Please tell us a little about who you are and your
background
I was born in Chicago in 1983 and began my life in music as
a singer. I sang in choirs and played
the piano throughout school and it was only when I was 17 that I discovered
composition. I entered Northwestern
University, actually, as a voice major -
but within the year had changed to study composition and an ad-hoc orchestral
conducting degree. I moved to England in
2005 to do my Mmus in composition at the Royal Academy, stayed to do my Dmus
(which I finished in 2012 at Guildhall) met my wife (we were married in July
2011) and have settled here!
What inspires or motivates you?
In terms of motivation, I find it takes very little to get
me to the drafting table. I have so much
music I want to write and so many other things that I need to do in a day that
I'm out of bed most days by 6am and composing for as long as I can before the
other requirements of the day kick in.
Even starting at that time it's hard to get more than 3 or 4 hours in
before I need to be heading on to the next thing, and so it's always a real joy
to wake up and come back to it the next day.
There are many things that inspire me – all the normal
answers like painting, film, poetry, travel, listening…these all apply – but
the most inspiring things for me are actually people. I just love musicians. These people have dedicated their entire
lives to being able to create the exact sound they want from an instrument – to
the point where the instrument just becomes an extension of their will – and
this is just not something that happens overnight. It's every day, day after day, year after
year and they just keep going to the point where they are capable of creating
this incredible beauty. And that's what
I aim for, in composing. Music that will
challenge and reward them, will draw them into new ideas, and will bring us
together as collaborators in creating something new.
What is your favourite piece of your own work and why?
I'm not really sure I can answer this question
directly. Pieces of music that I compose
are very personal, and close to me. I
don't (yet) have children myself but I've heard many older composers describe
the feeling as being similar to that of a parent. I spend a lot of time making a piece of music
– for How to Avoid Huge Ships one could conservatively estimate I spent about
50 hours composing for each minute of music – and so every single note in the
work is precious to me at the time I create it.
Then I'll go back, five years later, and its like somebody else wrote
the piece entirely!
So each piece becomes a sort of frozen statement about what
music is at that particular time in your life.
And they're each precious. I
suppose the one thing I could say is that – as a young composer – I think you
learn more and more to be an honest version of yourself. And in my recent work, in particular, I see
more of myself and less of the other composer(s) I hoped I would be. So the
music gets more honest and I think that its scary, but I do like it more and
more.
How would you describe your style?
I think style is a really hard thing to describe from the
inside-out. My immediate response is to
want to tell you about my technique, but technique is a far thing from
style. I guess one of the things that
you can really hear in my music is the voice – I sing all the time when I compose,
improvising lines and rhythms and then transcribing them as I get them closer
and closer to what I want. So whatever
the instruments in the piece, you hear a lot of this in the music I write.
What is your composing routine? When do you like to write?
I've already kind of touched on this – I have to write, have
to write, first thing in the morning. If
I'm not at my desk by 6:30am it's a very unusual morning. I find this is the time when I can most
clearly find the music – without the hundreds of other things that constantly
come up during the day – and it's a really precious time to me.
What were the challenges in writing the piece for the New
Dots concert?
Well I set myself a very pressing challenge in choosing the
write for the Wind Quintet itself, because it is a very traditional ensemble
with a long history – and a long history of causing composers insurmountable
problems! But the truth is that this
piece came very easily to me as I know a number of players in the Atea Quintet
(we spent time at the Academy together), so I was aware of their very high
quality, and there's nothing more exciting than writing music for players who
inspire you.
What does the future hold?
I'm headed to France for the Etchings Festival with the East
Coast Contemporary Ensemble and Georg Friedrich Haas in July, have a premiere
of a new orchestral work (The Deeper Breath to Follow) with the BBC Symphony
Orchestra in November, and have been commissioned by the Britten Pears
Foundation & RVW Trust to write a Clarinet Quintet for Timothy Orpen. I'm also the Artistic Director of The Riot
Ensemble, and we have four concerts left this year along with establishing a
new series of educational concerts and a full concert schedule we're planning
for 2014 so it's shaping up to be a very busy year!
What makes you smile?
My wife's laughter.
@aaronhnahum
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