Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now

Live on K&D

Live in-studio performance and interview. WGDR FM 91.1, February 19, 2005.

On the road

You'll have to forgive me for not posting as regularly as before. I'm in the final preparations for the New York Debut and I've had to devote most of my energy to that.

I'm off to New York tomorrow for what promises to be an exciting week. On Monday, I'll give a masterclass for the saxophone class at the Manhattan School of Music. Tuesday will be relaxing and practicing. Wendesday is the big gig. Then it's quickly off to Hartford, CT for a guest recital at the Hartt School of Music on Thursday; then onto Amherst, MA for a guest recital on Friday; and finally up to Plainfield, VT for a live radio broadcast and interview on Kalvos and Damian's New Music Bazaar. You can listen to the show online by clicking here.

It's a hectic schedule and I'll miss posting for the week. Will be back soon with a full report. See you soon!

The virtue of virtuosity

Virtuosity fascinates me. It's interesting to trace the term through history and see how its meaning and the perception of virtuosity has changed.

Virtuoso is an Italian word, which comes from the Latin, virtus, meaning excellence or worth. As currently used, the word refers to a performer who is especially adroit in the practice of his or her instrument, a musician of extraordinary technical skill. Originally, however, the word had much broader connotations, existing as a term of honor for people who distinguished themselves in an intellectual or artistic field. One could be deemed a virtuoso poet, a virtuoso architect, or a virtuoso scholar, for example. But the epithet was most likely to be applied to an excellent musician. Implicit in the concept of the virtuoso was not only unmatched technical skill, but recognition of a deeper understanding of the art. The term was used notably to indicate those who committed themselves to the theory or to the composition of music.

Some people love virtuosity. Some hate it. Some think it's an integral component of music and progress and some find it detrimental to music. The whole enterprise can be so contentious. In my opinion, Luciano Berio (1925-2003) had the best view of virtuosity:

The best solo performers of our own time--modern in intelligence, sensibility, and technique--are those who are capable of acting within a wide historical perspective, and of resolving the tensions getween the creative demands of past and present, emplying their instruments as means of research and expression. Their virtuosity is not confined to manual dexterity nor to philological specialization. Although they may operate at differing levels of understanding, they are able to commit themselves to the only type of virtuosity that is acceptable today, that of sensibility and intelligence.

Slowness

I recently watched the film Rivers and Tides: Working With Time (2001). It's a portrait of the artist Andy Goldsworthy, who works exclusively with materials found in nature, like stone, wood, leaves, and ice. His work is stunning. Ephemeral. Fragile. Trascendent. Beautiful. It's all of those things. But what also struck me about Goldsworthy was his absolute engagement with his sculpture. His concentration is immense. He is completely engrossed in the moment while at work, highlighting both the beautiful and ephemeral in his pieces. Time seems suspended even though as the sun comes up or the tide comes in you are acutely aware that time is indeed elapsing, while also threatening to destroy his creations.

Goldsworthy's appraoch to his art reminded me of Slowness by Milan Kundera. In the novel, Kundera proposes that we not race from one thing to the next to the next to the next to the next and eventually on to "no thing," as Eric Owen Moss puts it. There's no focus in that race. No satisfaction. No destination. Only the next destination.

It's important to be in the moment. To be completely immersed in and devoted to the task at hand whether it's practicing, writing, composing, painting, sculpting, reading. If you ever have the sense that you're becoming a part of the race--as I sometimes do--watch this film. It's inspiring.

Finding a voice

I'd like to follow up a bit on the discussion from the previous post. The issue that emerged from the comments was one of catering to an audience versus playing (or composing) the music that one believes in. What's really at the heart of the matter here is finding and defining a personal voice.

I think this is what we're all searching for. However, when does one start developing a distinctive and unique voice? From the beginning? Only after years and years of study and attempting to re-create other voices? Is it important to "pay your dues" before arriving at a personal sound? Can one be born with it? Is it something that can be developed at all?

I believe that finding a voice is an organic process. You are the sum of your influences. And the way you channel and synthesize all of your experiences and knowledge defines your own unique voice. At least this is how I feel I arrived at my current state. As I learned to play the saxophone, I was often taken by this artist or that artist and tried to emulate their personal style. I found things in each artists' playing--the way they turned a phrase, their tone, articulation, control of dynamics or timbre--that I attempted to appropriate into my own playing. When I play now, I don't think about how so-and-so would do something, I think about how I want to do it. But if I hadn't gone through that process of discovery as a student, I don't think I could make those kinds of decisions now. The bigger issue for me at this point is not so much how I play, but rather what I play. Choosing what to perform helps define my voice as much as how I perform it.

That being said, I don't ever compromise my values for an audience. I believe that a high level of artistic integrity goes hand in hand with great musicianship and conviction as a performer (or composer for that matter). Now certainly, I want to perform for people and would never give up an opportunity to do so. Sometimes that means I play at a local Women's Club or elderhostel or retirement community. In those cases, I might modify my program a little--perhaps taking a bit of an edge off--but in every instance I always bring music that I believe in and wish to communicate to them, no matter how challenging it might be. I've found that conviction and passion about a certain music--things I'm able to project in performance--usually trump preconceived notions about what people think they like or don't like. Who knew that little old ladies could like Michael Gordon, William Bolcom, or Karlheinz Stockhausen?

It's your choice

Shouldn't we play music that people want to hear?

A colleague I respect very highly asked me that question recently. And I'm pretty sure why he asked. He knows that I collaborate frequently with emerging composers and that the resulting work sometimes exists outside of certain listeners' comfort zones--his included. Like Ms. Gould from a previous post, he simply has a more conservative sonic pallate. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and I happen to find his Mozart mezmerizing and his Bach exquisite. But I think deep down what he really meant was, "Why would you let anyone write you a piece of music that sounds like that?"

Implicit in that question is the idea that the performer can exercise a certain amount of control over the collaborating composer. Can I do that? Maybe. Should I do it? No.

The truth is, I never tell a composer what to write. Why would I? I’ve chosen to work with that particular composer because I believe in his or her voice, not because I have an agenda on my instrument. However, if the composer were to ask me if I was looking to explore anything specific or if I had any ideas, I'd be happy to share them. It's just not my place to impose those issues from the beginning. To be sure, there have been a few times I was sorry I didn't lay down some parameters with regard to range, extended techniques, or the eight levels of pianissimo. But even in those instances I'm up for a challenge, even if I'm certain of the outcome.

The bottom line: You can choose who you work with. You can't tell them what to do.

Holding my breath

Anybody that dismisses Philip Glass' music has probably never tried to play one of his pieces.

I say this not as a reaction to David's review of the Anechoic Chamber Ensemble's concert of early Glass works last night--which certainly isn't dismissive--but rather in response to my own preparation of Mr. Glass' Piece in the Shape of a Square (1968), the first half closer on my February 16th Miller Theater recital.

Originally scored for two flutes, I decided to make a version for alto saxophone after being taken by a performance of the work on an album by Alter Ego. In concert I play the second part against a recording of myself performing the first part.

The work presents two major challenges to me as a performer. First, minimalist music takes an extremely high--almost superhuman--level of concertration. If my mind wanders for a split second, I risk loosing my place and being thrown off rhythm. Second, and more important to my health, is figuring out where to breathe. The music simply doesn't stop to allow me to do this. I've already struggled through two performances of the piece on the brink of asphyxiation by the end. Circular breathing, a possible solution in situations where taking a normal breath is impossible, is not an option in this piece. The constant syncopations and articulations leave no room for the technique.

So why torture myself? Well, it's not really torture. The piece is exciting and deserves to be heard. And the work's inherent difficulties only add to its excitement in performance.

Cioran on music

A few musical aphorisms by E. M. Cioran (1911-1995):

What music appeals to in us it is difficult to know; what we do know is that music reaches a zone so deep that madness itself cannot penetrate there.

A passion for music is in itself an avowal. We know more about a stranger who yields himself up to it than about someone who is deaf to music and whom we see every day.

Musical Offering, Art of the Fugue, Goldberg Variations: I love in music, as in philosophy and in everything, what pains by insistence, by recurrence, by that interminable return which reaches the ultimate depths of being and provokes there a barely endurable delectation.

The first two are from The Trouble with Being Born, the last one from Drawn and Quartered. Both volumes are translated from the French by Richard Howard and published by Arcade.

It can't happen here

There was bad news for Eric Owen Moss on Wednesday. The Los Angeles architect, who in 2001 won a competition to redesign the Queens Museum of Art, found out that he was out of a job. While we may never know exactly why the museum chose to cancel Mr. Moss' project--already three years in the works--it probably had something to do with the change in the museum's administration. The new suits came in with a different set of priorities than their predescesors, didn't see eye to eye Mr. Moss' original plan, and instead of attempting to rectify the situation with the architect--who was more than willing to compromise on the aspects of design in question--decided to seek a new architectural direction from a preapproved list of eight firms.

It's too bad that the Queens Museum of Art won't be able to boast the work of a true architectural visionary, a man whose importance is often discussed in the company of names like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Richard Meier, and Frank Gehry. Instead, just like Daniel Libeskind and the World Trade Center site, artistic vision is supplanted by a political agenda. At least that never happens in music.

AV log: 1/26

I mentioned in a previous post that I'll be presenting American Voices, a New York debut recital on February 16 at Columbia University's Miller Theater. As the date nears, I thought I'd give periodic updates on my progress and also provide some insights on the planning and thought process that went into the show.

First, why play a New York Debut? I've heard some people refer to the tradition as a dinosaur. Well, I think that for many of us, a New York debut is still an important rite of passage. It's a way of saying, "Here I am and this is what I do."

Even if the tradition is somewhat archaic, I've tried to choose a program that is fresh and adventurous. The music I play is the most important component of the recital. My choice of repertoire could mean the difference between piquing a critic's interest or simply having them toss my letter of invitation, press release, and months of planning and work into an anonymous pile. There's a lot of music that saxophonists like to perform and understand the difficulty of that probably wouldn't attract anyone else's attention but the saxophone cognoscenti. I didn't want to fall into that trap.

So what am I playing? I picked music by American composers whose voices have helped define and shape America's new music landscape. The composers are: Michael Gordon, Lee Hyla, Alvin Lucier, Charles Wuorinen, Philip Glass, Martin Bresnick, Chris Theofanidis, and Derek Hurst. In addition to being dynamic musical voices, a number of them have been featured in recent years as part of the Miller Theater's "Composer Portrait" series. The music runs the sonic gamut from the traditional saxophone and piano duo to saxophone alone, with electronics, pre-recorded saxophones, and even amplified electric light. You can find more information about the program here.

My goal is for the recital to represent both the vibrancy and diversity of new American music for saxophone.