Ambiguities and complexities and contradictions: fear no music’s all-oregon season closes with music by nicholas emerson, nancy ives, and dao strom • oregon artswatch

Well, my friends, the time has come at last: Fear No Music’s season of all Oregon composers is finally drawing to a close. Follow that journey–catch up, or retrace it–with the nine stories

we’ve published on the subject since last September: FNM’s upcoming concerts on May 30 at Eliot Chapel and June 2 at The Old Church (plus De-Mystifying New Music on June 1) bear the title

“Out of Many: Diverse Voices in Oregon.” The first part of that comes from the popular phrase “e pluribus unum” (“out of many, one”), and the second part addresses the diversity of this

concert and of the season as a whole. We almost want to get fractal here and clarify that this is a diverse diversity. We often think of “diversity” along racial or gender lines, and this

season has had that–but these five concerts also diversify around age, class, compositional style and technique, even to some degree ideology. Get a load of this group of composers from the

last one, _Grounded: An electroacoustic evening_: You could break these folks down by the various categories we’ve mentioned, and plenty more besides, but none of these various categories

defines them as human beings. Not in their totality. Not even in their tonality. Certainly their various musicks are vastly different, as you can hear for yourself simply by listening to

Kittappa’s _pouze Vše/pouze/Vše pouze_ and Volness’ _River Rising_ back to back: Sponsor To borrow a term from Charles Fort, we must take care not to “damn” by the act of categorization. The

only two categories that end up mattering, at least to us, is that they are all: 1) composers; 2) living and working in Oregon. Even then, what matters is what we do, and how we come

together, and what we come together around. One of Fear No Music’s great virtues is how they have so consistently cultivated and nurtured a diverse and fearless community around the simple

principle embedded in their name and embodied in their concerts. At this point we feel compelled to gratuitously quote–in Latin, no less–a long-dead and very white male. Here’s the

pre-Imperial Roman politician and philosopher Cicero talking about “pluribus” in his _De Officiis_ (Book I, section 56): > _Sed omnium societatum nulla praestantior est, nulla firmior, 

quam > cum viri boni moribus similes sunt familiaritate coniuncti; illud > enim honestum, quod saepe dicimus, etiam si in alio cernimus, tamen > nos movet atque illi, in quo id 

inesse videtur, amicos facit._ >  > Et quamquam omnis virtus nos ad se allicit facitque, ut eos > diligamus, in quibus ipsa inesse videatur, tamen iustitia et > liberalitas id 

maxime efficit. Nihil autem est amabilius nec > copulatius quam morum similitudo bonorum; in quibus enim eadem > studia sunt, eaedem voluntates, in iis fit ut aeque quisque altero >

 delectetur ac se ipso, efficiturque id, quod Pythagoras vult in > amicitia, ut unus fiat ex pluribus. Which, in English, means something along the lines of: > _But of all the bonds of

 fellowship, there is none more noble, none > more powerful than when good people of congenial character are > joined in intimate friendship; for really, if we discover in another >

 that moral goodness on which I dwell so much, it attracts us and > makes us friends to the one in whose character it seems to dwell._ >  > And while every virtue attracts us and 

makes us love those who seem > to possess it, still justice and generosity do so most of all. > Nothing, moreover, is more conducive to love and intimacy than > compatibility of 

character in good people; for when two people have > the same ideals and the same tastes, it is a natural consequence > that each loves the other as their self; and the result is, as

> Pythagoras requires of ideal friendship, that several are united in > one. Which brings us to the three composers featured on FNM’s season closer: Nicholas Emerson, Nancy Ives, and

Dao Strom. Emerson is a Navy veteran with Nez Perce heritage; looks like a nerdy surfer; serves on FNM’s board; and writes more or less “modernist” music of the

highly-personal-yet-sonically-abstract variety that shows the influence of the composers around him (specifically his PSU teacher Renée Favand-See and Young Composers Project partner Ryan

Francis). FNM performed Emerson’s _Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello_ for “Locally Sourced Sounds VI” in 2021, and that sounded like this: Sponsor Ives is principal cellist of the Oregon

Symphony Orchestra; looks like a soccer mom; and makes gorgeous music (mostly on environmental themes) that sounds roughly halfway between Johannes Brahms and John Luther Adams. She’s known

for singing with her cello, and that sounds like this: Strom is a California transplant (for which this fellow California transplant forgives her); looks like an Instagram influencer;

identifies strongly with her Vietnamese heritage; writes poetry and literary academese with equal fluency; and has a deceptively simple singer-songwriter vibe that is closest to the

“Californian” part of her complex identity. At times her music almost sounds like the lush, ambient side of Neil Young (a Canadian who spent a whole lot of time in the Golden State). You can

get to know Strom in this OAW interview with Amy Leona Havin, conducted in 2022 shortly after Strom’s _Instrument_ won the Oregon Book Award for poetry. The following lines stood out,

because Strom is expressing–in much more artistic and poetic terms–what we were trying to get at earlier with all that talk about “damning”: > _I think, in this culture especially, there 

is a tendency to pay > more attention to whoever is loudest, makes the most quotable or > summable statements (I’m thinking of the popularity/palatability > of works whose messages 

or morals or political positions can be > easily summed up, taught, quoted). I see this happening lately, > especially in regard to so-called diverse literature. Although > it’s 

great that attention is being given and efforts are being > made to understand specificities of “minority” cultural and > racial experiences, there is within this also an impetus — 

whether > it’s the reader or the industry of publishing/marketing to blame > — to claim understanding of “the other” according to the broad > strokes of certain narratives, i.e. 

refugee experience, racial > struggles, traumas endured, etc. And this danger of believing we > understand each other because we understand the broad strokes of our > cultural 

experiences (often defined by historical traumas) doesn’t > always leave room for the ambiguities and complexities and > contradictions that may also be a part of being a person of a

> particular cultural or between-cultures bearing._ >  > My experience as a Vietnamese American, as a Vietnamese refugee, as > a Viet woman, is not definitive of Vietnamese 

people (although I > think that would be the default “understanding” some might > take), and the Vietnamese aspects of my experience also don’t > completely define me. I guess by 

stating a focus on “textures” > and “vulnerability” and “ambiguity” in my artist statement, > I’m also trying to hold space for not-defining — which is also a > restless, 

impermanent, impossible-to-sustain kind of space. I also > think it’s a kind of space we don’t always want to look at > closely; we consider it inconsequential and in-between, but part

 of > my work is wishing to amplify what happens in those transitional > spaces. >  > Sponsor And you can get to know Emerson and Ives (dangit that just really sounds like a New

England furniture company) right here, right now. We spoke with the two composers by Zoom last week, discussing their diverse backgrounds and their works on the upcoming Fear No Music

program. _This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and flow._ *** OREGON ARTSWATCH: So let’s start by talking about each of your compositions on this program. Which

pieces are they, and who’s playing on what? NANCY IVES: I’ll be playing on Nicholas’s piece. My piece on the program is a solo for me. Well, it’s a duo for me, …_black snow, dark ocean_…,

which I wrote for Valdine Mishkin in 2019. She premiered it on a Third Angle concert, and it remains one of my favorite pieces of mine. I just loved how the emotional and technical elements

came together. I felt very inspired when I did it. She asked for a piece for solo cello about climate change–well, she first asked if I knew of any. And I said, “Well, I should, right?” So I

looked around and, not really finding much, came back to her and said, “How about if I write you one? Do you sing?” Sponsor And she does, she was a double major in college. So, I just wrote

for her as if I was writing for myself, a nice thing that made it easy. It came together really quickly because I was really inspired. So it’s always really fun to revisit this piece.

That’s a sweet memory as well, because when those serendipitous and personal origin stories happen, it does add a dimension that’s kind of sentimental. I definitely feel that with this one.

NICHOLAS EMERSON: I wrote _E.A.S._ a few years ago, for a reading that eighth blackbird did. It was like, literally the week that the world was shutting down. I was learning a lot about

doing sound design for film score type stuff. I was listening to this podcast, and they were talking about how it’s illegal to use the emergency alert system in commercials and film

trailers. So I recreated the emergency alert system, I actually downloaded the sound and did a spectral analysis of it on the EQ and I recreated it with the ensemble. That little tone and

all that stuff, I recreated that, and then I put a staccato-tenuto articulation in the flute and clarinet as a Morse code message. And then it has all these variations: I tried to recreate a

sonar ping with a piano chord and a vibraphone and a tam-tam, just trying to do real sound design but with a classical ensemble. That was my approach. OAW: What was it like for you working

with eighth blackbird? EMERSON: Well, of course, they’re total rock stars. And they were so fun to work with. I had worked really hard on the score so that it would be like a readable piece

for them. And they nailed it. It was so cool to write something and have them read it, and it actually sounded how I had imagined. Which is very exciting as a composer, because you’re always

trying to be in the head of the musicians and try to understand their instruments. Especially with percussion, because that’s a whole dance of mallets and changing instruments. The reading

went really well, so I created a Fear No Music version and I showed it to Kenji and he thought it was cool so we eventually just got it programmed. OAW: What are some of the differences

between the original and the FNM version? EMERSON: The only difference is that I added a viola. I did make some changes, but kind of minor changes. I changed some of the parts a little bit,

some of the transitional sections and stuff like that. But it’s fairly close to what it was when I had that reading. OAW: So then, Nancy, similar question for you. Having written the piece

for yourself but then having it premiered by a different cellist, has that changed how you now perform it? Sponsor IVES: No, definitely not. I wrote it as if I was gonna play it and sing it,

because she has the same vocal type as I do and is an accomplished cellist. So I could simply write it the way I wanted to write it. OAW: And it’s a piece about climate change, could you

talk about the thinking behind how you translate that to music? IVES: The connection that it has with climate change is that, well, at the time, the Arctic Circle was warming three times as

fast as the rest of the planet. Of course, now it’s four times as fast. Valdine had already found Daniel Crawford’s _Sounds of a Warming Planet_, which was created using data sonification. I

later wrote her a piece that her husband commissioned for a birthday present using that as a ground bass throughout the piece. IVES: But that’s another story. For this one, I went down a

rabbit hole on the internet. You know, we think of rabbit holes as time wasters, but like so many time wasters, it isn’t at all. Sometimes it can be a real source of serendipity and lucky

stumbling upon inspiration. And this was the case. I found some of the work by a climate scientist who had spent years in North Baffin Island and had been working with the Inuktitut people

there. She had been consulting with the elders there about their knowledge and how it could inform climate science. There’s a growing movement to value Indigenous knowledge and the way it

can inform our understanding of the natural world in particular. I thought that was a really striking example of that. One of the ways that shows up in the piece is that there are two words

from their language that we don’t have equivalents of. So one of them is “aniuvat,” which is snow patches that never melt. They have very specific words for ice and snow, because it’s very

important for food gathering, hunting activities, to know where it’s safe. And they’re used to certain cycles, so the snow patches that never melt and the ice that never melts, and the ones

that melt in the summer, they all have specific words. I ended up using two words, and the other one is “uggianaqtuq.” It’s a North Baffin Inuktitut word that means “a friend behaving

unexpectedly.” And so from the perspective of the elders in the Arctic, the weather has been “uggianaqtuq” in recent years, because they think of the weather personified as their friend,

right? And it’s been behaving very weirdly, and behaving unexpectedly. So I started the piece using mainly the vowels from the word “aniuvat.” To me, what’s important is that the idea of the

word is in there and the idea of the experience of Arctic people, and I’m trying to reflect on that. Sponsor It’s basically a passacaglia. It starts with that idea, establishing the

passacaglia, those ancient established cycles and landscapes, and there’s that underlying repetition in the musical form. Then that becomes increasingly disrupted and then ruptures very

audibly. After that, the new word, “uggianaqtuq,” is introduced. The regularity of the former term is no longer present, because the cycles have been disrupted. I used ponticello and

harmonics and things that create that sense of Arctic chilly wind to evoke the landscape. So that was where that inspiration came from. Just from watching those videos and reading about the

work of the climate scientist and these elders to deepen our understanding of the climate and how it’s changing. OAW: That reminds me of another of your compositions, _Pando_, in the use of

form and structure to tell a story over the course of a piece. IVES: I’m not a particularly analytical or formally-oriented composer, but I embrace it when it happens organically, since

there is that need artistically to have the frame. How do you even decide where to begin, right? With _…black snow, dark ocean…_ I don’t even know if I started thinking, “oh, I’ve got to

start it like a passacaglia.” I think I literally started writing it, and then I went, “oh, this is a passacaglia.” That’s usually how I roll, to be perfectly honest, when I start something

and eventually the analytical brain chimes in. And that can help me keep it rolling. So that does tend to be how I operate for good or ill. But in this case, I thought, “that makes so much

sense.” So to me, it was a nice, satisfying and helpful union of musical form and the story I was trying to tell. With _Pando_, however, the decreasing phrase lengths to evoke the passage of

millenia was a starting point. OAW: It seems that each of your works have a specific connection both to the past and to the present. Nicholas, how would you say your music fits into what’s

come before? EMERSON: I’ve always been a huge fan of Stravinsky, and I feel a lot of his music is sound design. Especially _The Firebird_, for example: if you understand the story and you

listen to the music, the music that he creates is, in a way, sound design. Even _The Nightingale_, maybe more than The Firebird, there is the sound design. There’s this section where he has

the mechanical nightingale that they create. And that was my approach. I wanted to take these mechanical ideas and make them beautiful, while fitting it into this framework and then

musicifying it at the same time. Sponsor And then my piece, it really has this story. It’s not just this alarm is going off, it’s this craziness. Then at one point, there’s a section where

there’s this big “riser,” all the instruments just go up and then they stop–and then the tam-tam hits, and the pianist is pulling her fingers on the top strings of the piano, and it’s

supposed to represent trying to get away from all of this insanity that’s going on around you. So you jump into the ocean and you fall down and you fall down and you fall down–and then

there’s this sonar ping, where you’re searching for the answers to all of these problems that are going on around you. And then you become part of a tsunami, and then you’re in the tsunami,

and the tsunami breaks–and then the emergency alert system comes back, but in slow motion. So it’s really this journey, going through all these things. OAW: It seems like that would present

some notational challenges. EMERSON: I did have a lot of descriptive things, especially on the rehearsal marks–lots of descriptive things to tell them. And in the composer note I put “I hope

you will hear many recognizable sounds like alarms, alerts, buzzers, whistles, waves, splashes, pings, booms, and even secret messages in Morse code.” And I said, “musicians, please feel

free to make this piece your own sonic canvas. Paint with playful invention and self-expression, especially in the more dramatically notated passages. Let the gestures be your guide more

than the precise notes.” OAW: So Nancy, as a cellist, what’s that been like for you? IVES: Well, we don’t love getting those kinds of instructions all the time, I’m not going to lie, but it

is descriptive and it does tell you something you need to know. Classical musicians have a default mode of going for exactitude and precision, and it can get in the way of what the

composer’s going for. You need to know that it helps you get into a sense of what the composer wants. And that’s what we want ultimately is to do what the composer wants and have the effect

be true to the vision of the composer. EMERSON: Everything is very precisely notated. Like, everything is there. My goal was to just be like, there are some passages that are kind of crazy,

so it’s like, I don’t need this to be like a virtuoso performance. It’s really gestural. IVES: I think that’s so important, because there are composers for whom having every little thing the

way they wrote it is the top priority. And it’s just a different aesthetic than what Nicholas is describing. When I say it puts you in the mind of the composer, it also puts you into the

aesthetic world of the composer, right? What are the priorities aesthetically? And it tells you something, that it’s more about the shape, it’s more about the emotional content. Sponsor

Because boy, some of the stuff I used to play back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, that was not like that. That was serialized, cerebral, everything very exact in a way that can be very

straight-jackety at times. I’m not saying that you can’t be expressive with that music, but it does sometimes seem to prioritize precision over expression. And of course we ultimately want

both. I think it’s helpful to know the aesthetic framework. OAW: I suppose we’re still on the music of the past and the music of the present question. Back to you, Nancy. IVES: Well, I think

of myself as someone who’s been immersed in the music of the past for decades. All my whole life, really. And I think we are, musically, what we hear and play. You know, like “you are what

you eat.” When I was a younger composer, I didn’t necessarily embrace that wholeheartedly. I felt too much a desire to somehow break with the past, or it had to be original, or it had to be

whatever the heck that means. I think I just stifled my own voice with this sense of expectations or shoulds. And that’s why I fizzled. And so now I just don’t. I mean, that’s one of the

benefits of middle age, right? I’d better write what I want to! And, if it’s connected to the past, well, duh. I mean, our world is a result of the past–everything. And so on a theoretical

basis, that’s interesting. But as a working musician, who just has things to say, I don’t have time to mess with that. I’m just wanting to create. And where it’s going to come from is where

it’s going to come from. And where it comes from is me and my inner landscape, and my inner landscape is built on a foundation of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc. IVES: I’m noticing that my

music tends to have a lot of tonal harmony lately. I don’t think in keys, I don’t think in chords, I just think in the sounds I want and I write it down. And then I go back and I go, “well

look at that, it’s in G major.” That wasn’t on purpose, you know, it was just that’s what it needed to be. So that’s where I’m coming from. And this piece was really about trying to evoke a

place and using the tools that I have. The cello is tuned in fifths, and I’m using this tool that does these things most naturally. So I’m evoking a place, I’m evoking a feeling. I cannot

pretend to be speaking to the experience of Arctic Indigenous people, and what they’re dealing with, with their way of life being threatened by climate change–that is not for me to say–but I

have my own feelings about this fact, and that’s what I am putting in there. I’m reflecting on that and how I feel about it and just trying to create a depiction of this environment that’s

changing so rapidly, more than I think anyone expected. EMERSON: Nancy, did you try to do it from the perspective of the Indigenous people there, or was it just incorporating their thoughts,

like how did you approach that? Sponsor IVES: I’m glad you asked, because that’s an important point. I’m not going to try to depict their perspective. That’s not for me to do, and I didn’t

directly collaborate with anyone. I’m more trying to depict this moment in time, the fact that this is happening, and my feelings about it. There is the presence of these two Inuktitut

words. I performed this at a museum in Alaska, the Pratt Museum at Homer, Alaska, and they weren’t entirely comfortable with what they understood this piece to be about. To put it most

simply, they were worried about appropriation. So they had me talk to a native elder from a nearby tribe. I had a lovely conversation with this person, and I’m not sure that this person was

particularly concerned himself, but he was very kind to talk to me and I appreciated that the presenters at the museum were mindful of that. They wanted to make sure that it was okay, that

it landed on the okay side. I mean, using these two words is walking a line. I felt that it was okay, because they were words that had been adopted by the climate scientists for their

specificity, a specificity we don’t have in English. I even make it clear in the score that you don’t have to actually say the words. You can just use the vowels, and it will be fine.

Because it’s more the idea, it’s what the words represent, that matters in this context. It’s not the actual words themselves. But I think also erasing the presence of Indigenous people,

well, there’s no point in doing that either. And even though there’s nothing celebratory about this piece, in some ways I was feeling that sense of celebrating that this collaboration had

taken place between the climate scientists and the elders with all this deep knowledge. That was something that I admired and wanted to celebrate. So in that sense, that’s part of the

presence of the words, too. There are only so many ways you can address crises in the world, like climate change, in the classical music context, but it feels too important to not try. I

think getting really specific can be good. So if someone thinks about an Arctic person wanting to go out hunting on the weekend and realizing they can’t because the ice has melted too soon,

and they’re not going to have as much meat because of it–if this piece makes someone think about that and understand the implications of climate change, I’m good with that. I think art,

especially music, is one of the most important ways that we share culture. And we can bring so many aspects of culture into music. I mean, here I got to reference climate science! OAW:

Nicholas, how did you get involved with Fear No Music, what’s that like for you now? EMERSON: When I was studying music production and composition at PSU, my composition teacher Renée

Favand-See was having a piece performed, and she was like, “oh, come to the thing.” And I was like, “oh, cool.” Kenji was there, I was taking string writing classes from Kenji at the time.

And I noticed that nobody was recording. And I was like, “Kenji, who records?” He’s like, “I don’t really have anyone right now.” So I asked him if I could record. I’m like “Bro, who

wouldn’t want to record the best musicians in town?” So I just did that for a couple of years and finally they’re like, “yeah, we should probably pay him.” And then they performed one of my

pieces, and then right after that they’re like, “will you be on the board?” So I’ve been on the board. I do the archiving, kind of like the technical director, where I deal with all the

recording. And then we just had our big electroacoustic concert, that was really cool. Sponsor EMERSON: I’m still super active with YCP. I have three composition students that are in YCP

this year, and do all the production for that. Fear No Music is a huge part of my musical career. I just love it to death. IVES: And Nicholas is a huge part of Fear No Music. EMERSON: Well,

I’m honored that you would say that because, like I said, it’s just such a huge part of me. OAW: Okay so then Nicholas, two follow-up questions on that. First, tell me a little bit about

working with YCP. How did that get started? And what’s your teaching style? EMERSON: Well YCP is pretty amazing. Jeff Payne is an absolute genius, and he’s so passionate about it. It’s just

an honor to work with him. I got started on YCP during the pandemic. They would do the three workshops and then the concert at the end of the year, and during the pandemic we had to do the

workshops online. He’s like, “do you think you could do some sort of live stream?” And I was like, “yes.” So I miked every single instrument, ran it through the interface, and then was able

to get it onto Zoom so that the kids could get a fairly accurate recording even over Zoom, because everything was miked like it would be in a studio, basically. And that worked really well.

And then eventually I just started recording the workshops so that the kids could have the recording of their workshop to go back to. And then, eventually, while teaching at some other

places–like teaching music production in West Lynn at the Youth Music Project–I would have some kids come in that were super talented. And I would email their parents and be like, “is your

child interested in any sort of compositional stuff? I work for this organization, we have this amazing program.” And I’ve been able to get some kiddos into YCP that way. Same thing through

teaching theory for Metropolitan Youth Symphony, we had some students that were just super engaged in the theory and stuff, and so I reached out I was like “hey I think your kid would be a

great fit for YCP.” EMERSON: My compositional teaching style really depends on the student. Some of them are just so motivated and they just like doing it, and I’m just, you know, critiquing

scores, that kind of stuff. Some of my other students are a little bit wild in the way that they write music. And I’m just, you know, like bumpers on a bowling lane. You just keep them

moving in the right direction. It really depends on the type of student. You always want to try to help them to maximize the strongest aspects of their skill set while helping them work

through the parts that are weaker. Sponsor OAW: I always like to ask everybody the same last question, which is “what would you ask you if you were doing the interview?” But when it’s two

people I ask, “what would you ask each other?” So Nicholas, if you were interviewing Nancy, what would you ask? And Nancy, if you were interviewing Nicholas, what would you ask? IVES: I

would ask Nicholas what his next compositional project is. Or what’s your dream? EMERSON: I’ve been writing band music, concert band. I do a lot of music production for some of the high

schools in Portland. I record their concerts and their competitions and stuff like that. So I’ve been getting some little band commissions, which is fun. Sherwood High School, their band

program is insane. They’re so good. Earlier this year, they were able to take their whole band to perform at Carnegie. IVES: You know, I had great experiences in high school band. I’m so

glad to hear that they’re getting to play new works by you. EMERSON: The whole vibe of bands is, “yeah, let’s try something new, let’s commission.” It doesn’t have that stuffy, conservative

vibe that you get with a lot of major orchestras. The attitude and the approach of concert bands is so open. I guess I would ask Nancy, “is there something that happens when the muse comes?”

What’s your process in terms of putting yourself in a position where the muse comes to you? How do you approach that in terms of the way that you write music?” Does that make sense? IVES:

Oh, yeah. I love that question, because I’d love to figure it out. I mean, I’ve just tried to observe myself and notice when it happens. And it happens either when I have unstructured time,

of which there’s so very little these days, or the in-between times. It’s almost like it’s more of a whisper than a yell, right? You have to go into a more quiet place to allow that quiet

nonverbal response, that voice to be heard. Do you ever have ideas as you’re falling asleep? Sponsor EMERSON: Sometimes, yeah. IVES: It’s that same thing. It’s because you’re in a particular

mental state. I’m sure someone has figured out what the brain waves are, you know, which Greek letter applies. EMERSON: Is there a specific example where you had this moment where it was

just like, the muse came and you were able to capture it? IVES: It’s more sneaky than that. I think one of the ones I remember particularly clearly is the “Sarabande” that I wrote and which

I’ve performed a lot. I had written the “Allemande,” because I had written it for my Allemandes Project, but I wasn’t thinking about other Bach Suite movements, I was just sitting at the

cello thinking about singing while I played, literally, that amorphous. And I started thinking, “where does the voice end and the cello begin or vice versa?” So I just played a unison G, as

it happens, and sort of hummed. And then I just started messing with that. I was humming, but you could barely tell, “was there a voice?” Then I made it louder, then I made an A flat in the

voice while it’s still a G on the cello. And then it just went from there. And I was just a little ways in and I’m going, “I’m onto something.” I felt that feeling, but it’s almost like

you’re there and _then_ you realize you’re there. I don’t think it’s ever “ooh, the muse is descending upon me.” I think it’s more you’re in it and you go, “I like where this is going.” You

feel that. And it’s just so exciting. It’s the flow state. So exciting. It’s the best. And then you just ride that wave until it subsides. Wait, catch the next one. I’ve never surfed, but

it’s a great analogy for creativity, I think. Have either of you guys surfed? EMERSON: I used to do downhill longboarding, where you’re going, like, super fast on the skateboard, and I could

carve around and stuff like that, but never, not too much actual surfing. IVES: It’s the chaos and vastness of the ocean, and that the ocean is this force that you can’t control. I think

that’s part of where the analogy for creativity comes. It has a sense of rhythm, but it’s actually chaos, you know? And our own creativity is that–it’s more like that than it is anything

regimented or, well, man-made. Sponsor OAW: I think that’s there a bit with downhill longboarding though, because there you have the gravity and the chaos of that. Nicholas, does composing

feel like barreling down a hill on a longboard to you? EMERSON: Sometimes. Sometimes it feels like walking back up. IVES: Yes! That’s exactly right! I was reading some writer on social media

saying, “people ask me if I love riding or if I hate it.” And the answer was, “both.” It’s both. You love it and you hate it, because there’s riding the wave and then there’s walking back

up the hill. I just mixed the metaphors. And the more you care, the more painful the slog is, but you’ve got to, it’s part of it. Walking back up. That’s when I start analyzing, when I’m

walking back uphill and I’m like, “this is not working. These two things are not fitting together.” Or, “how do I go from here to here? I have this snippet and I have this snippet, and I

want it to go here and what the heck do I do in between?” EMERSON: That’s exactly why I wanted to hear what type of situation you find yourself in. Like what exactly is it that you’re doing

when those types of moments come to you? IVES: I’m either falling asleep, I’m sitting at the cello or I’m sitting at the piano. Or walking is important. When I was writing my violin concerto

and it was so much of a dialogue with the music of Beethoven, I was just playing tons of Beethoven in my earbuds while I went for walks. And I would just every now would go, “oh, that’s

what I should do there.” And I would stop the music and dictate. But that’s where I’m bouncing off something else. Maybe that’s different, because usually it really comes out of nowhere.

But, you know, it’s not abstract for me. It’s always connected to an instrument. And I’m not going to fight that because you are what you do. And that’s what I am–an instrumentalist and a

little bit of a singer. Whereas you have capabilities in using electronics. So I just imagine that’s a whole different, it’s like you have a whole different framework that you can lean into.

EMERSON: Yeah, I would say a lot of my ideas, when they form, are a little bit more abstract. Oh, and that’s my Beethoven life mask. They took a mold of Beethoven’s face in like 1805 or

something, and I found–I can’t remember where–but I found that you could buy an actual replica of the actual Beethoven life mask. So I bought it and put it in my studio. Sponsor IVES: And

it’s a pretty “mmm” expression right? Think of him having to sit there with plaster on his face. I’d frown too. EMERSON: The Beethoven Scowl, love it. When it snowed this year, we made a

snowman and I put the Beethoven face on the snowman, and we called him Slay-toven.