500 words on Jonathan Bailey Holland
Jonathan Bailey Holland hinted that for him, composition is essentially a solitary sport. In spite of this, he has engaged in interesting collaborations, and not without their difficulties. For example, he mentioned at least twice that the drummer of the group The Tree Ring couldn’t read music — and in those moments of the lecture, it became clear that notated music is clearly the form that Holland feels most comfortable.
Holland’s work “Synchrony” features oboe, bassoon, violin, cello, and piano as its instrumentation, and incorporates pre-existing audio recordings as well. The blending of the live instruments with the audio fragments is extremely effective. The live elements re-contextualize the audio, and vice versa — it makes the ears perk up. Holland made clear that as an artist, he is interested in “reflecting back” his experience, and though he avoided taking on the label of “activist,” the subject matter of “Synchrony” is by its very nature deeply political.
On another note, Holland spoke to the reality of compromise that comes with building a career as an artist, when he explained his relationship with the music director of a major orchestra: they would play the piece, as long as he changed the ending. Holland explained that after some attempts to keep his original idea, he gave up in favor of keeping the MD happy, ultimately getting the piece played. Holland’s tone here was resigned, but not entirely negative — sometimes a composer has to make sacrifices, and there was no sense of major regret. Is this a commendable model? Practical?
Something that Holland touched on but did not fully explore was the realization that his compositional approach could span across many genres and traditions. He mentioned the fact that Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer prize in music for “Damn.” was particularly eye-opening…we could have used some more unpacking here, and I think it would have led to some interesting questions.
I agree with you that I wanted to hear more about Holland's reaction to Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer. From the moment he walked in the room, I was acutely aware of the fact that in all my three years at NYU, I've had zero African-American teachers. I think the way Holland was managing his identity and background without letting it over take his work - he is an artist, not an activist, but his art is deeply informed by who he is.
ReplyDeleteJake & Mark -- I hear you and agree about the politics surrounding Holland's music. The idea of the artist reflecting their society/context, the Pulitzer widening its scope to include (outrageously deserving) artists like Kendrick Lamar, the reasons/contexts why a work may be considered "activist", and the representation aspect that Mark just brought up about faculty at NYU and so many other schools: all super-compelling subject matter for discussion in forum. But it's partly on us to prompt him to keep going down those roads. I think the next step from posts like these is to ask questions that you're interested in hearing more about. It's definitely within our domain to steer the conversation that way, if we really want. We can follow-up on what's being said to encourage the unpacking. So I say go for it, next time!
DeleteAlthough Holland felt comfortable with notated music, I think that his collaboration with Tree Ring was successful, and they were able to find some sort of common ground, albeit leaning more towards Tree Ring's area of expertise. If I remember correctly, that was one of the pieces that could have been interesting to record in a studio. Even though halls work for many pieces of music, I felt that the sound of the drums could have benefited from a more focused sound with close mics, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe concert piece quoting Ahmad Jamal could have benefited from much of the same. The drum set came across as too wet and boomy in the large hall, and although this piece is very much a concert piece (paired w/ Beethoven's 9th in its premiere, I believe), the production of the recording could have given some more clarity to the ensemble sound in a studio.
Interesting point about how he allowed the ending to be changed and what the implications of that may be. I'm not sure about commendable one way or the other, but it does of course make sense. Looking at the situation through a narrow lens it seems a little unfaithful to the art itself to allow changes that (it seemed) significantly altered his artistic vision in a negative way. However I think you're onto something that it's simply practical to allow it to be performed, even if modified. Playing the piece gets his name out to the audience, to the players, establishes a relationship to the conductor or institution and could potentially lead to more opportunities for other pieces to be written or performed that wouldn't have to be changed, or even this one. The idea of the artist who lives in absolutes is appealing in a romantic sort of way but I think simply isn't a possibility for most people. I think perhaps the question isn't should Holland have allowed the ending of his piece to be changed but rather should the conductor have been allowed to ask that it be changed. But of course its two sides of the same coin.
ReplyDeleteCollaborating with someone who doesn't read music is always an interesting endeavor. I come from the pop and rock world, where it's not so unusual. There are certainly disadvantages, but one of the main advantages with a non-reader is that they are completely comfortable just feeling their way through a piece. That can be time consuming, but as a composer you can take advantage of someone's natural improvisational talent.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Holland’s collaboration with the Tree Ring, although they corresponded back and forth, there did not seem to be much synergy. It felt as if Holland’s style was buried in an attempt to write closer to the style of the Tree Ring and accommodate the varying levels of note reading ability.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed hearing and learning about “Synchrony.” I thought it was a smart decision to pair up the analogous instruments (violin + cello / oboe + bassoon), and with the addition of the piano and audio, he created a somber and tense soundscape that was sobering to hear, due to the political associations that arose from it. It’s an important piece in the repertoire of music today, to instill the memory of these figures, especially Eric Garner and Sandra Black. Although they were wrongfully killed 5 and 4 years ago, respectively, it feels like these events occurred much more recently.
I’m interested in what he will come up with in response to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. It must be conflicting to have roots there, yet feel a distance from ‘home’ since he spent most of his time away there.
I agree with Holland that some parts of the composition process are easier done alone at certain times, especially when each collaborator has different strengths. I sometimes feel like I have a lot of opinions about certain aspects of a piece, and I don’t want to restrict other’s creative liberties on other aspects. I never thought about the title in the political manner before, and that’s an interesting point. I thought of it more as the pre-recorded files working in synchrony with the live performers.
ReplyDeleteKendrick Lamar totally deserved that Pulitzer. I love that Holland keeps an open mind about genre mixing. I agree, I would have loved to speak more about this as well.