ‘The Muse is Gone’ celebra esta igualdad entre personas de todos los géneros. Celebramos un futuro (y para algunos de nosotros, el presente, en nuestras actuales practicas sociales y creativas) donde el concepto de ‘la musa’ -como tantos otros conceptos patriarcales dañinos- forma parte del pasado; y que hombres, mujeres y otros son compañeros iguales en todas las ramas del quehacer humano. La musa se fue. Es hora de celebrar, y de mirar hacia adelante.

La musica:

Ideas y practicas que encontramos en prácticamente todo lo que hacemos en el ‘occidente’, tales como el drama en 3 actos (presentación/conflicto/resolución), la frase simétrica (4 compases pregunta + 4 compases respuesta), y la distinción entre comedia y tragedia, se remontan mas de 2000 años a Grecia antigua. Estos moldes continúan irguiendo sinnumero de expresiones artísticas hoy, desde las películas de Marvel a Shakespeare a Ed Sheeran y los Beatles.

Grecia, cuna de democracia y de nuestra filosofía, fue también sin embargo un lugar de esclavitud, donde extranjeros y mujeres no tenían derechos, ni voz publica. Debemos reparar en que algo tan cotidiano para nosotros como la frase simétrica, salió de la misma sociedad sexista, racista y patriarcal que también dio origen a ideas como democracia y melos.

Concluimos que si queremos hacer algo para distanciarnos de una sociedad predominantemente binaria, machista, blanca, heterosexual, anti-discapacidad, y redirigirnos hacia nuevo, potencialmente mejor, territorio, este debe estar arraigado en una pluralidad de voces y puntos de vista. Toda y cada expresión que activamente busca separarse de canones establecidos por tal sociedad anterior, solo pueden significar una cosa: que una forma alternativa ha encontrado la forma de expresarse y, con suerte, de ser oida.

Es por esto que la melodia de ‘The Muse is Gone’ comienza no con el objetivo de plantear una frase de 8 compases, sino ofreciendo una posible alternativa: colgándose de una única nota lo mas posible, hasta que la suspensión no es mas sostenible, y la nota tiene que moverse por necesidad a otro lugar. Cuando lo hace, la tensión acumulada es tal, que necesita arrastrar toda la armonía consigo. Y ahora estamos en terreno nuevo; la melodía encuentra su camino en forma orgánica, sin contar compases o medir distancias, pasando perfectamente la posta a la melodía siguiente, 14 fluidos compases después de su comienzo.

La sección media es posiblemente la música mas sexualmente explicita que yo haya compuesto. Mucho antes de las complejidades de los cambios de tiempo que encontramos a partir del siglo XX, música ocurría, y continua ocurriendo, en dos movimientos: abajo/arriba, izquierda/derecha, adelante/atrás. Muchos adjudican esto al que el ser humano tiene dos piernas, de la misma forma que contar con base 10 tiene sentido por tener 10 dedos. Caminamos, corremos, marchamos, saltamos, bailamos y tenemos sexo en ritmo de dos movimientos. Claro que no decimos que mujeres no toman parte del movimiento en dos partes, pero la mayor cantidad de producción artística desde tiempos inmemoriales ha sido a manos de hombres, debido a oportunidades o falte de: los hombres históricamente han tenido, y a las históricamente mujeres se les ha negado, la oportunidad de ser educadas, de actuar, de habitar espacios no domésticos libremente, de hablar. La ceremonia tribal arquetípica del mundo entero puede ver a hombres y/o mujeres bailando, pero son los hombres mayoritariamente quienes están en control, pulsando los tambores.

La parte central de ‘The Muse is Gone’, entonces, pertenece al patriarcado, o al menos, a nociones de masculinidad heredadas hasta aquí. El recaimiento inevitable en frases simétricas, las líneas chorreantes viscosas de los violines, conjugadas con el aumento incesante de intensidad, la superposición de cada vez mas capas hasta la culminación final, tienen significado evidente.

En el tramo final, al igual que en el cuadro post-coital de Botticelli ‘Venus y Marte’, la visión viril obsesiva se ha disipado totalmente, y la nueva alternativa no amenazante, canta nuevamente.

[adrianvarelablog]

Track: THE MUSE IS GONE

'The muse' is an exploitative misogynistic construct that should be consigned to history as quickly as possible. Reading time: 5'

Notes: the muse

'The muse is gone' is a statement which at first evokes a feeling of sadness; because the muse has gone, now the artist is no longer able to create great art. Nothing could be further from what I mean. 'The muse', in our received cultural heritage, and as part of a creative process, is first and foremost a thing, not a person. It is embodied by a woman, yes. But it is not the woman. Instead, it is the objectification of that woman, whose worth lies only in that which it offers in relation to the -usually white, male, heterosexual- genius. The woman exists, for sure. But we do not know her name, nor anything about her, nor is anything about her of any importance, except in relation to the man and what she does for him. Once we have acknowledged her as a thing -a useful, inspiring thing, we turn our attention to the man, who is not objectified, admire him as a great creator, and dispose of the woman, who is of no more use to the process. This dynamic is problematic from a number of standpoints. Firstly, as an act of objectification of the woman as described above, negating her name, her personal qualities, and any and everything that does not have to do with her servicing the man. Secondly, among the things this dynamic negates, is the woman's own ability to create. The dynamic is not interested in hearing what the woman has to say. Or more accurately, the dynamic is actively interested in not hearing what the woman has to say: just what she offers the man, whether by looking pretty, sexually, or other, usually non-intellectual, means. Contained within what the woman has to say -which neither the artist nor those who admire him while enabling this dynamic pay much mind to- is what she has to express in artistic terms, if she so chose to use that route. Negating considering the woman specifically as a creator, while including her as an active participant in the creative process to the exclusion of her artistic, personal and human qualities, further serves to reinforce the imbalance. Thirdly, the dynamic further enables the propping up of the man as a perceived artistic genius, to the denial, and belittling of everyone else, including the muse, the public, and the promotional machine. These all fade into a crowd, while the artist creates and intersperses into his oeuvre other, non-muse related art, all of which adds to the 'genius package'. The artist's brand has grown, aided, and boosted, by his muse-inspired work. The muse's visible influence ends at the works she has inspired, but the public's eye is drawn to the entire oeuvre, whose cachet has been upped by the help of the muse's influence. The artist's cachet rises. The muse's falls further into oblivion. Fourthly, it reduces the 'genius man artist' to the level of a substance abuser. If his creative powers are awakened by the muse, his genius to create these, and other artworks, is dependent not on what he draws from inside himself, but on being able to get, like an addict, his 'hit' from the muse. This is the 'sadness' situation described at the start of this article. Like an athlete taking a performance-enhancing drug, the artist is not as strong, creative, and powerful within himself as he is with the help of an outside substance, in this case, the use of another person. This is an evocative setting for anyone wishing to romanticise such artists and dynamics, but from a perspective of personal worth, it leaves both the artist and the member of the public who buys into this notion, in a very poor light. All the above is not to say that a man can't or shouldn't be inspired by a woman. They can, and are, and these roles can also be reversed. And also, men and women can, and many are, involved in toxic, dependent, and abusive relationships. Some of these people create art. Some people not in this kind of relationships also create art. My point is that 'the muse' -the objectification of one person, usually a woman, as a tool for the creation of art by another not objectified one- is a sick, patriarchal, outdated, dynamic which is unnecessary and indeed unwanted in a society for anyone who believes in true parity between fellow human beings, regardless of their gender, race, and other potentially divisive considerations. The muse is not necessary to create great art, be the artist female, male, or of any other gender. Another person can inspire something in us, certainly, to create great art, without them needing to be objectified and discarded. But this is not 'the muse'. My song 'The Muse is Gone' celebrates this equality between people of all genders. We celebrate a future (and for some of us, the present, in our current creative and social practices) when the concept of 'the muse' -like other damaging patriarchal dynamics- is past; and that men, women, and others are equal partners in every field. The muse is gone. Time to celebrate, and move forward.

The music:

Ubiquitous notions in the West such as the 3-act play (presentation/conflict/resolution), the symmetrical phrase (4 bars question + 4 bars answer), and the distinction between comedy and tragedy, can all be traced back over 2,000 to ancient Greece. These blueprints uphold art from Marvel films to Shakespeare to Ed Sheeran and the Beatles.

Greece, bedrock of democracy and philosophy, was also nonetheless a place of slavery, where foreigners and women had no rights, nor public voice. We must come to realise, and mark, that the notion of a symmetrical musical phrase, for example, was borne out of this same sexist, racist patriarchy that also heralded positive ideas, such as democracy and melos.

It follows that if we wish to do something about moving away and into new, different, potentially better territory, from the predominantly white, binary, male, heterosexual, ableist society we currently live in, a plurality of voices and viewpoints must be at the root. Any and all expressions which actively seek to move away from established canons borne out of such a society can only mean that another way of being has managed to express itself and hopefully, to be heard.

This is why the melody of ‘The Muse is Gone’ starts not with the aim of setting up an 8-bar phrase, but by offering one possible alternative: hanging on to a single note for as long as possible, until the suspension is no longer tenable, and the note must move away. When it does, the pent-up tension is so strong that it necessitates dragging the harmony along with it. And now we are in new territory; the melody finding its way organically, without counting bars or measuring lengths, to a dovetail into the next, 14 flowing bars in all.

The middle section is possibly the most sexually explicit music I have ever written. Far before the intellectual complexities of 20th-century time signatures, music happened and still happens, largely in a 2-stroke movement: down/up, left/right, /forward/backward. Many have put this down to us having two legs, in the same way that our 10 fingers correlate to a counting system of base 10. We walk, run, march, jump, dance, and screw in 2-stroke movements. This is not to say, of course, that women don’t partake in the 2-stroke movement, but the vast majority of artistic output has been since time immemorial in the charge of men, largely due to opportunity or lack thereof: men have largely had, and women have largely not had, the opportunity to be educated, to perform, to inhabit spaces freely, to act, to speak. The archetypical tribal ceremony the world over may feature female and/or male dancers, but it is the men who have overwhelmingly been in control, in the proceeding’s drumming driving seat.

The central part of ‘The Muse is Gone’, then, belongs more to the patriarchy, or at least to received masculine notions of masculinity and gaze. The inevitable lapse into symmetrical phrases, the dripping, oozing violin lines, compounded with the increase in intensity, plus the layering of voices and final culmination, are self-explanatory.

In the final third, and as with Botticelli’s post-coital aftermath in his ‘Venus and Mars’, virile tunnel vision has all but dissipated, and the new, non-threatening alternative sings once more.

[adrianvarelablog]

GOODBYE SALONEN

Departing Philharmonia Orchestra Principal Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen carved out an unique, organic chapter in the cultural continuum.

I first came across Salonen, whose 13-year tenure as Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia ends this year, while studying at the Royal Academy of Music. As a recepient of the Philharmonia String Scheme award, a small group of us played in a few Philharmonia rehearsals, one of which was Salonen conducting the 4th symphony by my beloved Mahler. What struck me most about Salonen then was the absolute clarity of his gestures, particularly the horizontal and vertical lines.

This plasticity developed continously, to the point where today Salonen is one the most watchable conductors alive. Yet the key to his impact on the cultural scene lies not his external aesthetics, but in the above mentioned continued development in a more significant area.

When Salonen took over from Dohnanyi in 2008, the classical music scene was more compartmentalised, a direct result of Postmodern fragmentation; the early music movement, modern orchestras known for playing music of certain periods but not others, etc. The Philharmonia could well be said to be London's 'European' orchestra, with an identity rooted in a deep, velvet tone, a famous pianissimo (a feature more about its unscripted, player-led spontaneous appearance at least once in every concert than its breathtakingly low volume), and the ability to self-balance -acting as a natural counterpart to London's 'American' orchestra, the LSO, a more flamboyant, gung-ho outfit fond of shiny brass, its own sense of branding and vertical attacks.

The Philharmonia suited me to a tee. It could switch in an instant to 20th Century angularity when required, but its core lay in a profound undertstanding, and love, of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schuman, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss and Bruckner. My musical education (Detroit rock and Montevideo tango aside) went as far as the (for their time) progressives Lizst and Wagner, after which all music -and art- was, I grew up learning, worthless.

When Salonen started turning up with known and unkown 20th and 21st Century music, it proved a personal challenge. Something about the aesthetic grated. However, I've always been one to try to break down barriers, including my own. Embracing this music, going along with Salonen's musical adventure has been a career highlight. Over time, in my mind, the grinding sounds of 20th century rupture receded to be gradually replaced by an understanding of how all this music -present, past and further past- all fits together in a continous storyline. There was no such rupture, it turns out. We all knew before that everything's connected. Salonen's contribution has been to show everyone involved in the industry-composers, players, agents, broadcasters, audiences, more clearly how.

Salonen has not just given a bunch of interesting concerts over a long period of time. Like all great artists before him, he is keenly aware of his place within the historico-cultural continuum, and acts within it. In consistently making relevant musical statements over this 13-year period with the Philharmonia, he has actively developed, more than changed, the very artistic landscape we inhabit, from -but well beyond- the Philharmonia's sphere of activity. A new, more organic, inclusive understanding of the historical flow has emerged.

It is telling, and typical, that his last concert with the Philharmonia stresses this continuity: Bach by Webern. Bach, but not Bach, by his predecessor, Philharmonia-sound-forger Klemperer. Salonen's own work, tied to Bach, with echoes of his beloved Stravinsky & Messiaen, and to the architect Frank Gehry, another creative partner from his LA development days. Everything, past, present and to the sides, is organically connected.

Post-COVID-19, the Philharmonia greet Santtu-Matias Rouvali as EP's successor. A very talented, confident, young explorer may be just what this next stage of still unfamiliar new terrain needs right now.

We'll see Salonen again for sure as a visitor. So, and until you do, dear Esa-Pekka, thank you, good luck, and enjoy your views of the Pacific. But when you come to visit, can we please just have a bit more Mosolov and Varese?

[adrianvarelablog]

Socially distanced orchestral playing: adapting to the post-COVID-19 world

When COVID-19 hit us all, the initial reaction for most musicians was one bordering on panic. We are in the same boat as everyone else with regard to health and financial worries. But unlike other professions, in the initial months of the pandemic, musicians faced the prospect of the live and recording music industry disappearing altogether and with it, our livelihoods. Many colleagues of mine, members and freelancers whose credits include recording for all the major film studios and worldwide tours in classical orchestras and supporting pop outfits, have sold their instruments and are re-training as plumbers, electricians and psysiotherapists. Their efforts to redirect their assets just to put food on the table is the top-level music and entertainment industry’s loss.

As orchestral performance gradually started up again, I returned to tentative ‘performances’ -or rather socially distanced live recording sessions with no audience. Pre-pandemic activity had regularly seen 5 shows a week, often 10 to 20 day stints without a break, with back-to-back rehearsals, concerts and performances in the UK and abroad. More a gruelling than a glamorous lifestyle, as the market economics of the sector keep wages right down. This was now down to two dates per month, yet up from zero and no prospects, so comparatively, a huge improvement.

The first time I played again after the full stop I was weary of performing, as a huge question mark hung over the proceedings. We had only ever known to play in close proximity with one another. Ignoring the fact that we’d all been out of action for months, the pre-pandemic close distance between my neighbors and I meant that we could all hear a certain level of detail in each others’ playing. This is a huge factor in being able to successfully blend one’s own sound into its surroundings. As everyone else does the same, it’s the being able to hear that level of detail that enables great orchestral playing.

Spaced further apart, that level of detail was gone, added to the natural decibel drop from having your neighbors further away. We were all suddenly much less assured as to whether how we were playing was what was needed in order to attack notes and release them at the same time, whether the sustain was of the same quality etc. When we play live, we play ‘to the room’. The feedback from the room informs our performance. But the room here was worthless because we were playing to the microphones, for streaming and recording. What mattered now was that the microphones picked up the ensemble precision and blend, regardless of how that sounded to us in the room; and this is by definition very different. We were used to this relationship during normal recording sessions, but now the added distance removed the ability to be able to tell for ourselves whether something was right.

It was a very disconcerting few months where I, and others, felt that we were increasingly getting the hang of how to play. Several times we’d come off the stage thinking something had gone particularly well, only to be taken aback later when hearing the recording. I suspected other orchestras may be going through similar experiences, and listened to the efforts of others, just to check. Sure enough, to my trained ears at least, there had been an all-round drop in quality across the European and American top brass.

As 2020 turned into 2021, a new dynamic began to establish itself where recording and video producers and engineers became the primary quality control operators. Conductors still pursued artistic goals but had to stand by while playback was checked time and again for patching. Orchestral players were forced to rely less on well-honed chamber music skills applied symphonically -over decades for many- with the balance falling to the conductor needing sometimes to come out of their shell a bit more, to just show the gesture a bit more clearly, just so the orchestra could perform the basic task of playing together…and then sit and wait for the producer’s thumbs up.

Around the halfway point of the 14-month-long process described above, I conducted a recording session for an Arts Council-funded project ‘Songs of Isolation’, a collection of 3 Handel arias-come-concerto, where the arias speak of themes applicable to our current pandemic challenges.

Many of the singers and players had not performed a note of music with another human for 8 or 10 months. Some shared my experience of a handful of dates, while others were retraining in something different altogether, having in their minds turned their backs on their life’s calling out of necessity. These exquisite musicians turned up on time at the venue, opened their cases, the singers stood near the microphones, and for the first time in months read music in the same room as others.

I knew their apprehension well, and the sense that the goalposts had moved significantly. There was a palpable psychological handicap present as the impact of the social distance removed the sense of confidence they had exuded so many times previously in places like Abbey Road studios and Carnegie Hall. My previous experience on the other side of the fence had prepared me for this and with the recording engineer Adaq Khan, who had also recorded a couple of socially distanced projects, I conducted the recording sessions as if guiding an athlete’s recovery back from injury, gently kneading the performers towards a way of working, playing and listening which step by step removed insecurities, building up confidence, and ultimately, yielding the dripping gorgeous sound these extraordinary performers are renown for. It was a transformative experience to go from drought, loss and fear to hopeful, flowering beauty in the space of a few hours.

Government guidelines continue to change and different venues have different takes on what constitutes a safe distance. The sands are still changing, but what are artists if not adaptable? The quest for the highest possible quality continues.

‘Songs of Isolation’ is free to watch on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/Q_4wRR2KqNo

[adrianvarelablog]

25 posts!

[adrianvarelablog]

How to get a job: any job

Most people make the mistake of thinking that getting the job is about how well you do the job. Whereas doing the job is important, getting the job is something quite different and is more a ‘question of skin’ -a matter of feeling- and the feelings of not you, but of the people who are in a position to offer you, or not, a job. 

 Every organisation is different. Everyone is different.  Organisations will -maddeningly- use different criteria for the same position for different candidates. And you’re on the outside, without access to inner politics which might tip the decision your way. Is there anything in common within this shifting-sand-floored forest? Is there anything you can do to influence a panel, individual or band decision from the outside?

 I’ve been on both sides of this divide in five countries on two continents, and after 25 years or so I can say that thanks to the universality of human nature yes, there is a pattern and yes, you can. I advise you to put your very necessary practice aside for one moment and consider that the actual craft ie the music-making, or whatever it is you do, is a part -and only a part- of the matter. 

 Have a look at this self-portrait by the Catalan modernist painter Joan Miro:

  The first thing that strikes us is the cartoonish figure on top of the ‘proper’, stylistically obviously earlier portrait. But once we’ve absorbed both images by looking at then a bit more closely, we can pull back out again and take in the whole. 

 The cartoon lines seem a bit slapdash, the extra markings a bit random and arbitrary.  But did you notice that the picture is perfectly balanced? 

 Cover the yellow blob at the bottom with a finger. The picture now has a slight imbalance. It feels like the whole portrait is darker, heavier in the lower half. Equally if you cover the pink blob on the right, the weight of the whole shifts to the left; the picture is now incomplete. Try this with all the brightly coloured features, including the red eye, and see how the whole is affected. 

 The fact is that you can’t remove any one item out without affecting the prefect balance, like a Formula 1 pitstop team, a Calder mobile, or a Mozart string quartet. 

 Getting a job, any job, is turning yourself into one of those coloured blobs. It is finding a way to make yourself such a person that the company would feel imbalanced without you. That the company feels that it must have you, because you fit, and without you (or with someone else), the imbalance would be greater. 

 What are the components? These examples are from the music profession but they apply everywhere. 

 1. Playing.

You already know that the actual craft must be good. Go practice, read Paula Muldoon’s blog on dealing with nerves

 HYPERLINK, etc. 

 2. Be a face they know. 

Woody Allen said 90% of success is turning up. You may be able to create conditions in which those who make decisions can see you more. 

 When I started freelancing I worked with a few of orchestras of varying quality. I wanted to work exclusively with the best one, which booked me once in a blue moon and at point blank range: ‘Adrian are you free tomorrow to go to -place generic location 300 miles away here-?’ ‘No, sorry, I’m tied to C-class orchestra for 2 weeks.’ I realised I’d get booked more often if I was available. And if I was available, I’d get booked more often. 

 So I took a risk even though I was broke: I started turning down offers of good length, secure patches of work from my regulars, bank statement in red, in the hope that the one I wanted called me and I’d be available. I’d have nothing booked in the immediate future for months. But as I became more visible in the ‘A’ company, I was offered even more work, and was able to shift my workload to the place I wanted to be.

 3. Research the job requirements. 

Most people can’t play the requisite excerpts. Suppose a flying squadron needs a new member for their air show. Someone comes who flies showing no idea of how the squadron flies, but does their own maneouvers instead. Is that person going to get the job? No. It’s very simple. You should sound exactly like the orchestra’s -or the industry’s standard recording- of it. Work your fingers off and rack your brains figuring out how to until you do. 

 You can also guess the sight reading. Musicians are busy people (read underpaid, hence running from gig to gig & teaching jobs) so sight reading will almost invariably come from the repertoire they’re doing at the moment.  Check out the programming a week either side of your audition date and gain an at least faint grasp of it.

 4. Research the non-job requirements. 

Check out who the last few appointments for people you know, know of, and for patterns. Maybe you know some of them, or who their teachers are. But also keep an open mind and remember, disgusting as it may sound, others may be me more racist, sexist, ageist or misogynist than you. Do yourself a favour by not denying to yourself that these things don't exist. Do mostly thin female players tend to get booked? Could there be a positive or negative, explicit or unconscious racist, or ageist agenda at play? Realising this may not directly improve your chances but the wider perspective you can have of the lie of the land, the more pragmatic a viewpoint you’ll gain, and it will take the pressure off pinning all your hopes on whether that one note you didn't vibrate exactly will end your run.

 5. Rapport with those in the environment.

Like I said at the beginning, ultimately it’s the rapport, the way people feel about you and how you feel about them, that will define whether you get the job or not.  You may come to see you'd rather not be part of a particular group after all. But although you can be offered the job, it’s them who have the power -and may be inclined- to do so. What you can do is to decide how you’re going to go about it until, and if, they do. As Yoda said, ‘Notice everything: it can save you’.

 It’s tough out there. Good luck. 

 Adrian Varela

[adrianvarelablog]

Post Brexit: what is, really, music without borders?

New Year's Eve 1989, atop the Berlin Wall with a hammer in my hand, was one of the greatest moments of my -and not just my- life. It wasn't only the Eastern and Western Germans, nor the reams of world citizens like me affected. I also witnessed embraces in more unexpected configurations, as in between Argentine and English strangers, fresh from the 'Malvinas/Flaklands' fallout, crying together under the Brandemburg Tur.

Like our instrumental technique which every day gets either a little bit better or a little bit worse, the distance between people, and peoples, is in constant motion. Brexit is a big, sad step in the opposite direction from the night on the Berlin Wall.

And yet people continue to hold the belief that 'music unites us'. A Beethoven 9 sprang up almost sponteously the next day in Trafalgar Square. Did the power of the music sway anyone's feeling on their vote? Did anyone who had not heard classical music before feel 'Wow, this is me now, I'll bin my Drum & Bass playlist'? I don't think so. I know many people who listen to an entire piece of good music (classical or popular) and feel it could not be further from their personal taste, and always will be. I know because I tried it: playing different music to my colleagues, students, friends, even my children. The beauty and message of Beethoven's unifying music would seem to be a separate issue to the recent political decision. 'Quite rightly!' I hear you say. But if a work that says 'all men shall be brothers' is loved by individuals on both sides of the divide, whilst half of those are happy to enjoy the music and theoretical message AND simultaneously negate that very message in practice, where does that leave us?

What then, is music without borders? Who can in all honesty agree with Duke Ellington that there are only two kinds of music, good and bad, no matter the genre? If you say you agree, are you capable of loving  Mahler's 9th Symphony or Debussy's 'Pelleas and Melisande' whilst equally appreciating and loving the genius and beauty of Aerosmith's 'Living on the Edge', or The Cult's 'She Sells Sanctuary'... or vice versa?

In my experience the vast majority of people, musicians and non, are forced to answer, despite their best wishes, a resounding 'No'. Duke Ellington's quote sounds to most people like a great ideal, but it i's rendered meaningless if one asserts it in theory, whilst in practice retreating back into the safety of one's current aesthetic camp. In this case they are words as empty as a politican's lies, and music has borders and distances. Very well defined ones, thank you very much.

Years ago I read the fascinating 'Danube' by Claudio Magris. Magris journeys from the sources of the Danube to its mouth, tracing a vast array of philosophical, historical, and cultural ideas which sprang from the areas he travels through, showing them in all their interconnected, inter-influenced, un-isolateable beauty. The great Uruguayan ethnomusicologist Lauro Ayerstarán said 'folklore laughs at borders'. And Magris manages to convey the idea that all these ideas, peoples and places really are part of an unbroken stream.

So what would really borderless music sound like? In the 21st Century we are less tied geographically and culturally to any given place than ever before in the history of Man, with instant access to any thing the power of our curiosity can think of looking for, on the internet. I'm an Uruguayan-born Uruguayan-Italian national, grown up in Rio, New York, Vancouver but mostly Detroit and later Montevideo and Buenos Aires, who has lived in London for 20 years and has gone round the world several times, from the usual international touring destinations the Philharmonia visits like Japan, continental Europe and the USA to Hawaii, Santo Domingo and Heraklion. What happens when, say, contemporary Classical music meets folk-interpretation of said Classical music meets Tango meets Milonga meets the Blues (all of which are deeply rooted en ancient Greek tradition) meets the proposition of a pictorical musical setting of a city-scape?

Well, a piece of music is composed. What is this piece? For whom? Originally 'Ciudad' Campo' Ciudad' was composed in the guise of violin duo, premiered by Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Zolt Vistonay within an international concert season in Madrid as a piece of 'contemporary classical music'. But it is the same piece that opens the prog-rock album 'Laberinto' with a sound that belongs more to Glastonbury or Wembley than anywhere else. Anyone who hears only one version would never dream such a massive aesthetic chasm has been crossed. Anyone who hears only one (either) version, may also possibly only relate to certain portions of CCC's aeshetics: Classical musicians have noted the Classical handling of Folk music and structure whilst the Tango, Milonga and particularyl Blues (!) have completely gone over their heads. Conversely, popular musicians instantly pick out the latter while missing the former.

The rest of the 'Laberinto' (Labyrinth) album works similarly. 'EmBruchado' marries Nuevo Tango to the Bruch Violin Concerto. 'Coriolan' is Beethoven's overture played as prog rock, re-investing it with its original violence, diluted in 200+ years of erudite listening. The title track 'Laberinto' is a time-tested Classical form of Gong-inspired prog-rock material. 'Escape From Buenos Aires' crosses Piazzolla with Baroque canonical and fugal devices, again in Classical form. And 'Héctor en Miami' is a Latin-jazz 'Symphonie Fantastique Part II', complete with Berlioz's use of the Dies Irae, Idée Fixée and tubular bells in which, after the pains of SF1, all now ends well. Incidentally, 'Héctor in Miami' was originally composed as the last movement of the 3-movement symphonic dance suite 'Danzas Fantásticas' for massive orchestra, which Philharmonia Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser Esa Pekka Salonen had initially planned to perform at the Hollywood Bowl, but Street Orchestra London beat him to the premiere during SOL's first ever tour just a few weeks ago.

So music without borders. Music taking from our neighbours, our friends, ourselves, acknowlegding our differences and incorporating them into one complete, harmonious whole. A musical demolishing of the Berlin Wall. A coexistence that brings us more together, not more apart.

I hope you can join us on 29 July at the Three Choirs Festival where we'll be playing 'Laberinto' live.