Jennifer Higdon

I'm doing well, especially considering the bizarre state of the world, but I think I'm doing pretty well.

I didn't know that. Hm.

You know, it's uh—people ask me about this all the time because they see Brooklyn on my bio um, and I often joke it's—I was in—from southern Brooklyn because I have a Southern accent. But, the truth is my parents were living in Brooklyn when I was born. My dad's a commercial artist. He had moved to New York to work at an advertising agency, and then after I was born, he made the decision to move down to Atlanta, Georgia, where there is—there was a lot going on in terms of advertising agencies, and I think he was offered a position or something. So, I literally lived in Brooklyn 6 months, I think. It's not—I mean, just long enough to be on my bio, but that's it. [laughter] So, it's kind of funny, but it was interesting for me to move—grow up in the South, Atlanta, Georgia, and we were in the city, and at some point, I think when I was like 10 years old, my dad decided it would be good for uh me to be around my grandparents who lived in East Tennessee. So, we moved about 200 miles north to a country area, uh Sevierville, Tennessee. So, I lived on a farm. I went from living in the middle of Atlanta to a farm. It was quite the contrast, but I have no doubt that actually has probably influenced my—my writing.

Yeah, exactly.

Uh-huh.

Yeah. That's why I picked the story. I—I recognized it immediately—the people, the landscape, the language, everything. Like, if it just resonated.

Yeah, I—I think it—I think that's extremely important. I mean, because I think when it's coming natural, it tells you that you're on the right road within yourself, but also in what you're doing in life. And, I know if there—there are a lot of jobs I probably could have attempted to do, but I would have been awful at them. [laughter]

Yeah, right.

It's a good question, cuz around the time I wrote the Violin Concerto for Hilary Hahn, I also wrote a Bluegrass Concerto that the Philadelphia Orchestra commissioned for the Time for Three guys. And, it's kind of startling to listen to that and the Violin Concerto. And the other piece I wrote around that time is a large work called The Singing Rooms, which is also for solo violin, full chorus, and orchestra, and that was for Jennifer Koh. So, there was a lot of string writing within probably a 18-month period. Um, and I think about the fact that all of those things sound like a part of me. They actually do. So, the more Southern sound is a little easier for me to write, but I have to admit when I wrote a Bluegrass Concerto, I had to really think about what is bluegrass. I'm so trained in classical music that to step away from my—all my training, which has become a natural part of me because I write so much, I had to really stop and kind of re-examine or feel my way back to my past, I guess, is the best word. And, I did the same thing with Cold Mountain. It was the same sort of thing. What was startling was when I sat down to write these pieces, it was—it came out pretty naturally, which—that surprised me a little bit. So, but I also grew up in a household with a lot of rock and roll playing, because my dad was a commercial artist, he worked at home a big chunk of my childhood, and he always had music playing, but it was—I don't think it was ever classical. It was very rarely classical. Every once in a while you'd hear something, but a lot of '60s folk, rock, and you know, I can remember having 8-track tapes of Bob Marley, [laughter] The Basement Tapes in our house, um, loads of Beatles, Peter, Paul and Mary, Kingston Trio. But, it was just—I think in many ways, my childhood—the soundtrack of my childhood, but also my experience of anything involving sound moving—it changes at the speed of pop music. I think my brain is wired to feel like it needs to change textures frequently or harmony or—I mean, it really—I think my wiring is such that, because I came to classical music late and I didn't really learn about the repertoire until I entered undergrad, which is a really, really late start. Wow. I think my—I think my sense of timing may be a little bit different because of that. My language, I think, is all over the place because somehow I'm able to adapt to whatever the project is I'm working on.

[laughter] Yeah.

I always hope that, but I can never tell. Maybe I'm just [laughter] close to the center.

You know, I was in trouble a lot in grad school, getting my master's and doctorate, because I didn't react well to the period at all. [laughter] I said, that music was pretty prominent—I was at the University of Pennsylvania. Uh, George Crumb was there. He wasn't writing in that style, but everyone else was, and there was a tremendous amount of pressure to adhere to that line, I guess, is what—and—and at that point, anything that was tonal was suspect. I thought it—that's kind of an absurd thing, but I didn't—it just seemed strange to me because when I was growing up, my dad always said, "Feel free to question everything, and question everything in art." So, it was a natural thing for me to question stuff, but it didn't sit well with some of my professors at Penn. Um, and—and they lectured me on being retro. So, I guess I was rebellious enough to stick to my guns about writing the way I wanted to, and it—it—cuz I was around art all the time growing up and—I mean, my dad used to take me to like experimental film festivals and anything he thought where I could figure out how art happens. We were going to puppet shows and stuff. But, I think it's interesting because he gave me permission, and he was an artist himself—he was a pretty much a freelance artist for most of his life—I think it gave me permission to be brave and kind of push back on anyone insisting I have a certain sound, a certain language. But, you know, it's interesting, that time period you're referring to, I know so many people, I meet so many people now who dropped out of music composition because they didn't feel like that was right for them and they just couldn't see a way forward, which makes me really sad, in reality. But, I think art is the greatest thing if someone's expressing themselves, but that also means the language that's suitable for themself, whatever that might be, or could be multiple.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, you know that—it's actually—it's, I think, people may not realize how relevant it is. It's actually—it's very relevant, but the interesting thing was because I came into being a music major—I made that choice going into my freshman year—I didn't know anything about uh classical music, and that also includes like basic theory. I did not understand intervals, I didn't know—so, I had to do all the remedial courses, like, "This is how you spell a major chord. This is how you spell a minor." I remember, I mean, it was really—we referred to it as Music Theory for Dummies, but it was basically just remedial coursework for people who have not had any of that, and I had none of it. Um, so I had to start from the very beginning, and I can still remember it pretty clearly. It shocks me now, knowing what I know, that I could start that at the age of 18 and end up where I am. It's—it's not that I ever had an abundance of a huge amount of talent or anything. I mean, there have been instances where teachers at some of the schools I've been at have said, "Wow, we don't remember you coming through here." So, I think I was a—I wasn't a standout student, and it wasn't that I—well, I was always catching up. That's actually the truth, I was always catching up. And, even to this day, a lot of times when I'm writing like a concerto or a chamber piece for uh an ensemble that I'm not familiar with, I'd have to study the repertoire. It's just not there naturally. It's like the standard repertoire of classical is in my head because I learned enough of it to do the doctoral exams, but I don't really know the classical repertoire to the extent that a lot of my colleagues do. I don't know if that's good or bad. I tend to know more of the new stuff. All the CDs you see behind me, I think almost all of that, 99% of that, is contemporary.

It—it could—it probably is. It probably is.

It's—it's not alpha—well, half of it's alphabetical and half of it's by genre, cuz at some point, I started out doing alphabetical, but then it became apparent I was collecting enough CDs that had like eight composers on it, and they would be either for one kind of type of ensemble or maybe a collection. So, because I started getting commissions and I had to educate myself, I literally started grouping them in genres, like so all the saxophone musics together, all the string quartet, but there are areas where it's just alphabetical, and sometimes I lose CDs. It's actually kind of funny, I—the other day I was like hunting. I thought, "Well, this is the way my brain works." It's got this weird [laughter] weird—but it's also typical of what I grew up around, because my parents wanted me to experience like world music and country and bluegrass, and—

Oh, wow. Yeah.

That's fascinating. I mean, you—one doesn't think of Elliott Carter and think—but we're all in that position, I guess, where there are things—I mean, there are probably a lot of classical people who can't really talk about who the big country artist is right now.

It's interesting though, isn't it? [laughter] That's what—actually, I think that's part of what contributes to the thing that I love about new music is the huge variety of things that people have to say musically and also the way they write, because there are—there are so many different styles now, which I love. I love having that variety. I think it—it helps sometimes when you get someone—I always tell people when I'm doing pre-concert talks with orchestras, look, you may not like my piece, but that's okay, but there may be something else that someone is currently writing that you might like, so you need to check it out. Don't just discount everything because you don't like a piece of mine. But, it's the thing I also love about classical music now, we have more voices. That—that's what it comes down to, we have more voices and more styles in the contemporary. We're adding it on to the standard rep, but I can actually see, because I've been out of school about 25 years now, I can actually see the—I can feel the evolution, but in the programming for various institutions, I can now see a shift that 25 years ago was not there. Comparing the programming, what they're programming, who's commissioning, there's been a major shift of the past, well, quarter of a century. I can't believe it's a quarter of a century.

True.

The band people are great because they're so enthusiastic, yeah.

Uh, the young people—the young conductors are.

Um, well, I think some are and some are not. I think—and I say this having written a Low Brass Concerto for Chicago and Muti, Riccardo Muti. Um, Muti always had when he was here in Philadelphia, when he was music director, he always had a composer-in-residence. He always had either an advisor or something for going through the contemporary stuff, and he programmed and recorded it as well. So, when I had this Low Brass Concerto uh premiered two years ago, he conducted the premiere, he was the one who asked for the piece, and he did it with such—ah god, he did such an amazing job rehearsing. He took it so seriously. And my style is pretty different than some of the stuff they were programming in Philly when I first moved here as a student going to Curtis. So, there are older conductors who are interested. It kind of depends on the conductor, I guess. But, what I have seen lately is that the young conductors who are taking over, like Michael Christie, they're much more into doing newer stuff. They're much—because I— No question about it. Yeah, I talk to them all the time on the phone, cuz they'll call and ask, you know, "Do you see any young composers that are coming up we should be aware of?" So, and I think women's voices are being added to this and people of color, too. This is the other thing. I think the landscape is shifting dramatically, and I think it can only benefit all of us, in reality, so.

Right.

Right. I know.

Well, I think the more artists there are in the world, the better it is for everyone, and I don't think it's possible to judge whether schools are putting out too many composers. I mean, how would you cut off someone? How would you know what the number should be? No one really knows, yeah. Everyone who goes out who's had that training in composition, it is super, super, super, super competitive for commissions and also for like if you want to do a university position. Um, but the thing is, I don't know where you would draw the line, and I think some of those people are going to go on to become advocates in different ways.

Yeah, and I think that's the more important thing. I mean, part of the thing you're learning with composition and you're doing an advanced degree or, I guess, any kind of degree is you learn to problem solve. And that's actually applicable to a lot of stuff. It's just that—

Right, right, exactly.

[laughter] I will be composing. I never do anything in the morning because I have to set the sci—it's the only way I can keep up with the deadlines, so the morning is literally—it's literally, yeah.

Oh, that's good, cuz usually at 5:00 my brain is like, [sound effect] it's on an exit ramp. [laughter]

That's an amazing field, film scoring. I have to say, I—I'm blown away by what you warriors do, [laughter] um because you do have to be able to write so much music in a short amount of time. It's impressive.

No, I actually cannot imagine. That's the thing, I just—I marvel at it. I had a chance to ask John—John Williams, actually, how the heck do you do all these soundtracks? I mean, how? It's a lot of music. He said, "Well, you just get used to turning out the music." I'm like, "Woah, jeez." It's the amount of music, cuz it—I can write 6 hours in a day and I'll come out at the end of the day with 15 seconds of music, and that's 6 hours of like saying, "Oh, this doesn't work. Oh, I need something else here." So, yeah.

That's a really good—that's a really good—I don't know that there is—I would point to specific things. I mean, first of all, I think actually the best thing a composer can do is listen to a lot of different music. And as a wide variety and as much as you can possibly manage in classical, but other things as well. I mean, and really listen intently, not background music, but like focused listening. It seems to me that so much hinges on a person's uh discipline and their desire to um be able to hang in there when they get knocked off the horse. Yep. So, you have to be persistent and also just have the intestinal fortitude to barrel forward when things aren't working, or to figure out a problem-solving thing. We do the problem-sol—solving in composition, but you also have to be able to do it in terms of just running your life. But no matter what you end up doing in life, you're going to end up doing that anyway. But I don't know, I always think people should study the basics. Like I—I loved counterpoint, and I'm pretty sure that's because I was a single line instrument player because I played the flute. It means I—my first real orientation of music was line by line. It wasn't actually—

Uh, actually, the good question. I've studied uh contemporary counterpoint, the—the fugues, um but also Ed Aldwell—the Aldwell-Schachter books, harmony—but also I studied counterpoint with Ed Aldwell. Um, lots of years of counterpoint now that I think about it. And, now that I'm also thinking about it, it covers all kinds of time periods because it seems like I've—if I remember correctly, counterpoint was included in my undergraduate in each of the music history classes, which also had a theory element, counterpoint was also in there. So, there was some Renaissance, there was some Baroque, there was some Romantic, I've had 20th-century counterpoint, so I've like kind of covered the spectrum. And, for me personally, that's the thing that sticks in my head in my training. The ear training has always been a struggle, and I still feel like I'm developing my ear. The harmony's also been a struggle, but I'm also not a good pianist, so I don't—I can't feel chords in my hands. I have to sit there and think about it. So, it— It's an interesting question, but I think anyone starting out in anything, whether they're playing an instrument or they're going to be composing or conducting, listen to as much music as possible. You'll pick things up subconsciously. Yeah, yes.

All the time.

Yes. [laughter]

That sounds good. Yeah, so I can tell you right now that's tentatively set for September.

Yeah. Yeah, they've gotten everyone—I couldn't believe it, but all my singers, the designers, the director, everyone was available. I—it was a freak thing, so.

Uh, probably Perelman. I'm—it's probably the Perelman in the Kimmel Center, so.

You know, I actually don't know. It's a beautiful hall, though. I love it. So, it's kind of—they do a lot of chamber music there, and this is a chamber opera. So, it's—but every seat in the house has really great sound and great sight lines. There's not a bad seat in it.

The Perelman, P-E-R-E-L-M-A-N.

Oh, the name of the opera, yeah. [laughter] What is the name of the opera? Woman with Eyes Closed. And, it's an art story. It's a story about art.

Yeah, it's a chamber opera for five singers and 12 instruments. Uh, it was written for Meredith Arwady, who is, I guess, technically a contralto. She's a force of nature. She went through Curtis. I've known her for a very long time. Uh, it was commissioned by Opera Philadelphia. Uh, we had two workshops on it, and the instrumentation is a mix of like—there's a piano, one percussionist, some wind, strings, a couple of brass, but it uses a lot of extended techniques, pushes all the instruments beyond their norm, their normal way of playing, which—and it's extreme contrast to Cold Mountain. That was the idea. It's sem—70 minutes long, no intermission, and it has three endings.

You—you know, we are—we're still trying to figure that out. I think what we're going to do is we're going to do a different ending each night, because it's a mystery opera. It's about an art theft, and it's a mystery. So,

The endings are each between 3 and 5 minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm kind of fascinated to see that. I know it's—it been entered in a lot of festivals.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, it's a good question. I mean, I've—I'm very lucky in that I have enough commissions that they actually go out for years. So, like once I was in, I just started writing to catch up. But, it's interesting having conversations with various performers, either soloists but also orchestras and chamber groups, because I think I've had like—I think I've had five world premieres that have been postponed. But, I just had a virtual premiere last weekend with the Apollo Chamber Players out of Houston, Texas, and we did all the rehearsals via email, believe it or not. It was kind of incredible. And then, they—they got a cameraman to come in and and shoot it. Um, what I think is going to happen is, first of all, I think everyone's probably gotten smarter about technology, so a lot of these performing organizations may be able to find a hybrid where they're streaming and people are in the hall. Nothing can really replace live music, that's just—it's just not the same thing. However, I can see where people utilize this and they have the option of being in person at concerts, and this is when we're all healthy, um, or, for that matter, if you've got people who can't get out for some reason want to listen online. I don't think all the performing organizations are going to survive. I find it hard to believe that's going to be the case. But, I'm hopeful and optimistic that things may change enough over the next 8, 9 months to make it possible for as much as possible to come back in existence. We may rethink the way we make the art, and we may also rethink the way we do programming because of all of this, but I think the truth is none of us know. I think we just have to press forward with courage.

Ah, you know, one of the things I always tell composers when I'm doing master classes and stuff is your—your most important relationships as a composer are actually your colleagues who are performers. Sometimes I can remember going down to the—the lounge at Bowling Green and the composers would be sitting there talking, but because I was a performance major, I was always around the performers. A composer's best friend [laughter] is basically going to be the performers who are out there. But, it takes a long time for things to evolve to such a point where people are coming back to you and they either want to conduct your music or they want to commission you or something like that. It's a long game. That's what I say. The—the most important thing a composer can do is to get to know performers, to develop like a real relationship with them, and down the road that'll yield something, because then I—I think about Hilary, I had her in class when she was much younger, but there was literally like a 12-year gap between the time I had her as a student and me writing a Violin Concerto. Same with Robert Spano. I think there was like a 14- or 15-year gap between the time I had studied with him till when we actually finally got a chance to work together. But, the other thing I often tell people is no matter what you think it's going to—how it's going to unfold, you have to just be preparing all the time, because if you do this preparation, when the opportunity pops up, which is a different thing for everybody, that door that opens, and you know if you go through that door, it could make all the difference in the world, that's it, is preparing, preparing, preparing so that when the door does pop open and an opportunity comes up or you can do something for someone you knew 10, 11, 12 years ago, that's how you make it happen.

Yes.

[laughter] Yes. Definitely.

It is. We just don't know what's going to happen. [laughter]

Thank you, Michael. Greatly appreciated.