In conversation with Erin Jorgensen, conductor and SMO co-Artistic Director Julia Tai talks about Jonathan Harvey‘s Bhakti and working with the composer, conducting and contemporary music.
EJ: How did you and Jeremy decide on doing Jonathan Harvey’s Bhakti?
JT: I think Harvey has been an interest of both of us for a long time. There are quite a few pieces of his we’ve considered but we have to see which ones we can realistically put together and bring to our audience. This piece is just the right size for us, and we have a wonderful sound technician whom we can work with to realize the electroacoustic part the composer had in mind.
EJ: So what is the technology part of the piece? Is it surround sound?
JT: Yeah it’s a quadraphonic tape for four speakers that we will set up in four corners of the room. There’s no live mixing between the instruments and the tape, but the tape often contains computer-processed sounds, and at times the same musical materials played by live instruments. This is a piece commissioned by IRCAM in Paris, which is famous for their work in electronic music and audio processing. Harvey composed this piece while he was working there.
EJ: So how are you conducting the piece? Are you timing it to match with the tape?
JT: Yes, this is actually a very challenging piece to conduct, having to match up with the tape, which has preset sounds and tempi. There’s no room for forgiveness. The computer is basically one voice in the ensemble who doesn’t follow me! I have to be very exact in the marked tempi. Some sections are marked 9 seconds or 18 seconds, and I have to bring the ensemble in at exactly the right time. The tape is very much a part of the ensemble.
EJ: Are you just listening to the tape live with everyone else, or do you have something in your ear?
JT: No, I won’t have a click track. I’ll hear the tape just like everyone in the audience. But because I know the tape part very well, I’ll be able to anticipate what it’ll do next.
EJ: Are you rehearsing with the tape as well?
JT: Yes we’ll need to have the tape part and the sound technician at every rehearsal. The tape is very much another member of the ensemble. The players need to learn how to play with the tape and blend their sounds with what they hear from the speakers.
EJ: So, you’ve worked with Jonathan Harvey in the past?
JT: Yes, I went to a new music festival in Boston back in 2009 called the Summer Institute of Contemporary Performance Practice. The acronym is SICPP, sick puppy [laughs], and our final marathon concert is called Iditarod. There’s a different resident composer at the festival every year, and that year happened to be Jonathan Harvey. We played a lot of his music that year, and we went to masterclasses and he would coach our rehearsals. It was fun to work with him, to have those firsthand experiences with a composer.
EJ: What is he like?
JT: He was a very soft spoken and quiet guy. He’s extremely philosophical, and he’s really into Hinduism and Spirituality. He would talk about the deeper meaning of music as opposed to just the technique of it. Sometimes you don’t see the immediate connection, and wonder, “What does that have to do with the music?” But it’s a different perspective. It’s about how to listen.
EJ: Well, in this piece it really seems like it makes sense. It’s a 50-minute piece, straight through, right?
JT: Right, although it’s broken up into 12 movements so in a way each movement is kind of short. It’s not as overwhelming as you thought. Each movement has a quote from the Rigveda, which helps to understand what Harvey is trying to portray. I think one of the things that could have drawn him to composing with electronic sounds is that computers have the capability of producing sounds that are beyond what we’re familiar with, and that gives a new dimension of music. So when you listen to music like this, you have to be very patient and have a different mindset. You have to be open to sound itself. It’s almost meditative, it’s not goal oriented, it’s more like reflection, to let the sound sit with you, instead of saying “oh, where’s this point going and when are we going to get to the next point?”
EJ: Yeah… it’s like life [chuckles]
JT: Right! Some people just go from one thing to the next, and never stop to reflect. But this piece forces you to slow down. That’s why contemporary music is so interesting, because traditionally, you listen to tonal music and it’s all about getting to the next goal, how to get from point A to point B. But this is the complete opposite of that, it’s just about sound itself.
EJ: So how do these quotes infiltrate your conducting, or the way you’re thinking about it?
JT: I think when we’re starting out on a new piece, it’s all about the technical aspects, the fingering, the bowing, how to produce a sound that actually sounds good, but that’s only half of the story. After you’ve kind of mastered the technique, you start to think about the bigger picture and what this music is supposed to portray, and that’s the more interesting part. So for me as a conductor, I have to study all the details to see how the little pieces are put together – who plays what, what notes they play, what sound they create, and so on, but at the same time I need to meditate about the message in mind, to think about how to best bring out the mood, the atmosphere of the music. That is always the hardest step but also the most rewarding. When things go well, you feel like you are in the zone. People talk about transcendental experiences, and I try not to use that word because it seems cliché (Julia and interviewer laugh together), but it’s true, you feel when music gets to that point when you are performing it, you are immersed in it, you are in a completely different world and you don’t even remember who you are.
EJ: It’s so much responsibility to be the conductor, I’m sure the musicians have these notes as well, and they’re playing, but you’re a little bit corralling everyone into how you interpret it, you know?
JT: Right, conducting is such an interesting job because you don’t make any sound. Your job is to persuade people to make the sound you want (laughs).
EJ: It’s like a psychology degree (Julia and interviewer laugh together)
JT: Yes totally, I mean in the beginning it can be frustrating because you are completely dependent on other people. People may think “Oh conductors have a lot of power. You get to tell people what to do,” but no, you depend on the players to make the final product, and if you can’t convince them then the performance won’t be good. So yeah, it’s a lot of psychology in how to do it, but with really good musicians I think when you’re clear about the big picture you’re trying to paint, like this is what we’re going to do with the music, then everybody can connect with you on that. It’s really awesome when it happens.
EJ: It seems like a lot of pieces this year have had that quality of being very present and very in the moment, kind of like the idea of liberating sound. I’m curious to ask if that was deliberate because of the times that we’re in right now, which I feel like I’m seeing a lot of these ideas almost like a counterpoint to the crazy hectic time we’re living in. I’m seeing a lot of this stuff not just in music but in philosophy or just in conversations.
JT: I think this is exactly why it’s fun to work on contemporary music, music of our time, because music is always a reaction to life or whatever is happening around us. And even though this piece is forty years old, the struggles, the chaos is the same. When all this crazy stuff is happening in the world, I personally feel very anxious because I think that music is not relevant, and I want to do more than just to perform music. But at the same time what we’re doing as musicians is to create a space for people to come and listen, and to heal oneself with music. It’s a different kind of social work…
EJ: Right, I don’t think those things are separate, but I totally understand what you mean.
JT: As a musician or artist you can’t really live separate from the world. Everything you do is a statement, it is a reaction. So, to answer your question, no we didn’t sit down and say, this is what we are programming because it represents our time. But it just happened that we chose these pieces that resonate with us.
EJ: It seems like something people need. I wonder how we can… Sounds like you have to give people a guidebook or kind of instructions on how to listen to this, or how to calm down, you know? For forty-five minutes… sometimes I find it easy, but sometimes I find it hard to do, and I would barely be getting into it at like 40 minutes and I’d be like ok, now I’m here… oh man (Laughs) because you’re so used to living in the opposite way, you know, that’s not a question but I guess maybe people can just prepare themselves mentally a little bit.
JT: I think one thing people can keep in mind when they come to listen is, first of all, I don’t think you need to read a hundred philosophy books to be able to understand what we’re playing… a lot of people shy away from contemporary music because they think “I don’t understand it.” But good music should bring you in, it can still affect you even though it’s written with different compositional technique. What we really want people to feel is a real reaction to the music they hear. And if there’s any prerequisite to listening, it’s to come with an open mind to receive what is around you. After listening to a piece like this, you may be more sensitive to sound itself. For example, in the first movement of the piece, we play just a G, with different instrumentation and timbre, mixed with computer-generated sound, eventually we move gradually to a G#, but it happens very slowly. It brings you in, making you notice the slightest difference in color on the same note. That’s the great part of what contemporary music brings to the table: it is about hearing what you can connect with emotionally, to see things from a different angle. You know, plain sound is not just a noise, it has beauty, and then you become more sensitive to colors. You are not just hearing the pitch, but color. And then if we can change you to listen in that way, then we have succeeded in what we do. Just come with an open mind, without prejudging.
EJ: That’s what I was thinking when you were talking, the word judgment and kind of like letting go of that. It could apply to so many things but especially music, you know when you’re hearing that G and you’re like “Oh, its gonna go to D major!” But yeah, just like, ok you don’t judge it as anything you just experience that sound as it is, and I was thinking of that and relating it to the electronics that he uses, like you were saying before, there may be sounds that you can’t place, you know what I mean, you just have to be like I guess this is what I’m hearing right now!
JT: Just be open to receiving, and open to what you feel, what your own gut reaction to the sound is. Part of music is bringing back some of your own life experiences, and that’s why the same musical performance can be different for every person, because music is a very personal experience. It may bring back a feeling or an idea that you have not thought of for a while, or that exists in you but you didn’t realize. To be immersed in deep thoughts or a piece like this is like traveling to a different world. It’ll put you in a totally different rhythm than your everyday life. So just come and be with the music.
EJ: That’s a great way to put it. That’s exciting!
Seattle Modern Orchestra is fiscally sponsored by Shunpike.