The “Muse Room” is the room in my house where I make music and my wife makes visual art. Published the first Friday of the month, each issue of Letters from the Muse Room includes news and updates about my music, as well as something that has inspired me creatively over the past month.
Dear friends,
Happy August! Here in Kansas City it has been pretty sweltering for many weeks, though last week it was cooler and we had a good amount of rain (fittingly, considering the new piece I’m writing… read on). I hope you are staying cool where you are.
The musicians of the Kansas City Symphony have started performing some socially distanced outdoor concerts, and I was able to take my two kids to one of them a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun and it was so good to hear real live music again.
On the news and updates front, I am hard at work on Rainlight, the orchestral piece that will be my third (and likely final) composition for 2020. I’ve only written one orchestral piece before (my master’s thesis, The Footsteps Die Out For Ever), so I wanted to give myself plenty of time to write and revise this one.
My plan is for the piece to be about eight minutes long; I’ve drafted five and a half so far. I want it to be a “pretty” piece, something beautiful to listen to, evoking the way light shimmers and reflects and dances in rain at night. Many artists are doing excellent work during the pandemic bringing attention to injustice in the world. But I wanted my composition coming out of this time to be something that would bring peace and comfort.
It’s not all peace and comfort, though; the rain ramps up in the middle of the piece, and the orchestra builds to a huge thunderclap at the climax. But then it will subside, and eventually fade out into silence.
I’ll have more to share next month, including an audio clip that will probably include the thunderclap (since that’s currently my favorite moment in the piece!).
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As America and the world continue (rightly) to focus on social justice, I’ve found inspiration this last month in expanding my own listening horizons. There are two nonwhite women composers that I’ve really enjoyed lately and I wanted to share them with you in hopes you might expand your horizons as well.
The first composer is Florence Price, who lived from 1887 to 1953. She was the first Black woman to have a piece played by a major orchestra when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony (No. 1) in E Minor in 1933.
I’ve listened to that symphony a number of times over the last month. I particularly like the second movement, which has as its theme a hymn-like tune that Price composed and uses trumpets, atypically, to present the slow, lyrical melody. It sounds solidly American, like Copland’s music does — but in its own way, very different from Copland’s style.
You can hear it on YouTube, performed by the New Black Repertory Ensemble, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s4yY_A2A2k. (If you click on “Show More” in the description, there are links to jump to each of the movements in the video. But of course you should really listen to the whole thing!)
I’ve also enjoyed listening to some of Price’s piano music, played by Lara Downes. It has a late-Romantic sound, with some Debussy flavor, but again done in her own way. You can listen to that album here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n0ea9QRpeX_PDUWViDD1A8Va2squ8uOLQ.
You can also read more about Price’s life and work in this guide: https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/guide-florence-price.
While I had heard of Florence Price (though never listened to any of her music), the other composer I’ve enjoyed recently is one I’d never heard of before last month: the Brazilian composer Chiquinha Gonzaga.
She lived from 1847 to 1935, a little earlier than Price, and was the first female conductor in the country along with enjoying a successful career as a composer and pianist. She also worked for the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage in Brazil.
She composed a great number of tangos, waltzes and polkas for the piano, and I’ve listened to several albums of those in the past month. They’re not my usual musical fare, but make for great light and fun listening. You can hear an album of her piano music, performed by Maria Teresa Madeira, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDfyFrtI7mM.
You can read more about Gonzaga in this article from Chicago classical music radio station WFMT: https://www.wfmt.com/2017/06/05/hear-music-chiquinha-gonzaga-brazilian-composer-100-years-ahead-time.
I’m always looking for new music to listen to, and I’ve been inspired by listening to these two composers who had vastly different backgrounds than mine. I encourage you to listen to their music and continue seeking out other perspectives — in music, as well as in everything else.
Be well.
Peace,
AJ Harbison
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