SFist Interviews Jennifer Higdon

SFist: It's the first time the SF Symphony is playing blue cathedral.

Jennifer Higdon: I'm absolutely thrilled, they're such a good group. I think it's maybe my first performance with this orchestra, of any piece.

It's an interesting piece, it does not sound like a memorial in any way, but in the same time, it's a commemoration of life. When I was writing, that's what I thinking about.

You wrote it after the loss of your brother (whose middle name was Blue). Was it cathartic?

It was cathartic, actually I thought it was very therapeutic to write. That's the best thing about composition, I always think of it as being medicine of the soul, I guess.

What is the SF Opera commissioned opera going to be about?

We're not revealing that yet, thus far it is a mystery.

There is a rumor it's about Katrina.

It's just a rumor that got started. It's NOT about hurricane Katrina.

Gene and I have been working on other projects. Gene has been working on an opera project, Moby Dick. [ed: a co-production with the SF Opera] He was doing something, that came to SF this season, he had something in SF this year, Three Acts, and Moby Dick next year. It hasn't happened yet, but Gene has been working on that. There isn't a lot I can tell you, because we got so many projects going on. It's a big project.

How were you contacted, did SF Opera general director David Gockley get in touch with you?

How did this come about? It was actually Donald Runnicles who asked me about doing an opera.

Will he be conducting? He won't be Music Director for the SF Opera by then.

Actually, I'm not sure. I'm not exactly sure what his commitments are at that time period. I don't know. There is not much I can tell you about the opera, there just isn't much information.

I have to tell you I'm excited about the SF Symphony, I haven't worked with this orchestra yet. I'm thrilled they're doing this work. And this conductor, Stephane Deneve, he has done the piece before, I worked with him here in Philadelphia, he's just phenomenal, he's such an incredible musician.

What do you mean by "working with," how are you involved in the performance?

Always the composer is working with the orchestra if you send the piece out there in the world. I will not be there for the performances. I have conflicting concerts, that's part of the problem.

That's a good problem to have! We heard about you when Jennifer Koh did your String poetic, a SF Performances commission, here.

We just recorded a violin concerto I wrote for her called the Singing rooms, in Atlanta. It was commissioned for her, and we recorded with her for Telarc. I work with Jennie Koh quite a bit. I'm very fortunate, I average 200 performances a year, and I have a tremendous amount of orchestra performances. I have been on the road quite a bit this season, I had residencies with the Phoenix Symphony, Eugene, and Indianapolis. I have been on the road enough, I am getting ready to go back on the road, I also had a violin concerto with Hilary Hahn....

Yeah, she mentioned it. She was saying you were 20th century music history teacher at Curtis. Is that a good way to meet up-and-coming musicians?

I don't teach classes there anymore, because I'm on the road so much. But when I was teaching the class there, everyone had to take the class, because it was 20th century music theory and history, so I got to know a lot of the performers going through the school. Now I only teach composers there, so I don't run across performers so much expect when they're doing works of mine.

But kids at Curtis did a reading of the concerto back in September at the start of the school year, to get a feel for it and see if I needed to adjust anything, and that was an amazing learning experience for all of us. It gave Hilary an opportunity to try the piece out, before we went out on the road with the work. It gave students in the Curtis orchestra a chance to see what it's like a new piece being born. That piece is getting booked all over the place, it's pretty amazing, we're getting ready to record it in May.

Now there's a textbook to teach 20th century music!

Yeah, Alex Ross. The way I taught the class was different from the way Alex Ross has his book set up. We did approximately 30 to 40 composers a year. And I would go into substantial depth enough to talk to the kids about repertoire. We tried to span the entire 20th century, and as we were moving into the 21st century, that portion as well. It was a new composer every day. There was more stuff in it than in Alex's book. I would teach it the same way. We tried to do stuff that was premiered in the past year, it was really contemporary.

And students had to compose in that class, which was good for them. So Hilary wrote music in that class.

She did not mention it.

[laughs] A lot of time for performers who are not used to writing, it can be a scary thing. Even though Hilary was an excellent student, she was really game for it.

Some orchestras tend to focus on the tried and true during the tough economic times, do you feel less interest in commissions or in any way?

I'm not feeling it right now, I have so many performances going on. This year, we have close to 50 or 60 orchestras doing work. Other orchestras have already done of mine and they are scheduling second works of mine. Phoenix has done five works of mine, and they are big works, they are concerti. Last week, I had a premiere here in Philly, and I also had a concerto being done with the North Carolina Symphony and Phoenix, on the same week-end... I'm not feeling the pinch. I will say that it is a real danger in these current economic times, if orchestras are doing only standard rep, there is a huge segment of the population they are not serving. There are a lot of people who are not really interested in hearing a lot of standard rep, they are interested in hearing a wide Variety of music, kind of like what they have on their iPod, they want a variety. I think that ends up serving the general population better.

I don't now ever go to concerts anymore that have just standard repertoire. In fact I actually don't know many people who do.

You're probably not the typical customer.

I am not the target customer at all, you're right, but all the people I know who go to classical music at all, they only go to contemporary concerts. The only concerts that I've been involved that have been sold out, only had contemporary music in them.

Some people find it baffling, but the fact of the matter is, it's the new way of consuming art for this generation, people are interested in variety.

Changing tack, what is the process you use to compose? Are you seating at the piano, or playing with the computer?

I actually do both! I know for everyone, it's a different experience. I actually go between the piano and the computer. When I started composing, we were not really depending on the computer very much. I start sketching on the piano, and I often will move to the computer when I've gotten part of the way in on the new piece. When the ideas start coming so fast that I cannot catch them all, I will move to the computer. I go back and forth between the piano and the computer.

It's different for everybody. Every composer has a different process. It's the thing that works best with the composer.

Wouldn't you be able to work on texture better with the computer, you can play with the sounds of all the instruments?

I don't, I don't have my computer set up that way. I'm using my imagination, I don't have my computer to play back like an orchestra. I can look at the score and hear, so I never endeavored to set up my computer that way.

We remember hearing some midi files for Doctor Atomic.

Right, I think that John Adams actually has an IT person that sets that stuff up for him! It's fantastic, it's a great thing. I've never been in a situation to do that. Maybe when I do the opera for San Francisco, I might actually see if I can do that, if I can figure a way to do that, I might hire someone to do it. I never needed it for composing, so I never endeavored to do that myself.

Opera works on a different scale, will you modify the way you compose?

I'll probably consult with a lot of people. We'll do some workshopping here in Philadelphia, of the opera.

I wrote this piece for baritone and orchestra, coming up this summer on Telarc with the Atlanta Symphony, based on Walt Whitman's Dooryard Bloom, I got to know the singer Nmon Ford by studying him, studying his voice, figuring out what works for his voice. That's always my approach. If I have a question about the instrument, I go to Curtis and I ask one of the musicians there. I'm very adamant about studying the genres and changing the way I think. A 10mn orchestra work is very different from a 37mn orchestra work. So I study it. You might say I'm a student of music, constantly trying to learn. Every performance, I go into the orchestra, and I ask "Does this work for your instrument, is there another way to notate it?" And I always take suggestions from the performers, cause they know their instrument the best.

What if we want to commission a piano concerto, what does it take?

What happens is, an orchestra usually contacts me, or the agent of the soloist, then they can order up what they want. Length: is it twenty minutes? I remember, when I did Hilary's concerto, she wanted a substantial work, something that was at least thirty minutes, and in her case she said "I want you to feel free to write anything, it's going to be my job to learn it."

I ask them about other pieces of repertoire, what do they choose, what pieces do they feel they have to struggle to balance the orchestra with. I'm always fascinated with balancing the soloist against the orchestra. So a lot of conversations go on between me and the group, or the soloist. It sounds very simple, but that's what it is. It's like ordering a suit of clothes. Do you want a certain look, a certain sound.

Then, voila, we get our concerto in a few weeks.

My calendar is full until 2014. I have to frequently turn down commissions, because I can't get them all in in my schedule. It's busy. So I look at: Can I fit the project in my schedule, is there a way to squeeze this. I'm very fortunate that I have this many orders for pieces, it's kinda surreal.

You participated in a Lesbian American composers CD? Do you want to be identified that way?

I never think about it. It's something that never cross my mind. I'm out. My partner and I have been together 28 years. I always think of writing the best music that I can.

We have a hunch of what an American composer may sound, like Copland or Gershwin, but can we tell how a "lesbian American" would sound?

People always tell me my music sounds very American. I hear that a lot. I have a hard time saying what makes it American. I'm too close to the music. I write everyday, I spend so much time composing, I never stop to think that I'm a woman composer, a lesbian composer, it does not enter my mind, I'm always thinking I've got to write the best music that I can. And I don't know if you can tell the difference, whether I'm gay, or that I'm a woman, I don't know if you can tell that in the music.

Actually,we can't tell. So why should there be fewer woman composer?

Last week, I did an interview with NPR, which they will broadcast later on the season, on this very subject. We did the interview with Marin Alsop, we were discussing that. We did not know if there are too few role models.

And it's a shame, because it's having those role models visible that makes the portion of the art visible to that population.

When you were teaching music history, did you emphasize the role of women?

I did not put emphasize it, but we had women composers in there. Everyone from Nadia Boulenger, her sister Lili Boulanger, everything from her up to the most recent stuff from Joan Tower and Libby Larsen. Whenever I would find stuff -- I had to play recording and have the score-- I would do women composers. There weren't as many as one would hope.