Hello, friends, and happy 2022! As we venture forth into a new year, I’m really excited to announce that I’m launching my first-ever consortium today with the help of my dear friend and collaborator Ashley Killam. I’ve wanted to run consortia for awhile, and this year, I finally have the space and creative energy to do so—and I’m hoping to shoot for at least three this calendar year! As I build this practice, I hope to create opportunities for more people to engage with my music and be directly involved with the creation of a new work without breaking the bank. Funding pieces through consortia will allow me to keep buy-ins low and interface more directly with performers as I move through the creative process, both of which are supremely important to me as I continue to grow as an artist.
Ashley is my consortium lead for this first project, meaning she’s providing a lot of really important support as I get this piece up and running—she’s been my sounding board as we honed the core concepts of this piece, she’s handling a great deal of outreach, and for day-to-day questions surrounding logistics and support, she’s the first point of contact. She’ll also be giving the official world premiere of the piece this April or May (exact date forthcoming), as my thank-you for her assistance throughout this project.
Thanks to Ashley’s help and my own creative resurgence as 2021 has come to a close, I’m excited to present the concept for this first consortium, which I’ve entitled go to the garden. It’ll be scored for trumpet (B-flat or C) and fixed media, and I’ll actually be creating three different durations, all of which will be presented to consortium members upon completion. Depending on your programming and technique needs, you’ll be able to program a version of go to the garden that’s approximately 3, 6, or 9 minutes long! I’ve included some of the most important information about the piece in the graphic immediately following this paragraph (thanks to Ashley’s design wizardry), and you can read in more depth about it—and sign up—below that.
Hi again, everyone. Thank you all so, so much for the love and support you’ve given me over the past few days. I’m extraordinarily lucky to be in community with so many who respond to a new name with joy and affirmation. A bunch of you also extended that enthusiasm toward my release of The Dead Scar, and I’m excited to continue sharing the From the Ashes pieces with you in 2022. As we approach the end of 2021, I’m looking forward to what’s ahead, and though this is later than I’d normally announce (because I didn’t want to put out feelers pre-name change), I’m pleased to formally let everyone know I’m now accepting commissions for 2022 and 2023.
I have general information on what to expect available on my Commission Information and Consortium Information pages, but because it’s been awhile, I’d like to give y’all some specifics on projects I know I’d love to work on this year. If your idea doesn’t match what I’ve listed here, that’s totally fine, and I’d still love to talk to you about it! The ideas I’ve listed below are by no means exhaustive. They’re just areas of strong interest that I’d love to adapt into creative output. (If you already have an idea or know you want to work with me, scroll down to the bottom and fill out the form. I’ll send you a scheduling link after I look through your submission!)
After my first trip to IWBC last year, I wrote a little round-up of my experiences there. I kept it pretty top-level, sticking mostly to safe topics and general stories. The plan was always to dive back into certain things in more depth, but I decided I wanted to wait and make sure I still felt the way I did some time later. The post kept getting delayed, and now it’s been a year. On the upside, I do feel identically now to how I felt last May, so while we’re all still stuck inside, we might as well talk about it.
I love IWBC because it is an opportunity to connect with my sisters (though, now that I’m out as queer, I’ll have to reexamine my place in it all), but the first thing I noticed after arriving was “wow, look at all the (cis) men.” Sure, there were a shit ton of women, but the gender binary that first day was balanced shockingly close to 50/50. I recognized a nontrivial amount of them: friends, colleagues, classmates, respected teachers. The night of the opening festivities, I made the rounds, checking in with old friends and making new ones.
By day three of the conference, almost all of those men were gone. Because what happened first? The mock audition.
It’s been a busy semester of teaching and grading, rehearsals and more grading, and I’ve found myself composing a little less. This isn’t entirely a surprise—it’s my first full year out of grad school, and I’m trying to commit to not writing on absurd deadlines anymore—but it’s been an interesting change of pace. While I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to sit back and really think about what I’m putting on the page, I’ve also learned a lot from watching competitions and calls for scores go by.
The side of me that cares very much about ethics isn’t super impressed with those right now.
Before we get too far into it, I’ll freely admit this is colored by my preexisting dislike for most competitions. Some are fine, but anything that costs money to submit to and doesn’t provide transparency about what that money is used for grinds my gears. (My rule of thumb: for existing ensembles, if there isn’t a cash prize involved, regardless of performance opportunities, competitions and calls for scores should be free to submit to.) Further, the motivation behind competitions specifically has always been a little odd to me. How are any of us realistically going to identify the best composer?
Okay. Time to get back on topic. Otherwise, this is going to get unfocused fast. I’m not the biggest fan of competitions, but I’ve run my share of calls for scores, and for the most part, I don’t mind them. They’re a great opportunity for composers and performers to swap scores for recordings (and performances!) without either party losing a lot of money. They’re especially awesome for composers who have scores sitting around and ensembles who wouldn’t have a lot of access to new music otherwise.
That said, I tend to shy away from calls for scores that are billed as “new works” recitals, and tonight, I want to talk about why.
My dear readers, friends, colleagues, and peers,
I’ve had the time of my life in 2019 working with a series of commissioners on new works and bringing many of my 2018 pieces to the stage for the first time. By my best count, I’ve written almost an hour of music this year, and I’ve begun to explore new artistic directions that really excite and challenge me. As we move toward 2020 (and onward!), I’m looking forward to continuing to build on my current practice and dive deeper into my own voice.
Over the last several years, it’s become increasingly clear that the work I love creating the most doesn’t fall under standard “contemporary classical” boundaries. Realistically, most of it falls somewhere under the New Music umbrella, which does save space for classical- and jazz-adjacent things but allows me to pick and choose which pieces of tradition or time-traveling sonic nonsense I want to include alongside the modern developments that make my heart sing 24/7. For people who know me well, this isn’t a huge surprise, but the wonderful folks who commission me aren’t even always people I’ve met. (Which, for the record, is amazing.) I love working with new collaborators just as much as I enjoy reconnecting with folks from years past, and my catalog is starting to reflect that in some really exciting ways.
That said, my compositional voice today doesn’t sound like it did two or three or five years ago, and as I continue trying to move toward the artist I want to be, I need to point that out. Those of you who knew me (and my writing) in undergrad might not know how I sound now (unless you’ve been keeping up with me online, in which case, you’re awesome). While there are still pieces in my back catalog I love dearly and plenty more I’m still proud of, it’s worth pointing out that I’m not necessarily writing that way all the time anymore. Commissions might involve text alongside notes or in lieu of them entirely. I’m playing with noises and soundscapes and text instructions and concert-theater-aligned ideas, and while some of that does still involve regular notes and rhythms, it isn’t always in the way you’d think. (Exhibit A: People Talk.)
And as my commission calendars start to organize themselves for 2020 and 2021, I’m making an effort to continually work toward making the art at the top of my wish list whenever possible (or, at least, art that’s consistent with my current voice). And while some of that is work for me or some of the long-term collaborators I work with, I’m hoping some of that will be for all of you, too. These might not be pieces you can turn around in a month and a half for a recital (or they might be, but not for the reasons you think). These might be pieces that require you to search as deeply within yourself and your own practice as I’m searching in mine. They might not be instantly-consumable, you-can-throw-this-together-in-a-couple-rehearsals bites of music and sound—and if they are, they’ll probably be utilizing different skill sets and making different requests of your musicianship.
Sometimes it feels like I, a person with a 408 area code, was always destined for the 480. The universe likes playing tricks, so it’s not a completely unreasonable suspicion. That said, as many of my AZ-native friends understand, I left, and I didn’t really expect to be back. In fact, if you asked me a year ago if I ever thought I’d live and work in Phoenix again, the answer would have been a vehement no.
On the flip side, when your partner gets the opportunity to study with one of the best trombone teachers in the country, you take it. (Dr. E, I don’t think you’re reading this, but if you are, hi!) As a Sun Devil alum, I’m thrilled my partner and I will both have degrees from ASU (and CalArts . . . but in opposite orders). As someone with a handful of friends I’ve missed desperately, I’m looking forward to reconnecting. But as someone who took some very bad moments and memories with me when I left the desert, as someone who realizes the reasons I was so frequently brushed over and passed by are myriad and gendered, I am . . . less excited.
Have you ever gone to something expecting to have a reasonably good time and come out of it with your life forever changed? I’m not talking about I-went-and-got-another-degree; no, I mean the kind of thing where you come out with unexpected new inspirations, role models, and routes of exploration, the kind of thing that makes you get out of bed at a reasonable (or maybe even unreasonably early) time because you can’t just stay still when there’s so much to do, the kind of thing that stays with you in ways you don’t expect.
It’s been awhile since I had one of those experiences (I think the last thing that even comes close was when I premiered He Probably Just Likes You), but I spent this past week at the International Women’s Brass Conference, where I presented two of my own works and a solo set. After just six days, I’m a different person. Like, my hair is still (blissfully) purple and I still need to practice for approximately forever, but I’ve got new paths dangling in front of me that I desperately want to explore. But first, I wanted to talk a little bit about what it took to get here.
