I first met composer David T. Little when we were students together at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Tonight Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will perform David’s piece Screamer! on a program that also includes works by John Corigliano and Sergei Prokofiev. I recently caught up with David and asked him about the piece, his thoughts on being a composer, what he’s been up to, and what’s with the middle initial. Here’s what he had to say.
Brian T. Sacawa: Marin Alsop is known as a great champion of new American music. How did you become acquainted with her?
David T. Little: I first became aware of Marin Alsop in around 2001 or so. I was at the University of Michigan at the time, and she suddenly seemed to be everywhere I looked. She was a huge champion of my teacher at the time, Michael Daugherty, so I knew about her in that way—I think we first met after the Detroit Symphony performed Daugherty’s percussion concerto, UFO, on a fun space-themed concert with Holst’s The Planets. I also remember around the same time having my mind totally blown by her recording of Christopher Rouse’s Gorgon, with the Colorado Symphony. I would later have the chance to work with her more directly at the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz. This is where she first heard my piece Screamer! that the BSO will perform this week.
BTS: You studied with Michael Daugherty at the University of Michigan. Screamer! seems to display a lot of qualities that I’d call Daugherty-esque, for lack of a better term. What kind of influence has Michael had on your music?
DTL: Screamer! definitely comes out of my experiences at Michigan, but I think it has more to do with the department as a whole than with any one person. Michael was definitely an influence, but so was William Bolcom—with whom I studied while writing the piece, and to whom it is dedicated. Evan Chambers was also an influence, specifically this cool piece of his called Polka Nation. All three of these mentor composers gave me a kind of confidence that I had been struggling with at the time; a sense that anything was fair game, even circus music. I mean, it’s a pretty stupid thing to do, conventional wisdom tells us: to write an orchestra piece based on band music that requires all kinds of extra stuff (sampler, whoopee cushions, etc.) and has a theme that is so specific that it almost never makes sense on any concert program! But somehow it’s worked out. The piece has been played something like 25 times so far, and more groups have expressed some interest for future seasons. So I guess the lesson here is: be bold! (Or maybe: be crazy!) And as Evan Chambers used to tell me, “let your freak flag fly!”
But I should also mention my colleagues in the department at the time, who also contributed to this sort of crazy/boldness. People like Joel Puckett, Roshanne Etezady, DJ Sparr, Paul Fowler, Michael Djupstrom, Carter Pann, Kristin Kuster; the list goes on and on. I don’t think I would have ever written Screamer! if not for the generally open and playful attitude that these people brought to the department.
BTS: You write a lot of chamber music. What are some the differences/challenges you encounter when you compose for orchestra rather than a smaller ensemble?
DTL: I love writing for orchestra because the options are endless, and there are just so many people to work with. So much of my earliest music-making experiences were in large groups—either school bands or choruses, or rock bands with effects pedals, or in drum corps—so music to me has always been, on some level, about layers. You can really hear this in Screamer!, which almost always had a lot going on, sometimes in different meters or different keys. It’s a piece that’s really about the sonic impact of lots of stuff happening. I tend to really enjoy playing around with layers in that way.
Another thing that I love about orchestra is volume. Although a string quartet can also be loud, this is more about creating the illusion of loudness, whereas with an orchestra, it’s actually loud. Does that make sense? Just like there is nothing like standing in front of a Marshall stack at full volume to make you feel the music (and lose your hearing!), so too is there nothing like a big orchestral tutti to really make you feel it. This is not to say that there isn’t something to be said for quiet music—there absolutely is—but I do love a good orchestral tutti, especially on a really gnarly dissonant chord. (Screamer! has a few of those!)
On the other hand, there is an intimacy to chamber music that I really love, as well as a precision that one sometimes lacks with orchestra: it’s far easier to stop on a dime with 4 people than it is with 50! So for these things, and others, chamber music is great.
BTS: I hear you about there being something to be said for quiet music. Actually, your work descanso (after omega), which I’ve played several times, is extremely quiet and extremely beautiful. So, you’re also a performer. How does that affect the way you write music? Or doesn’t it?
DTL: This is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, lately. I think it makes a huge difference, and think that every composer should perform other people’s music.
I should preface this by saying that I’ve had a really strange path to becoming a performer. Although my undergraduate degree was in percussion performance—so I did the standard recital thing, and subbed with regional groups like the York Symphony—I ultimately gave it up. I just had such a terrible experience with my teacher, who shall remain nameless, that I actually sold everything immediately after graduation. Quit. Cold turkey. I was just, like, done.
When I got to Michigan I discovered the Creative Arts Orchestra—an all improvised orchestra that did a lot of different things; Soundpainting, etc. I found myself really missing playing music, though not reading music. (I really only learned to read music in college, so this was always a source of stress for me.) I signed up for CAO, and that was my first step back into performing; it’s continued to grow from there. Now, I run my own ensemble in NYC, called Newspeak—for which I am also the drummer—and play from time to time with Corey Dargel and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), so performing is becoming a more and more regular part of my life as a musician. I’m quite happy about it, though balancing that and composition can sometimes be difficult.
So, now to answer your questions: being a performer has changed a lot for me. Specifically playing with Newspeak, because we play so many new pieces, and often from younger composers—you know, people in their late 20s or so, often still in school—that I’ve really gotten to see things from the other side of the music stand, so to speak. Through this experience I’ve developed a lot of pet peeves!
For example: page turns. Composers will never know annoying it is to have bad page turns in a piece until they are forced, repeatedly, to deal with them. Similarly, cues in the parts, especially amidst long periods or rests or mixed meters. Though not always necessary, they are always helpful and always appreciated. Also, being smart about rhythmic notation. There are easy ways and hard ways to notate things: the hard ways win composer competitions, but the easier way is almost always better for the performer.
Newspeak just premiered a piece that felt almost impossible when we were rehearsing because there were no cues and some of the rhythmic notation was really counter-intuitive. While we ultimately performed the piece very well, the process could have been a lot less painful. It kind of drove me crazy.
We’re very much a groove-based band—I mean, I play drum set after all, an instrument that was made for playing beats! But so often we get pieces that have grooves that for no really clear reason aren’t notated to reflect the groove that we are hearing and playing. In other words, the strong beats that we hear will fall on a weak beat that we see. So it all just gets confusing. In one case we actually asked a composer to re-notate his piece to make it clearer. He did, and everyone’s ultimately been better off as a result.
BTS: You were recently named the first ever Dilettante Music Digital Composer-In-Residence. What’s that all about?
DTL: DilettanteMusic.com is a UK-based on-line classical music hub with which I became involved last November, when I was elected as their Digital Composer-in-Residence. They had this big open call for scores, so I entered. Everything was to happen digitally—via e-mail, etc.—and there was no fee, so I thought: why not? Next thing I knew I was having a piece recorded by the London Sinfonietta, and flying to London for the finals. There was a big on-line voting period to pick from the three finalists, and I ended up winning, thus becoming the first-ever Digital Composer-in-Residence.
Part of my duties there involves writing hopefully provocative posts about what’s going on in music. Most recently I’ve been writing about what it’s like to try to balance composing, my dissertation, performing, etc. But I’ve also posted about the Amen Break, opera, new performance spaces, etc. I even posted some punk Christmas carols around the holidays, from The Vandals’ Oi To The World album. So it’s been pretty free form. I do need to post more often, though. I have a pretty irregular schedule, so doing regularly scheduled things can be a little difficult for me.
One of the other really great things that I’ve been able to do as DCR is to initiate a video blog, where I interview composers or other creative people about what they’re up to. The first video was a collaborative roundtable with my old friends Missy Mazzoli, Stephen Taylor and Royce Vavrek—the parties involved in the opera premieres at Bard last month. Up next is an interview with creative producer Beth Morrison, and beyond that people like Corey Dargel, Ted Hearne, Leo Chadburn and more. It’s been really great so far and I look forward to contributing as much as I can during the second half of my, um, term in office.
BTS: My middle name is Theodore. Is it okay if I use the ‘T’ when I abbreviate my name so we can both have three initials or do you have a patent on that?
DTL: Of course! The “T” thing is funny with me. When I see “David Little” in print, I get kind of irritated. It must seem totally weird to people. I think part of it is that I’ve used the T for so long—since back in high school—that I really feel like that’s my name, you know? Even today, people who know me really well often call me “David t.” as my name.
Once I became a composer, though, it became a practical matter, since there are a few other David Little’s who compose. I actually—and I’m not even joking—got an e-mail this morning about another David Little’s piece. So in a way it’s just an attempt to keep things straight.
So, for the record: I’m David T. Little. “David Little” is some other guy. David T. Little wrote Screamer!, runs Newspeak, etc. I know it must seem totally ridiculous, but think of this this way: would you call John Luther Adams simply “John Adams”? No, right? So, yeah. It makes a difference.
Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra perform David T. Little’s Screamer! along with works by John Corigliano and Sergei Prokofiev tonight at the Music Hall at Strathmore and Friday through Sunday at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore. Click here for tickets and performance times.
