Who Needs Performers?

May 14th, 2008 in Politics | 2 Comments »

The short answer to this question: I do.

I recently had the premiere of my piano piece The Fall, written for and performed by James Praznik. He decided to perform from memory and drew criticism from someone who believed that playing from memory put yet one more barrier between the transmission of composer and audience.

I am glad that there are still musicians such as Kristjan Jarvi, the energetic Estonian-born conductor who still believes in the importance of improvisation in performance.

Live performance is losing its value in the age of Melodyne, landmark computer technology that can correct any pitch or rhythm error in the midst of a dense musical framework, audiences have no tolerance for mistakes. Modern recordings eschew overt expression and will only come to fruition after multiple takes to get the music perfect. I am not the only one to have noticed the staleness of inhuman performances.

I attended the final performance of the Columbus Symphony this past weekend and was confronted with a routine performance. Don’t misunderstand me, I thoroughly enjoyed being there, but that was primarily due to the lively director, Junichi Hirokami.

If as a composer, all you are interested in is the exact translation of your score to sound, I highly recommend Finale software with Garritan Sounds. The orchestral samples are uncannily real. You may also wish to move to electronic music, in which case, I highly suggest you check out 60×365.

If, on the other hand, you, like me, treasure live performances, composers need to encourage performers to have fun. Otherwise, we might as well go the way of classical music sales in general and turn to online downloads.

  • Share/Bookmark

You can follow any responses to this entry through the Comments RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to "Who Needs Performers?"

  1. May 15th, 2008 at 4:46 am

    Empiricus says:

    As for a comment: YES, let’s try to get performers into performing, with danger! I find it to be most rousing, as an audience member, when the performer is, in all senses of the word, engaged. Per my music, I try to get them to interact on a more personal level through notational contradictions/questions/anonmalies. It may not be exactly what you’re doing, but I think it’s the same sort of sentiment.
    Again, good luck!
    -Empiricus

  2. May 16th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

    Robert Lunn says:

    I think performers are vital. It’s one of the great things about music that you get multiple interpretations of the same piece. As a performer, live performance is exciting/scary because you never what’s going to happen. The performance aspect allows the piece to breathe. I hope this makes since, I’ve got a child pulling on my leg while write this.
    Rob

Leave a Comment