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March 2006: Steve Everett

Emory Music Faculty Steve Everett Prepares for New Music Concert “ Metal Garden” with Thamyris

Composer. Conductor. Performer. Artistic director. Steve Everett wears many hats—these are just the ones he wears for the new music ensemble Thamyris. Audiences will have the opportunity to see him wear these hats for the March 28 performance of Thamyris at Emory’s Schwartz Center ( 8 p.m., free). During this concert, which the ensemble has named “MetalGarden” in reference to one of the pieces they are playing, Everett plays the doublebass and electronics on some of the pieces. The ensemble also presents one of his compositions, “Rendezvous IV,” for violin and interactive electronics. Other pieces in this eclectic program of solo and ensemble pieces include “Music for Piano,” by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh for prepared piano; “They’re Still Running to the West, Rex,” by Matthew Marth for cello, speaking cellist, and electronic tape; “Six Japanese Gardens,” by Kaija Saariaho for percussion and electronics; and an ensemble piece, “Worker’s Union,” by Louis Andriessen. For more information about the concert, call 404-727-5050 or go to www.arts.emory.edu.

Everett also wears the hat of associate professor of composition and electronic and computer music on the Emory music faculty, acting director of Emory’s Center for Humanistic Inquiry, director of the Emory Javanese Gamelan Ensemble, director of the Music/Audio Research Center at Emory, and many others.

Everett managed to find time between responsibilities to answer some questions.

Q: What drew you into music and into new music in particular?

A: Like most kids who grew up in the seventies, I played in a rock band in high school. But when I went to college I majored in math; I wanted to be an engineer. In my second year of college, though, I came home from my calculus class, picked up my guitar, and wrote a song. The more I got into it that day, the more I realized how important music was to me, so I began taking music classes at school.

The first time I discovered I was interested in new sounds was in my first music theory class. We studied some contemporary pieces, and I was absolutely fascinated by how the creative process could result in such different works. This whole new world of contemporary music opened to me.

At first my interest was more theoretical. I started out with how music is designed. Then I started looking at the creative process itself, which fascinated me more, and I really had a desire to explore my own creativity. After college I went on to get two masters, one in music theory, the other in performance. I felt that technology was the best way into new music so I chose to pursue my doctorate at the University of Illinois because it was one of the most progressive music centers in the U.S. and where computer music began. It was a hotbed of experimental music and boasted the first electronic studio in the States.

Q: What differentiates a “new music” ensemble from a more traditional chamber ensemble?

A: A new music ensemble is a group that focuses on performing music written in a contemporary time frame as opposed to traditional canon. We look at expressing in an artistic idiom ideas that are relevant to things going around us today. We, as composers and performers, are interested in the creative process as a way of studying and learning about life in the twenty-first century. The music has a very wide range. It is not so much a question of beauty as socio-political questions, questions of nature — how we observe nature, how we understand it. It gives us a physical, cognitive understanding of ourselves, of our emotions.

People listening to traditional music often experience that music through the recognized cultural value of its beauty or form. In other words, when you experience traditional artwork of any kind, you are trying to experience a cultural quality or value. Contemporary artwork is not always about appreciating these few special qualities but about appreciating what artists have to say, how they try to represent their living in the world today.

In the West, often what we call fine art — whether in music or movement or visual arts — are things associated with religious, court or aristocratic circles of earlier times. Renaissance and medieval composers, for example, were employed by the Catholic Church and would write music embedded with Christian symbolism. The question is not whether what we’re hearing is going to be important a hundred years from now. We are performing art as a mirror, a reflection of our own society.

Q: Can you describe your own creative process as a composer of new music?

A: It’s never the same. For example, I am currently working on three pieces. One is coming out of an experience I had reading a book of poems, Bellocq's Ophelia, written by Natasha Trethewey, a poet on the faculty here at Emory. When I read these poems, I actually heard the text and heard sounds; I saw forms and experienced interactive relationships. That much imagery coming out of these poems was very unusual for me. I have that piece very much in my head and can’t wait to get it out.

This process is different from that going into one of the other pieces I am composing. I have a commission from a brass quintet in Boston. They asked me to compose something in interactive electronics for them. I don’t have this work clearly in my head, but I know the group. They are virtuoso players and are very dynamic, with lots of physical energy. Knowing this will guide me toward writing a piece for them.

These are two examples, but each gives me a different way of entering into the creative process.

Q: With all the freedom that new music has, are there any limitations?

A: Commercial concerns today are sometimes a limiting factor. If your desire as creator is to have popular success then you may have to subscribe to tradition. As a composer, when I’m “imaging” sound and wrestling with composing, I have to ask myself, is there something in the back of my mind filtering what I’m writing based on whether it’s going to be liked or understood? Can I write dissonance and have people who want beauty appreciate it?

Q: As a performer of new music, do you try to put the music into context for the audience?

A: Often we will comment on a piece to give a piece context and to give a little bit about some of the ideas, some of the formal schemes. But sometimes the pieces do not reference any particular idea.

Q: When did Thamyris begin?

A: In 1987, Emory faculty Laura Gordy, who plays the piano, and Peggy Benkeser, percussionist, started Thamyris because they both loved this kind of music and there was no official group in Atlanta that was playing it. They invited some Atlanta Symphony Orchestra members and other musicians to participate.

Q: As a teacher of new music, what do you try to convey to your students?

A: At the heart of teaching new music is teaching people to be in touch with their own creativity. Creativity is really my focus. Two computer music courses I currently teach are really composition courses. I also teach a freshman seminar in creativity in collaboration with other departments – dance, music, and visual arts. The students spend half a semester learning how to create in one discipline, then the next half in collaborative creation. At the end of the semester, they have to create a collaborative piece with three or four other students.

Q: When did your own involvement with Thamyris begin?

A: A couple of years after the group was formed, they commissioned me. Thamyris was interested in incorporating some electronic music into its repertoire. My compositions often use interactive computer music, which involves live performers playing traditional instruments. The music feeds into a computer, which analyzes the music and “decides” on what to add. That composition started my relationship with Thamyris.

Then around 1991, they invited me to conduct a piece by a British composer, Peter Maxwell Davies. This piece is a theater piece, called “Eight Songs for a Mad King.” I had studied this work with Maxwell Davies in England and had conducted it. So the first time I conducted Thamyris was in Spivey Hall with Davies’ work.

After that, I conducted most every concert, and over the next three or four years, I composed several more pieces for the ensemble. When Laura decided to move out of her role as co-artistic director but to continue to play piano for the group, I became co-artistic director with Peggy.

Q: When and why did you come to Emory?

A: I first came to Emory briefly in 1978 as an artist affiliate. Bill Lemonds, who was the music department chair then, was trying to expand the department and hiring more instrumental faculty to teach. At the time I was a professional trumpet player. He had heard me play and asked me to join as trumpet affiliate. I also began teaching at Kennesaw, and went to work there fulltime. After a few years, Lynn Bertrand, the music department chair, asked me to come back to Emory. I began teaching trumpet again, and was later appointed instrumental music director. Around the mid-nineties, the department hired a fulltime music director, which freed me up to start teaching courses in Asian music. In 2000 I became music department chair until Stephen Crist took over in 2003.

Learn more about Thamyris and Everett’s other activities by visiting Everett’s website: www.music.emory.edu/COMPUTER/Steven_Everett.html.

by Nancy Condon
Communications Coordinator for the Arts at Emor

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