Hello Everyone,
The second episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration is now live, featuring Ky Nam Nguyen and her phenomenal piece A Vietnamese Mother’s Letter to Nixon. You can listen to the episode here on the TCC website under the episodes tab, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube. All of the external links are on the homepage and episode pages, and there will also be a link to all relevant podcast players and social media accounts at the end of this post.
Reflecting on the interview and podcast episode with Ky Nam, I really am shocked that I was able to interview someone with so much personal background and historical research into a specialized topic. Anyone that has taken a music history or composition course could probably attest to that A Vietnamese Mother’s Letter to Nixon is on a level of complexity, depth, and significance that it would easily be the subject of a class lecture. I mean, quite honestly, and especially after being able to look at the score, it is something that is well into the category of being the subject of a music theory conference proposal/paper. Unfortunately, in both my experience and from the words of my professors at FSU, new music analysis hardly gets any recognition in the conference circuit of the music theory world. Part of this is a cycling of academic mindsets, that being, even if a set of theorists want to explore new music in published analysis, the amount of indifference it receives then incentivizes that set of theorists to ignore the subject. That is not to say that it doesn’t happen, and it seems as though the analysis of modern composition grows as the days continue. This is simply the perspective I have seen at FSU and what my professors have shared about their experiences.
There were numerous things in Ky Nam’s piece that I wish we could have continued to explore in depth during the episode, but I am trying to keep episode lengths to a reasonable, 45-minutes or less length. It is actually quite funny, when starting up the website and mapping-out how the interviews would be conducted, I really thought that the episodes would only be 15-20 minutes in length, which in hindsight was a bit silly. I am certainly looking forward to featuring her in the future again, possibly for the premier of the opera that she discussed!
The next featured composer, Will Davenport, will be sharing with us his piece Reed Quintet I, a four-movement, lighthearted piece featuring some dynamic and self-referential theoretical ideas. I am excited to have Will featured on this show, and funny-enough, a conversation I had with him a couple months ago is what sparked the initial ideas that became the TCC. One day after class, Will offered to show me some of an Electric Violin Concerto that he is writing (some of the movements have already been premiered, and I hope to interview him someday about that piece in particular!). After listening and analyzing it, as music theorists do, as the score went by, I was convinced and impressed by a specific melodic movement in a particular theme. After remarking to Will how intentional brilliant an aspect of his melodic framing was, he was delighted to hear this, as it was not at all intentional in the way that I perceived it. It was the conversation that followed which sparked my interest in actively engaging in new music with the composers themselves, and how unique the conversations can be when artists and artistic interpreters speak about what they do together. I am very excited to have Will on, and you won’t want to miss the episode, which will be posted this coming Monday on all of the listed platforms.
The growth of this podcast and the network of listeners, to me at least, has been impressive. I really am thankful for the people who take the time to sit and spend time with myself and the featured guest in a given week, and I love the idea that we are building a community of support across the music fields. I hope to keep this going for some time.
I announced this earlier in a different post that the next featured composer after Will Davenport is Gabe Gekoskie, with his piece for saxophone quartet titled Modest Mutilation. I also have a handful of people that I am currently in contact with about being featured on the podcast, but I will refrain from announcing any collaborators until these plans are more concrete. If there are any composers or music theorists interested in being featured on or hosting an episode of the TCC, please feel free to use the contact page on the website or reach-out over social media, we would love to have you!
Thank you for checking-out the blog, and keep watch for the next episode of the TCC this coming Monday, featuring Will Davenport and Reed Quintet I.
- Aaron
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