Let's Talk About Music!

Michael Kaulkin is a composer that lives in the San Francisco Bay area and whose music has been described as "exceptionally beautiful on all counts" . In here we take up his work "Cycle of Friends" for soprano, choir and chamber orchestra. If you want to know more about Michael, his website is: www.MichaelKaulkin.com. And my website is: www.SergioBarer.com

In this episode, we listen to 3 works by Andrew, the first one a choral work called Darkness Starts, then a work for strings called Nightsounds and we end with a work for piano and flute called Queen of the Night Tulip. We discuss some of the technical aspects of composing and yet, there is enough conversation happening in layman's terms that even if you don't understand the terminology, you will get something out of the episode. And one of the things that you will get for sure is getting to know the music of Andrew Maxfield, something that is definitely worth it.

Jocelyn Hagen is a well known composer in the choral world and she is a very interesting composer, as well. We explore with her a musical setting she made of Afghani poetry writtten by women. Both the poetry and the music are definitely worth listening to. Just to give you an idea of the material, one of the poems she used is called "Load Poems Like Guns". Listen and enjoy.

Michael Bussewitz-Quarm is an award winning composer who has a very unique style: It is modern, and yet, accesible. It is beautiful, yet fresh. I asked her to come to the podcast because our paths crossed at different choral conferences but when I heard her music, it really hit me in a very special way. I hope that getting to know her and her music is as powerful for you as it was for me.

In this episode, I talk with Rich about his choral composition, In Those Years, No One Slept and we talk about his composition style, his process and his ideas about composing in general.

Bernardo Feldman is my first guest of the fourth season of my podcast. The podcast, starting in this, its 4th season, is going to consist of shorter episodes that focus on one piece of music and on the composers views of that piece, in particular, and their music, in general. Bernardo brings a new piece that will be premiered September 23d at Saint Andrews Church in Pasadena. We listen to 3 minutes of the work and talk briefly about it.

Brett Abigania is a very interesting composer that I met at the Midwest Conference in Chicago in December 2022. He showed me a fugue he had done with a 12 tone row (a la Schoenberg). I was fascinated and I asked him to send me a couple of works that he would like to talk about. He sent me a movement of his first symphony called Degeneration and another work called Locrian Riffs. It has a jazzy vibe but uses one of the Medieval church modes which entail some difficulties, which is something Brett never shies away from. I hope you enjoy it. This is the sixth and last episode of Season 3 and I added a musical introduction that comes from my trio for flute, oboe and clarinet.

My oratorio The Nightmare and the Dream was premiered in Los Angeles on May 21st, 2023. This podcast was recorded 2 weeks prior to that. I asked my friend, composer Bernardo Feldman, whom I have interviewed twice for my podcast, to change roles with me and ask the questions about this work prior to its premiere. However, due to production emergencies and last minute changes, I was not able to publish this podcast until now. But no worries, we will be streaming the premiere next month in a program hosted by myself and my friend, composer and pianist Robert Remstein, and this podcast will serve as a prelude to the restreaming of the work. For this podcast, I used a version of The Pioneers, the last movement of the oratorio, that was recorded by four singers, each one separately, with music samples serving as the wind ensemble accompaniment. In the podcast, Bernardo and I discuss the political, historical and social implications of the work, as well as the musical elements involved in its composition and the texts that were used. Stay tuned for the announcement of the restreaming of the premiere.

Jason Barabba is a contemporary music composer. In this episode we talk about composing using a 12 tone row and we listen to the beginning of the choral work We The People as well as to the beginning of his Aunt Jemima opera. Here are the links if you want both works, complete: The Aunt Jemima Opera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw4cx8tTPaA  We The People: https://youtu.be/r4ZCcmtah6U.

In this episode (which has a couple of small audio malfunctions) I talked with Bryan Pezzone about improvisation at the piano, which he demostrated to me by doing a freat improvisation of Imagine by John Lennon and then an improvisation on an original classical theme of his own manufacture. Bryan has great insights about improvising and about practicing and performing at the piano, which he as been doing for  many years. with great success.

Bernardo brought to me 3 pieces, one is a contemporary work for horn and recorded tape called Cast Iron, the second one is a cool jazzy song called "How Is It That...? and the third one is a choral work called "Like A Flower". The three of them are quite different one from the next and we talked about each one of them, the circumstances around their composition and the composing ideas that are reflected in them. 

Steve Danielson is a conductor, artistic director and composer who lives in Seattle. He conducts the Ensign Symphony and Chorus. Come and enjoy the conversation and the music. 

Amy Gordon is a composer that lives in Los Angeles. Join us to hear Amy's choral music,  from the cheerful Alleluia to  the COVID related In Times of Hibernation. 

In this episode, Joshua and I chat about his music and we listen to some his choral compositions. Stay tuned and you will hear some beautiful works. 

Carol Barnett's music is accesible and contemporary at the same time. The essence of her modernity is not the use of harsh, dissonant chords but the weaving of chords we are familiar with in unfamiliar patterns that make the music at the same time fresh and agreeable to the ear. 

Forrest Pierce's music is ethereal  and explores sacred and trascendental topics. He draws inspiration from Christianity sacred texts as well as from texts of other traditions and he has a way of setting these texts that can transport you somewhere else, which is always a very nice sensation. We talked about his writing and about music in general, exchanging frank opinions about the use of different musical languages in our works.

In this conversation we cover a chamber music work of Katerina which is wholly aleatory and 2 choral pieces which have aleatory elements. I found fascinating the structuring of a whole piece of instrumental chamber music, Rain on a Tin Roof, on 22 small segments of music, each containing from 2 notes to 10 notes, called "cells" which the instruments repeated, or not, as they advanced from cell 1 to cell 22 and back. And then we talk about  the use of syllables in choral music which have no meaning, in the work Fire, and yet which add to the effect of the work. Spend some time with us and enjoy the music!

Aleatory means, basically, improvised. It is a type of music where you write some musical guidelines for the performers to follow but you don't write every note, every beat of the music. It gives us different possibilities for the same music, to a degree. All three pieces have elements that are not fully notated, but the first one is the one that is 97% aleatory. There is also an element of social justice in her music as the work Uprooted takes us to the interment of American citizens of Japanese descent in camps during World War II. And of sacred music, as the third piece we hear is based on the Mater Dei. 

In this episode we listen to an oboe concerto, a work for two sopranos and a piano solo piece and we get to experience life through David Dies musical language, which borders in the atonal and gives us a challenge, but with great rewards if we accept it. I find that with commercial music, for example, you can wait for the music to come to you and move you or not, but it doesn't require great participation. Contemporary classical music, on the other hand, requires for you to actively strip yourself of preconceptions and dive into the unknown with the hope to experience something new. I found that David's music did give me a new experience and communicated very well what it was trying to convey. 

Join Jordan and me in a chat about his projects of writing new music based on the standards of the American Songbook. Listen to Jordan's take on Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, Tea for Two and Begin the Beguine, as interpreted at the piano by pianist Tom Kotcheff of the piano duo Hocket.