Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?
One definite influence is my late teacher, Ann Southam, CM (1937-2010), one of Canada’s foremost and most celebrated composers. I first went to Ann with questions on her music and compositional technique while writing a doctoral thesis, and for some time, she thought I was a musicologist! She later accepted me to her private studio, and I was the only student composer she mentored. This was perhaps the golden year as far as education is concerned. Even though most of my music does not resemble Ann’s style, her advice on things like form and structure has, in many ways, helped me rethink architectural shapes and the impact of specific sections within a movement on its neighbouring ones, no less the overall structure of a work.
Other influences include world music, nature and literature, Byzantine chant, baroque music, the Stravinsky ballets and many other Russian delicacies, Ravel and Debussy, Messiaen, and so on! One significant ‘influence’ with a major overall impact on my music and how I process sound generally is my synaesthetic condition (I see colours and shapes, and I experience scents and tastes through sound).
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
The greatest challenge in my earlier years was balancing time between commissioned work and the works I wrote that were not for commissions. This means that I have maintained a schedule that does not depend on how many commission requests have come in, and when I find time to spend on “non-commissioned” works, I pick up where I left after fulfilling a contract. The challenge here is finding the right state of mind I previously had and continuing from there (I call this ‘mental recalibration’). It has worked well so far, and many of these works have found their way and place in the industry.
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?
There are times when I feel that the requested length of the work is somewhat limiting, but I have, in every instance, found a way to work around it and accommodate the commissioner or organization. I enjoy the collaborative process with soloists who have requested a concerto. When the soloist is up to exploring the possibilities of their instrument, and when this is done in conjunction with what I want to reflect in a specific piece, the result is often a work that is generally stronger and stands the test of time.
As an example, my collaborative work with Nadina Mackie Jackson (Canada’s premiere bassoon soloist) resulted in not just a piece that we are both content with but also in technical material that has formed the basis of a new treatise of extended techniques. The concerto (Silver Angel) has also been used as the core material for a doctoral thesis at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. This all goes to say that while composers spend most of their time alone in their studio, it often takes two (or more!) to tango. And it just happens that when your collaborative mind and heart are open, the stars will align.
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles or orchestras?
Conducting ensembles is one of the most enjoyable facets of my career. I find immense pleasure in standing in front of a team of highly skilled instrumentalists and enjoy the process with both contemporary and more traditional repertoire. I was lucky to have found a mentor to develop this extra skill. I studied with Raffi Armenian (student of Swarowsky and protégé of Karajan) for four years (two years as an undergrad and another two as a doctoral student), with additional training alongside the conductor of the Royal Winnipeg ballet. The real teacher, however, was the podium and the challenges that it presents once you step on it. I started by conducting large chamber works by my composer colleagues with new music ensembles and went from there. I also slept beside a metronome, counting quintuples and septuplets for a few weeks!
I also enjoy working with singers and writing vocal and choral works. When composing, I always sing every vocal line, and I would never, in fact, submit a work with vocal or choral lines that I cannot sing myself (well, perhaps a couple of octaves lower than written). In my most recent album, From Sappho’s Lyre (Orchid Classics), containing all my Sappho and sapphic-inspired works, I was fortunate to have the chance to handpick every musician and singer. Except for the Tallinna Kammerorkester (the orchestra famed for disseminating the works of Arvo Pärt), the process with the rest of the musicians included sending out samples of my writing and having them record them on their cell phones. Then, depending on the resulting sound, I re-shaped my work note-to-note to reflect the best of each performer! This was perhaps one of the most rewarding and exhilarating experiences I have had as a composer and conductor.
Of which works are you most proud?
My mind and heart are most closely connected and associated with the piece on my piano desk at any given time. Out of the 120 works I have written to date, I have recently removed about 38 of my earlier ones from my catalogue, dismissing them as juvenilia. It is not that I no longer find merit in them, and I might recycle some of the material found there later, but you see, perceptions change over time, things develop, and the world is changing, too!
Although one can claim that the most indispensable auras with deep spirituality are found in any of my four piano concerti, when you hear From Sappho’s Lyre in comparison, you might think it was written by a different composer with a completely different set of tools and influences. The truth is that I cannot choose a particular work that I can say I am most proud of. What I could do, perhaps, is single out a few works that I had a particularly joyous time creating.
How would you characterize your compositional language?
That is one of the most challenging things to decipher or describe. My compositional language is often subjected to the nature of the piece and its performers and the thematic or programmatic backbone on which it stands. Reviewers tend to categorize works within the frames most comfortable for them. Because most of my work is tonally based, you might hear terms like neo-romantic, minimalistic, neo-tonal, or what have you. None of these terms are accurate, to be frank. With the danger of falling within the various traps of the industry, I would carefully state that my work is ‘highly eclectic.’
Then again, this means nothing. My next work may very well be based on a twelve-tone row, and the one following it might be ‘musique concrète.’ The first movement of my Suite Américaine for solo piano is more jazz than anything else, and the second is ‘minimalism on steroids.” All this to say that unless you are a pop or film composer, you need to stay away from the straitjacketing of what style and compositional language category you belong to. Instead, learn to write in all styles and do your best to say what you need to say in a manner most fitting to your artistic vision.
How do you work?
Drafts, ideas, overall shaping plans, reading, listening, and discussing are all parts of the initial process of starting a new piece. I work on the piano crafting with pencils and a lot of erasers, and I spend a significant amount of time thinking about the impact of the work on the listener. But this is just pedantic and uninteresting to our audience. What is of interest is that I use the synaesthetic part of my brain to get things going once I realize that a work has a shape and its own character. With the help of colleagues and, of course, through my immersion in the literature on psychoacoustics, sound perception and brain studies, I have created a method that I use in the intermittent part of the overall compositional process that is both personal and perhaps unique:
Once I have created part of a structure (a series of chords or a musical phrase lasting 15 seconds), I record and loop it on a sequencer. The looping could repeat a musical phrase as many as 45-50 times before it goes completely silent. During this time, I have hooked my fingers to a little biofeedback machine, ensuring I have left the present time, world, and reality. I have deepened my brain to anything lower than the alpha state while slowing my heartbeat significantly. When the looped sound goes silent, I am in a different dimension, that of vivid dreaming, but without being asleep. Once I find myself in this altered state, I can imagine what comes after and hear it repeatedly. The next step is to remember this vividly, come out of the dreaming state and write down exactly what I have just heard. This is, of course, not a method that I developed overnight. It took some twenty years, and, apart from the fantasy part, you need to have solid dictation skills to write down anything—especially if the music is complex and you are working with multiple instruments and sections, as in orchestral music.
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
My definition of success does not adhere to things like fame or recognition, good performances or recordings, a positive review, awards, or even a monetary ‘return’ for the piece of art I have subjected the world to. All the above are welcome, of course. Success for me as a composer living and creating in the 21st century is simply the ability to make a subsequent work more robust than the one preceding it, and while at that, express myself in whatever medium I choose in the best way possible. I wouldn’t stop any great orchestra, ensemble, or musician from programming my music (who would!). It is just that I feel fully content after the piece is completed and consider anything that comes after that a bonus.
What advice would you give to young/aspiring composers?
My advice to young and aspiring composers (and my students) is first to learn how to compose well for their instrument, and, if they don’t play one, choose an instrument and learn it at least at the intermediate level. Learning to write for voice very early on is also a must. Then, apart from acquiring all the necessary skills that form the core for any composer (from the history of music to harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, orchestration, etc.), strive to solidify their ideas and always try to experiment with different languages, especially the ones that don’t feel ‘natural’ or organic to them.
I also advise that they try the impossible without being fearful of failure. Once they feel comfortable creating work for just two instruments, advance to the next level, whether this means writing for a larger ensemble or staying where they are but creating multi-movement works. One thing that has helped me through the years is analysis. Analysing Berg’s Lulu or Dallapiccola’s Rencesvals, things they may not like or understand, and then things they might deem ‘too simple,’ like a piece by Rameau, will benefit them in the future. Finally, they should always learn 600% more than what is asked in academia: universities teaching young composers will only help them learn how to learn. The rest is up to them.
What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences? And what’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about but you think we should be?
I just received an email from a faculty member from the Juilliard School congratulating me on the release of my new album. Their email mentions that “this has come in a particularly Philistine time.” This made me wonder: what exactly creates this kind of bitterness? We have all we could ask for, from great halls and performance spaces to technology, resources, and outstanding instruments; performers are reaching new heights daily; the tradition of the great masters has endowed our field with the most superb artistic creations of humankind. Why would someone interviewing a composer pose a question like this?
My answer is singular and simple: we need to find a way to educate our audience(s) on the nurturing nature of our art. If you take vitamin supplements to help your body stay healthy, you may want to do the same for your brain, spirit, and soul.
What do you enjoy doing most?
Trivia: I spend 5-6 days in complete silence twice a year, usually after writing an extensive piece and sometimes before starting one. You can think of it as intermittent fasting for the ears!
From Sappho’s Lyre by Constantine Caravassilis is released on the Orchid Classics label
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