The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 070 Jennifer Higdon: A Creative Force

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to The Mind Over Finger Podcast, Episode Number 70. Welcome to The Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi everyone. I hope this episode finds you doing well. It's hard to believe it, but we've reached the end of season two. And to celebrate that, I have a great treat today. I'm speaking with one of the most acclaimed and frequently performed composers working today, Jennifer Higdon. Jennifer's been commissioned with a wide range of performers, including the Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Minnesota orchestras, the Chicago and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the President's Own United States Marine Band, Tokyo String Quartet, 8th Blackbird, and individual artists such as baritone Thomas Hampson, violinists Hilary Hahn, Jennifer Koh, and Nadia Salerno-Sannenberg, and pianists Gary Grafman and Yuja Wang. Her first opera, Cold Mountain, was a resounding success, winning an International Opera Award for Best World Premiere, and the opera's recording was nominated for two Grammy Awards. Her works are recorded on more than 65 CDs.

Starting point is 00:01:32 She's received the Pulitzer Prize, three Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Guggenheim and Pew Fellowships, a commission from the Serge Kusevitsky Music Foundation, the Nemers Prize from Northwestern University, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance from Bowling Green State University, an artist diploma in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music, and a master's degree and Ph.D. in composition from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1994, she joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she holds the Milton L. Rock Chair in Composition Studies. It was an incredible honor to have the chance to sit with Jennifer and to soak up her wisdom and this wonderful energy that she's got.

Starting point is 00:02:22 Among many other things, you'll get to hear about her unusual path to a career as a composer, how she approaches the compositional process, her view on the classical music world today, and she tells us about the habit that has contributed to her success. I hope you enjoy. Let's go to the show. Jennifer Higdon, it's a great honor to have you on the podcast. It's good to be here, Renee. I'm super excited to be able to talk with you. Jennifer, you've had such a remarkable career so far and a really interesting story on how that came to be. And I would love to hear about your artistic journey in your own words.

Starting point is 00:03:08 So would you please talk to us a little bit about your story and how your musical path has unfolded? yes I think I've had a pretty unusual path in general especially the whole first part of it because I was self-taught on flute and I but I enjoyed playing in the high school band we were mostly a marching band and but I decided to major in music and I went off to college really not knowing very much about classical music but I was super eager to learn I got into Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where there was a phenomenal flute teacher, Judith Bentley. And she could teach music, I think, to anyone. But she got me started on composing. And even though I was doing a flute performance degree there, I completed the degree, but I knew

Starting point is 00:03:56 at that point, by the time I got to the end of my undergrad, that I was going to switch over to composition. She had had me write a little bit of music while I was a flute student. And I kind of like just caught the bug. So I applied to a bunch of schools and somehow I got into Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. So I moved to Philly and went to school there and then up the street to the University of Pennsylvania. And I kept playing flute for a really long time, but my focus shifted over to music composition. So I've had the experience of being a performer and spending a lot of time learning music, but my life, I think for the past I guess since oh maybe it's even 25 years or so has been pretty much just about composing I think

Starting point is 00:04:43 I haven't played flute in about 15 years so it's when I look back on my journey it seems pretty improbable for me having started an instrument at the age of 15 to be where I am I'm kind of surprised by it I think it's such an amazing journey and you know I think it's very inspiring for anyone listening because it is unusual and it's a proof that we don't have to fit a mold. We don't have to start at a specific age and do exactly, you know, the conservatory route and, you know. Right, exactly, which is an important thing because I often meet people who tell me just in random conversations, oh, I would love to be able to play music, but I'm too old to start now or I'm too old to pick it back up. A lot of times people have quit an instrument when they

Starting point is 00:05:32 were maybe in their teenage years or something and they're often telling me they wish they had not done that. Yes. What about some noteworthy projects that you're currently working on and that maybe you'd love the listeners to know about? Yeah, I just finished assisting with the edits of a string quartet of mine. I'm recording that the Pacifica Quartet is going to be releasing in several months, and the piece is called Voices. Ellen Zwilich is one of the other composers on the disc and Shula Mitran, and it's like an amazing CD project. I'm also in the middle of finishing the parts for a new chamber opera called Woman with Eyes Closed that will go up in September with Opera Philadelphia here, a couple blocks up from where I live now. That's a chamber

Starting point is 00:06:23 opera and I'm super excited about that. And I'm also writing a double percussion concerto for the Houston Symphony right now. So I'm like really busy. It's amazing how much is going on. It's a lot of variety. It is. It is a lot of variety. It's true, but it keeps everything interesting. Jennifer, it's always fascinating for me to hear about compositional processes and how composers approach their work because it's very different than what I do. and that's a hard thing to explain it but would you please share with us what that looks like for you yeah you know I'm very fortunate that I I know who I'm writing for at all times because I

Starting point is 00:07:05 work on commissions so usually I'm told what the instrumentation is that fits the occasion whether it's an orchestra piece or string quartet and I'm usually given the duration and sometimes people tell me something about themselves as a performer something that they like when I write concertos I'm always asking a lot of questions about whether the performer wants like a denza do they want me to stay away from certain things like I had one situation where performers said I really don't like playing scales and so what happens is I kind of make a loose plan about the shape of the piece whether it's going to be multiple movements or all in one movement If it's a long piece, how many fast sections and slow sections should I write?

Starting point is 00:07:51 I think about the repertoire that's been written before. I tend to look at scores and listen to recordings to see what other composers have done to balance the instruments between themselves, but also to make each instrument sound good. So if you're writing for an orchestra, you're looking at every instrument. If you're writing a bassoon sonata, you're just looking at the way bassoon and piano work together. and then I do a lot of daydreaming trying to figure out what would be cool to do and what would be challenging and but also inspiring and so there's a lot of daydreaming and sketching and manuscript books I do some input into finale which is a computer notation program

Starting point is 00:08:34 and I eventually come up with some idea that feels like it belongs in the piece and I usually write that down it's almost always a melody um and then I try to figure out how to make that melody sound better and then I try to figure out what needs to go with it uh sometimes I get chunks of music in my head like a texture or something but it's really a really slow process it's amazing how mysterious a lot of it is the act of creating something from nothing but I've given certain parameters like how long the piece is going to be and who will be playing and that makes a little bit easier. But every day, and I write every day, probably four to six hours. If I'm having a good day, that's probably getting 10 to 15 seconds of music written each

Starting point is 00:09:21 day. And it's a lot of guesswork and constantly erasing or deleting and backing up and rewriting things and readjusting. So it takes kind of a long, I guess it's long concentration over like many hours in a day it can be so absorbing sometimes I forget that I should get up and move around I mean it's like living in a an alternate reality a little bit but it's amazingly the notes accrue eventually they show up on the page and it turns in to a piece it goes from a couple of notes to a couple of measures that that becomes a couple of phrases and the phrases become a section of music and if you just kind of keep at it eventually a whole piece will emerge that's it's so fascinating to hear about that and see how the the piece kind of uh introduces herself to you as yeah that's

Starting point is 00:10:14 true it's and it is a little bit i often tell people it feels like sometimes you're in a dark room and you're feeling around on the walls trying to find the light switch and the light switch actually may be on the ceiling or it could be on the floor so you're often chasing phantoms of sound but you can't quite make out the I don't know the whole picture sometimes you only get a little edge of something so it's a it's a mysterious process and it it does not get easier with the years even after all this time of lots of composing it's still a challenge and it could be very frustrating so the trick is also to stick it out and keep working past that frustration and what does that look like because i'm i'm very curious about you know mindful work as maybe mind

Starting point is 00:11:02 over finger might suggest uh and practicing and problem solving fixing issues on the instrument and uh you know taking both of course musical and also technical skills to the next level how does that take form in the context of composition you know you're talking about refining and you know how does a composer work on on problems so one of the things you have to do and this is I think it's pretty much the same when I was playing an instrument you want the process to be engaging because if you're actually engaged and thinking about what you're doing your mind I think is making more synapses it's making little connections like a little electrical connections when you're composing it's very important not to get into ruts and just to do

Starting point is 00:11:49 the same thing over and over again you have to constantly be asking yourself is this good enough what I'm writing now can I make it better it's and I think that's a lot like practicing any piece of music where you have to be analyzing and then you have to figure out how to execute in a way that will fix whatever was the issue to begin with in your playing and it may be just a particular piece I can remember having flute pieces where it seemed like everyone in my flute teacher studio we would all trip over the same spots the music and so you have to kind of break it down and focus in on things that are issues and so you can't really play through the whole thing now when you're a composer you can't play through the whole thing because you're you're often focused on one teeny

Starting point is 00:12:38 tiny area and you could write all day and still only get a couple of seconds of music on the page but there's no way to even come up with those notes pull them out of the air unless you're thinking about what it is you're trying to achieve where is the line going what's the best way to get there is this optimal for this instrument am I in a good range what's the dynamics so you're forced in a lot of ways in composition to have to constantly be paying attention but I do know composers would kind of run on automatic pilot and I think you can always hear that in the piece it reminds me a lot when I used to practice my instrument a lot was the exact same sort of thing there was always the mindless sort of practice you could do in a practice room where you're just

Starting point is 00:13:23 running scales but the truth is you're not getting the most out of your time and the way you're training yourself if you're just kind of doing it by rote so it's very much like composing I mean you have to be very focused on what you're working on because it doesn't get better if you aren't focused on that. You're really speaking my language. I hear you use a lot of questions and one of my favorite tool for the students is to ask themselves what else and I see that in your process. That's fantastic. You know, I think sometimes when you're a teacher, you're teaching a student how to build a toolbox and that toolbox will help them fix things for the rest of their lives and so you try to give as many tools as possible to the students and sometimes it's

Starting point is 00:14:15 simple things like demonstrating something or it's suggesting a different way to look at something but by showing the student that it's problem solving whether you're the person putting a note on the page or the person waving the baton or the person who is putting fingers down on a fingerboard or a key on a flute or a clarinet it's still problem solving so we're always trying to figure out how to make a big toolbox so we can try different tools if something is not working yes yes absolutely um this is a little bit of a pivot but i read something you wrote and i really wanted to hear a little bit about it from you um you were talking for an npr segment i believe, and you were talking about how your wish for the classical music was to make it more of a

Starting point is 00:15:05 living art. Would you mind speaking to that a little bit? Yeah, it's interesting. I have found after looking at lots of books on like Beethoven's time and Mozart's time that in the days of Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms and a lot of those composers from that time period, a lot of old music was not played and so they were always doing new stuff because that's just the way the concert world worked now when I talk to people when I'm traveling people who don't go to classical concerts to them the experience of going to classical concerts listening to music that is really old to them it feels like it's not as relevant because it's not of their time it doesn't reflect their lives. And so because I hear orchestras always saying that they want to be relevant within their

Starting point is 00:15:58 community, I realized at some point that relevant also meant creating works of music that reflect the time and energy of now. And that's really important to get people involved in concerts. I mean, I can remember when I wrote a bluegrass concerto for the Philadelphia Orchestra in the group time for three they're amazing players but it was interesting talking to people in the audience who came to the concert there were a lot of people there who'd come in who had never been to a classical concert and they were so shocked that they were excited by the music and so I've had enough conversations now with people who don't go to classical concerts because a lot of times I'd be curious as to why they would avoid that I also have a 25 year old brother so I

Starting point is 00:16:46 through the years i've asked him if any of his friends go to classical concerts and i've asked him too why don't your friends go to classical concerts but universally the answer is they think the music doesn't feel relevant to them because it feels old that's actually and when i've done post-concert talks from a stage a lot of times people will make the comment that they're excited because they're experiencing something new so they feel like they're part of an event so I realized for orchestras to stay relevant for classical music to stay relevant it needs to have a more updated experience for people who don't normally want to walk into a concert hall and hear music that is 200 years old I don't have a problem with music that's 200 years old I love

Starting point is 00:17:34 listening to Beethoven and Mozart, but for a lot of people, it is an issue, and I think people have a right to have music of their own time. I mean, this is how history moves forward, and I worry that when things aren't moving forward, it dies off. Whatever that thing is might die off, so I think about making the living art relevant to now, because it makes it more necessary. yes yes I love that and would you say there's a question I love asking the guests about you know the what they think is skill that young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments would you say that maybe that would be one thing that they should acquire is this interest in trying to understand audiences better yeah I think I think

Starting point is 00:18:25 in a certain sense, you kind of have to have a couple of things. A business skill or awareness of the business of music has become pretty imperative. And the ability to speak in front of groups has actually become fairly important. I remember talking to the pianist Gary Grafman when he was head of the Curtis Institute of Music. He said to me that when he was coming up through school and was starting out as a young artist, they didn't have to worry about talking to audience members or board members or receptions they would walk in they would do the rehearsals they'd go in and play the concert and then they just go back to the hotel and he was talking about the fact that now that's not enough it just isn't enough that you need to be aware of the world you're working

Starting point is 00:19:12 in you have to be able to think about how do you make the business work um there was a well-known conductor i talked to recently whose partner was his book his booking agent and he was saying that it's no longer a situation where you get an agent and then everything's taken care of you actually have to oftentimes take care of the details yourself and because of that i realized that it's it's more necessary for people to have a sense of simple things like getting the word out about a concert, even if you're doing a chamber concert with your friends, figure out effective advertising, or if you want to be able to put up a YouTube channel and get your music out that way, as a composer or a performer, you have to have more of an awareness of what's going on in the

Starting point is 00:20:02 world technologically and business-wise too. So I don't think at this point, if you're wanting to be someone who works in the music world, I don't think you can do it just with playing the instrument. I think there's not a way to do that anymore so kind of being aware of the things that are going on out in the world the whole kind of music scene figuring out how to fit into your community wherever that is and how you can kind of contribute to the culture of that community it takes some imagination but it's totally doable and the thing is you're much more involved in the music making at that point so it's actually a real win-win situation and I'm finding that performers are they're pretty good about figuring things like that out or asking someone for advice

Starting point is 00:20:53 on this or how to make this work or that work I mean I'm always asking people things like that but I have I have really benefited from handling my own music selling my own music and doing the rentals and negotiating contracts and things like that. But in order to do that, you have to kind of be aware of how things unfold. I wasn't taught that in school, but I was able to figure it out. So if I could figure it out, that means everyone else can figure it out too. Yes. Jennifer, I veered away from composition for a little bit, but I'd like to go back briefly before we leave each other. You are, I mean, I'm so excited to speak with you because you're, you know one of the most impactful composer right now and I find it hard to believe that any

Starting point is 00:21:40 professional musician or probably a lot of students has not performed a piece of yours in a context or another and but I know that you've also been very involved as a teacher and that you've taught at the Curtis Institute since 1994 what is some of the wisdom that if young composers are listening right now, what are some of the philosophies and advice that you'd like to impart on your students? Yeah. One of the things that I tell students all the time, and this also is applicable to performers, listen to as much music as possible from a wide range of genres, a wide range of time periods. I can remember my flute teacher telling me that we could probably play the Mozart flute concerto better if we actually listen to some opera arias. So I'm always telling

Starting point is 00:22:34 composers, listen to as much music as you can. If you can, follow along with the score. It's applicable for performers too. Just being aware of all the different ways that people tell musical stories through their playing or their conducting or their writing. It's amazing how much you learn just by looking and hearing what other people do and that may break down to how several different people play Bach maybe whether it's the Goldberg variations on the piano or the the cello suites you think about the difference between Lynn Harrell how he played it on cello versus Yo-Yo Ma I mean there are a lot of different people interpreting but the thing is if you learn about music in all time periods it's a lot easier going back and interpreting even older works I

Starting point is 00:23:31 mean a lot of times people will say oh my my music is pretty difficult and then I say yeah imagine you're going to go back to Mozart how much how different the rhythm is going to feel and Mozart but kind of how you're going to glide along on that as well so again it's like exploring music from different time periods and really getting to know what everyone's doing I think helps you all the way around no matter whether you're the interpreter or the person pulling the bow across the string or putting the wind through the instrument it helps it actually kind of it widens your horizon but it also may give you some ideas it helps you think outside the box a little bit. That's so true. Jennifer, do you have a habit that you think has contributed to your success?

Starting point is 00:24:18 Yeah, it's getting back up on the horse every time you get knocked off. Because you know what? It happens to absolutely everyone. We all hit barriers. We all hit problems, whether it's in a piece that we're working on or whether it's even like something in a certain scale uh when you're writing things it's the exact same thing we all have those moments where it looks like there's a barrier standing in front of us that we can't get around but the thing is you can always find a way around it or over it or through it i mean it may be that you have to drill a hole to get through it but the thing is there is always a way to find your own path down the road so my biggest thing is I've just through the years whenever I've hit these

Starting point is 00:25:05 barriers and sometimes I'm hitting them every day when I'm working I just continue to push on and every time I'm able to make that that progress forward it's just a matter of continuing to come back into the game figure out how I can do it better or how I can do it differently and I think that's kind of been the case for me because I started so late because I was self-taught because I didn't know any classical music when I went off to my undergrad. A lot of people told me I wouldn't be able to do it. They said, there's no way you're going to have a career in music. But the thing was, I loved music. So I just, I kept going and I didn't let anyone discourage me. And I think that has probably been the thing that has served me the best probably throughout life.

Starting point is 00:25:51 You keep showing up. Yes, exactly. Jennifer, how about a quick actionable tip that listeners could implement today in their musical lives? Be aware. Feel what you're doing all the way through your fingers, through your embouchure, through your bow arm, and look at the musical lines in front of you. That's a script. so you have a script in front of you but you are the actor and the director so just be aware as you're working it'll make your life richer i love that jennifer thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today i really appreciate it you have

Starting point is 00:26:33 such great wisdom and i feel completely inspired i'm sure everyone listening feel it too so thank you so much thank you greatly appreciated thank you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed this conversation with jennifer higdon i think her story shows so well that we're so much more than other people's perception of us or of what we can accomplish and that there really is no correct way to go about creating a career and that by getting back up time after time and forging ahead, incredible things are possible. I walk away really inspired by this conversation and I'd love to hear what your favorite takeaway

Starting point is 00:27:24 is. So please get in touch with me. I'm Mind Over Finger on both Instagram and Facebook. And of course, you can find me at mindoverfinger.com. In the show notes, I've put all the links to find more information about Jennifer. And I hope you'll put some time aside to take a look at her upcoming projects, and listen to some of her wonderful music if you haven't had the chance to do so yet. And today, I'm really excited to let you know that I've opened the doors to my brand new program, The Music Mastery Experience, a transformational journey to loving the practice room, rocking the stage, winning the job, and taking your career to new heights. It's a three month long highly personalized group coaching program where I'll show you how to implement

Starting point is 00:28:10 mindful and effective practice techniques, make them habits and get results. I've spent years developing my deep practice model and putting it to the test in my own career and with my students and I'm really proud to finally share it with you through my music mastery experience. Over the course of 12 weeks you'll learn to direct your attention and your intention and to channel them to a superior level of productivity and performance. So if you're looking to elevate your practice and performance this summer, I think the Music Mastery Experience would be perfect for you. We're going to cover in detail the many aspects of a powerful practice and performance preparation regimen,

Starting point is 00:28:52 including effective practice techniques, empowering mindsets, high-focus strategies, efficient productivity systems optimal performance training and much more the program kicks off june 1st and there are a limited number of spots so let's talk now to guarantee you a spot in the program and to have you take advantage of the early sign up bonuses if you think this experience might be for you i invite you to book a call with me we'll talk about your goals your dreams and how this program can help you get there. You can find more information at mindoverfinger.com. And of course, I'll have that link for you in the show notes. Before I let you go, I just want to say thank you to all of you who reached out with a kind message or comment. This podcast is my

Starting point is 00:29:42 passion project, but it's a lot of work. And hearing that it brings you value, inspiration, and tools to enhance your music making makes it all worth it. Also, a huge thank you and much love to my wonderful producer, Bella Kelly, for her awesome work. Have a great summer, everyone. Again, thank you, and à bientôt.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 070 Jennifer Higdon: A Creative Force

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