{"id":6962,"date":"2023-10-01T22:33:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T03:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=6962"},"modified":"2023-10-02T07:59:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T12:59:26","slug":"hearing-voices-george-lewis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/hearing-voices-george-lewis\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing Voices: A Conversation with George Lewis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While many organizations present contemporary classical music, the International Contemporary Ensemble has stood out since its founding twenty-two years ago. The Ensemble\u2019s success has come largely due to its stated goal of cultivating a musical ecosystem that honors diversity while focusing on equity, belonging, and cultural responsiveness. The organization\u2019s openness and consideration of all musical ideas starkly contrast a status quo that often marginalizes or outright ignores the compositional thoughts of anyone other than a white man. Emphasizing increased inclusiveness and diversity allows the Ensemble to present more compelling pieces than most. This ethos also partly explains the group\u2019s April 2022 selection of George Lewis as its most recent Artistic Director. Although all previous holders of the designation came from artists within the Ensemble\u2019s ranks, Lewis – a composer at the front lines of musical decolonization and representation of Afrodiasporic voices – was a natural choice for the role despite his outsider status. Indeed, the Ensemble\u2019s performance at Roulette Intermedium on October 5, 2023<\/a>, George Lewis: Hearing Voices<\/em>, is built upon the composer\u2019s continued explorations of how decolonized music may sound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hearing Voices <\/em>will consist of five pieces. The first, \u2018Melodies for Miles\u2019, is a violin solo performance Lewis debuted last year, partly to honor his friend and gifted violinist Miles Hoffman. Following \u2018Melodies for Miles\u2019 will be three pieces incorporating written texts. The first, \u2018a whispered nine\u2019, finds a soprano vocalist, flute, guitar, viola, and percussion utilizing the work of cultural theorist, poet, and scholar Fred Moten. The following \u2018Apis\u2019 uses the lower and darker sounds of baritone vocals, clarinet\/bass clarinet, trumpet in C, and trombone to examine the works of the Language poetry movement founding figure, Lyn Hejinan. In its US debut, the last in the trilogy, \u2018H.narrans,\u2019 will find contralto voice, clarinet\/bass clarinet, trumpet in c, percussion, violin, and double bass incorporating the works of Sylvia Wynter, the novelist, dramatist, critic, philosopher, and essayist who has long tried to unsettle the \u201coverrepresentation of Man.\u201d The evening will conclude with a presentation of \u2018Creative Construction Set\u2122\u2019; open improvisation guided by the musicians\u2019 use of instruction cards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One should also be mindful of the title \u2018Creative Construction Set\u2122\u2019 itself. It harkens to the Creative Construction Company, an early group of the incomparable Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). The ties between Lewis\u2019 contemporary classical works and the AACM should be unsurprising to anyone familiar with the composer\u2019s history. Lewis himself was a pupil of AACM co-founder, Muhal Richard Abrams and remains a member of the organization. He\u2019s also written A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music<\/em> (University of Chicago Press, 2007), one of the finest studies on the organization. Actually, Lewis – Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University for almost twenty years – has several excellent scholarly works to his credit. Such contributions include the recently released Composing While Black: Afrodiasporische Neue Musik Heute \/ Afrodiasporic New Music Today<\/em> (Volke Verlag, 2023), a critically significant collection of essays on the topic, for which Lewis served as co-editor. Lewis himself likely deserves recognition in such a book, given his long – and continued – history of creating music – including his pioneering work in Computer Music – that is often still ahead of its time. His forward-thinking mindset is also evident in the composer’s first opera, Afterword: An Opera in Two Acts, <\/em>a provocative work inspired by the AACM. A recording of the opera will be released on New Focus Recordings<\/a> a day after Hearing Voices. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are honored to have interviewed Professor Lewis via email on Hearing Voices, <\/em>musical decolonization, and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PostGenre: What interested you in becoming Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble and what do you feel you have learned the most from serving in that capacity?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George Lewis: Beginning with my two years at the Kitchen in New York in 1980-81, I have found curation to be a crucial site for fostering the kind of change I want to see in the various creative communities I\u2019ve been part of over the years. More recently, curating the Ensemble Modern Afromodernism<\/a> concerts in 2020-21, during the pandemic, brought me to a place where I have been able to advocate across Europe for the decolonization of one of my several fields, contemporary classical music. This led directly to my articles, \u201cA Small Act of Curation<\/a>\u201d and \u201cNew Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps<\/a>,\u201d and perhaps most importantly, my bilingual German-English co-edited book with Dr. Harald Kisiedu, Composing While Black: Afrodiasporic New Music Today<\/em><\/a>, which we saw as a guide to combating the sensory deprivation and devolution of the field that results from not hearing Afrodiasporic voices. I felt that much more than most ensembles, ICE\u2019s musicians, staff, and board were well aware of the stakes <\/a>involved in changing the identity matrix of new music and had already been taking steps over the past few years in doing so. Also, the organization helped me so much in reconceiving my own identity back in 2010, when I first started working with them. As for what I have learned the most? That decolonization starts at home.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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PG:<\/strong> \u2018Melodies for Miles\u2019 is dedicated to your old college roommate,\u00a0Miles Hoffman<\/a>. Among other things, Hoffman introduced you to the existence of the Afrodiasporic contemporary composer when he was working on\u00a0Alvin Singleton\u2019s Mestizo II<\/a>. Do you feel the fact it was through Hoffman, or as you call him, “Mike” – a white musician – that you first learned of Afrodiasporic contemporary composers despite having your own interest in the field and being a musician reflects how marginalized those composers\u2019 contributions have been, at least at that time?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GL: I don\u2019t remember Mike saying, \u201cYou gotta hear this black composer.\u201d He was talking about the music. He thought I would like it\u2014maybe even more than he did. I was the one who was surprised when Alvin came out to take the bows. As for all that black\/white stuff, you learn where you learn, and hopefully, you do learn something.  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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PG: The aim of \u2018Melodies for Miles\u2019 has been not to emphasize the era in which you learned about the tradition of Western classical violin but to reconnect you, Mike, and Alvin Singleton in the real-time of listening.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GL: Well, sort of\u2014but not really. Johnny Gandelsman got to know Mike, and had the idea of co-commissioning a solo work in his honor. We knew that Mike was ill, and we really wanted him to have this honor. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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