10. Concertino for Saxophone - Brian Junttila

[Aaron] Hello and welcome to the Theorist Composer Collaboration, a podcast interview series highlighting modern composers and their compositions, hosted by music theorists. My name is Aaron D'Zurilla and I am a graduate music theory student at Florida State University and I will be your host for today. The music that you were just listening to is an excerpt from the piece Concertino for Saxophone by the composer Brian Junttila, who alongside his music is the featured guest for this episode. That leads me to welcome Brian himself to the program. How are you?

[Brian] I'm good. Thanks for having me, Aaron. I'm really excited to talk about my piece and talk about, you know, the Theorist Composer Collaboration.

[Aaron] Well, I appreciate that. You know, it's kind of funny that you are one of the people that for a while I had consistently been asking if you could be on, but I know that the end of your spring, just like many people, the end of your spring semester was quite a lot, but I'm happy to finally have you on.

[Brian] I'm really excited and thank you for being persistent and asking.

[Aaron] Of course, of course. Well, Brian, how about you tell the audience about yourself personally, professionally, academically, whatever you choose.

[Brian] Well, I'm currently studying a DM, Doctor of Music and Composition at Florida State University, and my past experience has been I did my Bachelor's Degree in Composition at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and then I directly after that went to Florida State for my Master's, took a couple of years off, did some admin work in music, and from there I transitioned back to FSU to do my doctorate. And I'm now going into the second year of my program, which is the last year of my coursework, and then after that I'll be doing dissertation work. So I'm very excited about that. My main musical goal is to incorporate a lot of the musical inspirations that I've heard and kind of mix newer music with some of the traditional sounds that I like, and just, I take a very intuitive approach to my music, so things just kind of come up on the spot, and I think that I create music that sounds good to me and hopefully other people.

[Aaron] Well, that's always the hope, and I think it certainly will with what was played at the beginning and throughout this episode. I have a question though. You're coming up on your second year coursework, as you just said. Any ideas for a dissertation so far?

[Brian] So the dissertation for composition at FSU is a large piece, usually for a larger ensemble, and of course it should have some inspiration to it. So I do a lot of work with my Finnish heritage and I have written some other pieces that are inspired by my Finnish heritage, so I was thinking about the Kalevala, which is the national kind of story of Finland, maybe doing something operatic, something, a tone poem for orchestra, wind ensemble, but nothing set in stone yet.

[Aaron] Some light, easy weekend work stuff, right?

[Brian] Yeah, easy. Really easy, yeah.

[Aaron] Well, I look forward to that. I'll have to have you on again at a future point to talk about your dissertation work and to get into it, but not to pressure you, you still have a whole other year of coursework before that. So, you talked a bit about inspiration. Can you go a little bit more into that? What sounds, genres, ideas inspire your sound and your work, and how would you describe it? Oh, you did a little bit there, but can you say more?

[Brian] I have extensive background in most kind of classical art music, I should say, concert music from the Baroque era to today, and so pretty much anything that I listen to can end up in my music somehow. Anything from the concert art music scene or from, I listen to a lot of popular music, so that sometimes makes its way into, especially some of the rhythmic elements from popular music can end up in there. But for a while, when I was really starting my composition journey or really starting to seek composition at a more kind of professional level than just a hobby, I was really into film scores like music of Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, and the music from minimalist composers like Steve Reich or Philip Glass. And so having some of those slow changes over time using a lot of repetition, that was a huge inspiration for me.

[Aaron] So you know, the term concert art music has always puzzled me a little bit. Maybe this is jumping the gun a little bit to the later segment, but I want to talk about that label for a second. I understand why you use the label of concert art music. We all know what that is, which is, you know, like something you would go see a symphony or a chamber ensemble perform, something from the classical canon, or maybe even not, you know, something that's more recent, notated typically on paper, performed live, sometimes it's fixed media, you know, so on, so on. But can you describe to the audience or talk a bit about the label of concert art music? Because for example, I know that you love Dua Lipa, respect for that. And she performs in concerts. And I would, on a very technical level, describe that as concert art music, because the performance is art, the singing is literally the whole shindig of it is concert art music in its literal form, but that's not the way that we phrase it, you know, in a daily life, or in class or so on. It's just understood that's not how you describe that music. What are your thoughts about that?

[Brian] I think that the term classical lowercase c has become synonymous with Classical uppercase c. And so that is at least my perception of it. So I avoid using the term classical music to represent the entirety of, like you said, notated instrument, typically instrumental or opera music that happens on the concert stage, you know, in a concert hall, usually by musicians that are professionals in their field who have been studying either uppercase or lowercase c classical music, or are classically trained. So I avoid using that term, even though that tends to be kind of the biggest catch-all. And so if you don't use that term, then what do you use? And that's, I think, the hardest part, because I could say instrumental music, but then you could be talking about folk or bluegrass, which is very big in Virginia where I'm from. So I don't want to use that term. And so I kind of settled on, you know, art music, which has somewhat replaced classical in a sense, very lightly, at least I've been hearing it a lot over the last few years. And then, but then I don't like the term art music because, you know, it connotates that there is music that is not art music. And that's really difficult, too. So I just currently don't think that there is an excellent term to describe the kind of music that's being composed nowadays for the musicians who typically play classical music.

[Aaron] Yeah, I agree with you. I guess maybe that was I'm not totally criticizing your use of it. It's just more commentary on it as you're saying, because you're right. It is. It's very, it's a thorny and tricky issue because the most apt words that let someone understand what you're talking about are also very loaded. But just for brevity, you know, you have to call it something because you're right, you know, classical music, small c classical music could be a Telemann concerto, a Brahms symphony, a Stravinsky like piano miniature. It could be a Caroline Shaw vocal piece or a Steve Reich fixed media piece or tape piece. It could be literally, you know, literally hundreds of thousands of different things, you know. So that was a little bit of a sidetrack, but I always enjoy conversations with those such and also we've had classes together and I always really appreciate your takes on such things, especially, I remember in Atonal One last fall, I loved whenever you got involved in the discussions about the classical canon and different such things. I always thought you had great things to say with that.

[Brian] Thank you. Yeah, the classical canon is also one of those that's starting to, starting to, we'll just say not there, there's still plenty of work to be done. But that's also one of those things that's starting to open up, that term is becoming more broad. And so somehow it's becoming more specific and more broad at the same time, you know, people want to open it up, but then they're also trying to expand from it. So that's kind of closing it off to which is, I've just been thinking about that which is a little unusual for a term like that.

[Aaron] Well, if Brian Junttile was the master of the universe and all of the art world, which you're not but you know, let's say. Yeah, you can hope, you can hope. Let's say that you were, would you expand the canon, eliminate the notions of it? It's not ever going away. Like you say, you know, it's been around forever. It's just it's there. It's expanded, it's fragmented, so on, so on, so on. But what are your, I mean, do you see those developments as a but you said, you know, where that is positive, but the specificity of different things? Is that productive?

[Brian] This question is really difficult to answer, because I think there's two major perspectives that you can have. The first is that the canon never goes away, you know, so your goal is to expand it as much as possible, open people's eyes to all of the music that's been being written in the current day, and all of the music that's been forgotten from the last, however many hundred years you want to, you know, open it up to. And then there's the other side, which is that the canon can go away. And that means that you're just essentially exploding the bubble and everything becomes fair game. And I think that the more realistic one is the former, because it's difficult not to put labels on things, especially when we have so much genre as it is, and we like to put labels on things. So, or I guess there's a third option. We could create new canons, you know, we could have old canon where we, you know, we still pull some music from and new canon and or maybe just instead of having the term canon at all, we have just we use the more broad term genre. There's a whole lot of different ways you can think about it. And it's kind of difficult to answer which one is the most realistic, I guess, in the long run.

[Aaron] Yeah, thank you for giving your take on that. I know I didn't prep you with the interview questions beforehand about that. I just spur of the moment. I thought 

[Brian] That was okay. I have lots of opinions, so...

[Aaron] I, and I love to hear them, and I love to hear them. All right. So let's talk about the piece that we have featured today alongside yourself Concertino for Saxophone. And I didn't say this at the beginning, but specifically we are looking at movement two. Why specifically are we looking at movement two and where does that movement fit in the broader scope of the piece? Can you talk about that a little bit?

[Brian] I think specifically I chose to look at movement two because that was the movement I enjoyed writing the most. I think that I, in general, enjoy writing faster music. So this movement is the faster movement. I think some of the compositional techniques that I use in the movement are more successful than in the first movement. And sorry, what was the rest of the question?

[Aaron] I'm sorry. I do this thing where I need to get better with how I phrase questions. I usually trunk load something with a whole bunch of stuff. Essentially what are the other movements? So there's one before it. Is there one after?

[Brian] The second movement is the last movement. It's a concertino and so the goal was to have everything flow continuously and there is an optional atop??? it into the first movement so it flows just straight into the second movement. And the reason I distinguished them by movement, primarily, was because of performance reasons. If somebody wanted to take a break at the end of the first movement, then that was okay because the first movement is almost 10 minutes long as it is, and the second movement is 12 minutes long. And there really isn't that much time between when the saxophonist ends the first movement and when they come in in the second movement. So if they wanted to take a break, they could do that. If they didn't want to, they didn't have to. And so from that reasoning, that logic, that's why I call it a concertino as opposed to a concerto. The second movement is the last movement and it does end soft. It doesn't end with this big finale. There is a loud moment where everyone comes in together at a fortissimo, but it isn't like a classical concerto where everyone ends on the tonic and then you have the coda that just keeps firing away until you have your last three, one, five, one at the end. I took some inspiration from that coda finale where we have this oscillation of chords. And that's a technique that I used throughout pretty much the entire piece was when you have these two chords that are being juxtaposed. Yeah.

[Aaron] So, the title Concertino for Saxophone, a little bit more of a prescriptive piece title than some of the other things that I've had onto the program, somewhat similar to a Will Davenport's Reed Quintet Number I. And so I have to ask, is this an example of, Concertino for Saxophone, is this an example of absolute music, music for music's sake, or is there an underlying underpinned story that is just not illustrated in the title?

[Brian] The piece is written for a friend from my undergrad and I try to incorporate as many musical techniques as I know that he enjoys. He and I enjoy a very similar taste in music, but just writing the piece for him was really the only inspiration I had while writing it. I don't necessarily think in programmatic and absolute music. I just kind of write what feels intuitive to me in the given moment. And sometimes that comes from an inspiration and sometimes that doesn't. But I would say that I very rarely write actual, very strictly programmatic music, but I don't tend to think of my music as absolute either, maybe something in the middle.

[Aaron] That's fair ,and that's very sweet too. Was it for a special occasion or "I need to do a project and this is a great inspiration"?

[Brian] He had sent me a link to a competition and he made a joke. He said, hey, why don't you write a piece and submit it to this competition? And I said, okay, I'll do it. And then two years later I finally finished the piece. So it ended up not making the deadline, but it ended up being a great piece anyway.

[Aaron] Well, of course, of course. This one, you know, the video, you sent me a performance video of it, so it's been premiered already. What was the rehearsal preparation and initial premiere of it like?

[Brian] So this piece was chosen for a performance at the 2022 Biennial New Music Festival at Florida State University.

[Aaron] Oh, congratulations. I didn't, I didn't realize.

[Brian] Well, thank you. It was actually in the time I wasn't there. So I finished my master's degree in 2021 and then I started back at FSU in 2023. So in the middle was when that piece was performed. So I was living in Virginia at the time. I hear that my piece was selected for performance and super excited. And because with the job that I had at the time, traveling just wasn't super viable unless I was able to get off of work ahead of time. I really wasn't involved at all in the rehearsal process. I would get, I'd be sent some clips or some recordings every once in a while during the rehearsal process and from Dr. Ugay, who's the director of Polymorphia New Music Ensemble at FSU. And she would say, oh, do you like how this is being done? Do you have any feedback? And I would say, yeah, this is great. Or, you know, I would really like this to sound this way. But that was my, the extent of the foot that I had in the process.

[Aaron] That must have been really stressful.

[Brian] You know, I was, there were some other things that I was dealing with with my job and I just wasn't thinking about it a whole lot. So it wasn't super stressful. And my friend Michael Creighton conducted the piece. When I was still at FSU we taught in the same aural skills cohort, and I trusted him 100% to conduct my piece and to have it be performed at the quality that I wanted. And I trusted him to do that. And he really came through. I mean, the performance is really incredible. So I wasn't really nervous, but when I finally got there, the performance was on a Friday. I finally got there and I got to sit down for the performance. I just was nervous the whole time. I couldn't enjoy it, unfortunately. And you know, the performance is so great. I mean, the recording is so good. And Dawson Coleman, who was my saxophonist, he did a really amazing job. And Michael and the group did a really amazing job. But I just couldn't, I couldn't enjoy it. I just was like, oh, this has to sound this way, this has to sound this way. And I think that's a pretty universal experience. Unless you really know how the music is being performed and you can really put your trust in every single performer, it's really difficult, I think, to sit there and enjoy it as it's happening, especially for like a young composer who hasn't done it a whole bunch. Maybe for people who have a lot of experience having their music performed, they can just sit and relax, you know?

[Aaron] Yeah, I imagine it's kind of like, that's almost like if you were, if you wrote a script for a movie or TV show or directed it, sent out into the world and had to watch from a distance it being worked on, and you only really got to experience it fully one time when it's revealed to the world. So yes, I'm sure. But it did turn out phenomenal in the recording, as you said.

[Brian] Thank you. Yeah, it's like when actors, actors are talking about, oh, no, I never watched that movie, because they did not want to see themselves acting in it.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Brian] That's kind of how it is.

[Aaron] I have to say as a music theorist, I mean, I've experienced that somewhat with pieces I've had performed, but I'm glad that's not part of my career. No offense. That sounds nerve-wracking.

[Brian] It's just a little bit, it's super rewarding. Every composer will say, oh, it's so much work going in, but the payoff is so rewarding. Every composer, I don't know a composer who wouldn't say that. Sometimes, I mean, if it's not a particularly good performance, maybe they would say something different, but for the most part, every performance is rewarding in some way.

[Aaron] So the instrumentation, it's interesting. Well, I can't say I was expecting anything, but I guess I just wasn't expecting, like, you know, you actually said earlier that you didn't quite want to make it a concerto. And when I saw Concertino, maybe just my impression was not fully formed, but I was not expecting it to be concerto-like, which it's not a concerto, it doesn't have the character of one, but the back and forth between the soprano saxophone and the chamber ensemble, which, let me list out the chamber ensemble, was a flute, B-flat clarinet, piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. So what brought you to spotlighting the soprano saxophone, juxtaposed with a chamber ensemble of that sort?

[Brian] I think there's a couple things, there's a couple elements here. The first is that the competition that I mentioned earlier that I had written the piece for, it was, they wanted a piece like a concerto-like piece for a soloist and chamber ensemble, up to nine performers total.

[Aaron] Okay, that makes sense.

[Brian] So that was where it started, and then I thought, well, what works good with saxophone, just about anything? So I decided that I was going to go a more classical route, and I took inspiration from the Pierrot ensemble, which has the flute, clarinet, strings, and piano, typically. I could have added percussion, I decided to have double bass instead, because I really love the sound of double bass. So that's kind of where the instrumentation came from, and the back and forth between the soprano saxophone and the chamber ensemble in the middle part of that second movement. I think for me that timbre and color are so important, and this is a fundamental difficulty I have with writing solo music, is that in solo music it's very difficult to explore timbre. Not impossible, there's definitely extended techniques that you can use, but in general it's very difficult, especially to make it approachable. So that's one thing I have a lot going on, is that different instruments will be playing with the soprano saxophone, or maybe the soprano saxophone will take a back seat, and I try to do a lot with the timbre and color to keep it interesting.

[Aaron] Yeah, so I was going to ask this later, but well, you pretty much answered part of it, but I was wondering the difficulties of spotlighting a solo instrument, but not over showing it, or showing it enough to where it's not just a soli instrument line, but also not too much to where, like you just said, it's overbearing. I would say, I'm not going to pull out a specific example right here, but I will say, you know, as a violinist, I would go to say that violin has one of the most well explored soloistic repertoires in the history of all Western instruments, and I will say that many violin solo pieces, not just concertos, but especially concertos, over show the solo instrument to a boring level. And so I would say you very successfully incorporated the soprano saxophone as the dominant instrument in the texture, but it was varied enough to keep it away from a concerto idiom, and also to not overexpose it. I think also one element that you added to mix the timbre is that the lower register of the soprano saxophone is not starkly, but is quite the variation compared to the higher range of the soprano saxophone, so the variation in the instrument itself also helped with that.

[Brian] Yeah, in general, every instrument has its own tessitura, and its range is where it has certain sonic qualities, has certain timbral qualities, and my performer, I knew I was writing for him. The second movement, when I had started the second movement, I knew I was writing for this performer, and he has excellent flexibility in every range of the instrument, as you would expect with a solo performer, and the lowest sound was so full and rich, kind of reedy, and I wanted to take advantage of that low register in the soprano saxophone specifically. Going back to the comment on violin, is that with violin, violinists can play forever, technically, without a break.

[Aaron] Pretty much, yeah.

[Brian] Pretty much forever without a break, and with wind instruments, I'm a trombonist myself, we do have to take breaks in the music, we can't just play forever or our faces will move on to the other side of life. And so, that was one of the things that I had to keep in mind was that the saxophonist can't play forever. Now, with the timbral choices that I made, that ended up not being an issue, there was plenty of time for the saxophonist to take a break, but it is something to keep in mind with wind players, as opposed to string players. Although there are plenty of violin concertos that I find are very cleverly taking advantage of like, or at least modern day violin concertos that take advantage of the orchestra when the soloist is in playing. I think the first one that I think of is John Adams' Scheherazade.2, which is technically not a concerto.

[Aaron] Great choice, great choice.

[Brian] But it's an excellent tone poem, and really an excellent piece of music. And I also think of the Esa-Pekka Salonen Violin Concerto.

[Aaron] I'm not familiar.

[Brian] It's a really cool piece, Esa-Pekka Salonen. He was conductor of a major orchestra for a long time in the US, and his music is very, I like his music a whole lot. And he, in his violin concerto, the movement titled Mirage is really, just really excellent.

[Aaron] Well, some good music to look up for. I don't know if you know, I don't know if I told you this, Brian, but I actually took a semester of private trombone lessons at my community college. I have a trombone.

[Brian] What was the reason?

[Aaron] Well, okay, the reason was actually a bit sentimental. My grandfather, my mom's dad, he didn't go to school for music, but he had played trombone in high school and since he was a kid, and throughout his life he played trombone at his church, and he's getting on the older end of things, and he decided he just really wasn't up for keeping up with the embouchure and consistently playing. And so he offered it to me, the trombone. It's from like 1950s, and it's a particular kind that was made in the Midwest in the 1950s that apparently is valuable. I don't remember the name of it.

[Brian] I'm not huge in the trombone, like the manufacturing background, like the manufacturing side of trombones. I'm more in like the kind of the repertoire side and the performance side. But that would be, that's super interesting. I'd love to know if you ever pull it back out.

[Aaron] Oh yeah, I'm not going to lie, Brian, I've actually thought a couple of times of asking you if you would give me some casual trombone lessons here and there, because I have it, it's a beautiful trombone, and I did take a semester of lessons. And oh my goodness, see, it's funny, this is such a sidetrack from what we were talking about, but it's funny you say that violinists can play forever. See, when I get ready for my violin lessons, I go to a practice room and I practice for the hour before, give myself a 10 minute break, go into the lesson. With trombone, I try doing the same thing, and with a fresh, non-developed embouchure, if you practice for 45 straight minutes before your hour lesson, 30 minutes into that lesson, you're dead.

[Brian] Well, I will tell you, it is the same for if you, well, if you don't warm up very well, I mean, you have to warm up, but even if you do have a developed embouchure, if you play for 45, 50 minutes straight, you go into your lesson and try and play for another 45, 50 minutes an hour, it's still difficult, especially if you're playing difficult music.

[Aaron] Oh, well, I wasn't even playing difficult music, but it got to a point where I couldn't even make the fundamental B flat and F. But anyway, anyway, so that's, that's a huge sidetrack. But so let's get into the specifics of the music, specifically Concertino for Saxophone. So I want to talk a bit about the aesthetics of the music, and this relates to your attributed styles as before. Now when I get sent recordings that have scores, I don't look at the score for the first handful of listens and my two impressions of, while listening, was a late, late romantic style with some atonal inspirations. And when I say atonal inspirations, I'm not talking about of an absence of key or pitch centers, but more so the toying with a lack of key center in some instances where it becomes very loose. I would compare it and I wrote this in my notes to you. I would compare, for example, at many points, the soprano saxophones melodic moments to something like Rimsky-Korsakov or Debussy. So these are modulations in the, in that there are start, end, and middle points that are clear tent poles that structure the melody and the harmony of the ensemble, but the avenue that you get there, the 16th notes and the 32nd notes, the different ties and non-chord tones, well, mapping out the non-chord tones in this piece would be quite the bear. So maybe not that, but the journey that you take to get to these structural notes and moments is highly decorative, is an easy way to put it, but it is very fast and loose with its tonality, which adds a dynamic nature to the sound that is a lot of fun. So those were my aesthetic observations, and I'm essentially just asking, what are your thoughts about that, and how are you approaching, maybe looking back on it, or maybe even in the moment, how are you structuring the tonal language of the piece?

[Brian] I think I started with some of the formal characteristics, and I knew I wanted to write a fast movement, and so I start with this kind of medium-paced tempo at the beginning, and to me tempo gives you a lot of information about some of the harmonic structure and some of the pitch content, because I think that naturally they're related, so there are some things that you can do at like a walking andante tempo, and some things that maybe sound better at a presto tempo. So this opening tempo gives me a lot of flexibility rhythmically to have certain offbeats and certain pitches happening in certain places, and to me when I was structuring this opening part, the octatonic scale sounded really good. I always improvise first, and I started with that opening line in the piano, those five notes that span three octaves there. I started with that and then I thought, oh how can I transfer this into the saxophone, and so I did some messing around and I figured out, oh well if I do this over an octatonic scale, or diminished scale in jazz, if I use this in the octatonic scale, then that gives a really successful kind of moody sound that I'm looking for in this opening, and from there I can develop that octatonicism into actual chords, and so it's pretty much one per part for that entire opening, and then there's a double violin line where there's two violins playing in counterpoint at once, and then that turns into the entire string section and then the flute on top of that. All these chords are being created out of this original octatonic scale that I used, and then once we've reached the first big moment and then there is this, it kind of dies back away into this moody sound, that's when I start getting into more vertical chords. I don't have my score handy, but this section where the piano is outlining the chord, that's when I start getting into more verticalities, and that's when the harmony begins to drive the melody as opposed to the other way around. So the opening is melodic driven, and then this middle section transitioning into the waltz is more harmonic driven.

[Aaron] Interesting, interesting. You know, another observation that I made was I did not catch up on the octatonic scale, but in retrospect it makes sense. As you saw what I sent you, I picked up on there was heavy intervallic notions in what we now, or I now understand as the linear writing, or linear melodic writing in the introduction, where there was a heavy emphasis on intervallic patterns, which I guess is a manifestation of the improvisation with the octatonic scale. So here's the question, when you get away from the linear writing and you go into vertical mapping, and so you have an introduction and a good chunk of music that has the linear writing and the octatonic scale, what do you choose to keep and leave from the intervallically minded phasing of ideas from the beginning? When you move into a vertical landscape, there's certain things you need to do to keep the verticality going, but how do you incorporate those essentially more dissonant or extraneous ideas?

[Brian] The opening is built really off of the sound of a major second, so there's a lot of major seconds, vertical, linear goings on in the opening. And as I transition into the more vertical landscape, harmonic landscape, I keep that major second idea or turn it into minor seconds sometimes, and that's what drives the melodic kind of content. And so that melody is still pervading through into that linear melody, because of course it's a saxophone concertino, so saxophone's playing the melody and saxophone is a single note instrument. Typically, there are ways to achieve multiple sounds at the same time on a saxophone, which are really cool, but I don't explore in this piece. And so with the single note instrument, how do you write for that? Well, you can take really clear inspiration from the stuff that you did previously, like you don't just want to throw all that work that you did away at the very beginning. So that's how it kind of stays in the saxophone part.

[Aaron] Yes, yes, and that is probably the conceptualization of some of the observations I was making earlier about the looser connective tissue in the saxophone melody between the different focal points that tie the vertical nature of it together. So speaking of intervallic patterns, I'm wondering if this was on purpose, but there are moments of unison and it's also just little fragments here and there where I'm... I hope you find this humorous or that it was on purpose, but there are... there's an intervallic pattern that sounds almost identical to Dizzy Gillespie's famous tune Salt Peanuts.

[Brian] Oh yeah.

[Aaron] Was that on purpose?

[Brian] It was not on purpose. That section, I think that the section you're talking about is when the music goes from being more linear to more vertical, 

[Aaron] Yes.

[Brian] And the piano has this kind of oscillation that's going on. What I was trying to do there was create this five over four polyrhythm, especially in the first instance. It changes rhythmic duration and polyrhythmic status, I guess, in each iteration of it, but it starts with a low note or a low note, a high note goes back to the low note, then repeats that pattern over and over again. And when you start with the five over four polyrhythm, that's the way to make it most successful is that... which sounds like Salt Peanuts. So it's totally unintentional.

[Aaron] Hey maybe that's the reason why... I don't know too much about the specific background of Salt Peanuts and Dizzy Gillespie, but maybe that's part of the reason why he used that too. But it was successful. It was successful.

[Brian] Excuse me, I mean, the way he did it... I mean there's infinite variations on it now, but the way he did it, I think started as a three over two polyrhythm, so it could be just highlighting the polyrhythm was how that was created.

[Aaron] Brian Junttila and Dizzy Gillespie showing you how to lay down a nice polyrhythm. And so we're coming to the end of the second section where we talk more analytically, and I want to... I previewed this a little bit earlier, but I want to talk about the ending. So we know that this is an overall a two movement piece. Of course we've been talking about and listening to the second movement during this episode. Can you tell me... Now you said your music is not strictly programmatic. There was some overall inspiration of the piece, but not necessarily a story of any kind. But why did you decide to end the movement and extensively the piece in the way that you did in... Like you said, there's a loud moment, but it's somewhat understated. So what drove that choice?

[Brian] I think what drove the choice was again a formal decision. I had this ABA coda idea in mind, which is very traditional, and I achieved the ABA mostly through tempo as opposed to any other musical feature. The material does come back. The return of A has the A material come back, but it's quite different. And the coda I didn't really want it to end super loud. I don't really like super huge finales. I think that they can be a little... If you don't do it exactly the right way, it can sound a little contrived. So I...

[Aaron] That's a good way to put it.

[Brian] I mean, I know plenty of composers who do it well, you know? And in that moment, the finale I had originally had in mind, I think would have been like, oh yeah, he just slapped that on at the end and said, okay, I'm done with this piece. And I didn't want it to be known as the composer who just slapped it, you know, a box finale at the end. So I had it lose energy instead of gain energy towards the end. And I think that that... I didn't want to do it as a sign of going against the grain, but I think that it really showcases how the energy of the first movement is kind of returning at the second movement. Just calming as opposed to, you know, super energetic and wiry, which is something that I was trying to achieve with that, was getting that energy from the first movement back in the second movement.

[Aaron] Yeah, I really like your rationale of I would simplify it as like a self-awareness of how the piece is going. Because I mean, as you said, and I've said before on different episodes, we have familiarity with the classical canon or at least idioms in the world of classical music, you know, and contrived is a very good way to put some endings in the history of phenomenal composers, but sometimes box endings of just like, like you said, I-V-I-V-I-V-I, you know, or maybe throw a IV in there or something like that. With a big ending.

[Brian] Super unusual. Let's add a IV, ii-V-I and a, you know.

[Aaron] Yeah. But I like the self-awareness of understanding what the piece needs. Not just going, it is going against the grain a little bit, but the double rationale of the big ending isn't quite earned in the sonic landscape. And you're also trying to tie the piece together. When I say earned, I don't mean that like to get a big ending is like this big accomplishment, but it's not...

[Brian] I will tell you though, I will say that you do have to earn a big ending.

[Aaron] Okay, fair.

[Brian] I mean, you have to write the music in a way where the big ending sounds like it was earned. You can't just write it and be like, la di da, my piece is done, you know. You can't just like, that's not how it works. You know?

[Aaron] La di da. Indeed.

[Brian] You have to, you have to earn it. You do have to write, you have to write your material in a way, you have to write your transitions in a way where it works towards a big ending. And in that piece, I don't think it did that. I earned something other than a big ending. You know, the work that I did achieved something else and it had to match.

[Aaron] There's a lot of respect in that and la di da indeed. But all right, so before we move on to the final segment, Brian, is there anything else that you want to talk about specific to Concertino for Saxophone?

[Brian] I will also say that this piece, the conception of this piece and leading all the way up to the premiere of the piece was a long time in the making because of the COVID-19 pandemic, because the piece had been finished in February 2020. And of course, there was a performance lined up and then COVID happened and that kind of put everything on pause. And so some ideas I had with the piece ended up either not being realized or changed in a way. Like I had thought about adding maybe a third movement and then I decided that the piece was good as it was. You know, 20-25 minutes almost of music is that's enough, you know, I would say. So yeah, this piece was definitely a huge project and it was really exciting to have it premiered.

[Aaron] I'm sure, I'm sure and even extra exciting from the fear that we were talking about earlier. But of course it was in good hands. Brian, now in the final segment of this podcast, I'm going to, as Ben Williams put it last week, give you the slowest pitch on the field possible in terms of the question. What does music mean to you and composition extensively?

[Brian] Music means a lot to me. Of course, everyone has their own background in music, my background in music. I come from a musical family. I have been singing, performing for a very, very long time. The first moment I could get my hands on an instrument, I did. I had piano lessons from a very young age when I, and then I started strings and band and choir in elementary school. And eventually that worked its way into just, I played trombone in band for several years. And then when I was in high school, I started composing. I had a little app on my iPod touch that was like a MIDI sequencer before I even knew what like composition really was, you know, that it was a field that a lot of people did. And I listened to popular music and film soundtracks and that's my background. And that's really the thing that continues to inspire me is just listening to like being able to be a part of music. Music is a field and music is a lifestyle. And I think that just being able to participate in it is really, it's just great. You know, it's very difficult to put in words the feeling of just like getting to have your piece performed or getting to perform as a trombonist in an ensemble or as a soloist. And that's what I live for. That's what music means to me. And for composition, that's just another avenue of getting to collaborate with people. I think that composition really ultimately is a service that you do for other people. It's you know, you're writing for a musician, you're writing for a group and people want to play your music and they want to play new music. There's just the element of collaboration there is just, I think what music really is. And it's super fun and super cool.

[Aaron] Well, you know, I'm going to agree with you that collaboration is where music is at its brightest, hence the name of this podcast. But yeah, I agree. I agree. And what I find inspiring for myself, especially when it comes to new music, is being able to hear, you know, even let's say, you know, we were talking about programmatic versus absolute music earlier and let's let's even take the most absolute music possible. Let's say there's a composer who was born 15 years ago, wrote their first piece and it's absolute music. They say that, it's still a snapshot into the person that they are. There may not be explicit meaning behind the one, four, five or, you know, or, you know, or so on. But what I think one of the most special things about modern composition is that collaborative experience in performance preparation and practice and also being able to talk with people who create the amazing art that we can study right now. And one of the reasons why I started this podcast, but also why I love talking to composers about the music that they write, getting a snapshot into the person that they are. I totally agree, of course, with what you're saying. So let's flip the coin over onto the other half of the collaboration of this podcast. Brian, I know that, you know, it's kind of funny. I hope you take this in jest, but you are so involved in the different theory classes that I've taken and our cohorts take that sometimes you are just as much a music theorist as you are a composer, it seems, with all the work that you do. And you can really talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to music theory. I've seen some phenomenal music theory based presentations. We have a continuing joke that you have a doctoral degree in PowerPoint, which I've taken some inspiration from to get better at PowerPoint skills.

[Brian] I think your PowerPoints are great, by the way. I love your PowerPoints.

[Aaron] I appreciate that. I put an exorbitant, unnecessary amount of time into making them good. Once I found out how to use transitions properly, my life changed. So that is to say, what are your thoughts and feelings about the institution field application so on of music theory?

[Brian] I think music theory is an avenue for people to talk about, just talk about music. You know, ultimately, that's what I understand the field of music theory. And I think that, you know, coming from a composer background, I don't know all like the intricacies of everything that happens in the music theory field, all the people and all of the institutions that are set in that. And I think ultimately, music theory comes down to, I want to talk about music. And I want to talk about it in a way that is inspired by the way we hear music, you know, rhythm, melody, timbre, those kinds of things that are super important to a lot of people. And that I find that just really inspiring. Some people want to write music, some people want to play music, and some people want to talk about it. And so I think that that's, I know that's super important.

[Aaron] So here's a question about the collaboration between such things. Because I would say more often than not, new music, and let's be honest, new music in the world of music theory is anything from the past hundred years, for the most part. I remember Gabe Gekoskie, someone who was on the podcast before, in undergrad, he would walk around wearing a hat that said "Schoenberg is not contemporary".

[Brian] It's so true. It is so true.

[Aaron] And I'm not throwing shade at my fellow music theorist or the industry. Well, actually, I am throwing shade at the industry. But you know, part of it is practical reasons of wanting to get onto conferences and taken seriously by analyzing music of established names, which has a problematic cyclical nature in of itself when it comes to representation and bias and so on. But there is a struggle when it comes to, in my mind, incorporating new music and composition into the theory classroom, curriculum, and research. For example, I have been, I have not told her this, but I have been very seriously considering on a more in-depth level, studying Ky Nam's A Vietnamese Mother's Letter to Nixon. I just love how it's constructed, the story of it, and how the story is programmatically told and in a theoretical way told on many different levels. But I've gotten some slight discouragement from some people, and not necessarily discouragement, but caution about, you know, that sounds like a great idea, it's a phenomenal piece, but will it be taken seriously? Because you know, it's all about the name of the composer or so on. So, I guess I'm just venting some of my thoughts, but there is a disconnect, I would say, in the modern era between the fields of music theory and the wonderful work being made every single day, an hour, in the world of composition. Well, what are your thoughts on the existence of that gap? You can disagree with me if you want, of course. And are we doing well with it How do we bridge it? How do we mend that or just make it better?

[Brian] Yeah, I'll start by saying that I don't know every piece that's been discussed in a music theory article ever.

[Aaron] Well, I think we can give you a pass on that one.

[Brian] Yes. No, but it's really important to disclaim this because I think for me, when I've had to read articles in my classes, especially at FSU and at JMU, I experience the same thing that you're talking about, that all the composers, that the articles we read, everything that they're talking about are established composers, even if they are intended to be contemporary articles or articles about new music. Composers like Saariaho and Gubaidulina, who are amazing composers, Saariaho, she's not contemporary anymore, which is a hard truth to swallow. But like Saariaho is even more recent than Stravinsky or Schoenberg. And so I think it's really, it's a difficult question. How small can you get before you've kind of reached the edge of being taken seriously? And I think really, if a composer is trying to be serious, even that has some problematic implications to it, a serious composer, somebody who's trying to make it their profession. But you mentioned Ky Nam's piece, and I think that Ky Nam is, she's really trying to be a serious composer. And she was just in Seattle for an amazing premiere a couple of months ago, and she is, she's traveling, she's doing all this stuff that's really amazing for her career. And I would say that that, to me, should warrant analysis. It makes me think, if a music critic were to listen to that piece and they write something about that, then why wouldn't a theorist be able to take that piece and analyze that piece? If a critic can write about it, I think a theorist can too. So I guess that's one way to think about it. It is a really difficult question though, where do you draw the line? Because I remember being atonal that one day and our professor said, oh yeah, I mean, you could analyze your colleague's music, but that's not kind of serious enough for what we're looking for. And I was like, okay, interesting perspective.

[Aaron] I didn't want to call that out specifically, but that is, I've thought about that, you know, especially with this podcast and seeing all this amazing new music, that moment has stuck in my head about what I'm thinking about my own career, what I'm going to study and analyze.

[Brian] I'm sorry to that professor if she hears this, but it was a really interesting, it made me think, it was not something I had ever thought about. That fame is a part of music theory and composition in that respect.

[Aaron] In that respect, I have, let's say, numerous harsher than critical things to say about the zeitgeist of the music theory field, but this episode is not about that. And let us not delve into negativity with such things. But it's interesting about the reputation of certain names, because thankfully, I look back at the time, I thought it was a little odd, but I look back on it and I'm very thankful that University of Florida, it was a very composition heavy undergraduate program, and it seems like graduate program as well. There's only one true music theory professor, or person who had that label, the other theory professors were composition professors primarily, that was their job title. And at the time at University of Florida, I was one of two music theory undergraduates and there were like 15 undergraduate composers and the comp studio was quite full. It's actually quite impressive considering how relatively small their music program is overall at the University of Florida. And so because of that, most of my theory courses and classes I took, because they were fundamentally taught by composers, there was always heavy emphasis on newer music and discovery and finding new names and all of that sort. So I was a little, I am a little underdeveloped in more intimate knowledge of let's say, the classics in big quotations. But you know, for example, I remember in that same a tonal class, you analyze for your final project Julia Wolfe's Steel Hammer. To me, that is a staple piece of contemporary concert classical art music, whatever qualifiers you want to use. But that is a piece that I love infinitely. And to me is like a casual conversation piece. And talking to other composers, they seem to feel the same way. But it's not just theorists, but you step out of it is like, oh, well, who will first question who's Julia Wolfe? And second question I've never heard of Steel Hammer, or you know, like even Caroline Shaw's Partita for, is it eight voices? Yes, I think Caroline Shaw's Partita for 8 Voices or Jennifer Higdon or John Adams, John Luther Adams, you know, we can go on and on and on. The zeitgeist of new music, I guess it's too complicated of a thing to totally answer. But it feels so unfortunately self contained, even though, you know, to me, Caroline Shaw is as legendary of a name as Ligeti. And just in my mind, she's up there and in my personal opinion, far past it. But that's more of a value judgment. But things like that have an interesting dynamic that's not even necessarily specific to theory.

[Brian] Yeah, that's super interesting. I think that all the names that you listed, it's it's interesting, because those are all Pulitzer Prize winners. And I think that at the end of the day, I mean, music we get in in the kind of going back to the concert art term, but going back to concert art music and contemporary music, I mean, we have the Pulitzer Prize and we have other awards, too. But our kind of like biggest award that I, you know, me and a lot of my colleagues pay attention to is the Pulitzer Prize. And so when we see a lot of new music or we think about that, I mean, a lot of the names you know are the Pulitzer Prize winners like Julia Wolfe or Caroline Shaw or Chen Yi or Unsuk Chin. I mean, a lot of those composers, we know those composers because they were either finalists or because they won the award. And so that goes kind of back to the idea of fame, like you have to be famous before we know you, you know, as opposed to people just seeking it out. But that's super difficult. It's super difficult to know composers who aren't famous because you don't know who you don't know.

[Aaron] You don't know. That is a huge challenge. You don't know who you don't know. And also, good job. You called me out because one of my composition skills classes, Dr. James Paul Sain, he had us nearly memorize the Pulitzer Prize winning list and we had like listening foe listening quizzes every week. And we'd have to guess what Pulitzer Prize winner that person was, which was a really nice introduction for myself, a really nice introduction into the world of contemporary music. But you are very correct. Very correct in that observation.

[Brian] Yeah, I think the best way to do it now. I mean, the advent of the internet, the internet, my composition, the life of my composition, you know, my pursuing of composition, the internet's always been there. And so it has never been easier to find new music. And I think that's why there are so many people that are composing now is because they can get their music out there and feel like they're accomplishing something. And the people who, I don't know if you want to include the shameless plug, but Score Follower and all of those other YouTube channels that, you know, promote new music on the daily. I mean, that's the way you can find it. Those people are just posting the things that they get sent. And you know, you can always find something you fall in love with. And I think that that's one of the best ways to find new music is just to know somebody who is posting about it.

[Aaron] Yes, and I can hopefully add the theorist composer collaboration to that group of people. But yes, yes, all good. I feel like whenever I say this, I feel like a guy who just stumbled across a very obvious thing but then acts like it's like profound. But I have to say in my couple months doing this show as someone who dabbled, apparently more than a lot of people, but dabbled in new music, going much deeper, actively seeking out new artists and new music. And when I see a link on social media, I'll actually click it and go listen to a new album that came out from someone who has a couple listeners on Spotify. I have to say this to people. Again, this may not be that profound, but there is just so much amazing music out there that is literally being made, produced, mastered, written every single day. It is insane how much music is out there and how much of it is just absolutely phenomenal to whatever taste you may have. So go outside of your bubble. I love listening to my same Rick Astley CD on freaking repeat. I have my Maroon 5 tracks, my Christina Aguilera and my Pitbull ready to go every single day, but I also try to go outside my comfort zone, not just for the show, but for myself. And I encourage everyone to do that.

[Brian] I got to reach outside my bubble too. Everyone has a bubble. Everyone's got a bubble.

[Aaron] Everyone's got a bubble. Even within that new stuff I'm talking about, if you looked at it critically, that's probably still a bubble in a way. So Brian, that brings us to the end of the program, but I have to ask, you know, you talked a bit about it earlier when I was asking you about possible dissertation topics, but what's next for you? What are some projects you're working on?

[Brian] So right now I'm working on a solo piano piece for a colleague who just graduated from FSU.

[Aaron] Who is it?

[Brian] Jackie Yung.

[Aaron] Oh, I love Jackie. Oh, we had a counterpoint together. Oh, wait. Yeah, we were all in the same counterpoint class. Yeah, I just said that as if you weren't there, but yeah, love Jackie.

[Brian] Yeah, I'm working on a piece for him. I have been working on a piece for flute and harp and a piece for trombone choir. Those were projects I started last semester and I have some other opportunities that are available that I haven't completely confirmed yet. One is possibly a video game soundtrack. We will see about that, but there's more to come and yeah, a lot of kind of smaller chamber music right now. And then after that's all done, the dissertation.

[Aaron] Easy stuff, right? Easy, easy.

[Brian] Easy.

[Aaron] So, like writing a folk tune, not to disparage folk tunes, but anyways, how would it be best for the audience to reach out to you? All of your information will be readily compiled on your contributor page on the host website as well in the description of this episode, but what would be the best avenue for people to reach out to you for comments, questions, inquiries, commission requests, so on?

[Brian] Well, my website, junttilastudios.com has a page on it where you can send me a message. It's once you go to my website at the top on the far right is where you can go to contact me and you can also feel free to reach out to me on social media. I don't have any personal, I don't have any official music accounts on my social media, but if you reach out to my personal accounts, that's totally fine. My name on both my Instagram and my Facebook is how it appears in this episode, so you can find me super easily. It's a very unique name and yeah, I'd love to get in contact.

[Aaron] Excellent, excellent. And so, this brings us to the end of this episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration featuring Brian Junttila and his piece Concertino for Saxophone. Brian, thank you incredibly much for coming onto this program. I've loved our talk, all the extraneous side tracks and all.

[Brian] You know, I'm so good at it. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed getting to talk about the piece and the Theorist Composer Collaboration.

[Aaron] Of course, thank you. Hello, this is Aaron again. I want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration. I also want to give another big thank you to Brian Juntilla for joining the TCC and for sharing his piece Concertino for Saxophone. Brian's contact info is listed both in the description of this episode as well as the corresponding contributor page on the TCC host website and I would appreciate it if you could show him some support. Brian is a really great guy and a highly valued colleague both to myself and everyone else in the orbit of fellow graduate students here at Florida State. As I mentioned in different parts of the episode, Brian has great takes and input in class when it comes to the world of music, composition, and theory and I had been excited, and as you heard, insistent on him joining the show for those exact reasons. I find particular interest in what we talked about with the fame-based reputations in both composition and music theory and how they can often determine value and validity in scholarship. I would love to continue such discussion on another episode, possibly a roundtable, to have more music theorists to give their input on such issues such as that. Is this a tease of a forthcoming episode? Somewhat, but I'm still in the workshopping phase of such a thing so be on the lookout for it, but it is not something coming soon. Regardless I want to give another big thank you to Brian Junttila for joining the TCC podcast and for sharing his masterful piece Concertino for Saxophone. For further updates and notifications on the Theorist Composer Collaboration, make sure to subscribe to our email listing on the homepage of our host website, follow our Instagram and Facebook pages. Related links in the description. You can also listen to future episodes through our host website, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and YouTube, so make sure you subscribe to the platform you're choosing. Again, all relevant links are in the description. TCC episodes are posted weekly on Mondays and don't miss our weekly blog posts, which go live a few days after a new episode is added. I am excited to promote that our next featured composer is the solo Baroque electronic pop project called The Housing Crisis, also known as the singer-songwriter Dylan O'Bryan, and their new single titled Close to Something. It is even extra exciting that the release of this upcoming episode on Monday, June 17th will also be the same day as the public release of this particular single, which is the final promotional track leading up to the full new album release from The Housing Crisis. This is an exciting time on the Theorist Composer Collaboration and there will be more information on all of these things in the upcoming blog post and, of course, in the next full episode. Make sure to follow our social media accounts and relevant streaming platforms because you won't want to miss it. Until then, this is Aaron, and thank you for joining the TCC.