Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Music ASO premieres the work of "Atlanta School" composer Adam Schoenberg
Posted by Andrew Alexander @AndrewAWriter on Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 2:12 PM
- Aleigh Lewis
- Composer Adam Schoenberg
You're a member of the Atlanta School of Composers. Can you tell us what that involves?
The Atlanta School of Composers is a term that [ASO Music Director] Robert Spano coined. It's basically a long-term partnership with the Atlanta Symphony. None of the composers actually reside in Atlanta. It's people he's believed in and wants to champion. He will take someone on and perform their music and commission them for new work. The piece that will premiere this week is my first big commission with the symphony. He personally commissioned it. He's the type of conductor a composer can actually approach, and he'll listen to what you have to say. We hit it off when we first met in January of 2009, and I handed him some of my music. A few weeks later I got a phone call from him saying that he wanted to program some of my work. I was 29 then, and it's an extraordinary thing to realize that you're going to get a piece performed by the Atlanta Symphony. One of the great things that's part of the Atlanta School: When Robert commissions a work, he brings the composer back before the premiere to do a reading of the piece in progress. This is a very rare thing which few orchestras do. Usually you just show up the week of the premiere and you have three rehearsals and that's it. If you want to make changes to the piece, you have to pull an all-nighter in your hotel room, trying to make changes. So for Robert to give a reading, you then have a couple weeks to revise the piece. That is one of the greatest gifts any composer can have.
The piece is called La Luna Azul which translates as The Blue Moon... I like to think of it as a love letter between the ocean and the moon. The principal material was derived from a piano trio I wrote in honor of my wife. It just became this bigger love story that went beyond us and became between the ocean and the moon. The piece is divided into sections. The first half is very quiet, delicate, and atmospheric. It's all in the key of B-flat. From there it enters the essay or study portion. It becomes much more groove-oriented. I've become much more interested in writing more rhythmic music lately and music that has irregular rhythms. The piece becomes lighter and more angular in the second half.
I was looking at the list of instruments for the piece, and there seem to be some pretty unusual ones in there, like Thai nipple gongs.
It's a pretty standard orchestra, but in terms of percussion I'm definitely able to get more color out of the percussion. The Thai nipple gong... I guess that does sound pretty exotic! It's part of the gong family but it's pitched. There's a whole octave of these instruments. Since the first part is so strongly B-flat I essentially called for three different Thai nipple gongs: one in B-flat, one in D and one in F to outline that triad. I also called for an aluphone. It's essentially a much larger bell tree, which are these metal bowls that are stacked on top of each other that have a very beautiful resonating sound. I wanted to create this shimmer. I use kick drums to create more of an electronic feel, the groove, a pop within the base.
We all know composers compose but beyond that it gets a bit misty in the imagination. Could you describe what you do on a day-to-day basis?
For me the hardest part as a composer is learning how to budget your time. You're really alone during the day. You have to structure your hours. You have to discipline yourself to make sure you're working. Because it's such a loose schedule. I could easily be working 10-12 hour days without getting up. Other days I may only work for 10 minutes because that's all I feel inspired to do. You can't force yourself to create. It's important to sit down and try to write every day to keep that rhythm, but if the inspiration is not there i tend to not force myself to keep going. You have to fill your day with other things. I teach part-time undergraduate orchestration at UCLA . I run a private studio where I have private composition students who come to my house. I also love tennis so I try to play tennis a few times a week. Really you're just working at home. I'll either be playing at the piano or at a table or I'm in front of computer.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra plays Adam Schoenberg's "La Luna Azul" in a program that includes Grieg's Piano Concerto in A-minor performed by pianist Andre Watts and Nielson's Symphony No. 5 this weekend from March 1-4. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the ASO.
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