Joseph Schwantner

with Ev Grimes

Rochester, New York

May 29, 1989

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side a                                                                                                                                  pp. 1-12

Learning to play guitar as a child--teacher Robert Stein--extending technical studies into first compositions--early musical interests--attending Andres Segovia concert--playing tuba in school bands--arranging music for school variety shows--high school music program--writing for jazz band--attending Stan Kenton Band Camp--interest in jazz leading to "serious" music--study at Chicago Conservatory, Northwestern University--learned importance of relationship between composer and performer--music-making with friends--progressing from imitating other people's music to writing his own--having Diaphonia Intervallum performed at Carnegie Hall by Arthur Weisberg's Contemporary Chamber Ensemble--difficulty in first year of graduate school.

Side b                                                                                                                                           pp. 13-23

Conservative training as undergrad--exposure to new music as graduate student--Vietnam era--performances of his music while graduate student--Entropy--influence of Babbitt, Davidovsky--Ralph Shapey and Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players--meeting Varèse and Dallapiccola--immediate access to music from all over the world--Sparrows--decision to let his music reflect diversity of background--elitist and isolated environment of the university composer--the university and the professional world of music-making--Diaphonia Intervallum--writing chamber music in response to interest from new music chamber ensembles--first orchestral opportunity, commission from ACO, Aftertones of Infinity.

Side c                                                                                                                               pp. 24-36

Desire to reach larger audience than university one--Magabunda, song cycle for Lucy Shelton--role of government in promoting new music--power of major cultural institutions to garner financial support--lack of support for individual artists--composer-in-residence with St. Louis Symphony Meet the Composer Program--strategies for programming new music--Consortium One--Modus Caelestis--New Morning for the World for narrator and orchestra--writing within limitations.

Side d                                                                                                                                           pp. 37-49

Composing as a craft--In Aeternum for Musica Viva--Elixir--Wild Angels of the Open Hills--helping musicians to grow by writing challenging works--influence of guitar on how he writes music--teaching at Pacific Lutheran, Ball State, and Eastman--influence of teaching on composing--what his students learn--how to teach students the difference between interesting bits and not interesting bits--Autumn Canticles, break with serial procedures in later seventies--Canticle of the Evening Bells.

Side e                                                                                                                                pp. 50-62

Music style changing in mid-seventies represented by In Aeternum--composers having to explain their work--writing ultimately for yourself--concert strategies--need for change in educational system--importance of Meet the Composer Program--confidence in change of style of his music--And the Mountains Rising Nowhere--works written in response to poetic images in mid-seventies--Canticle of the Evening Bells, musical response to Chinese poems--other pieces involving poetry.

Side f                                                                                                                                pp. 63-75

Gossamer Songs, Aftertones of Infinity represent interest in space and time--meeting deadlines--receiving the Pulitzer Prize--Aftertones of Infinity--constraints of tradition, logistics and economics on composer vis-a-vis symphony orchestra--Magabunda for Lucy Shelton and St. Louis Symphony--attraction to the sonic quality of words--good music achieves balance between intuitive and analytical forces--collaboration with Lucy Shelton--From a Dark Millennium for wind ensemble.

Side g                                                                                                                                pp. 76-89

Piano concerto for Emanuel Ax--From Afar, guitar piece for Sharon Isbin and St. Louis Symphony--Wind, Willow, Whisper for DaCapo Chamber Players--Joan Tower--Music of Amber--A Sudden Rainbow, Dream Caller, Someday Memories, Distant Rooms and Incantations--programming new works for St. Louis Symphony and working with orchestra musicians--works in progress.

Side h                                                                                                                                         pp. 90-101

Teaching at Juillard, Eastman and Skidmore in 1986--Sparrows--ghettoization of new music--listening for pleasure--availability if music today--Toward Light--engagement with performers--example of problem solved before beginning new piece--defining limits before beginning a piece--quiet confidence in his work--feeling fortunate that his music has been performed often--importance of working with particular performers.

AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES                                                                              216 i-l

Joseph Schwantner

With Ingram Marshall

Yale University

New Haven, CT

August 23, 2000

                                                            TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side i                                                                                                              pp. 1-22

Schwantner website--marketing music on the Internet--function of music publishers--switching to Helicon publishers--getting performances--New Morning for the World--narrator for New Morning for the World--computer programs vs. handwritten music scores--George Crumb--Black Anemones--preoccupation with percussion--serial music--love for music of contemporary Polish composers--influence of Xenakis--listening to the radio in Chicago--Django Reinhardt--From Afar…--studying guitar--writing for guitar--Velocities--Schwantner’s studio--Contemporary Chamber Ensemble--appointment at Eastman.

Side j                                                                                                              pp. 22-43

Composer-in-residence for St. Louis Symphony--Magabunda--Evening Land--Lagerkvist’s Aftonland poetry--more direct music of last ten years--students developing their own style--compositional crisis--comparing Yale and Eastman---- works since 1989: A Play of Shadows--Through Interior Worlds: choreographer, pas de deux, video tape--Internet--problem of xeroxing and loss of income--Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra.

Side k                                                                                                                        pp. 43-63

Percussion instruments made by NY Philharmonic percussionist--performances of Concerto for Percussion--Stephen Albert--Compositional procedures and instrumental usage in the Concerto--Concerto for Piano and Orchestra--Emannuel Ax--titles--Evening Land--Evening Land poetry--Sparrows--poet Agueda Pizarro--Magabunda--In evening’s stillness…--…and the mountains rising nowhere--From a Dark Millenium--writing for band --band as vehicle for contemporary music--more on …and the mountains rising nowhere--Aftertones of Infinity--In Memories Embrace…--Beyond Autumn.

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Side l                                                                                                              pp. 63-75

Thirty years experience teaching--students--Michael Torke--teaching and composing--experience as composer-in-residence in St. Louis--Joan Tower--family life--music at Yale--American quality of his music--musical press--influence of Ives’ Fourth Symphony.