Ronni Reich of the NJ Star-Ledger wrote this beautiful feature on my music, including discussion of Disquiet, Penelope, New Amsterdam, female composers, and motherhood. I’ve had a number of people write to thank me for having the “courage” to speak about motherhood as a female composer, which makes me sad, and makes me want to write a whole essay addressing this and other related topics. I suppose this is how blogging starts. But thar’s the rub: as a mother, composer, and co-director of an arts organization (are people going to read something into the order I put those in?), I’m too busy.

I did this brief interview with The Trenton Times about my orchestral work, Disquiet.

This interview marks the first time I’ve talked about my atypical path to being a composer. It’s paraphrased, which is always a strange thing to experience as an interviewee, but the story is faithful to history.

On May 9, I was a guest on the inimitable Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries radio show on WPRB.  We talked about music, Disquiet, Penelope, New Amsterdam, marketing, motherhood… and even the fact that I didn’t know what day it was. It’ll be online until May 27 at this link (scroll down to May 9.)  And with this logo, we have yet another example of classical music people worshipping cats.

NOW Ensemble

I’m excited to have two performances of my music take place at Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, the BAM festival curated by Bryce and Aaron Dessner (of The National) for Brooklyn Academy of Music in early May.  NOW Ensemble will perform my piece Pale As Centuries on May 4, along with music by Judd Greenstein, Mark Dancigers, and others, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus will perform Here on May 5, along with music by Shara Worden, Bryce Dessner, Missy Mazzoli, and others.  More info can be found here.

illustration by Michael Renaud

Jayson Greene of Pitchfork examines the “ever-melding worlds of indie and classical music.”  The article makes several nods to New Amsterdam, and lists Penelope‘s “Circe and the Hanged Man” as the first track on its Spotify playlist.

Last week my fellow New Amsterdam co-directors William Brittelle and Judd Greenstein and I talked with Rebecca Gross of the National Endowment for the Arts for their “Art Talk” blog. We talked about New Amsterdam and what we’d like to see more of the music world. You can check it out here.

Signal plays at Le Poisson Rouge

Allan Kozinn wrote this very smart and insightful article for The New York Times about the difficult-to-name musical movement of which New Amsterdam is a part.  It’s really the best essay of its kind I’ve seen.  A choice quote: “Perhaps instead of being a shot in the arm, this movement will lead to an epochal splintering in which composers in the new style continue doing what they are doing now: making artistic choices that draw as much on nonclassical influences as on classical ones and writing for ensembles that use computers, amplification, sound processing and non-Western instruments. This world may break away from traditional classical music much the way jazz split from blues in the 1920s; rock blossomed from rhythm and blues, country and soul in the 1950s; and hip-hop arose from within pop in the 1980s.”  This is the way I think about this music.  In any case, he cites Penelope as an example of this movement, along with music by Jefferson Friedman, Missy Mazzoli, NOW Ensemble, itsnotyouitsme (all music released on New Amsterdam.)

It’s funny: I don’t think any composer wants to feel pigeon-holed to a style, genre, or movement.  I have some music that fits right in the pocket of this “scene” and other music that does not, and I never want to feel tied down to writing one or the other.  But I am obviously happy to see the infrastructure and support for this music grow; it means that Music Itself is continuing to grow, change, expand, diversify.  It doesn’t mean bad news for previously-sanctioned musical movements –modernism, minimalism, neo-romanticism, new complexity, whatever — those composers will continue to come up through the ranks and write their music and receive institutional support.  It just means that composers interested in something slightly different will have a greater chance of surviving doing their art.  Regardless of what you think of the music, it’s hard to argue that’s a bad thing.

Artwork by D.M. Stith

On September 27, 2011, New Amsterdam released yMusic’s Beautiful Mechanical. I’m honored to have a piece I wrote for the group on the disc, Daughter of the Waves, along with music by a handful of composers I admire greatly: Judd Greenstein, Shara Worden, Ryan Lott, Annie Clark, and Gabriel Kahane. You can read more about the project here.