Augusta Read Thomas Photo Credit: Michael Lutch
If one were to be asked what defines the music of the 20th century, or that of the 21st century, one would be stumped to come up with an easy answer. That’s because there is no single defining parameter under which composers have worked for the past century. Tonality and romantic sensibilities have stood side by side with atonality, neo-classicism, 12-tone technique and minimalism. Works have been and are being written for traditional instruments and for electronics. There is a richness of expression today that didn’t exist in earlier musical periods. And that’s exactly what Morris Rosenzweig has been spotlighting with the University of Utah’s Maurice Abravanel Visiting Distinguished Composers Series.
Under Rosenzweig’s direction, the series has brought composers to Salt Lake City who represent a wide range of styles. The latest composers whom Rosenzweig has invited to come are Augusta Read Thomas and Wayne Peterson, who will both be in residence at the U. next week. While here, the two will work with composition students and hold a panel discussion that will be open to the public. A selection of their works will also be performed at a concert by Canyonlands on Feb. 22.
“I’m flying out Sunday so I can be ready for a full day of teaching on Monday,” Thomas said in a phone interview from her Chicago home. Thomas is a professor at the University of Chicago and frequently does short term residencies at universities around the country. “I really like to teach and it’s important to offer young composers different viewpoints on style, language and behavior.”
And wherever she’s in residence, Thomas likes to engage in dialogue with other music faculty, not just composers. “I like to be in communication with theorists, ethnomusicologists and musicologists” at other universities, something she hopes she’ll be able to do in the few days that she’s at the U.
While Thomas’ music has hardly ever been played in Utah, Salt Lake concertgoers have had the opportunity of getting to know her. A few years back she was in town when the Utah Symphony played her Terpsichore’s Dream. “That was a world premiere then,” Thomas said. This time around the audience in Dumke Recital Hall will get to hear another side of her when Canyonlands plays three of her works that span 15 years of her creative output: Six Piano Etudes (1996); Dream Catcher for solo violin (2008); and …a circle around the sun… for piano trio (2000).
Thomas said she didn’t choose the pieces for the concert. “When I found out the general instrumentation for the concert, I sent Morris a list of my pieces that would work given the instruments they had. And it was the musicians themselves who picked the works.” That meant a lot to Thomas. “It’s touching and makes me happy that the musicians chose what they would play,” because it makes the music more personal to the players she said.
Describing Thomas’ music can be tricky. Her music is intense, but that stems mainly from the brevity of her musical thoughts. (Her longest work on Tuesday’s concert, the Six Piano Etudes, lasts only 14 minutes.) The conciseness of her pieces conjures up thoughts of Anton Webern, whose works are brilliantly short, compelling and remarkably substantive. Yet there is no direct connection between the two composer’s styles other than this.
And in a world in which composers try to harness the angst of the period, Thomas’ music is bright and optimistic. “You can call it ‘happy,’” she said. “My music is capricious, but it’s well crafted.”
All this may seemingly be contradictory but it’s what makes Thomas’ music her own. It’s what gives her music its unique character and flavor. She has learned from other composers, but she has never imitated them. “I like the authentic rather than the derivative,” she said. “It irks me,” she added, when composers latch onto a style that is popular, then abandon it in favor of the next trend. “I don’t jump on bandwagons,” she said.
That’s also the case with all of the most important composers of the past. “What I love about great composers, whether it’s Bach or Monteverdi or Bartók or Mahler, is that they were so willing to be who they were. They stayed true to themselves.”
CONCERT INFO:
Location: Dumke Recital Hall
Time and Date: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22
Tickets: Free
ALSO: Panel Discussion with Augusta Read Thomas and Wayne Peterson, 12 p.m., Feb. 22, Dumke Recital Hall, free.