Be it due to the fact that I recently turned 40, or that this month marks two years since I lost my dad, my thoughts have been veering towards aging and the wisdom that comes with it. Undeniably, many other things come with it as well, such as the occasional back pain or an uninvited sciatica. Jokes aside though, aging does give one a new perspective on life. One starts to understand things that one wasn’t able to just a few years before, and that knowledge is not transferable. One can try to give all the advice one can to younger generations, but even when they pay heed to their elders’ advice, there are things that can only be truly understood by experiencing them in the flesh. The passage of time is essential for some things to be fully comprehended.
Growing older also means having more responsibilities under one’s wing. Old age is often associated with wisdom, experience and resilience, and I can already see why. Getting old can be wonderful, but it can also be tough and, at times, cruel. I say cruel because the older we get, we get to experience more loss, more pain, and more rejection, but those things are precisely what make us take a look into ourselves and search for our innermost qualities. Enlightened people of old age are those who despite all their pain and suffering have become, with time, more forgiving instead of rancorous, loving instead of resentful, generous instead of selfish, and spiritual instead of materialistic. These collective qualities, coupled with self-knowledge and awareness, amount to wisdom, and it is not an easily earned virtue.
Love, above all, is the motor of the Universe. It’s an irresistible force of attraction that is constantly being fought by it’s preeminent opposite: hate. Their constant tug of war sets the engines of the world in motion, writing the all-well-known novel that plays out on our everyday lives. Artists play a preeminent role in this eternal dispute, and can consciously or unconsciously choose to side with one or another. Things are not black and white, of course, and there are plenty of nuances in between. Beauty can be found in light and in darkness, but our choices will ultimately reflect our degree of self-awareness and yes, wisdom.
I have experienced many a thing that life has to offer during my 40 years on this planet, but I also know that there is plenty in store for me. I saw my father grow old and ill, wishing he had done some things differently, asking for forgiveness and understanding… but I also saw him being content with a life that, even though it hadn’t fulfilled all his expectations, had made him a proud son, father, and husband. He passed away not achieving his dream of becoming a luminary in the annals of architecture, but he did manage to raise two children who were able to fulfill their academic ambitions to the highest degree. His pain felt to him at first like punishment, but it had the healing effect of uniting us, his family, to a degree that we hadn’t experienced before. From pain came healing; from suffering, deliverance, and from sadness, great joy. Through him and his pain we, his loved ones, had a glimpse into the beauty that awaits us when we surrender to the inevitable. We tend to fight, resist and look away from everything that is too painful to look at directly, but every now and then life has a way to make us confront those issues face to face, leaving us no option but accepting them or rejecting them in denial. Pain is a desperate attempt of our body or soul to focus on whatever needs healing, but instead of facing it, we prefer to numb ourselves, either via physical or spiritual medication, indefinitely postponing our learning and thwarting our path to wisdom.
By now some of you might be asking: what does any of this have to do with art or music, for that matter. The short answer is: Everything. If the music we produce is to be a true representation of who we are, we shouldn’t choose to hide one aspect of ourselves in favor of another. And if we do, we are not embracing ourselves completely and therefore our music will not be totally honest. Most of us don’t hold ourselves in very high regard, so we try to emulate the great masters; the great men and women who have preceded us. But have we asked ourselves what is it that made those people great? Wasn’t it perhaps their uniqueness? Don’t we detect an incredible amount of originality in a Beethoven, for example? Yes we do, but that originality is not only an artistic manifestation of an aesthetic choice, it is also a result of an embrace of personal pain to the point that it was transmuted into grandeur and beauty. Therein lies the true philosopher’s stone: our capacity to churn happiness out of misery and reconciliation out of grudge. We are imperfect beings; oh so imperfect, but it is that constant tug of war between our lazy selves (who want to remain unchanged) and our greater, higher selves in search of enlightenment, what makes possible for art to exist at all.
We make art and we make music because we need to express something that we can’t otherwise express. We know that within us lies a power greater than ourselves that needs to be released, and that only belongs to us partially, because once it is outside of us it spreads its roots into any and all fertile soil it may encounter. We as artists, and specifically as composers, are vessels, carrying a fountain of love, knowledge and beauty that we don’t deserve to keep to ourselves. But we are not empty vessels, we need to perfect ourselves so we can become an even purer, more dynamic and more enlightened channel of communication. Whoever derives arrogance and self-indulgence from this unique position is committing a travesty. It is not our place to feel superior; that would be a sign of ignorance. Instead, whoever recognizes him or herself as a vessel, must do everything in their power to perfect themselves so they can become better vehicles at the service of a greater scheme.
After the loss of my father, my mother has seen a steep decline in her mnemonic abilities. The constant suffering in her soul is making an even greater dent in her mind, serving as a painful reminder that both, soul and intellect, not only reside within us but also depend on each other to function properly. I can’t compose if my emotions are out of balance, and I can’t invest my feelings on something that does not excite my intellect at all. This is where youth and old age collide. While young we think we can attain anything we put our minds on, but then reality kicks in, and we realize that we are simply not always able to achieve everything we want. We think we can conquer the world with our physical, mental, or spiritual prowess, but we hardly recognize that we can only achieve one of them when all the others are in harmony. How many times have we seen young athletes or actors mismanage their careers because they were blinded by their rapid success? How many intellectuals have succumbed to the traps of the mind before realizing that their minds alone cannot lead them to enlightenment? And how many artists have fallen into producing innocuous works of art after failing to realize that they need to further their intellect if they want to produce meaningful and spiritually relevant work? This is why artists like Johann Sebastian Bach and Hermann Hesse have such appeal to me, because they truly represent that communion of all aspects residing within us. We must embrace our own totality even when we are focusing on a very specific aspect of ourselves; hence the myth of the great but immoral artist. Yes, we can separate the work from the man, but we cannot separate a man from his work. But here is where we need to be cautious, because even though we might think that morality is universal, it is more personal and more obscure than we are ready to admit.
Old age is our chance to look back at our lives and bring all the scattered elements together. It is our chance to create a unified self that is a true representation of who we are and who we aspire to become. It is a work in progress, for old age is relative and detached from temporal attachments. Old age is, in sum, the moment we distill our own selves, leave behind all impurities and do justice to the self we deserve to be: our full potential attained, to the best of our abilities. We will always have regrets, no matter how much we try to keep them to a minimum, there will always be things we could have done better, but what matters in the end is that, as humans, and especially as artists, we do not turn a blind eye to any aspect of our selves, and that we embrace and transmute all our imperfections so we can create the least imperfect version of our everlasting selves.
…and now, back to stretching.
I am now halfway into my residency with the Houston Symphony and we are finally starting to see the fruits of our collective labor. The project I am perhaps most proud of is our Young Composers Mentorship Project, which got officially kick started right before the summer, when the selected composers, a team from the Houston family, and myself met in person at Interfaith Ministries, so we could start the interview process with the participating refugees. Giving six young composers the opportunity to compose a new work for the Houston Symphony musicians would be an excellent opportunity in and of itself, but we wanted each piece to be truly special, hence the decision to pair them with six artistic partners so they could create interdisciplinary works involving dance, film, poetry, and song. What makes this project truly unique though, is that in addition to that, each composer/artistic partner duo got the opportunity to interview a refugee through Interfaith Ministries, who went above and beyond to help us bring this project to fruition. This is what gives this project true human depth, and the inspiration for it came early through my conversations with my Houston family.
When we gathered back in the spring of 2017 to discuss what shape my residency would take, I asked what made Houstonians truly proud. To my surprise, the number one response had nothing to do with the space program (although they are extremely proud of it as well!). Diversity. That was the word that came up over and over again. Houstonians are proud that their city has become the most ethnically diverse metropolitan region in the United States. Coming from the Bay Area though, another extremely diverse region, I know first hand that diversity does not necessarily equate integration, so by throwing into the mix a group of refugees who have come to Houston in search of a new life, I knew we were going to create connections between two groups of people that would otherwise never overlap. It has been incredibly rewarding to see how much they have all learned from each other, as I learned from my own experience when meeting with so-called “dreamers” as part of my research for the oratorio of the same name.
After much careful planning and schedule juggling, all parts involved finally met in November for out first workshop. All six composers had a chance to show their works in progress and I was a first-hand witness to their creativity and stylistic diversity. This was also a first for me in terms of mentoring young composers, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. What a difference it makes to work on a project as part of an ongoing residency as opposed to a one-off kind of event! The actual planning started over a year and a half ago; not only that, we still have a second workshop scheduled for February of next year, where we will have a chance to focus on more technical aspects related to instrumentation, orchestration, and the marriage between music and the other disciplines involved. Mentoring also made me discover other aspects of myself. First, I had to learn how to diagnose in situ what each composer needed to focus his/her energies on (which meant I had to immerse myself in another composer’s work within a very short time span); and I also had to articulate my thoughts quickly, find the right words, and find the right balance between being sharp in my critiques but also insightful and encouraging. It was great fun to be on the other side of things, as I have attended many a master class myself in the past, some good and some frankly forgettable.
This project will culminate with a concert where all six interdisciplinary works will be premiered at White Oak Music Hall, a flexible, not-your-usual classical music venue, in June of next year. It goes without saying that we are all very much looking forward to this concert, but the truth is this project is more about the process than the product itself, and we are all certainly enjoying the process as it is meant to mentor and inspire every participant every single step of the way, from inception to completion. My sincere gratitude goes to everyone making this project possible: Houston Symphony, University of Houston, Rice University, and Interfaith Ministries, and special thanks to Professors Anthony Brandt and Rob Smith for opening the doors of their respective Composition Departments, and to the amazing Houston Symphony family at large.
Running parallel to this project are my other composition projects with the orchestra. So far, the Houston Symphony has played three of my works, two of them prior to me officially becoming composer-in-residence. The third, Lago de Lágrimas, was superbly performed by Flutist Sami Junnonen and the Houston Symphony in February of this year, and it marked my first time working alongside Maestro Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Next May I will finally be able to unveil Aurora, which is dedicated to powerhouse Violinist Leticia Moreno, and I say finally because the original premiere had been slated to take place in September of 2017, but Hurricane Harvey had other plans. Also next year, Andrés and the Houston Symphony will premiere my Symphony No. 2: Ad Astra, which is inspired by the space program and the role that NASA’s emblematic Johnson Space Center has played on several missions. Finally, my residency will culminate with the presentation in the spring of 2020 of Dreamers, an oratorio for soprano, mixed chorus, and orchestra that I have written together with Nilo Cruz. We felt it was necessary to present this work in Houston, as it sheds light on another aspect of the immigrant experience in the U.S., and relates to the Young Composers Mentorship Program and the work we are doing with the refugees who have valiantly shared their stories with us. The oratorio is dedicated to “all dreamers around the world who left their homes in search of a better life in the hopes that their newly adopted homeland would grant them the basic rights and privileges that every human on Earth should have access to.” The world premiere will take place on March 17th, 2019 in Berkeley performed by Soprano Ana María Martínez, Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, while the Houston performances in 2020 will be lead by Conductor Fabien Gabel, and will also count with the participation of Houston-based, Superstar Soprano Ana María Martínez. Here’s to a second half, full of excitement and world premieres!
Eight years ago, at the start of my second year at UC Berkeley, I was talking to a good friend of mine in the lobby of the International House about my desire to break the barriers that hinder contemporary classical music from reaching a wide audience. As we exchanged ideas, we realized that if we really wanted to lure new listeners to this kind of music, we had to get out of our figurative lawns and go knock on their doors. In other words, we had to get out of our comfort zone and go meet those listeners in a territory that was familiar to them but unfamiliar to us. This is how I came about the idea of creating a music video, a well-known genre in pop music, but one that has remained virtually unexplored in the classical music world. That conversation with my good friend Adrian (who became my best man last year), planted a seed that continued to grow inside me, but it was not until earlier this year that it finally fell on fertile soil. This is the journey of Epiphany: A Sonic Vision.
I have said many times that working on Bel Canto has been one of the greatest blessings of my life; especially because of all the people I have met during its five-year gestation period. Back in 2008, there was no way I could have made this video a reality, chiefly because I hadn’t yet met most of the key people who are making this project come true. It was through Bel Canto that I met Kevin Newbury, a brilliant director who, in addition to working in opera and musical theater, has also directed two successful short films: Monsura is Waiting and Stag. His love and respect for music makes him one of the few directors out there who truly knows how to appreciate and harness the power of music. He was the missing link between my world of sound and the world of visuals, of which I understand so little. Like in every project, there is a more earthly aspect to it; we needed to raise funds and we needed to do it quickly. During the years leading to the premiere of Bel Canto I had the privilege of meeting a group of generous Chicago-based donors who are known for professing a life-long unconditional love for the arts. It is they, our “Epiphany Angels” as we call them, who made it possible for us to bring this project from concept to reality. Some of them prefer to remain anonymous, but the names of those who don’t will be revealed at the appropriate time. Last but not least, I could have not done this without the help of my dear husband, Heleno, who in addition to being a music-lover is also a savvy businessman. Heleno galvanized our donors and went to incredible lengths to make sure all the pieces fell into place. He is now President and CEO of Epiphany Foundation for the Arts Inc., a non-profit organization that is now lawfully established in the state of California and which we hope will continue to live and sponsor future artistic endeavors. I am sure you can now fully understand why this complex undertaking couldn’t have been brought to fruition eight years ago. Now, however, we are ready, so much so that we will start shooting the video just a few days from now in New Hampshire.
Before we go there let me tell you what is the concept behind all this. Young people, “millennials” in particular, are rarely seen in concert halls and opera houses. This is something that concerns, not only music creators like myself, but also performers and leaders of arts organizations. We have all been trying to come up with a solution for years now but ticket sales keep dwindling, attendance keeps shrinking, and important arts organizations in the U.S. like the Minnesota Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, and New York City Opera have faced innumerable challenges in recent years, not to mention several organizations overseas. By now most of us have just resigned ourselves to the fact that this is a sign of the times and that the trend is simply irreversible. Not so fast. The 20th century has been a century of innovation, and we welcomed a new genre in the arts: moving pictures. This new technology, which is now over a hundred years old, became the great entertainment for the masses, a position that only opera had achieved prior to the former’s invention. The 20th century was also a visual century par excellence, so confronting people with abstract music sometimes makes them feel a little disoriented, especially because of the lack of context. Of course there is context in opera, but it is mostly sung in languages other than English, and even when it’s sung in one’s mother tongue, it is not always easy to make out what the singers are saying, hence the now ubiquitous use of surtitles. Unlike opera, where music leads the action, the script is what drives the story forward in movies, while the music takes a back seat supporting the visuals. Next time you go to a movie theater think of this: when people are given context, they are more likely to embrace a wide variety of musical styles. Say you watch a fantasy film or a horror film. If you pay close attention to their soundtracks, you will find many adventurous sounds and harmonies; sounds that those same spectators wouldn’t be as attracted to were they to listen to them played by an orchestra in a concert hall totally deprived of the visuals. That is why when those same moviegoers buy the soundtrack of a film, they are brought back -in their imaginations- to the movie theater, because by then they have associated those sounds to specific images from the film. This is the reasoning process that led me to understand that we might still have a chance to attract new and fresh audiences to classical music, in particular music that is being written now, if we provide them with a visual context. This is one of the reasons why I believe in this project.
What we are going to create is a hybrid between a music video and a short film (7 minutes), where music, dance and theater come together to convey a fantastic story. It is too early to reveal the plot, but our brilliant screenwriter, David Johnston, has come up with a story that combines love, death, and hope -all universal and archetypical concepts- and blends them into a truly touching and unexpected story involving three main characters. Not a single word will be uttered, instead, it will all be told through visuals and music. The soundtrack: the fifth movement of Epiphany, concertino for piano, brass, strings, and percussion performed by pianist Javier Arrebola and the kohoBeat Orchestra with Leo McFall conducting a live recording at Helsinki’s Temppeliaukio Church. Completing our main crew are production designer Vita Tzykun, cinematographer James Daniel, costume designer Paul Carey, choreographer Larry Keigwin, and producer Matthew Principe. Our brilliant cast: Reed Luplau, Cole Horibe and Orange is the New Black’s Catherine Curtin. The shooting will take place in Maine and New Hampshire during August 7-14 in several outdoors and indoors locations, including the haunting Parsonfield Seminary whose architecture shows a heavy Victorian influence and which is comprised of three floors, each with its own strong personality. It is beautiful and haunting, almost like a film-ready set!
I have never been involved in a project of this kind, and for this reason I am particularly excited about it. The whole Epiphany team has been preparing for this moment since the beginning of the year, so it feels a bit surreal to have finally arrived at this point. We have had several work meetings, not only in person (New York and Cincinnati) but also via phone, Skype, Google Hangouts, and Facetime… and we continue to be in touch constantly via email. The video will enter post-production this coming fall and we should have a rough cut ready by the beginning of next year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; I promise to give you an account of our project as it evolves and progresses. All I can say for now is that I feel incredibly blessed and thankful to everyone who is making this possible. It truly feels like a dream come true. And now… let’s get to work!