Sugar Vendil 3/6/20 Sugar Vendil 3/6/20

Composer-Performer Interview Series: Dr. Alan Thiesen

This is the second in a series of short interviews with composer colleagues on balancing composing and performing. I’ve found it particularly challenging lately, with commission deadlines and also wanting to direct more focus into my solo practice, so I decided so ask for a little help from my friends!

Sugar Vendil 1/28/20 Sugar Vendil 1/28/20

Thoughts on Hesitation

Sugar Vendil 1/19/19 Sugar Vendil 1/19/19

My Worst Nightmare (Not Really)

Last night I had a stress dream about my new piece. I was workshopping with Laura and Hajnal, who are in my piece in real life. Laura is on her side, playing flute and trying things out. Then Hajnal’s husband, Dorian, comes to rehearsal too with small percussion equipment so I think, All right, guess I’m writing for that too. More people appear, because it turns out that Hajnal thought it they’d dig what we’re doing and would possibly take part.

Then I see tables set up for brunch, staff bustling around in my periphery, a dance floor, some guests cheering, some dancing. I assume Hajnal had planned this as well. It turns out to be a wedding reception. I do not see a bride and groom; it simply becomes fact. We are standing next to each other, looking at the scene, and she says something that implies she is as surprised as I am. I say, You didn’t plan this? And it turns out she did not.

I start to panic because I REALLY need to work. My friend Jay appears with an envelope that looks like one of the bank statements I actually receive in the mail and says he will go downstairs to the admin office to sort it out, since he needs to drop off a payment (which is in that envelope). Luckily, time moves by extremely slowly. I look at my phone and what was ten minutes normally was only three minutes. I don’t know how; I just know it was true in this dream. So I think, Okay cool, I have time.

Hajnal and I are talking (where the hell did Laura go?) and I tell her that some bratty girl we know, who does not exist in real life, I think her name was CJ, got put in her place.

Right before this dream was another dream, that there was an Urban Outfitters closeout sale at the top of a mountain. This is really random, because I have not shopped there in several years. The company was bussing people back and forth at regular intervals and CJ was a diva and asking to be picked up at a specific time. She was told no (this was apparently her being put in her place). At some point, my cousin and I are on the bus but we had not gotten off, so we were going back up the mountain.

There’s a little more, but I’ll stop there. To anyone who knows what my day was like yesterday, or knows me extremely well, this would make almost perfect sense. Psychologists theorize that dreams serve a role in memory processing, and this was absolutely a bizarre culmination of my Friday. Although it was cut short by an invasive wedding reception, I did receive one creative idea during my dream workshop.

I have felt stuck this month, but yesterday, I was able to sketch two tiny ideas. It did not make me feel like I had any more momentum, but perhaps just starting at least sparked a little bit of imagination that was able to manifest itself during sleep. Taking something from concept to creation sometimes seems nearly impossible: having to manifest all my research, personal stories, and the ways I think about life into a piece feels like trying to create a meal where nearly all of it is made from secret ingredients and no one in the world knows what they are.

I guess I should end with something cheesy like, perhaps the secret ingredients of my creativity will reveal themselves in my deepest dreams or some shit like that. I am not a writer and I need to start composing today. I just really want to make something good.

Sugar Vendil 3/1/17 Sugar Vendil 3/1/17

Arts Letters & Numbers & Keyboards

I just got back from a productive and inspiring week with fellow pianists and composers, Melinda Faylor and Mary Prescott. We visited a residency upstate called Arts Letters & Numbers where we were graciously taken care of by Frida Foberg and Rikke Jørgenson. Rikke picked us up from the bus station and took us to the grocery store. In addition to Frida and Rikke, there was a lovely community of friends surrounding the residency: a ping-pong group that consistently meets once a week, and regular ALN folks Farmer Adam (moniker courtesy of mua) and John, who were great company, not to mention they generously gave us rides to the store and bus station.

Every day we hit the studio to work on a new multidisciplinary piece. Not going to say too much about that since it's very early in the process, but I will say that Mary and Melinda rock. Our work was intense, we were physically sore every day from all our moving around, and it was fun. We danced, sang rounds, played little pianos that were not of the grand variety. When we weren't working, we were either eating, practicing on the 9-foot Baldwin (however, after a couple of days I simply didn't feel like touching the piano), talking a walk, or relaxing. We all forgot to bring a nail clipper, so being the pianists we are, we were sad to leave but eager to get home to trim our nails. I'll remember to do so at our next intensive week, which I am already very much looking forward to.

*Melinda, me, and Mary at the House on the Hill*

*Love this vegetarian chili recipe I found on epicurious. Leftovers for days!*

I wore this exact same outfit EVERY SINGLE DAY minus the additional sweatshirt around the waist

*I liked working on the large surface area of the kitchen island*

*Can you remember who's who? The answers are above! :-P*

Thumb piano; a Casio tone from the 80s we nicknamed "Gene," as in Gene Belcher; melodica; Melinda's accordion; and some cow bells that were hanging out at the mill — *Thumb piano; a Casio tone from the 80s we nicknamed "Gene," as in Gene Belcher; melodica; Melinda's accordion; and some cow bells that were hanging out at the mill*

*Our new buddy, Gary, who brought some delicious posole*

*Outside the Mill. Can you tell we really loved the Mill?*

*Working on the porch because the weather was beautiful*

*Mary was stoked for the moss on this leaf*

*We're starting a Go-go's cover band called S & M's.*

Sugar Vendil 4/4/16 Sugar Vendil 4/4/16

My favorite moment at my first Target Margin Theater Intensive

First Intensive as a Target Margin fellow.

In early March, my fellow fellows and I had our first intensive. It was grueling, fun, and fulfilling. Here's my favorite moment, captured in this photo by Gaia Squarci and a journal entry, below.

More info about Target Margin here, and get tickets for their upcoming benefit here!

Sugar Vendil 3/28/16 Sugar Vendil 3/28/16

Breaking Habits & a Handheld Projector

Embracing Process for Progress

New piece!

*Yesterday's workshop session with Coco Karol*

I was recently accepted into Target Margin Theater’s (TMT) Institute for Collaborative Theater Making, where artists are invited to challenge themselves, their practices, and engage in questioning and experimentation. Activities include intensives, focused experimentation, adventures, and breakfasts. I was so thrilled just to get the interview; I don’t have a theater background so I thought my chances of becoming a fellow were low. What appealed to me is the way the Institute seems to balance structure with artistic freedom and experimentation. There is no end goal or specific project to work towards. In both the application guidelines and in the interview, it was emphasized that we would need to set aside whatever we are working on for one big question mark; the Institute would be a place not to launch and execute projects, but to embrace the unknown. The Fellowship is already such a gift in and of itself, and beyond that TMT gives each fellow a $1,000 stipend as well as space.

I am beyond excited to take part in this, as I believe this is exactly what I need right now. I have been building my music ensemble, The Nouveau Classical Project, over the past seven years. Aside from working on the creative side of it, i.e., curating, performing, directing, there is an enormous amount of unsexy work that goes on behind the scenes to execute projects and maintain the organization: fundraising, marketing, operations (one of my least favorite words…what are we, a hotdog factory?), making face time at events, coffee meetings, etc. More often than not I’m going at breakneck speed, mostly driven by ambition, but also by necessity. I work hard to make sure things get done, are well done, and people get paid, which doesn’t always allow me a lot of time to let ideas germinate or reflect on what matters to me as an artist. I have no regrets, though; having the discipline to balance all of this with a consistent practice schedule has taught me how to manage my time and allowed me to build something that’s still going strong.

Speaking of time, there’s a time and place for everything. This may not have been the right thing for me ten years ago, or perhaps I would not have understood its importance to my artistic growth and creative practice (I had piano tunnel vision; the only thing “practice” could mean to me at the time was hours on end at the instrument.) I’m a completely different person now and my priorities have changed significantly. I think now is the time where I need to engage in some much-needed experimentation, rethink my work, and immerse myself in a slow motion process propelled by questioning.

One of the projects I’m working on outside of the Fellowship is a multimedia piece with composer Trevor Gureckis and choreographer Coco Karol. It's going to involve music, movement, and projections. My stay at the A-Z West wagon station encampment in Joshua Tree was the impetus for the project so it will be incorporated into the piece. That's all I know right now. I’m purposely refraining from mapping it out too extensively at the beginning because I want to see how things unfold for a little while. Don’t get me wrong: it’ll get done and there will be a structure. After working the way I have for years this is inevitable. I just don’t know exactly what it is going to be at this moment in time, and for me, that means this project is off to a good start.