Comments on: Severity

By: Norman Jacobs

Norman Jacobs — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 07:21:34 +0000

Nico,

Should you be in the UK this next month, I would be pleased to invite you to the lively coastal resort of Brighton for the purpose of speaking to members of the listening & discussion group MOOT: Music of Our Time.

Last month MOOT focused on so-called experimental minimalism. This week we’re looking at your music on minimalism from the 1980s to today – I shall include an excerpt from your ‘Seeing Is Believing’, from last night’s prog with Sara M-P.

It would be great if you could come here (it’s an hour by train from London) and talk about your music. I can guarantee you a receptive audience!

Kind regards,
Norman

PS – Looking forward very much to seeing Two Boys on July 6th.

By: Joel North

Joel North — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:28:19 +0000

Nico,

You are the wind as it moves with water. You are a tree at the top of a mountain as the sun reflects a glow. You’re choice of notes are the fodder that follows my meditative walk. As i play this cello, your melodies invade like a polite ripple in the lake. i am full, and i cannot express to you enough the sincerity i feel as you make words dance in my brain.

thank you, and be well-

By: Brian H

Brian H — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:39:58 +0000

Re: singers being nervous about mistakes in front of the composer. I think Jean-Daniel’s comment about feeling more exposed than instrumentalists is spot on, but I would add that the rehearsal culture at opera companies tends to be unforgiving. Most singers are expected to arrive at rehearsals with the music near perfection (at least technically, if not interpretively); rehearsal time is meant for stage direction. Obviously such expectations, as well as the whole rehearsal process, should be adjusted for a premiere, but new music is still a rarity for most opera singers. And that’s the other part of it: when was the last time your singers performed the music of a living composer with the composer in the room? Instrumentalists have that opportunity with much greater frequency than opera singers, who just might not be used to it.

By: killian

killian — Mon, 30 May 2011 12:43:45 +0000

you are amazing. thanks, as always for sharing your insights into the process and your wonderment with the world. And, as a choreographer, I would stretch Jean-Daniel’s metaphor to include dancers — cold, drafts, real or imagined, ABOUND when the creator is watching! 😀

By: Michael Strickland

Michael Strickland — Thu, 26 May 2011 03:05:07 +0000

Williard White, in my limited experience of hearing him in “Khovanschina” and “El Nino” and “Saint Francoise d’Assisse”, is pretty much god. I’ve never understood why he wasn’t a bigger, more acknowledged opera star.

By: Christopher Weimer

Christopher Weimer — Wed, 25 May 2011 04:17:14 +0000

I love it when you write about Britten, Nico – actually, the first thing I ever read by you was your Peter Grimes piece for the Met, and that was why I checked out your music. You should write a book on Britten, you know, or at least do a collection of pieces about various composers/works with a major section on Britten.

By: Frank Pesci

Frank Pesci — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:13:22 +0000

Nico,
I think you’re right on in terms of the collaboration. I try to make clear that we’re all working together to make the piece better. I’ve noticed that if the singers also come to rehearsal with the same collaborative ideal, everybody can learned from mistakes.
Hope all goes well in London! Toi toi toi!
fp

By: Jean-Daniel

Jean-Daniel — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:51:30 +0000

Nico,
To try to answer your question regarding singers being nervous when performing in the presence of the composer (assuming we are talking about a composer who is still alive, otherwise the quaking would be entirely justified for anyone), could it be that for singers, unlike other musicians, their musical production is totally unmediated – they are naked and can’t hide behind an instrument. Totally vulnerable! And then that guy who knows the piece inside out since he wrote it is right there, clearly hearing every fault and weakness IN THEIR VOICE . . .
Singers, and actors, can be like very delicate tropical plants in a temperate environment: they need a lot of protection so they do not wither because of some cold draft, real . . . or imagined!
P.S. I am not a singer, but a theatre director.

By: Ben Bonnema

Ben Bonnema — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:17:30 +0000

Regarding your observation about singers in front of composers – this past week I had my first equity reading of a twenty-minute musical I wrote at Tisch. My collaborator and I were in the room the whole time, even as the singers were learning the music for the first time. For the most part, they seemed comfortable stumbling through and messing up the music early on. Everyone once in awhile you’d encounter an actor who would repeat, “I promise I’ll have it by tomorrow,” over and over, but it seemed like most of them were comfortable sight-singing and learning in front of the writers.

“Surreal and wonderful” is definitely the right way to express seeing your work come to life. Congrats on your first week of Two Boys!