77: Listen to Yourself: A Conversation with Lara Downes
PART 3
with Lara Downes
Transcript (edited for length)
Commissioning has been a very big part of your career, and we could do whole separate interviews just on commissioning. Say a little bit about the importance of commissioning for you or for other musicians and how people can begin to think about getting involved in that process.
I guess one of the alarm bells that rang for me a long time ago was this idea of the canon as having like a fixed stop to it because classical music, what we call classical music, was always something new.
And you know, when you read the history of it, it was, well, this person went from this person and built-- you know. So the idea that now we were going to stop. And I remember when I was in school, there was always that thing where you had to play something for a competition and there was like a cutoff date on it and it was supposed to be something modern, but it was like 50 years ago.
Kellogg:
1945 or, right.
Downes:
Right? It was really like, a really long time ago.
So this idea of being part of the evolution of this form and being part of giving birth to new things to me was always really interesting. And I mean, I, I guess I started probably on a very basic level by being friends with the composer and playing the music, which I think everyone should do. And I think it's still one of the most exciting things that I do.
I had this new concerto that Adolphus Hailstork wrote for me that I played at Brevard this summer, and I had gotten to the festival and I had our first orchestra rehearsal in the morning, and it took me a while because my hair in that humidity is a whole thing. So I was kind of like running late. I got to rehearsal and we were just you know, going to do a downbeat and I just stopped and I said, Oh, look, can we take a moment and realize the the amazing miracle of the fact that we're going to now play these notes for the first time ever, ever in the universe? And I do think it's a miracle every time. I really do.
Kellogg:
And it changes you as a musician?
Downes:
Yeah.
Kellogg:
How hard is it for a young performer to commission a piece?
Downes:
It depends what you have to give, I think. I mean, well, I think that sometimes young people are scared of that word, like, does this mean I need to have $2,000? No. Maybe it means you need to buy your friend a coffee.
You know, when I was talking with Adolphus and I don't like to, like, commission things based on how much does it cost, and, you know. I like to work with composers again, this question of relationship, Who are you? What do you want to write? Who am I? And you know, all like we have to know each other.
So Adolphus and I first started talking on Zoom and and we did, we got to know each other. And then I think there was some question about this deadline, because then we did have a commissioning partner. There's some question about the deadline. And I said, Well, Adolphus, would it help if I baked his own cookies? And I literally made chocolate chip cookies and I sent them to him in Virginia. You know, I think that you have all kinds of things to offer and all kinds of ways to build partnership.
Kellogg:
That's wonderful.
Thinking back to comments you offered about teachers having very specific repertoire that must be played. And oftentimes that comes with a lot of restrictions. It's supposed to be played a very certain way. There's a lot of weight and expectations around what people are supposed to be playing as young musicians. And the discussion around canon and what can be played is evolving. What thoughts do you have about canon?
Downes:
I think it's a fine word as long as it keeps, you know, expanding, that's fine.
You know, one of the things I love about my collaborations with artists who don't work in the classical genre is they're like, You do what? You play the same notes over and over again? And like the same way? Like, you do covers all the time. You know? I just it's a very strange thing that we do. And then it's not only that you're supposed to play the thing perfectly and the way that everybody, you know, that people have played it before, like there are these conventions, but then you're also supposed to put your own personal stamp on it. And you know, so many times I'll have somebody who's 19 years-old say, I don't know how to do that. That is too many things, you know, in one equation. And I do think that it is a lot.
For me, I guess it goes back to this storytelling place. And what is, what is it that I'm finding in this music that I want to amplify, like, illustrate and, and does that change the way I think about music? And that can be in a very subtle way or I'll tell you about the next project, which, in which it's not at all subtle.
So, you know, next year, 2024, is the centennial of Rhapsody in Blue, and I play Rhapsody in Blue a lot, and I am playing it a lot next year. But I started thinking at a certain point about this piece, and aside from the fact that I fly United and so I hear it every other day, like, why do I care about this piece? It's a great piece of music and it's fun to play and you always get a standing ovation and there's those things.
But what I really care about in that piece is what Gershwin, how Gershwin envisioned it, and he called it his, he called it his vision of the musical kaleidoscope of America, and specifically the melting pot. So then I started thinking, okay, in 1924, what was the melting pot? And what did he mean by that? And what was he celebrating? And what is the melting pot now, 100 years later?
So in the end, what we're doing-- I had met this wonderful composer, Puerto Rican composer, named Edmar Colón, about a year ago I was doing a project with the Boston Pops and he was-- He had done this amazing arrangement of Duke Ellington's Caravan, and he brought in Afro-Cuban percussion and kind of taken that piece back to its roots. So I had this idea to re-imagine the musical kaleidoscope from the perspective of now, What does America sound like now?
So we're re-orchestrating the piece with all, like imagining these waves of immigration over the last 100 years Afro-Cuban, Asian, you know, Latin American, like all of these sounds that now completely are what America sounds like and why. And it's been so expansive and expanding. We're premiering that piece in October and recording it, but also it's taking me down this incredible path of learning.
So, for example, sorry, I'm going to get nerdy for a second, but Gershwin wrote that piece in February 1924 and he celebrating the melting pot. And in May of 1924, they passed this horrible fascist act called the Johnson-Reed Act, which basically shut down Ellis Island, shut down immigration, put these horrible quotas. So then that makes me think about Gershwin as that relates to our time, right? And Gershwin wasn't an idiot and he knew the climate in which he was living.
And he's writing this piece that's celebrating the best that America can be, which is kind of how I feel that we're operating a lot. So now all of a sudden, this piece, which is so rooted in time, is also extremely timeless and also extremely timely now.
And, you know, this piece, in this version, it will sound very different, but also it comes with this layer of understanding about, No, he wasn't just writing a funny zippy piece of music, he was also responding, I think, to his time. And, you know, we continue to do that. So I think there are just multiple ways of exploring finding fresh perspective. Yes, the notes most of the time are the same, but I think we can always find and inroad to making, you know, our own understanding something, something new.
Kellogg:
In the last few years, there's been a very vibrant conversation about diversity in programing, especially at conservatories and among young artists. And you've been thinking about this issue and involved with it much longer than this recent conversation. What observations or thoughts do you have about how things are progressing?
Downes:
Yeah, I just want to make sure that we're using diversity and its, you know, in its true definition, which means like a wide spectrum of experiences and identities and existences.
I worry - I mean, I see this over and over again - that diversity gets narrowed to mean one thing just like, you know, You must play-- We're changing this audition list and you must now play a piece by a Composer of Color. That's not necessarily fulfilling a mission of embracing diversity, that's checking a box, or it's pushing people into one direction where they don't necessarily want to do and where they don't necessarily want to go.
So I you know, I get invited a lot to speak about diversity, but then I realize what they want me to do is talk about Black composers. And that's not what I want to do. What I want to do is talk about what, you know, what are the, what is the huge range of experiences that maybe hasn't been reflected historically in this field? And where, where do each of us connect with that and where can we grab something that is ours and share it?
Because this again comes to authenticity. Maybe it's not authentic for you to care or involve yourself or be an advocate for a specific body of work. Find the place where you really do feel connected and you really do feel invested and excited and you know, and focus there.
Kellogg:
You know, given all that you've done in your career and the range of activities you have and the music you've championed, what is your vision for the future of classical music? What are your hopes for the next generation or where we're all going together?
Downes:
I have a lot, I don't know, you know, this isn't linear. I hope that very soon we can just say composer and not like female composer or Black composer, because the composer does a lot of things.
I hope that we have moved away from this idea of a fixed canon and that we're back to a place where this music is always evolving and we're always about what's new and what's next. I hope that this wellness piece that we're talking about, you know, really becomes embedded in our culture. I think that there are a lot of things that I came up against as a young person in terms of like power dynamics and, you know, who is in charge.
And I think that that's shifting. And I think that the more we can just be equal collaborators. I mean, when we're talking about the roles that I allow or compel myself to play, like the multifaceted way that I'm interacting and engaging, I think that that just shifts this idea that your job is over here and my job is over here, and those things don't intersect and it becomes a more organic process. And I think that that in itself is expansive. I think this idea of authenticity, of letting artists be themselves and speak, speak that loudly and invite, you know, a really wide community into that, that changes things fast.
I want-- You know, do you remember when we were in full on pandemic and we were doing these like virtual concerts? And it struck me that at that point the world was the audience. It wasn't who could fit into the, you know, 500 seats in the hall or who could afford the ticket. It was whoever happened to, like, pass by. And I thought, This is such an amazing opportunity and How do we keep this going if we are back in a concert hall? And I know that's not an easy equation, but I think everything that we can do to imagine like to be telegraphing whatever we're doing outside of the walls because-- That's what I love about radio! That's why I do radio so much, because there's this person, there are these people that I imagine these like accidental listeners, you know, who just maybe you get in a cab where the music is playing or you pass by someone else's radio, or you're just like surfing or whatever, and now something catches your ear and now you're, you are the audience too.
Kellogg:
Thank you very much for speaking with us today.
Downes:
This has been fun, thank you.