Found out at the last minute that I’ll be perform­ing live on today’s WNYC Sound­check with John Schaefer. You can listen at 2:00 PM on 93.9 FM in the NYC area, or listen online here. Preced­ing me is an up-and-coming young composer by the name of Steve Reich.

• 1. Top 4 composers under 1000 
• 2. Top 1000 composers under 4 
• 3. Top 80 keys on the piano 
• 4. Top 0.4 21^st-century composers (spoiler: Andrew Norman’s head and neck) 
• 5. Top 1 musical chair under my butt 

I couldn’t make it to the LCD Soundsys­tem Lebewohl show at Madison Square Garden last night, neither could I watch the webcast. Right now, in fact, I’m sitting in the South­west terminal at Houston Hobby, waiting for the early flight back to LGA because some of us just can’t keep our roofs on.

Twitter is great in these inde­ter­mi­nate waiting periods that occupy a great deal of one’s life. Except nobody I know is tweeting at this hour, except for Erik Spiek­er­mann. Somehow I stumbled on the #LCDMSG tag, which people have cleverly used to mark their tweets relating to the afore­men­tioned LCD Soundsys­tem concert. This as-it-happens crowd­sourc­ing is one of the things Twitter is supposed to be used for, and about which much self-congrat­u­la­tory nonsense has been spouted (along the lines of, “Who needs a $450/year NYT subscrip­tion when we can watch events unfold on Twitter?”) 

In reality, Twitter falls laugh­ably short. I tapped on #LCDMSG and found about three things, tweeted and re-tweeted in a never-ending feedback loop: “OMG #LCDMSG was soooo awesome” (wow, you should be a music critic), some­thing about a person called Patrick Ewing about which I do not care and which may or may not be a joke, and finally, messages from spam-bots which had nothing whatever to do with LCD or MSG but noticed that it was a popular tag and wanted (if spam-bots are capable of want) to sell Viagra to people. 

I know for certain of one friend who was in atten­dance, and I’ll be inter­ested to talk about the show when I next see him (he wasn’t consid­er­ate enough to tweet; how rude). That’s the conun­drum; I’m not too inter­ested in the subjec­tive expe­ri­ences of strangers, even if the expe­ri­ences them­selves are ones I’m inter­ested in. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the entire “hashtag” feature is pretty useless; most of my friends subvert the tags into a self-conscious form of parody, using them to edito­ri­al­ize their own thoughts in ways that, though often clever and funny, would be prepos­ter­ous to search for. 

Of course, humor is the saving grace of Twitter, that perfectly flippant medium. 

I’m at 35,000 feet now, roof is holding strong. Looking good, Southwest!

Last week, five out of six Sleeping Giants gathered in Rob Honstein’s lovely Park Slope living room to record our first podcast, courtesy of Sopho­cles Papavasilopou­los. I spelled that right the first try. We had a grand time and only had to cut out a couple of blatantly offen­sive remarks. Both were attrib­uted to Chris. (It is still super spicy though.) Ted does most of the swearing. Andrew was too cool busy writing a theremin concerto, but he’s there in spirit. Listen up now. 

Composers at Play: Sleeping Giant

An unex­pected surprise showed up in my inbox a few weeks ago: what appeared to be an album of elec­tronic music by my friend, composer/bassoonist Brad Balliett. Brad’s one of the more unique musical figures in New York; I’ve known him, and his iden­ti­cal twin, Doug, since high school. The contra­dic­tion inherent in that last sentence should tell you some­thing. They were the guys who knew how to make a bong out of an apple, and did so. MATA and Metrop­o­lis Ensemble are present­ing their “hip-hop retelling” of Stravin­sky’s The Rake’s Progress in May. 

So I down­loaded Brad’s album into iTunes. 10 tracks (thought I), that’s a nice round number. E flat minor, that’s a nice key to start some­thing in. OH HEY, this sounds familiar. Yes, Brad had indeed remixed all of Shy and Mighty. I got a huge kick out of listen­ing to his take on it; the first track, Anten­noid, makes a rather convinc­ing case: 

Brad Balliett/Timo Andres: Anten­noid

I guess every Steve Reich “tribute” deserves its own Reich (Remixed) tribute! Download the entire thing at Brad’s site.

Had a quiet moment at the Andres Bakery on Saturday so I decided to “lay down” some “tracks” i.e. build a national high-speed rail system record my new piano piece At the River. Take a listen: 

Timo Andres: At the River

I wanted this record­ing for my own purposes more than anything— I wrote At the River in such a jiffy that it was out in front of an audience before I could “flip-flop” (under a normal deadline, flip-flopping is an antic­i­pated and useful part of the process). Well, at least one person seems to have liked it.

For the visual learners amongst you, Merkin Hall recently posted a fine set of photos from Gabriel’s and my Ecstatic Music Festival show. Fun fact: Gabe and I recently discov­ered that neither of us has (yet) grad­u­ated from high school.

I was reminded of the composer/performer dichotomy last night, watching Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark. I’m of three minds about the movie, and I think this (some­times yawning) gap is at the crux of my mixed feelings. Dancer a quite self-serious attempt at a tragic movie-musical, and the heroïne (as well as focus of the camera 95% of the time) is none other than Björk. She also wrote the musical numbers. (I’m about to do that thing where I conflate a fictional char­ac­ter, Selma, with a real, live actor, which I know is sloppy of me, but I think the movie invites it.) I love me some Björk, but here’s where things fall apart for me: only Björk can pull off singing Björk’s music. Espe­cially in the context of a movie-musical going down inside her own imag­i­na­tion. The moment Peter Stormare breaks into song I just want to die, or at least check my email. Lumber­ing, repressed Scan­di­na­vian men cannot convinc­ingly sing cross-barline tuplets against an elec­tronic beat consist­ing of sampled factory noises. At least, they should not attempt to do so. 

How does this reflect on my own life expe­ri­ence? I’m not sure, as I’m neither a slightly creepy and possibly retarded lovelorn drifter or a down-on-my-luck corrupt police­man. After devoting in the past few months entirely too much time writing and perform­ing my own music, I’m shifting gears entirely to the “inter­pre­tive” side of things. I like that my various jobs go through peaks and valleys; by the time I’m done with one phase, the next feels welcome and refreshing. 

Things begin in earnest on Thursday, March 24, when I venture back to New Haven to perform the great Ingram Marshal­l’s Authen­tic Presence. The very next day, I’ll be joining vocalist Mellissa Hughes for a concert back in Brooklyn. Mellissa is a musician I’ve admired since way back in college, when I saw her perform Pierrot Lunaire, at midnight, to an over­flow­ing crowd in Branford College common room. Since then, she’s gone on to become a central and much-adored figure in the “new music scene” (whatever that is—not going to write about that just now), throwing herself into projects as both a theatri­cally wild diva and a self-effacing ensemble member. We’ll be collab­o­rat­ing on songs by three good friends— Ted Hearne, Eric Shan­field, and Gabriel Kahane.

Then it’s off to Houston for a week, where my plan is to woodshed the 300 or so pieces I’ll be playing on the 21c Lieder­abend, which is actually drei Lieder­abends, at The Kitchen. There are so many reasons to be excited about this truly epic event, includ­ing many a friendly face— ACME! David Kaplan, my pianis­tic partner-in-crime! Mellissa, Ted, and Gabe again! The quantity of music is just over­whelm­ing, though I’m espe­cially looking forward to playing Greg Spears’s ravish­ing settings of Wilfred Owen poems, Ted’s Is it Dirty?, Julia Wolfe’s Carbon Copy Building, and Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs (another college favorite). 

OK, that was a whole bunch of plugging. I apol­o­gize; it’s because I haven’t written here for weeks. Again: peaks and valleys. Speaking of which, you are probably going to want some gears for those: 

It’s true, I bought another bike last time I was in Houston. It’s a beau­ti­ful, chroméd Schwinn Super Le Tour 12.2 from 1978. And yes, those shift levers are down­right rococo. I’m looking forward to upgrad­ing it to my satis­fac­tion— new tires, saddle, pedals, and bar tape to start with. I just have to remember not to look down at the thing when I’m riding under the Texas sun. 

(Gabriel and I recently held a trans-conti­nen­tal iChat to further illu­mi­nate our evening on the Ecstatic Music Festival. Here’s the transcript.) 

Gabriel Kahane: Hi Timo 

Timo Andres: Hey there! What’s on the menu today?

GK: I’m trying to remember how it was that we came to present this wacky Ives program, and I feel like it had some­thing to do with one of our first culinary (mis)adventures, no? Did it involve risotto?

TA: They all blur together. Like soup.

GK: Oh wait, it involved BLT’s!! You made olive bread.

TA: Oh right. Those crazy Thai-style BLT’s I made for you

GK: Yes. They were so good.

TA: So this concert is like a Thai person making a BLT.

GK: That’s kind of what it is— wherein I am the Thai person, and the BLT is the Ives song. Or, you are the Thai Person and my pop songs are the BLT. Does that sound right?

TA: I think the program itself is a BLT. A bunch of layered ingre­di­ents that are only tangen­tially related but end up working together to form a bril­liant whole.

GK: If you do say so yourself. But yes.

TA: And we are but the mayo.

GK: Yes, true. But let’s leave culinary metaphor aside for the moment and talk about the vernac­u­lar in concert music.

TA: You are so goal-oriented here. It’s great. It’s a funny idea for me because clas­si­cal music is sort of my vernac­u­lar. I’m not one of those hip young kids you hear about who “grew up playing drums in a punk band” or “writing hip hop beatz”.

GK: Yeah, I hear you. In a way, it’s my vernac­u­lar as well. Do you see, as I do, that the tradi­tion of bringing the vernac­u­lar into concert music is one that has essen­tially been contin­u­ous for the last four hundred years, but was briefly inter­rupted in the decades follow­ing WWII?

TA: I tend not to like to think of music history as linear. 

GK: Okay, but say— the quodli­bet of the Goldberg Vari­a­tions. To me this is one of the prime instances of the sacred and the profane coming together to make a deli­cious croque monsieur. Do you know the lyrics to those songs? 

TA: Yes, some­thing about chard stem soup. It’s a pretty high class example. 

GK: Yes! But then the other one is like kind of soft-core. “I wouldn’t leave the house if…she is so “wet”? “moist”?

TA: So what your saying is, is Bach alt-classical? 

GK: I mean… it’s DURRTY. But no. In fact, what I’m propos­ing is that the notion that alt-clas­si­cal is a new movement is histor­i­cally myopic. 

TA: I would agree. 

GK: In fact, we’re just picking up a thread that got dropped from, say, 1945 to 1970. 

TA: Well, it got dropped by the “academic” side of “clas­si­cal music”. Mean­while Lenny was all about electric guitarz. 

GK: Yeah, and we can forgive him for Mass, because his heart was in the right place? But talk to me more about how you don’t view music history as being linear. 

TA: I’m a big believer in “growing pains” periods in music history. Johann Stamitz anyone? 

GK: But when you say non-linear, are you even reject­ing a broadly linear “three steps forward, two steps back” scheme? 

TA: It’s like the universe. It’s a star being born, or some­thing. It doesn’t happen overnight. But many can be forming/dying simultaneously. 

GK: Uh huh. So Ives is great in that sense. He’s kind of a post­mod­ernist avant-la-lettre, no?

TA: and with that, my neighbor has fired up the Rihanna 

GK: Oh sweet. I love Umbrella

TA: I would say he’s more of a magpie. I don’t know if self-conscious post­moder­nity can be ascribed. In fact I think his sensi­bil­ity was quite romantic. 

GK: Mmm, yes, well this is a differ­ent talk than we’re giving up at Columbia. I guess through the thicket of the harmony, there is a romantic impulse there. 

TA: All differ­ent sorts of composers can find some­thing to love in Ives. He’s like our Honest Abe. He can do no wrong. 

GK: Which sort of brings me to the notion that he’s a great jumping off point or genealog­i­cal antecedent for both you and me. As totally differ­ent as our voices are, I think there’s maybe— I feel icky talking about this, but— 

TA: Cause you’re a Repub­li­can and I’m a Democrat? 

GK: Yes.

TA: (jk, we’re both libertarians) 

GK: —no but we both have this soft spot for the 19^th century that is more explicit than in the music of some of our contem­po­raries. Not that it’s about lifting or quoting, but there’s an affinity. 

TA: Right, we get together and play Brahms waltzes, which are the best thing ever. 

GK: And also, ideo­log­i­cally, it seems like we’re both commit­ted to drawing a line through history, whether it’s LINEAR or not, to connect some dots at various histor­i­cal train depots. 

TA: I think Ives strug­gled to get away from that 19^th-century “parlor” tradi­tion but that it was pretty deeply rooted. 

GK: But some­times that “movement against” or “movement away from” is what yields the most satis­fy­ing work. The struggle becomes the state­ment, perhaps? In the same way that Brahms 1 is all about not being Beethoven 9. Until he finally gives in. 

TA: In our case it may be more about juxta­po­si­tion. We’re not trying to say liter­ally “This influ­enced this influ­enced this”. It’s more like, what if you put nước chấm on a BLT? Wouldn’t that be interesting? 

GK: Which is why I partic­u­larly love these Bach/Kurtag tran­scrip­tions. There’s some­thing about him evoking the over­tones of the organ that feels so right in juxta­po­si­tion with Ives. (devotion!)

GK: Yes. So we’re kind of about juxta­po­si­tion on the one hand, and on the other, there is some­thing about inter­tex­tu­al­ity within our respec­tive bodies of work. Some Connecti­cut Gospel is somehow the twin of the slow movement of my piano sonata inasmuch as both pieces inter­po­late some harmonic gestures that to my ears come very much out of a “pop” tradition. 

TA: Yes. In fact this program is very much about harmony, if you want to get geeky about it. I don’t know that I can put it into words too clearly, which is actually one of the reasons I’m crazy about harmony. But I would argue that there is a common thread of “devo­tional” harmony in Western Musics that you can pretty much follow from Bach all the way through the romantic era, and then it joins the vernac­u­lar mid-stream. Ives certainly has it. In The Housatonic at Stock­bridge the entire thing is grounded by these deep, organ-hymn chords and churchy voice leadings. It’s like Brahms’s German Requiem down there. 

GK: It’s inter­est­ing though that you brought up this notion of harmony as the mayo on our program­matic BLT because, while it might seem facile to make such a state­ment on the surface, I don’t know that a lot of contem­po­rary music is partic­u­larly concerned with harmony. 

TA: Harmonic simplic­ity maybe. Not to say our music is, like, Ferney­hough over here. 

GK: I think this is another thing that you and I have in common is that we’re approach­ing harmony in what could be perceived as either a reac­tionary or progres­sive way depend­ing on one’s point of view. 

TA: I try not to get too polit­i­cal about it. I know what I like. 

GK: Yeah, I didn’t mean that in ideo­log­i­cal terms. I guess what I was going to say is that what I find appeal­ing about your music is that in a piece like Some Connecti­cut Gospel the juxta­po­si­tion is Mahleresque chro­mati­cism vs. triadic glowing warmth (as opposed to harmonic stasis vs. triadic glowing warmth, which is not really a juxta­po­si­tion for me). 

TA: Yes yes. Ivesian thickets. Ives and Mahler have a lot in common. Maybe that’s another iChat. 

GK: Another program, even.

TA: And Some Connecti­cut Gospel is directly about Ives. 

GK: I hear that. So have we gotten on the nose enough about why our program is the way it is?

TA: I think so. Do you have any ques­tions, Gabriel? 

GK: I think this is pleas­antly vague. 

TA: Have you decided what hymn you’re troping on? 

GK: No. But that’s my homework for this tour. Have you? 

TA: Thinking about doing At the River. Ives set it, so did Copland, but I just can’t stay away. 

GK: N.B. I am so over-caffeinated right now 

TA: I am in a post-mine­strone lull. That’s also the genre of music I write. Post-Minestrone.

Tues­day’s fashion show went unex­pect­edly smoothly, consid­er­ing the last-minute nature of it all (there were parts of my score that Tema and I never even got a chance to rehearse!) Unfor­tu­nately, some pieces of clothing went missing, so my outfit had to be sacri­ficed to clothe some models (most of whom, appar­ently, share my physique). Tema, on the other hand, was all gotten up like some sort of futur­is­tic Siberian space princess; she played icily. 

Speaking of which, I’m currently obsessed with dande­lion greens, which seem to be in season, rather unac­count­ably. Gabe intro­duced them to me at one of his many fantas­tic dinner parties, and I’ve been exper­i­ment­ing since then; the other day I came up with this Ital­ianate Cæsar Salad trope. 

Dandelion Cæsar Salad Tropes

Macerate a couple of salted anchovies with a clove of garlic, some wine vinegar, and good olive oil. Chop up your dande­lions into manage­able pieces, and dress them; they are heartier than regular salad, and can stand to be dressed in advance. Boil a couple of six-minute eggs, toast up some croutons with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Combine all this with the greens, and add in a cup or so of Borlotti/Cranberry/Roman beans (which you just have sitting around, pre-cooked, of course). I think I also may have put a few leaves of parsley in there? And that’s it! This is one of those salads that can stand as a meal on its own, though I can imagine it pairing well with a roasted fowl of some sort.

I’ve admired designer Nicholas Felton’s “Annual Reports” for the past several years, though always found them a bit creepily self-involved. This year’s report focuses instead on his late father, Gordon; it’s a beau­ti­ful, obses­sively-detailed object as well as a moving tribute. The report takes the form of a series of info­graph­ics, but because the metrics are so quirky (example: “post­cards” and “lentic­u­lar post­cards” are cate­go­rized sepa­rately) one comes away with a sense of both father and son’s person­al­i­ties. The man led a pretty inter­est­ing (and itin­er­ant) life; check out the two-page “Atlas” spread.

Addendum, Feb. 11: Atlas Spread sounds like a much better book than Atlas Shrugged.