North Jersey, NJ
June 7 2013
Ars Musica to debut new piece in Ridgewood
FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 2013
INTERVIEW BY GLORIA GEANNETTE
MANAGING EDITOR
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Editor’s Note – Ars Musica invited contemporary composer Martha
Sullivan to create a work to be included in their Stravinsky &
Bruckner: A Masterworks Concert, to be performed on Saturday, June 8.
Here Sullivan answers some questions about the commissioned work.
Ridgewood News: Can you tell us why Kelly Crandall requested an
Armenian theme for the piece?
Martha Sullivan: I think the big picture story here is that choral
music creates community. Ars Musica, being a choir, is of course a
group of people, and they all do this one thing together that’s very
special. This definition applies to any choir. However, there are
nuances that make each group of singers unique in how they build
community.
A good musical director, like Kelly Crandell, chooses repertoire
according to what will actually mean something to the singers in the
group. In this case, Kelly asked me to write something that would
relate to Armenia or Armenian themes because Ars Musica and its board
have a strong Armenian membership, and Ridgewood boasts a strong
Armenian community. By choosing music that addresses what people care
about, a director helps his singers feel invested in the project,
shows them that the music truly belongs to them.
RN: What was your initial response to his request?
MS: Finding a way to write a new piece of music with some Armenian
connection was, I admit, a bit of a challenge. I am of Irish and
English descent, not Armenian. It would be trespassing on someone
else’s history if I were to try to write something about the genocide
of 1915, or the other wars in the decades before then that led up to
it. At first, I did try to do some research into ancient Armenian
gods, such as Anahit; however, I didn’t really feel I had something to
connect to personally until I decided to write, not on Armenian themes
per se, but to the words of an Armenian poet.
RN: What can you tell us about your friend James Najarian and his poem
“Longed-for Rain”?
MS: James Najarian is currently a professor of English at Boston
College. We met each other as undergraduates at Yale. I was a music
major, and he was an English major; however, I was also interested in
modern literature, and he had a strong musical interest. We lived on
the same floor of the tower in Ezra Stiles (one of Yale’s residential
colleges) my senior year, and had plenty of time to share our common
interests.
Even back then, Naj was a poet of formidable skill; he does not waste
words in his verse writing, but he does choose unusual words, or
common words in unusual contexts. They’re always exactly right. His
writing has a leanness and force that I appreciate.
I sent him a message on Facebook, asking whether he had any poetry
that he thought might be appropriate for this project. I told him that
the program would also include the Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms and a
Bruckner mass; did he have anything that used either the form or the
general sound of a Psalm, I wondered?
RN: What was your reaction when you read it for the first time?
MS: He wrote back with “Longed-for Rain,” which had been published in
a Mennonite journal a couple of years earlier. It was exactly what I
was looking for: references to Scripture, to tie in with the two major
works on the program, yet enough of a secular context for a concert
that is not in church. In this poem, there is healing of the blind,
and waters come to the desert, as in stories of Jesus and in writings
of the Prophets. There is narrative, the progression from a state of
drought through the beginnings of a storm, through healing in the pool
of Siloam, the curing of blindness and dumbness. A poem with clear
structure makes the composer’s job that much easier.
RN: How does your music reflect the theme of the poem?
MS: Naj’s poem uses subtlety and economy to make its point. I have not
yet learned to do that in my music, so my setting of the text is
rather literal: to indicate drought, the piano plays short, dry notes
(marked “secco”, or “dry,” in the score), and when water comes, the
orchestra plays out a storm, making the loudest and most blatant
representations of thunder that it can. The opening of eyes and ears
at the end plays out with similarly wild outbursts from the voices and
orchestra, but this time in the jubilantly tonal key of D major.
I am thrilled to be back in touch with Naj; it’s been too many years
since all those late-night undergraduate arguments about literature
and music, about whether singing or poetry is more important, about
whether it’s better to study Russian or Portuguese … Writing for Ars
Musica has also helped me get back in touch with my own community.
RN: How do you think the audience will react to what promises to be a
very moving concert experience?
MS: Musicians invest huge amounts of time, energy, and money into
their musical projects. Kelly Crandell has presented this project to
his singers as a chance to invest in a fresh new talent by raising
money for my commission fee. This is true as far as it goes, and I am
extremely grateful. However, commissioning new works goes farther and
deeper: the group is investing not just its funds, but also the time
and energy to master the piece. They give the music a voice, and I
give the voices a music that has never been heard before. Ars Musica
will always be the group that first sang this music, the first group
to bring it to life, forging new connections among the composer, the
poet, the instrumentalists, the singers, and the audience. This piece
does belong to Ars Musica and its audience in a very real way: without
the group and the people they are singing for, “Longed-for Rain” would
not exist.
If this audience is moved by the music, if it feels in any way more
connected with anyone in the room on Saturday the 8th, then I will
feel we have achieved the best of what choral music can be: a project
that by its very nature creates and strengthens human communities.
Ars Musica’s Stravinsky & Bruckner: A Masterworks Concert, conducted
by music director Kelly Crandell will be performed at 8 p.m. on
Saturday, June 8, at West Side Presbyterian Church, 6 S. Monroe St.,
Ridgewood. It features Ars Musica’s world premiere of “Longed-for
Rain,” by contemporary composer Martha Sullivan, who offers a
pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. Purchase tickets at arsmusica.org or
973-628-8793:
From: A. Papazian
http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/music/210521161_Ars_Musica_to_debut_new_piece_in_Ridgewood.html?page=all