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Musings on the Pultizer

Musings on the Pultizer

I have no great attachment to the Pulitzer Prize being for “classical music,” so if Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN is a great album, then fantastic that it won! I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m looking forward to listening! The thing I wrestle with is that so often becoming more inclusive gets equated with including new genres — while still leaving out the women, people of colour, and other marginalized people whose works have been overlooked in the original genre. Eg. I’m sure there are many black “classical” composers whose work continues to get overlooked by the Pulitzer and similar awards. I can’t speak to how black “classical” composers are feeling about the Pulitzer (and if you know of any commentaries, please point me in their direction), but I can speak to how I feel in a parallel situation. I’ve always hated how when classical music anthologies and form and analysis texts decide to add some women composers for their second (or 25th) edition, they usually just add a couple of popular songs. I mean yes, song-writing is great, and it’s a genre in which women have often had more opportunity to succeed than, say, Romantic opera — but it’s still overlooking all the “classical” women composers. I feel like just adding a couple contemporary women song-writers and no-one else to a text/anthology that is clearly mainly about “classical” music actually serves to reinforce the idea that women can’t or don’t write “classical” music even more than leaving out women entirely! At least the text or anthology with no women can’t pretend it’s trying to be egalitarian, while the text with two women popular song writers and 102 male “classical” composers will claim that it is being inclusive! Of course I’m in favour of including new genres in things too — just tired of the way “inclusion” and “new genres” get equated, and many people still get left out!

Recording of Field Music by the Fair Trade Trio

Recording of Field Music by the Fair Trade Trio

I’m looking forward to the upcoming recording of my piece Field Music (2017) by the Fair Trade Trio on a CD which will also include works by Jennifer Higdon, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Kaija Saariaho, and Molly Herron. Ashley Windle, violinist and founder of the Fair Trade Chamber Music Society talks more about this recording and other Fair Trade Trio Projects in an interview with with Lana Norris on I Care If You Listen.

Diversity Within Progressive Musicology Roundtable

Diversity Within Progressive Musicology Roundtable

In January I was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion on Diversity within progressive musicology at the Critical Theory for Musicology conference at University of London. I’m not a musicologist by training, and really enjoyed spending the weekend listening to and talking with all the musicologists striving to build bridges between the worlds of “new musicology” and “traditional musicology.” Here is my contribution, written up in blog form on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Exchange Thoughts Blog.

Conversation

Conversation

The premiere of Conversation, based on the howls of grey seals and poetry by Eleonore Schoenmaier, will take place on February 21 at St Salvatore’s Chapel in St Andrews, Scotland. Conversation was commissioned by Bede Williams for the St Andrews New Music Ensemble, with funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and researched with funding from the Culture and Animals Foundation. You can find out more about the ideas behind this piece and the process of writing it here. Please come along on February 25 as well, to hear James Turnbull and Eddy Hackett perform a program of new music for oboe and percussion, which includes my piece Social sounds from whales at night.

Consider the subtleness of the sea: An interdisciplinary music-science investigation of humpback whale song

Consider the subtleness of the sea: An interdisciplinary music-science  investigation of humpback whale song

I’m thrilled to announce that St Andrews biologists Luke Rendell, Ellen Garland, and I have received a St Leonard’s Interdisciplinary Scholarship to fund a PhD student. The ideal student will have a strong background in both biology and music, and will become involved with activities at both St Andrews and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. More information can be found here. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

Fair Trade String Trio Premieres Field Guide

Fair Trade String Trio Premieres Field Guide

The Fair Trade String Trio (Ashley Windle, Hannah Levinson, and Jeanette Stenson) will be premiering my newest piece, Field Guide, on July 20 through 26 on their second Pacific Northwest tour, with concerts in Vancouver BC, Victoria BC, Bellingham WA, and Portland OR. More details of the concerts can be found on their websiteField Guide is based on the songs of three birds which can be found in the Western US, the horned lark, the greater sage grouse, and the Western meadowlark. Though these birds aren’t currently endangered, they depend on the wild land of the US National Parks and Forests — and are one of the many, many reasons why we all need to be working to preserve these lands.

Composer in the Tabloids

Composer in the Tabloids

The Sunday Mail/Daily Record did a story about my research on seal vocalizations! Thank you Sunday Mail and Heather Greenaway for the lovely coverage of my work!

My piece Seal Songs, based on the Selkie legend, was originally written for the Voice Factory Youth Choir and the Paragon Ensemble, conducted by Mark Evans, and premiered in Glasgow and Skye in 2011. Seal Songs received its US premiere by the San Francisco Girls Chorus and Trinity Youth Chorus in June, 2017. I’m currently conducting research on seal vocalizations with Prof Vincent Janik and Alex Carroll at St Andrews University, and will be writing a new piece based on my research, to be performed by the St Andrews New Music Ensemble, conducted by Bede Williams, in February 2018.

San Francisco Girls Chorus Performs US Premiere of Seal Songs

San Francisco Girls Chorus Performs US Premiere of Seal Songs

The San Francisco Girls Chorus and Trinity Youth Chorus are performing the US premiere of Seal Songs on June 4 at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. This is really exciting for me, not only because they are fantastic choirs, but because I sang in SFGC for a year when I was 13 (my family was on sabbatical in Palo Alto), and it was such a wonderful and formative musical experience for me. It’s always been a dream of mine to have something performed by them! Here’s a little letter I wrote to the choristers, as part of their ongoing Postcards series.

The Beaverton Symphony plays green/blue

The Beaverton Symphony plays green/blue

I’m looking forward to the Beaverton Symphony Orchestra‘s performance of green/blue on May 19 and 21 at the Village Baptist Church in Beaverton, OR. Also on the program are Robert Schumann’s Symphony #1, and the winners of the Young Artist Concerto Competition, Kaylee Jeong, Alison Mills, and Rachel Oh. I wish I could be there to hear the concert in person!