making music for 3.1 Phillip Lim's INTERSECTIONS

photo by Trevor Gureckis

When I was asked to work on INTERSECTIONS, I was thrilled to make music for a fashion designer whose work I love, and to share a collaborative space with incredible artists. INTERSECTIONS aligns with my creative interests and explorations as a composer and interdisciplinary artist, as I often draw inspiration from the quotidian. The composition consists of my own improvisations on synths, my own sarunay samples, midi instruments, which I played as I meditated on the themes of live/love/work/play, and reflected on the imagery and text. I incorporated some field recordings of NYC and wrote a melody for alto sax, which features my friend, the talented musician Aakash Mittal.

Collaborating with 3.1 Phillip Lim was a wonderful and harmonious (no pun intended!) experience. I really felt that they trusted me as an artist while providing excellent direction that made the work as great as it could be.

Sugar Vendil · LLWP

Along with my music, INTERSECTIONS features the works of Dong Ping Wong and his team at Food Architects; photographer Jiro Konami; graphic design studio Social Species, and original poems by Fatima Ahman, Jessica Kim, Vanessa Niu and Serena Yang.

Good news: the installation is open to the public on February 10th and 11th from 12pm-4pm at 408 Broadway, NYC.

photo by Trevor Gureckis

bts: reimagining carnival of the animals

In March, Sozo Artists brought me in to compose a piece for violin, cello, two pianos, and electronics for a collaboration with poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph, choreographer Francesca Harper, and dancer Wendy Whelan. It’s a reimagining of Saint-Säens’ Carnival of the Animals and it is an intentional response to the January 6 insurrection.

While I was making this, I needed to keep several things in mind: how to have my own voice pierce through a widely-known classical work; how to make something simultaneously original and familiar; supporting the text and choreography; making something for musicians I don't know and am not going to meet in person; writing an electronics part that works without click.

Left to right: Pauline Kim Harris, Walter Aparicio, Thea Mesirow

Marc would make audio recordings in addition to the text doc, and I’d listen to it over and over again. And again. Due to the project involving spoken word, where timing may not be rigidly measured, I allowed for space and flexibility in my score. There are also a couple of movements where the musicians are specifically directed to follow Marc’s verbal text rather than a set tempo, and I indicate this with performance notes and arrows pointing to words. In one movement, the ensemble doesn’t even need to stay together, but rather chase the text. I also really do not like click track, and again, I gathered this wasn’t going to be rigid or metronomic, so each cue is signaled by Piano 1, and I indicated this with a cute little hand symbol.

Vicky Chow and Walter Aparicio

I workshopped with violinist Pauline Kim Harris, cellist Thea Mesirow, and pianists Walter Aparicio and Vicky Chow. I’m so fortunate to be able to hear my music with live musicians rather than rely on shrieky midi, and to be in a process with colleagues I trust and feel comfortable with. There will be a preview performance on August 18 presented by La Jolla Music Society. (And I will finish the last movement this week!)  :-D

A staring contest amongst sculptures and other random updates

I hope everyone enjoyed their summer! Summer is not really my jam, but I had a good one. Here's what went down:

• I visited LA, where I performed music by Trevor for piano + electronics at Clifton's, an interesting art deco cafeteria/bar/taxidermy museum/former Ray Bradbury haunt
• I got interviewed by Pregame Magazine
• Violinist Hajnal Pivnick and I got all avant-garde at the Bertoia exhibition in the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in some costumes by my friend Atelier de Geste (pic above). Thanks to Hajnal for being down to get weird last minute! MAD invited musicians to record audio in the space but I wanted to make a video (ok, amateur film) and not just a sound recording. Now I need to sit down with iMovie and make it... 
• I won my first award as an individual artist from the Puffin Foundation for a new multimedia piece that I now also need to make!

Taylor Mac's costumes for Act II of A 24-Decade History of Popular Music by Machine Dazzle

Until I have more time after the NCP Benefit to focus on making the things I need to make, I've been seeing performances every week or so to gather inspiration. Most recently I headed up to Yale to see Carrie Mae Weems' Grace Notes: Reflections for Now and last Saturday I saw the second installment of Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. Weems' shows are done, but Mac's are still going on and SO worth seeing! I'm even thinking about going to the 24-hour marathon performances. We'll see...I'll let you know if it ends up happening! 

Music in a Memory Palace

On February 21, I'll be performing at La MaMa with composer and singer Lacy Rose in harunalee theater company's to the left of the pantry and under the sugar shack, an immersive theater experience. I saw the set for the first time during our tech rehearsal and I was blown away. I loved the entire aesthetic and I just wanted to touch everything. While it’s rare, things sometimes the stars align, as they are right now for me creatively: I have an experimental theater fellowship, I’m making my first solo piece, and now I’m involved in this production. This will be my first performance in a theater piece and it couldn’t have been more fitting for me, as I still get to play my role of pianist. (I’m pretty sure all this was sparked by my trip to Joshua Tree last Fall).

harunalee's website describes to the left of the pantry and under the sugar shack as "an exploratory installation which is a little bit cosmos and a little bit party, carefully designed and built so you can crawl into it at your leisure." The company accepted submissions of memories from the public. Each evening there will be different performers who work in various mediums, including dance, drag, music, and more. For our performance, I will accompany Lacy on three songs she composed especially for the installation. One composition is an invocation of the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, another piece is inspired by one of Lacy's memories, and the third is a piece inspired by a participant's memory. It only seats 35 at a time, so it's best to reserve your tickets in advance, which you can do here. 

Tanya Taylor FW 2016

Worked on the music for Tanya Taylor's FW 2016 presentation (mostly creative direction and piano) with Trevor Gureckis aka My Great Ghost. He's an incredibly talented composer and producer. In fact, he worked on some of the latest Kanye album, The Life of Pablo, and some of his stuff made it onto the final! Anyway, this show was so beautiful and it's best you see it rather than read about it, so here are photos of my favorite looks...and Beatrix Ost because she was there and I just had to take a picture of her!

My First WAA: Making it Rain in Vancouver

So desperate to get out of NYC in August. It's the worst. Photo: Arden Armbruster

I was in Vancouver this week for the Western Arts Alliance (WAA) conference. (It did actually rain!) My music ensemble, The Nouveau Classical Project (NCP), was selected as one of the three artists for WAA's Launchpad,  a program for emerging artists and early career agents or managers to make it possible for artists to become visible to, and to connect with, the managers and presenters who will book them. (Enormous thanks to Ichun Yeh of Sozo Artists for the nomination!)

I had never attended an arts conference because they are costly (for instance, "early bird" registration for APAP is $775) and I was never quite sure about what my ensemble would get out of it. From what I gathered, one rents a booth along with a sea of other organizations peddling their wares, and there's also showcasing, pay-to-play opportunities to gain exposure--which seems to mean "why you should perform for free"--to presenters and managers. (However, in the the case of, well, showcasing, it seems to actually mean something. More on that in a later post). I used to fake-DJ a fashion trade show each season, and this was the closest experience I could relate to the conference: the artists and managers are the fashion designers and showrooms, and the presenters are the buyers. In the past I have attempted to reach out to presenters on my own through cold e-mailing with virtually no response, so I was excited when we were selected for Launchpad. I knew this would give us access, and yes, exposure, to both presenters and managers, as well as consulting and mentorship that would guide us in our pursuit of being a self-produced, indie group to being an indie group that gets its concerts presented and produced/co-produced. We were told to keep our expectations low and that we were there just to meet people and start building relationships. Beyond meeting new people and starting productive conversations with managers and presenters, attending WAA was an eye-opening education into the world of the arts outside of both of hometown, New York City, and the new music community. 

Booklets & business cards! WE'RE SO READY (Or so we thought...)

Before heading to WAA, I spent weeks preparing our printed materials and cold e-mailing presenters and managers. Most of them didn't respond, but I was able to nail down a few meetings. I created both a video and a photo album that would loop on an iPad, the photo album including press quotes superimposed on the photos. I also bought a Vancouver guidebook, even though I knew deep down that we'd have zero time to explore the city. My partner in crime (and croissants...anything pastry-related) Isabel Kim, NCP clarinetist, was coming with me. I knew she'd be perfect because she's been in the ensemble the longest aside from myself and had experience on the presenting end as a staff member of Symphony Space.

I'll blog about each day at WAA in separate posts. Wish I could have blogged immediately, but we were exhausted and asleep by around 10pm each night. I hope the posts are helpful to fellow artists who are trying to take their careers to the next level! DIY and indie are great, and an inherent part of being an artist, but at some point, we need more substantial support...at least I know I do at this moment in my career. I'm hoping taking part in WAA was the beginning of that leap.