New Music Listening Club and Context in Art
New Morse Code recently joined Emlyn Johnson and Dan Ketter’s New Music Listening Club.
We each picked a recent recording we found interesting or inspiring, and spent some time chatting—book club style—about what we found exciting, exhilarating, and inspiring. For our episode, we shared works by Samuel Adams, Dai Wei and Carola Bauckholt.
Here’s the listening list
Samuel Adams - Movements (for us and them) (2018)
Performed by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, released May 2020
Carola Bauckholt - Implicit Knowledge (2020)
Performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik, conducted by Mariano Chiacchiarini, October 2020
Performed by Dai Wei and the Aizuri Quartet, released February 2021
I was inspired by how the context—even fairly vague situating statement—engendered a a more critical listening experience, and how it inspired me to bring my own background and expertise to the listening experience.
Along these lines, I wanted to share a recent experience around feeling empowered to create my own connections in art. While spending some time in Madison, Wisconsin, I visited UW's Chazen Museum of Art (great logo!), where in—between gulps of Babcock Creamery ice cream—I enjoyed The Nature of Things, a retrospective of prints and paintings from Suzanne Caporael.
Most of the art in The Nature of Things alluded to or referenced scientific themes. The exhibition notes that "behind Caporael's exploration of nature is an interest in systems and how information is structured in Western culture in an effort to understand, and perhaps contain, the natural world." Caporael aestheticizes and abstracts these representations, creating works which exude form and structure even as the edges of the prints themselves are blurred.
I’m not a professional photographer
Columns of colored blocks might allude to a data set around shore leads, and, and a series of dots might depict the colors of birds as seen in a field guide. In addition to the birds, I was drawn to the repeating patterns in Caporael's works around the sky, particularly Leonids, where a repeating field of stars rhythmicizes the annual meteor shower.
I liked the way the art's thematic content—depicted both through titles and visual allusion—gave viewers a pathway in and through abstraction. With permission to think analogously, I felt more ownership of my experience, and let myself draw connections between blocks of color and estuaries or birds. I connected parameters of the art to my own memories of these natural phenomena, and found my own narrative through the space.
I was initially drawn to the exhibition because of a long-term project with New Morse Code about highlighting science around the worsening climate crisis. I've been thinking about how music can represent data, or focus attention onto an idea or concept beyond simple mimesis or cohabitation. But within the gallery, the covalent sensations of empowerment and discovery I felt reminded me of how hope to engage audiences at concerts.
One of the great joys of playing contemporary music is introducing people to music they have never heard before. I've often found, though, that giving listeners a narrowly construed play-by-play of a piece can create disappointment and anxiety. If one does not hear the theme in the appropriate place, does one miss the entire meaning of the work?
As an audience member, I love receiving a gentle nudge towards a new work’s theme, character, or extra-musical inspiration. I feel empowered to read my own story into the work, and find my own connections. Caporael's titles resonated with this impulse, and I felt permission to see a map in a color field, or to make my own associations with the colors of birds.
Along those lines, I look forward to welcoming you into my album Unsnared Drum, which is coming out August 20th on New Focus Recordings. I’m so excited to share some background and contextualize these collaborations as the date approaches.
Stay tuned for more info about our album celebrations, including in-person shows, video streams, and more!
Until then, stay cool!