20 Questions with...composer and violinist Mark O'Connor

Mark O’Connor is a composer and violinist whose fluency with both classical and American traditions has made him one of the most acclaimed figures in contemporary music. In October 2008, O’Connor began a year as the first Artist in Residence at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, and in November, gave a two-day residency at Philadelphia’s Curtis School of Music. O’Connor takes educating the next generation of musicians seriously – his annual String Camps provide hundreds of students with intensive training from O’Connor and some of the world's finest performers and teachers.  His Americana Symphony, “Variations on Appalachia Waltz,” was recently recorded by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop conducting, and will be released March 10, 2009 by OMAC Records. 

1. A few works of classical music that you adore:  

Copland's 3rd Symphony. Beethoven's "Rasumovsky" string quartets

2. Classical music recordings that you treasure:

Heifetz: Beethoven & Brahms Concertos (Beethoven: Concerto for violin in D; Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Op77)

John Elliot Gardiner - 9 Symphonies by Ludwig Van Beethoven 

3. Favorite non-classical musicians and/or recordings: 

French jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli and Texas fiddling master Benny Thomasson – my mentors.

4.  Music that makes you cry - any genre:

A very interesting recording of Barber's Adagio by the New Zealand Symphony for its poignant vulnerability.

5.  Definitely underrated work(s) or composer(s):

Jennifer Higdon, Ken Fuchs and Kenji Bunch    

6.  Possibly overrated work(s) or composer (s):

Elliot Carter, Philip Glass

7.  Live music performance (s) you attended - any genre - that you'll never forget:  

Berlin Philharmonic playing Mahler at Carnegie. The first time I saw Stephane Grappelli play at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Vancouver, Canada  

8.  A few relatively recent films you love:

The Great Debaters; the French film, Manon

9.  A few films you consider classics:

American Beauty, because it depicts dysfunctional American families in suburbia.

Music Of The Heart featuring Meryl Streep captures the importance of music and music teachers in public school. I also like this movie because I did a cameo.

What the heck, The Patriot with Mel Gibson, mainly because I played the violin solo over the closing credits!  

10.  A few books that are important to you (and why): 

Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity and Popular Music. It clarified for me how to bring back emotional content in analyzing music.

The Melungeons - The Resurrection of a Proud People, because it helped me discover the possible missing link to the development of American fiddle music.

The Unanswered Question – Leonard Bernstein

11.  Thing(s) about yourself that you're most proud of:

Never listening to the people who told me "No, you can't do it.”   

12.  Thing(s) about yourself that you're embarrassed by: 

I had an odd condition in my childhood, a phobia of buttons.  

13.  Three things you can't live without: 

Music, Mexican food and Sadie

14.  When I want to get away from it all I...:

Visit 2,000-year-old Native American mineral springs.    

15.  People are surprised to find out that: 

I broke the world record in the skateboard high jump as a teenager.  

16.  My favorite cities are:

New York City, Savannah, Santa Fe and Seattle.

17. I have a secret crush on:

Tina Fey

18.  My most obvious guilty pleasure is: 

The Starbucks Soy Green Tea Latte  

19.  I'd really love to meet: 

Barack Obama

20.  I never understood why... 

Dvorak came to America and exclaimed that we have some great musical material here, but not very many classical composers in the U.S. got the memo.  But with my hopes for an American Classical music movement, that could change perhaps!  

# # #

Compiled and edited by Albert Imperato.  For permission to post or print this interview write to aimperato@21cmediagroup.com

20 Questions with...eighth blackbird

Described by the New Yorker as “friendly, unpretentious, idealistic, and highly skilled,” the new-music sextet eighth blackbird promises – and delivers – provocative and engaging performances to its ever-growing audiences.  Combining bracing virtuosity with a fresh and alluring sense of irreverence and panache, the sextet debunks the myth that contemporary music is only for a cerebral few. 

With a Grammy Award recently tucked under its belt, the ensemble promises a season of debuts, premieres and high-class collaborations, including jamming with Wilco’s drummer in Chicago; debuts in Australia, England, and Rotterdam; world premieres by Rzewski and Reich in New York’s funky Kitchen,  alongside the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble; and taking the reigns as Music Director at the Ojai Music Festival.

eighth blackbird is a client of 21C Media Group.

1. A few works of classical music that you adore: 

TIM: Gosh. Current obsessions: Sibelius symphonies and tone poems; Bach cantatas and passions; Mozart operas; Bruckner symphonies

MICHAEL: Mahler Fifth Symphony; Beethoven Sixth Symphony; Rite of Spring

MATT: Shostakovich Fifth Symphony; Mahler Sixth Symphony; Bach Sonata in C Major for solo violin

NICK: Rite of Spring; any Mahler symphony; Mendelssohn chamber music, John Adams A Flowering Tree

MATTHEW: “Goldberg” Variations. It’s possible that I adore the piece as a direct result of Glenn Gould's performance on his 1955 recording. See #2.

LISA: Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467; Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste

 

2.  Classical music recordings that you treasure:

TIM: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Handel Arias. There is no close second.

MICHAEL: Harold Wright and the Boston Chamber Players: Mozart and Brahms quintets

MATT: Emerson Quartet playing Bartok

NICK: Sibelius Second Symphony (Bernard Haitink, Concertgebouw); Emerson Quartet playing Bartok String Quartets; Kronos Caravan; Randall Avers Vistas

MATTHEW: “Goldberg” Variations (Glenn Gould, 1955)

LISA: Barber piano sonata (Vladimir Horowitz); “Goldberg” Variations (Glenn Gould, both early and late recordings)

 

3.  Favorite non-classical musicians and/or recordings:

TIM: Andrew Bird, Beirut, New Pornographers

MICHAEL: Sara Evans, Julie Andrews

MATT: Eddie from Ohio, Looking Out the Fishbowl

NICK: Q-Tip, James Brown, Nelly, Curtis Mayfield, Snoop Dogg, Tribe Called Quest, Missy Elliott, Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Brad Mehldau, Chick Corea, Luciana Souza, Prince, Red Hot Chili Peppers

MATTHEW: I've thought about this for three days, and it’s way too overwhelming a question. Do you have any idea how much music there is out there?

LISA: Elliott Smith, self-titled album; Peter Gabriel, us; Radiohead, KidA; The Beatles, White Album

 

4.  Music that makes you cry – any genre:

TIM: Mahler and Bruckner slow movements; anything by Beirut or Andrew Bird

MICHAEL: Gustavo Santaolalla: Brokeback Mountain soundtrack

MATT: Gustavo Santaolalla: Brokeback Mountain soundtrack

NICK: Sibelius Second Symphony; Mahler Second Symphony; Mahler Sixth Symphony, some Brazilian tunes

MATTHEW: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Helplessly Hoping

LISA: Peter Gabriel, The washing of the water; The Beatles, Blackbird

 

5.  Definitely underrated work(s) or composer (s):

TIM: Any and all new classical music.

MICHAEL: Janacek

MATT: Stephen Hartke

NICK: Schoenberg (esp. Pierrot Lunaire), Mendelssohn, Aaron Kernis, Stephen Hartke

MATTHEW: Stephen Hartke

LISA: Almost all living composers are underrated. 

 

6.  Possibly overrated work(s) or composer (s):

TIM: Rimsky-Korsakov, Sheherazade

MICHAEL: Schumann. Definitely Schumann.

MATT: Bruckner

NICK: Orff, Grofe, Schumann

MATTHEW: Beethoven Ninth Symphony (a remarkable work of genius, but shouldn’t be heard EVERY holiday season...c'mon already!)

LISA: Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel)

 

7.  Live music performance (s) you attended – any genre – that you’ll never forget: 

TIM: Philip Glass Satyagraha at the Met, 2008. I cried like a baby.

MICHAEL: I have forgotten.

MATT: Minnesota Orchestra, Sibelius Sixth Symphony, June 2008

NICK: Andor Toth Sr. (violin) and Andor Toth Jr. (cello) in a duo recital at Oberlin, OH, in the mid-1990s

MATTHEW: Ella Fitzgerald in an outdoor amphitheater. It started raining, so she improvised a transition into Singing in the rain and her combo followed her lead; then it rained harder. It was pure magic.

LISA: Bob Dylan in the tiny main piazza in Lucca, Italy, July 1998; Bob Spano conducting the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, October 1992

 

8.  A few relatively recent films you love:

TIM: No Country for Old Men; Man on Wire; Persepolis

MICHAEL: “Films”? I watch “movies.” I LOVE sci-fi: The Matrix (only the first one); 2001: A Space Odyssey

MATT: Brokeback Mountain; Wall-E; Michael Clayton

NICK: Persepolis; Letters from Iwo Jima; Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

MATTHEW: From the Earth to the Moon (produced by Tom Hanks). In our current political climate, it’s nice to be reminded that it’s

possible for a government to accomplish something truly remarkable.

LISA: No Country for Old Men; Ne le dit a personne; The Lives of Others; Talk to Her

 

9.  A few films you consider classics: 

TIM: The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover; Psycho; Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf

MICHAEL: 2001: A Space Odyssey

MATT: Babe; The American President; Aliens

NICK: Pulp Fiction; Amadeus; The Godfather; It's a Wonderful Life, Princess Bride; The Wizard of Oz

MATTHEW: Almost Famous (too recent to be

a classic?); Raiders of the Lost Ark

LISA: To Kill A Mockingbird; Ferris Bueller's Day Off

 

10.  A few books that are important to you (and why):

TIM: Galapogus, Kurt Vonnegut (it works like my mind does); Radical Chic, Tom Wolfe (journalism gone wild)

MICHAEL: The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil (It's terrifying and exciting. Kurzweil has been a fairly accurate predictor of the future of humans and technology which fascinates me.)

MATT: Consider the Lobster (loved the McCain and 9/11 essays); The Time Traveler's Wife (identified with the characters so deeply)

NICK: Jitterbug Perfume (Tom Robbins' use of language convinced me in my teens that a book could be funny, titillating, and masterful all at the same time);

Lolita (also for the language. Arguably the best novel in English, and written by a guy for whom it was his second language. Unbelievable.)

MATTHEW: When I Grow Up I Want To Be Me, Sandra Magsamen (read this to your daughter and you'll understand)

LISA: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer; Upon the Head of a Goat, Aranka Siegel; The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

 

11.  Thing(s) about yourself that you’re most proud of: 

TIM: My curiosity and my job

MICHAEL: I own my own home and don't own a car.

MATT: Dependability

NICK: My marriage and my career

MATTHEW: My kids

LISA: my chutzpah; my forthrightness

 

12.  Thing(s) about yourself that you’re embarrassed by:

TIM: The fact that I am very disorganized.

MICHAEL: I don't read for pleasure.

MATT: tendency to obsess, inability to dance

NICK: My indecisiveness, my occasional shyness and/or mousyness, and that I don't have as much energy as I'd like

MATTHEW: I turn up the volume when I hear a song by Avril Lavigne.

LISA: Hmmmmm…there’s not much that embarrasses me…

 

13.  Three things you can’t live without:

TIM: Bach, love, NPR

MICHAEL: My computer, beer, ear plugs.

MATT: schedules, ice cream, Spore

NICK: My wife, my career, and beer

MATTHEW: [Earnest:] My wife (yes, I realize that's only one thing); [Funny, but true:] My truck, sleeping pills, meat.

LISA: my family; music; good food

 

14.  “When I want to get away from it all I…”

TIM: …grab my iPod and go for a long jog.

MICHAEL: …lock the door and play World of Warcraft and/or watch HGTV.

MATT: …play video games.

NICK: …take a trip with my wife, to Thailand, Japan, Puerto Rico, or anywhere that isn't the US.

MATTHEW: …don't check email.

LISA: …shut off my cell phone, stop wearing my watch and go immerse myself in nature. 

 

15.  “People are surprised to find out that I…”

TIM: …watched two whole seasons of The Bachelor

MICHAEL: ...like camping.

MATT: …play video games

NICK: …am actually LESS messy than my wife

MATTHEW: …ever check email

LISA: …have climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

 

16.  “My favorite cities are…”

TIM: …Melbourne, New York, London, Chicago.

MICHAEL: …Chicago, Portland, Vancouver.

MATT: …New York, San Francisco, Chicago.

NICK: …Madrid, Florence, Paris, Amsterdam, Seattle, Chicago, sometimes New York.

MATTHEW: …Passage Key, FL (its not so much a

city as it is a secret...)

LISA: Florence, Italy; New York, NY.

 

17.  “I have a secret crush on…”

TIM: …Juliane Banse, soprano.

MICHAEL: …a New York-based double reed player.  Shh, don't tell him.

MATT: …Rene Russo.

NICK: …Padma Lakshmi, the host of "Top Chef" on Bravo.

MATTHEW: …Anne Boleyn, as portrayed by Natalie Dormer in The Tudors. (This is really much more about my passion for historical fiction than it is about Ms. Dormer. No, really, I'm serious...)

LISA: …an old fling from high school. 

 

18.  “My most obvious guilty pleasure is…”

TIM: …buying CDs. Lots of CDs.

MICHAEL: …World of Warcraft

MATT: …mint chip ice cream.

NICK: …watching The World Series of Poker on ESPN

MATTHEW: …Rice Krispie Squares.

LISA: …a lovely pedicure.

 

19.  “I’d really love to meet…”

TIM: …Ron Elving and Ken Rudin.

MICHAEL: …Ian McCartt.

MATT: …Roger Federer.

NICK: …Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Gustav Mahler, Salman Rushdie, Tom Robbins.

MATTHEW: …Lynn Davis.

LISA: …Rafael Nadal.

 

20.  “I never understood why…”

TIM: …classical music became “old people music.”

MICHAEL: …things that taste so good need to be so bad for you.

MATT: …people say they're going to do things and then don't.

NICK: …people voted for George Bush, especially the second time.

MATTHEW: …it's possible to arrive somewhere before you departed when traveling internationally. Time zones are not rational. Just thinking about it makes my brain hurt.

LISA:  …any half-way intelligent person could ever believe in Creationism.   

# # #

Compiled and edited by Albert Imperato.  For permission to post or print this interview write to aimperato@21cmediagroup.com

20 (Plus) Questions with...composer and pianist Jake Heggie

Jake Heggie’s opera Dead Man Walking, a collaboration with librettist Terrance McNally, is a milestone in contemporary opera.  Since its premiere in 2000, the work has become one of the opera world’s most performed new works.  In addition to his other operas, the San Francisco-based Heggie is a prolific songwriter whose works have been performed and recorded by some of the most beloved singers of our time, most notably Frederica von Stade, Susan Graham, Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone and Joyce DiDonato.  As a pianist he has accompanied several of these same singers in recital.  Though best known for his richly nuanced and emotionally resonant vocal works, he has also composed many chamber and orchestral works.  He is currently at work with librettist Gene Scheer on a truly epic project:  an opera based on Melville’s Moby Dick, commissioned by Dallas Opera for its inaugural season in the Winspear Opera House in April 2010.  The great Canadian tenor Ben Heppner will star as the obsessed whale hunter Captain Ahab.

A person of great warmth and eloquence, with a deep concern for important social issues, Heggie begins the new season with a gala on September 26 at Opera Colorado, where he and Frederica von Stade will perform a program that includes a number of his works.  Other fall highlights include opening night of the Broad Theater in Santa Monica, where he will join Frederica von Stade and Kristin Clayton for the Los Angeles premiere of At the Statue of Venus, another of his collaborations with McNally (Oct 11); the premiere of his choral work Faith Disquiet by the Choral Arts of Seattle (Town Hall, Oct 17), the Los Angeles premiere by Seattle’s Music of Remembrance of Heggie & Scheer's For a Look or a Touch at the Broad Theater in Santa Monica (December 4); the East Coast premiere of Heggie & Scheer's For a Look or a Touch at the Eastman School of Music (Dec 10, 12 14) and the West Coast premiere of Heggie & Scheer's opera Three Decembers in a co-production by San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances, starring Frederica von Stade, Kristin Clayton and Keith Phares, conducted by Patrick Summers and directed by Leonard Foglia (Dec 11, 12, 14). 

1. A few works of classical music that you adore:

A few!?!? That’s cruel. Bach St. Matthew Passion, B Minor Mass; Britten Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, Turn of the Screw, War Requiem and Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings; Ravel Scheherezade and Duo for Violin & Cello; Verdi La traviata and Otello; Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto; Mendelssohn Octet and Violin Concerto; Brahms Clarinet Quintet, Fourth Symphony and Motets; Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Clarinet Concerto, Così fan tutte, and Requiem; Schumann Piano Quintet and Kreisleriana; Poulenc Clarinet Sonata; Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande, La Mer, and late sonatas; Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta; Chopin F minor Ballade and Barcarolle; Peter Lieberson Neruda Songs; Ricky Ian Gordon The Grapes of Wrath; John Adams A Flowering Tree; Mahler Rückert Lieder.

2. Classical music recordings that you treasure:

My 78s of Johana Harris playing the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in 1936; Guiomar Novaes playing Chopin’s E minor Piano Concerto (the slow movement!); Kathleen Ferrier singing Mahler and Folk Songs; Janet Baker singing Scheherezade; Frederica von Stade singing Chansons d’Auvergne; Susan Graham singing Les Nuits d’Ete; Joyce DiDonato singing my own The Deepest Desire; Trevor Pinnock leading Simon Standage and the English Concert in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons; Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing Bach Cantatas and Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs.

3. Favorite non-classical musicians and/or recordings:

kd lang Hymns of the 49^th Parallel; Audra McDonald Happy Songs; Getz/Gilberto; Dawn Upshaw I wish it So and Dawn Upshaw sings Vernon Duke,; Eileen Farrell I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues; Bette Midler sings the Rosemary Clooney and Peggy Lee songbooks; Billie Holiday Lady in Satin; Lily Tomlin This is a Recording; Joni Mitchell Blue; Barbra Streisand’s early recordings; Rufus Wainwright Want One; Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett at Carnegie Hall; Alice Ripley & Emily Skinner Duets; Madeleine Peyroux Half the Perfect World, Careless Love, Dreamland.

4. Music that makes you cry – any genre:

kd lang singing Jane Siberry’s “The Valley”; slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and slow movement of the Jupiter Symphony; “Crucifixus” from Bach’s B Minor Mass; Schubert’s C Major Cello Quintet; Ennio Morricone’s score for Cinema Paradiso; Earle Hagan’s Harlem Nocturne; Getz/Gilberto The Girl From Ipanema with Astrid Gilberto singing; the opening and closing choruses of the St. Matthew Passion; Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson singing her husband’s music; Frederica von Stade singing “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”; Kathleen Ferrier singing “Blow the Wind Southerly”.

5. Definitely underrated work(s) or composer(s):

Frankly, just about every American concert and theater composer you could name and not name. And why has Roy Harris disappeared? His early chamber music is astonishing and original – especially his Piano Quintet.

6. Possibly overrated works(s) or composer(s):

In a world where everybody knows Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, how on earth could you consider any composer overrated? Composers in general aren’t rated enough – or at all. Ask a room full of high school students or even college students to name 10 American composers of concert music … five? … one? Good luck!

7. Live music performance(s) you attended – any genre – you’ll never forget:

Opening night of Dead Man Walking in San Francisco; being onstage as page-turner at concerts by Leontyne Price, Kiri Te Kanawa, Tatiana Troyanos, Cecilia Bartoli, Renata Scotto, Jean-Philippe Collard, Itzhak Perlman; watching Bernstein conduct Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphony; Patti LuPone in Gypsy; Audra McDonald at Carnegie Hall; Boulez conducting Jan DeGaetani in Schoenberg’s Erwartung; Radu Lupu playing Prokofiev Second Piano Concerto; Artur Rubinstein farewell concert in Columbus, Ohio when I was 15; Johana Harris farewell recital at UCLA; Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson as Octavia in Poppea; Susan Graham as Iphigenie; Ben Heppner as Lohengrin; Frederica von Stade as Cherubino, Cenerentola, Melisande; Joyce DiDonato’s first Rosenkavalier; Renée Fleming and Placido Domingo in Otello; Die Frau Ohne Schatten conducted by Dohnanyi; MTT conducting San Francisco Symphony in Bernstein Dances from West Side Story; Bette Midler on New Years’ Eve in San Francisco.

8. A few relatively recent films you love:

Little Miss Sunshine, The Devil Wears Prada, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Blades of Glory, The Triplets of Belleville, Huit Femmes, Everything is Illuminated.

9. A few films you consider classics:

Cinema Paradiso, Moonstruck, Auntie Mame, The Times of Harvey Milk, Room at the Top, Citizen Kane, On the Waterfront, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Jean de Florette and Manon des sources, The Women

10. A few books that are important to you (and why):

Susan Jacoby The Age of American Unreason – for its incredible insight and historical perspective on how we got into this huge mess;

Annie Dillard The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, For the Time Being and Holy the Firm – because she asks the questions I torture myself with and finds a searing, brutal and poetic look into the universe and the human heart;

David Sedaris Barrel Fever – because I laugh out loud every time at the Christmas Letter and the SantaLand Diaries;

David McCullough John Adams – the first time American history came to vivid life for me;

Herman Melville Moby Dick – because there is more there than you can ever fathom;

Shel Silverstein The Giving Tree – because it makes me sob every time I read it to a child;

Raymond Carver’s collected short stories and poetry – harsh and humorous truth;

Emily Dickinson’s collected poems – because they remain some of the most pithy and contemporary observations of the world and the human psyche;

Mary Oliver New and Selected Poems – wow

11. Thing(s) about yourself that you’re most proud of:

That I was smart enough to find my way to San Francisco, to Curt and Grayson, and a life in music; that I’m a good friend and colleague; that I manage to pick myself up and work even harder when slammed; oh hell, that I work damn hard at all of it.

12. Thing(s) about yourself that you’re embarrassed by: 

My lifelong body shame! Procrastinating until I make myself crazy. Spending way too much time at the computer.

13. Three things you can’t live without:

Family. Friends. Music.

14. “When I want to get away from it all I…”

Go to the beach. Or dream about going to the beach.

15. “People are surprised to find out that I…”

am actually an intensely shy and private person who is very hard on himself. 

16. “My favorite cities are…”

San Francisco. Venice. Paris. New York. So far…

17. “I have a secret crush on…” 

If I tell you then it won’t be a secret, right? My lips are sealed. 

18. “My most obvious guilty pleasure is…”

a cappuccino addiction.

19. “I’d really love to meet…”

Barack Obama. Michelle Obama. I mean, wow.

20. “I never understood why…”

…people will cave into fear and vote or work against their better interests and against the better interests of their community. And I will never understand how some parents can shun their children and turn their backs on them forever. I hate hypocrisy.

BONUS QUESTION

21. Question you wish someone would ask you (and the answer): 

Q: Jake, would you like to work with me to get music back into the core curriculum of American schools? 

A: Yes, President Obama, it would be an honor to work with you and this country’s legions of astonishingly gifted composers, performers, teachers, and administrators to make sure music is a central part of every child’s development and education.

Compiled and edited by Albert Imperato.  For permission to post or print this interview write to aimperato@21cmediagroup.com.

20 (Plus) Questions with...composer Ricky Ian Gordon

Ricky Ian Gordon’s Green Sneakers recently premiered at Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival to enthusiastic acclaim.  His “Orpheus and Euridice”(OBIE Award) has been touring the country, and his hugely successful opera of Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, (written with librettist Michael Korie) is touring the country with stops in Pittsburgh in November, and Opera Pacific in January. The recording of the original Minnesota Opera production comes out on a PS Classics CD on August 26 and there will be a launch event at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble in New York City (66th Street and Broadway) at 5:30 PM that day with Victoria Clark (who portrays Ma Joad) and others. He currently has commissions from The Metropolitan Opera, Minnesota Opera, Virginia Opera as well as The Virginia Center for the Arts, Playwrights Horizons, and The Signature Theater. On October 6, 2008 he will do a concert of his work at 9:30 PM at Joe’s Pub with friends Kelli O’Hara, Elizabeth Futral, Mary Testa and Jesse Blumberg.

Reading Ricky Ian Gordon’s responses to 20 (Plus) Questions is enormously entertaining, simultaneously daunting (how does he know so much and about so many different things?) and inspiring (wow, there’s so much to learn about in this world!).

1.  A few works of classical music that you adore: 

Alban Berg's Lulu;  Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice;  Samuel Barber's Vanessa; Shostakovich's 14th Symphony; Paul Hindemith's Kammermusik No. 2 (Piano Concerto); Michael Tippet’s 2nd Symphony and The Knot Garden; Hugo Weisgall’s The Tenor and The Stronger; Hans Werner Henze’s Cantata Della Fiaba Estrema; Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, Ruckert Lieder, and Kindertotenlieder; Messiaen's Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine, and and and and I love Michael Torke's Proverbs too...but I like a LOT of music!  Bartok is awe inspiring, and I love Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto.

2.  Classical music recordings that you treasure:

Janet Baker singing Mahler with Sir John Barbirolli conducting; all of the Britten operas with him conducting! Ned Rorem’s Ariel song cycle with Phyllis Curtin singing (I love Phyllis Curtin); the Shostakovich 14th conducted by Eugene Ormandy with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Phyllis Curtin and Simon Estes; the original Nonesuch recording of Steve Reich’s Tehillim; an old recording that had Hans Werner Henze’s Cantata Della Fiaba Estrema on it with Edda Moser who was one of my favorite singers ever! Plus, the Otto Klemperer recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

 3.  Favorite non-classical musicians and/or recordings:

Joni Mitchell’s Blue, and Ladies of the Canyons and Songs to a Seagull and Clouds; Adam Guettel’s Light in the Piazza and Floyd Collins; Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party; Neil Young’s album After The Gold Rush; movie composers…lots of them! Delerue, Fusco, DeSica…Laura Nyro, especially New York Tenderberry, and Christmas and the Beads of Sweat.  Wait…I also think Gerald Busby’s film score for 3 Women is incredible!

4.  Music that makes you cry – any genre:

The bass aria from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, “Mache Dich, Mein Herze, Rein,” with Walter Berry singing (the Otto Klemperer recording); Janet Baker singing Mahler’s Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen; Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing Bach’s “Ich Habe Genug;” Georges Delerue’s Film Music for The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim and Hiroshima Mon Amour (with Giovanni Fusco) and Manuel DeSica’s music for The Garden of the Finzi-Continis; Ethel Waters singing “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” in Member of the Wedding. Audrey Hepburn singing “Moon River,” and anything my mother sings…Eve Gordon who was once Eve Saunders of the Borscht Belt.

5.  Definitely underrated work(s) or composer(s):

Hugo Weisgall!  His operas The Tenor and The Stronger are masterpieces! Also, when I was growing up, I loved an opera by Richard Mohaupt called Double Trouble! Now there’s a name most of you won’t remember! But I loved all the Louisville Recordings as well as a label called Desto and both had tons of rarities. Also, a composer named David Ward Steinman who wrote beautiful settings of Sappho! I think MANY MANY MANY American composers are underated…Harold Shapero, Robert Ward, I LOVE Mark Blitzstein!  Wait…a film composer named Paul Dunlap whose wonderful score for Fuller’s The Naked Kiss should be recorded! I really get irritated when people talk about Barber’s score for Vanessa in pejorative terms. They should only write something that beautiful! I think an underrated composer is Donald York who used to be Paul Taylor’s musical director and composed fantastic scores for his dances (Diggity, Polaris, Last Look, Snow White, Syzygy among others)

6.  Possibly overrated work(s) or composer(s):

Oh, now that’s a dangerous question…I rarely like to read for example, composers’ criticisms as it really feels unseemly for composers to join in all the mud slinging that goes towards composers in the first place…but if I must, and I had to pick a composer I thought was overrated, it would be Virgil Thompson. There are others but it would be damning for me to name them.  Ask me when I’m 90!

 7.  Live music performance(s) you attended – any genre – that you’ll never forget: 

Joni Mitchell at Carnegie Hall when I was a teenager and she said hello to me from the stage and called me her pen pal! (I have a letter from her over my piano, if you wanna see it); Phyllis Curtin singing Ned Rorem’s Ariel song cycle at Alice Tully Hall for his 50^th birthday; Peter Pears in Death In Venice at The Met when I was a teen at Carnegie Mellon University, and I came home for the American premiere; Theresa McCarthy in Adam Guettel’s Floyd Collins. OHHHH…one of the greatest things I have ever seen and I saw it four times was Meredith Monk’s Quarry at BAM’s Lapercq Space;  Janet Baker doing the American premiere of Britten’s Phedre;  Renata Scotto…I was working as an usher at The Met and I had to good fortune to pull curtain at the end of her Madama Butterfly, which was incredible…James Levine was crying backstage. Teresa Stratas in Lulu was spellbinding! Oh…any genre…Andre Serban’s production of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard at Lincoln Center; Tony Kushner’s Angels In America; Bergman’s production of The Doll’s House at BAM. Also…A Chorus Line when it first opened at The Public Theater, and Stephen Sondheim’s Follies on Broadway the first time around.

8.  A few relatively recent films you love:

The Lives Of Others; Brokeback Mountain; The Edge of Heaven; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

9.  A few films you consider classics: 

Resnais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour; Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria; Rohmer’s Summer; Truffaut’s The Woman Next Door and The 400 Blows; Olmi’s Il Posto; Ozu’s Late Autumn and Tokyo Story; Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu; Fassbinder’s The Marriage Of Maria Braun; Bergman’s Cries and Whispers; Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde; Robert Altman’s 3 Women.

10.  A few books that are important to you (and why):

Albert Camus’ The Plague because I somehow found my love for reading when I read that book in high school…it solidified the whole notion of metaphor for me; Dostoevsky’s The Brother’s Karamazov, because it changed how I see and feel about the world, and was so awe inspiringly mysterious and both penetrable and impenetrable all at once. Recently…I loved a memoir entitled, The End Of The World As We Know It by Robert Goolrick because I couldn’t put it down and found it hilarious and heartbreaking and utterly brilliant, and Marie Howe’s poetry collection What The Living Do, because it came at the right time and helped me put my life back together at an extremely difficult time. Jame’s Kirkwood’s Good Times Bad Times and William Maxwell’s The Folded Leaf somehow made me feel OK about being gay. Oh, and Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies because her voice is so WHOLLY unique and I laugh harder at parts of that book than I have ever laughed before.  The Chekov plays are a bible for me…my current favorite translation is Paul Schmidt.

11.  Thing(s) about yourself that you’re most proud of: 

My aesthetic. What I do. My jaw line? The incredible people in my life that I have somehow luckily attracted.

12.  Thing(s) about yourself that you’re embarrassed by:

My baldness.  I hate admitting it…but sometimes I really want my hair back…I even dream about it. Hair, come back, OK? BUT not on the tip of my nose! Why does it grow everywhere but where you want it? And…No matter WHAT I do, and I am talking about even bulimia and anorexia, I can’t get rid of my love handles.

13.  Three things you can’t live without:

It’s like I wanna say my Prada handbag or something, because at this point I feel silly answering these questions…like I should be wearing sunglasses while I answer them…but that said, besides air, water, and food…Moisturizer, my computer (I hate admitting that…I suppose if I had to…), those I love…but I am pretty good at letting go of stuff.

14.  “When I want to get away from it all I…”

Go away and write.  My favorite place to go away and write is an arts colony in Wyoming (my favorite state even though it is horrible that Bush has instituted drilling there and Matthew Shepard was murdered there) called Ucross, which is unbearably beautiful. My partner Kevin and I have a house now on a lake in upstate New York…it is becoming my new heaven.

15.  “People are surprised to find out that I…”

…have a sadder interior, what with my gregarious nature…and am very drawn to dark subjects. My favorite director is Bergman…say no more. Maybe they are surprised then, having come to terms with those things about me, that I would not want to live on a planet without Project Runway and if I weren’t a composer I would be a nose making up fragrances day and night. As it is, I spend half my life sniffing them.

16.  “My favorite cities are…”

I really love Istanbul…and Paris, and Siena…but probably New York is my favorite city because I still don’t want to leave.

17.  “I have a secret crush on…”

Simon Mulligan.  Kelli O’Hara (not so secret).  Sanjay Gupta.

18.  “My most obvious guilty pleasure is…”

Fragrance…I am mad about cologne! And Hats! I love hats…and clothes…I could spend everything on clothes and fragrance and Diptyque Candles, and I long to make enough money to have a cleaning lady once a week and a life time supply of Clarins skin care products.

19.  “I’d really love to meet…”

Francois Truffaut…I wish I could have met him, and Ingmar Bergman; composers I admire like Britten but I’m afraid he would be mean to me…as no one can be meaner to a composer than another composer; Joni Mitchell!  Buddha. Jesus Christ. Moses. Marcel Proust. Barbra Streisand.

20.  “I never understood why…”

There is so much cruelty and hatred in the world . Why Alison was booted off Project Runway so soon last year…I mean her garbage dress was no masterpiece…but she was really good! I have a secret crush on her too! That really set me back.

BONUS QUESTION:

21.  Question you wish someone would ask you (and the answer to that question): 

Q:  I would like Peter Gelb to ask me “Ricky, would you like The Met to do your opera The Grapes Of Wrath, even though we are commissioning a new piece, and at its original length? And who would your ideal cast be?” And I would like Robert Hurwitz at Nonesuch to ask me, “Ricky, would you like to make a few more CD’s with us, your choice? We’ll get whomever you want to perform. Let’s start with Green Sneakers. OK?”  And I would like Barbara Cook to sing my music and ask me to recite more poems at another dinner party, and Audra McDonald to record more of my songs…maybe a whole CD, and Kristin Chenoweth to not only do the same, but return my calls and e mails, and thank me for paying for an entire arrangement of a song for her Met concert after which I never heard from her.

A: To Peter, “Yes. Let’s talk.”

A: To Robert, “Great!”

A: To Barbara, Audra, Kristin:  “Great…That’s OK Kristin, I know you’re busy…” 

Compiled and edited by Albert Imperato.  For permission to post or print this interview write to aimperato@21cmediagroup.com.