February 15, 2025 • 25 mins
Dr. Matthew Emery talks the intricacies of writing for voice, “honest music,” removing unnecessary pitches, the relevance of Canadian choral music, finding great inspiration in the little atmospheric details, mentorship coming full circle, and much more!
Featured music:
Walk Safely Over Soft Places
From Dewy Dreams, My Soul Arise
Mist trapped in the trees
Lead Us Home
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Notes of the North Talks, a series where we get to know our local Canadian
(00:11):
musical talent. Today I'm here with Dr. Matthew Emery. Thank you so much Matthew for joining
me today. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. To start us off, where is home for
you? Which part of Canada are you most connected to? Home is a funny thing and is something
(00:31):
that I like musically to explore. I mean currently home is Kitchener. Home was Ottawa for three
or four years. Home, I grew up in a small town outside of London, Ontario. But I also
have a strong connection to home in Vancouver. Vancouver is where I did my undergraduate
(00:56):
degree. It's where I left the security of my family and friends and moved away to university
and I really developed as a person and a composer in Vancouver. So yeah, there's lots of homes.
Wow, you've really been all throughout Canada then. Yeah. That's amazing. And how did your
(01:18):
love for music begin? What led you to become a composer? I always was listening to music.
My mother is a French horn player and she has lots of stories of me growing up or before
I was out in her womb, she would put headphones on and make me listen to Mozart while I was
(01:41):
still in there. And then she enrolled me in choir and Suzuki strings from an early age.
So music was always around and she was always playing classical music and then like Simon
and Garfunkel and The Beatles. So much of my early musical listening was Mozart, The
(02:05):
Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. And then as a composer, I guess it grew out of listening
and chasing this idea of, I don't like the sound I'm hearing, but I like this other sound.
And so I forget who said it. I think it was Sondheim or Stephen Schwartz. In one of the
(02:28):
musicals there's a line that's like the, you're chasing the thrill of inspiration. And that
really resonates with me. In band class, I played the French horn because my mother made
me and I would play different notes because I thought, Oh, wouldn't it be cool if I was
playing this note instead of that note or I didn't resolve the musical line and I held
(02:51):
on to the dissonant note, much to the anger of my band teacher who said, Matthew, can
you play what's on the page? And I said, well, I want to hear this other sound. And that's
what started the composition stream was finding sounds that I like to listen to and chasing
that. And then that led to exploring chords on the piano. And then what do you do when
(03:14):
you have, you know, five minutes of chords while you try to find a melody and then things
led sort of naturally and organically. But sometimes I tell the story that I started
out composing because I was bored. But the poetic answer is I was chasing that idea of
I really like this sound. What can I do with it? You know,
(03:36):
Do you really follow your creativity and imagination and just let it flow freely?
Totally. That's a great way to put it. Yeah.
Awesome. If you could describe your musical style in say five words, what would they be?
Yeah, yeah, style is another funny word. One would be accessible. I like music that's five
(04:00):
words. Okay. Accessible, illuminating, intriguing, contemplative, and idiomatic. I guess idiomatic
and accessible are sort of two sides of the same thing. But and maybe I'll qualify accessible
to me as a real ideal. Writing music that is moving and relevant that a beginning singer
(04:29):
might learn in grade 12 as they prepare for university to performers refining their voice,
say in their graduate studies to professionals at the Canadian Opera Company. Writing music
that all those singers can get something out of and it's still being in the same piece
is a real challenge and something that motivates me as a composer. That while the top, you
(04:55):
know, professional musicians are singing my music, so are those just starting out and
are learning what singing contemporary music might mean. We'll sing my music as well and
that really excites me as a creator. And contemplative? Contemplative. A lot of the music I write
has a tempo marking that's like within the heartbeat. It's not too slow. It's not too
(05:19):
fast. But composing is how I make sense of the world and I try to slow down in my life.
I'm talking fast right now. But I try to slow down and notice things. I try to look at things
that other people, you know, just, oh, there's some snow on the ground. But I might stop
(05:41):
today and really look at it and see how the sun is reflecting off it and how there's a
shadow cast on it or how my dog walks right through it and makes, you know, paw prints
in the snow. And so I think that act of noticing and being direct in what I'm trying to look
at brings about this contemplative sort of sound in much of the music that I write. Sometimes
(06:05):
I get a commission where they want me to write a fast piece that will open a concert. Hard
to write a contemplative piece there perhaps, but maybe not. But yeah, contemplative.
That's really interesting, especially those really tiny details that you wouldn't otherwise
notice unless you stopped and slowed down. What's an example of a piece where these little
(06:25):
details are heard maybe musically?
I have a piece for soprano saxophone and piano called Walk Safely Over Soft Places. It was
commissioned by Julia Nolan, who's a saxophone professor at UBC. And that was a piece where
it was about noticing sort of the mundane or the banal of every day and getting inspiration
(06:49):
from that. Yeah.
That's awesome. And are there any other pieces that you would recommend for a first time
listener sort of as an introduction to your work?
I have a new piece called From Dewy Dreams, My Soul Arise. And it was just released a
(07:10):
few months ago. It's on Spotify. It's from a choir in Ireland. And they commissioned
composers from all over the world and they had selected me as the Canadian representative.
So that's pretty cool. It was a real honour to be part of that project. And it's for choir
and saxophone, alto saxophone in this case. But that's a good introduction and it is contemplative,
(07:34):
I would say.
Awesome. Are there any composers or musical traditions, Canadian or otherwise, that inspire
your work?
The first composer that really changed my life was Arvo Pärt, Estonian composer, living.
I was taking lessons with a professor at the University of Western Ontario. I grew up in
(07:56):
London and I was writing some kind of a chord and this professor said, ah, you need to check
out Arvo Pärt. He does the same thing. And that night I listened and my life was never
the same. Arvo Pärt's music really opened my ears to what music could be and it could
sound like. That was a really cool moment. Canadian, Stephen Chapman, choral composer,
(08:25):
orchestral composer as well, but really inspired me as I was developing my voice. Jocelyn Moorlach,
I was fortunate to study with her for a term at UBC when I was there. And then composers
like Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland-Snyder, I was fortunate to spend a week with her.
(08:47):
Mizzy Mazzoli writes really cool string music. I'm showing my students now here at Laurier
writing for string orchestra. And then like tradition or style, I mean, anything goes.
I listen to everything. Anything I can get my ears on, I try to take influence in some
way or another from and eventually it'll work its way into my music, maybe.
(09:11):
Awesome. And as a composer who writes both choral and instrumental works, what unique
qualities do you find in writing for voice? Are the challenges in writing for voice different?
Yeah, well with voice, generally there's a poem. There doesn't have to be. Morten Feldman
has a piece I was teaching just this week that piano, violin, and voice, and there is
(09:36):
no text. So we don't need a poem. But for me, I usually start with a poem if I'm writing
for voice. And so that text will give me a lot of information. Sometimes it's things
I don't want to do. The text might suggest something and I purposely obfuscate that or
do the opposite. But so in writing for voice, the uniqueness is there's text and then what
(10:01):
we do. Do we betray the text? Do we uphold the text? That's this object that we're playing
with. With voice, writing for the voice, of course, it's a living, breathing instrument,
literally. And so voices, there's not a sameness that there is with a piano. For the most part,
most pianos have the same notes and we can do the same techniques. But with the voice,
(10:27):
it's harder. There are less sort of, there's less stability. There's no tenor that's the
same. There's no soprano that's the same. And what might work in one song for the singer
who commissioned this art song might not work for others. And so that can be a real thing
to work through as a composer. So that can be tough, but it's also the beauty in writing
(10:50):
for the voice. And I think writing for the voice takes great skill. We forget how important
it is to breathe and that singers are not violins that can bow endlessly. And it's taxing
to sing in the same register for a long time, whether that's high or low. Whereas, you know,
(11:11):
if you have an ostinato on a clarinet, so long as you give the clarinettist time to
breathe, they can sort of do that robotically, perhaps. They may not like it, but the singer,
if you ask the soprano to sing the same note for a minute straight, it becomes really challenging.
So there's all these intricacies with writing for the voice that is not present with writing
(11:32):
for instruments. That can be really beautiful. And how as a composer, you take that restriction
and find solutions to it. It's something that always interests me.
That's beautiful. And you've been described as someone who writes with an honesty, which
enchants. What does honesty and emotion in music mean to you? And how does it show up
(11:54):
in your music? I don't know, actually. I think that was a
nice description. And it's humbling to know that, yeah, somebody calls my music honest.
And my students know this, but I have a sign in my studio that says rule number one is
(12:17):
write music that you like from your heart. And perhaps that's honesty. Write music that
you as the composer believe in. Whatever style, whatever aesthetic, whatever pitch collection,
timbre, if it comes from your heart, somebody will hear that and that will translate across
the page. So maybe that's one answer to what is honest music and what is my honest music.
(12:46):
In my own writing, I try to, perhaps like Arvo Pärt in some pieces, get rid of things
that are unnecessary. I try to say things as clear as possible with as few pitches.
So sometimes I've been described as sparse or yeah, I try to get rid of things that I
don't need, which maybe is a cliche composer answer. I'm not sure, but if I don't need
(13:10):
it in the piece, I take it out and save it for another piece. Maybe that speaks to that
honesty. So it's this idea of very clean cut music.
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Switching gears now a little bit. If you could describe Canadian
music in three words, what would they be?
(13:32):
Canadian music in three words.
Where's three words that come to mind?
Relevant. Canadian music is relevant. Diverse, of course, in terms of the experience of the
listener, but also of style and aesthetic. And then borderless or boundaryless? Borderless.
(13:54):
Boundless?
Boundless. Yeah.
And in terms of this relevance, what do you think makes Canadian choral music then distinct
on the global stage?
That I don't have a great answer to. There is a real interest in Canadian choral composers
right now that I think is new. A lot of choirs are looking to Canada and Canadian composers.
(14:19):
I don't know if that's a political thing, if that's a looking to the north and this
exoticism of looking not to America or Europe. I mean, maybe it's because, of course, we're
writing great epic music for choirs. Or not, of course. That is the reason, obviously.
But yeah, I'm not sure. I know a lot of my composer colleagues are interested in setting
(14:44):
Canadian texts and Canadian texts by living poets in a lot of cases. And so there's a
relevancy there of writing music for today, by today, by living poets and composers, which
perhaps maybe is less common elsewhere. A lot of Canadian composers right now are exploring
(15:07):
different timbres, whether that's with small handheld percussions, body percussion, exploring
different timbres of exploiting the consonants in texts or evoking the sound of some other
thing through different manipulations of the voice. I don't do that too much, but most
(15:28):
of, not most, many of my composer friends are doing those explorations, which maybe
on the global stage is helping raise our Canadian choral awareness.
Having lived in so many places in Canada, throughout Canada, do you find you take inspiration
from Canadian landscapes or nature, for example?
(15:50):
Definitely nature is inspiring. And this idea of geography and place or placelessness is
always interesting to me as a composer. I'm always inspired by where I am, whether that's
in rural Ontario, where I grew up and I'm seeing endless cornfields and barns and silos
(16:12):
and that rural architecture. And we sort of see this attempt to live in harmony with nature,
but also there's a clear influence of humanity on the land through farming. But I also am
inspired equally by living right downtown Toronto and being put up and confronted literally
(16:32):
with the brutal concrete of the city and the long, you know, endless streets that meander.
And I find great inspiration in that. So yeah, definitely anywhere in Canada I've lived,
I've been inspired by. When I was in Vancouver, some of my titles were Vancouver-y, I'll say,
(16:56):
like the mist trapped in the trees. I remember distinctly living in Vancouver and the mist
looked like it was being caught in like the branches and it was almost like clouds or
something but of mist within the branches of the tree. I wrote, I forget the title now,
it was a really long title about the rain that was evaporating on the pavement and how
(17:21):
it gently goes from dark grey to light grey. And so nature was a key maybe influence in
the titles and the narrative inspiration when I was living out there. This idea of rain,
I had a lot of songs that dealt with rain in a positive way. I like the rain. And then
(17:42):
in Toronto, I was writing pieces at times inspired by buildings and so some titles of
pieces are the street, you know, addresses of buildings or the intersections or even
the material like steel and glass. I wrote a chamber work that was the title and so maybe
the urban influence of living right downtown in this big metropolis, it was inspiring that
(18:08):
way.
It sounds to me like your music is very observant and really aware of your environment, which
is so cool. Do you find that you come up with the titles before writing the piece or is
that something that comes when you're finished or somewhere in between? How does that process
work?
Hmm, it's a bit of both. Yeah, sometimes the title will come first as part of the inspiration
(18:34):
perhaps. But in the choral music and art song, usually the title is the last thing. And sometimes
it's a poem, it's a word of the poem. Sometimes it's a line from the poem. Sometimes it has
nothing to do with the poem at all.
But yeah, that's curious. In my chamber music, titles usually come first, maybe because there
(18:58):
is no poem. So I like that narrative aspect like Berlioz who would write these literary
texts but wasn't including the text in the music. I like something to shape as I'm thinking
about inspiration. But yeah, in pieces with poems, the title is usually the last thing
I pick.
(19:19):
Looking back at your career so far, what are some works or moments that you're especially
proud of?
I'm proud of a piece, well, yeah, so the composer answer is I like every piece that I write.
There's a piece called Lead Us Home that's for choir. And it was commissioned by the
National Youth Orchestra of Canada. And so at the end of every orchestral concert, they
(19:44):
typically sing two pieces, one in English and one in French. And so several years ago
now they commissioned me to write the English one. And they were going on a tour of the
UK and Germany, I think. And they wanted a piece that reminded them of home in some way.
And I found this Marjorie Pickthall poem, who was born in England and spent much of
(20:08):
her life in Toronto. And it was a poem that talks about how something, in this case music,
was the guide in times of strife, in times of celebration, in times of wandering. Music
can be this thing that links you, us, the orchestra together. And that work has gone
(20:31):
on to have a miraculous life. It's been performed in 18 countries all over the world. And so
that's becoming a really important piece that I'm proud of. The funny story with that is
I had about a week to write the commission. And it was one of these things where I got
(20:52):
the call and I went to my Pickthall poetry book and I just opened it right to that poem.
And it was just like, this is the poem. And I sat down and wrote the piece in about five
minutes. The time it takes to sing the piece, it just flowed perfectly and effortlessly.
And yeah, it's a piece that really has, yeah, I'm quite proud of that. As a professor, I'm
(21:21):
constantly inspired and proud of my students who now go on and have careers of their own
and are published and are getting commissions and having their own albums made. And I'm
so proud of my students and yeah, they inspire me. I get as much out of my lessons and interactions
with them as I hope they get from me and some of the mentorship I give them. But seeing
(21:45):
my students now be published by the same publisher as I am, it's a really nice feeling. And when
we share premieres at the same concert, it's really cool. And I remember when I had that
experience with my professor, Steven Chapman at UBC, it was like, wow, this is so cool.
And so things are coming full circle and I'm really proud of that as well.
(22:08):
That's so beautiful. And as an educator, what do you strive to instill in your students?
What do you believe is essential for aspiring composers to understand about the art and
the industry? Well, rule number one is write music that
you like from your heart. You know, once you've put the music out there, it's, I mean, you
(22:32):
can sort of take it off your website or, you know, but once it's out there, it's out there.
So share the music that you're proud of. And it's okay if that takes a year or two or four
to get there. We're all finding our voice and I write quite quickly and some composers
don't. They take very long time. Beethoven is that example where there's several versions
(22:57):
of pieces where you see Beethoven agonizing over should it be in an A natural or an A
flat or like we see his revisions where he's making very small changes, but it's a slow
process. For me, it's quite quickly. And so that for composers that, you know, how I compose
is not how you compose. You should compose what works for you.
(23:20):
The next thing I try to instill is make a community. Find people that want to perform
your music, find people that you want to write music for, and you'll create a community there
of support. And now, especially with the internet and zoom and like that can be anywhere in
(23:41):
the world. It doesn't have to be where you are right now. But writing music for people
that you know that will play it is a really big thing when you're starting out. It's,
I think the hardest part of composing is once you've written the music, getting it performed
and then of course, getting it performed second time can be even trickier. But in some ways,
(24:03):
writing the music is the easy part. It's how do you then get it played that can be quite
tricky. So yeah, write music that you like from your heart. And then number two, write
music that will be played hopefully by a community that you as the composer are part of.
That's amazing. And finally, Matthew, if there's one thing you hope people take away from hearing
(24:26):
your music, what would it be?
I hope that they're comforted in some way that it's a place that my music takes them
somewhere if only for a blink of an eye that somewhere better than where they are currently.
You know, not that they're in a bad place now, or they're looking for that, but that
(24:49):
when they listen to my music, they can think for a millisecond of the day, wow, okay. And
that's enough. It doesn't I like that. I don't like that. But that they listen to it really
deeply for even a moment. And to have that small impact on the listener and the audience.
That would be my goal.
That's absolutely lovely. Well, that brings us to the end of today's episode. So thank
(25:15):
you so much, Matthew, for sharing such beautiful pieces of your art and heart.
Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening.
Until next time, folks, keep listening for the notes of the North.
Hello and welcome to Notes of the North Talks, a series where we get to know our local Canadian
(00:11):
musical talent. Today I'm here with Dr. Matthew Emery. Thank you so much Matthew for joining
me today. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. To start us off, where is home for
you? Which part of Canada are you most connected to? Home is a funny thing and is something
(00:31):
that I like musically to explore. I mean currently home is Kitchener. Home was Ottawa for three
or four years. Home, I grew up in a small town outside of London, Ontario. But I also
have a strong connection to home in Vancouver. Vancouver is where I did my undergraduate
(00:56):
degree. It's where I left the security of my family and friends and moved away to university
and I really developed as a person and a composer in Vancouver. So yeah, there's lots of homes.
Wow, you've really been all throughout Canada then. Yeah. That's amazing. And how did your
(01:18):
love for music begin? What led you to become a composer? I always was listening to music.
My mother is a French horn player and she has lots of stories of me growing up or before
I was out in her womb, she would put headphones on and make me listen to Mozart while I was
(01:41):
still in there. And then she enrolled me in choir and Suzuki strings from an early age.
So music was always around and she was always playing classical music and then like Simon
and Garfunkel and The Beatles. So much of my early musical listening was Mozart, The
(02:05):
Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. And then as a composer, I guess it grew out of listening
and chasing this idea of, I don't like the sound I'm hearing, but I like this other sound.
And so I forget who said it. I think it was Sondheim or Stephen Schwartz. In one of the
(02:28):
musicals there's a line that's like the, you're chasing the thrill of inspiration. And that
really resonates with me. In band class, I played the French horn because my mother made
me and I would play different notes because I thought, Oh, wouldn't it be cool if I was
playing this note instead of that note or I didn't resolve the musical line and I held
(02:51):
on to the dissonant note, much to the anger of my band teacher who said, Matthew, can
you play what's on the page? And I said, well, I want to hear this other sound. And that's
what started the composition stream was finding sounds that I like to listen to and chasing
that. And then that led to exploring chords on the piano. And then what do you do when
(03:14):
you have, you know, five minutes of chords while you try to find a melody and then things
led sort of naturally and organically. But sometimes I tell the story that I started
out composing because I was bored. But the poetic answer is I was chasing that idea of
I really like this sound. What can I do with it? You know,
(03:36):
Do you really follow your creativity and imagination and just let it flow freely?
Totally. That's a great way to put it. Yeah.
Awesome. If you could describe your musical style in say five words, what would they be?
Yeah, yeah, style is another funny word. One would be accessible. I like music that's five
(04:00):
words. Okay. Accessible, illuminating, intriguing, contemplative, and idiomatic. I guess idiomatic
and accessible are sort of two sides of the same thing. But and maybe I'll qualify accessible
to me as a real ideal. Writing music that is moving and relevant that a beginning singer
(04:29):
might learn in grade 12 as they prepare for university to performers refining their voice,
say in their graduate studies to professionals at the Canadian Opera Company. Writing music
that all those singers can get something out of and it's still being in the same piece
is a real challenge and something that motivates me as a composer. That while the top, you
(04:55):
know, professional musicians are singing my music, so are those just starting out and
are learning what singing contemporary music might mean. We'll sing my music as well and
that really excites me as a creator. And contemplative? Contemplative. A lot of the music I write
has a tempo marking that's like within the heartbeat. It's not too slow. It's not too
(05:19):
fast. But composing is how I make sense of the world and I try to slow down in my life.
I'm talking fast right now. But I try to slow down and notice things. I try to look at things
that other people, you know, just, oh, there's some snow on the ground. But I might stop
(05:41):
today and really look at it and see how the sun is reflecting off it and how there's a
shadow cast on it or how my dog walks right through it and makes, you know, paw prints
in the snow. And so I think that act of noticing and being direct in what I'm trying to look
at brings about this contemplative sort of sound in much of the music that I write. Sometimes
(06:05):
I get a commission where they want me to write a fast piece that will open a concert. Hard
to write a contemplative piece there perhaps, but maybe not. But yeah, contemplative.
That's really interesting, especially those really tiny details that you wouldn't otherwise
notice unless you stopped and slowed down. What's an example of a piece where these little
(06:25):
details are heard maybe musically?
I have a piece for soprano saxophone and piano called Walk Safely Over Soft Places. It was
commissioned by Julia Nolan, who's a saxophone professor at UBC. And that was a piece where
it was about noticing sort of the mundane or the banal of every day and getting inspiration
(06:49):
from that. Yeah.
That's awesome. And are there any other pieces that you would recommend for a first time
listener sort of as an introduction to your work?
I have a new piece called From Dewy Dreams, My Soul Arise. And it was just released a
(07:10):
few months ago. It's on Spotify. It's from a choir in Ireland. And they commissioned
composers from all over the world and they had selected me as the Canadian representative.
So that's pretty cool. It was a real honour to be part of that project. And it's for choir
and saxophone, alto saxophone in this case. But that's a good introduction and it is contemplative,
(07:34):
I would say.
Awesome. Are there any composers or musical traditions, Canadian or otherwise, that inspire
your work?
The first composer that really changed my life was Arvo Pärt, Estonian composer, living.
I was taking lessons with a professor at the University of Western Ontario. I grew up in
(07:56):
London and I was writing some kind of a chord and this professor said, ah, you need to check
out Arvo Pärt. He does the same thing. And that night I listened and my life was never
the same. Arvo Pärt's music really opened my ears to what music could be and it could
sound like. That was a really cool moment. Canadian, Stephen Chapman, choral composer,
(08:25):
orchestral composer as well, but really inspired me as I was developing my voice. Jocelyn Moorlach,
I was fortunate to study with her for a term at UBC when I was there. And then composers
like Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland-Snyder, I was fortunate to spend a week with her.
(08:47):
Mizzy Mazzoli writes really cool string music. I'm showing my students now here at Laurier
writing for string orchestra. And then like tradition or style, I mean, anything goes.
I listen to everything. Anything I can get my ears on, I try to take influence in some
way or another from and eventually it'll work its way into my music, maybe.
(09:11):
Awesome. And as a composer who writes both choral and instrumental works, what unique
qualities do you find in writing for voice? Are the challenges in writing for voice different?
Yeah, well with voice, generally there's a poem. There doesn't have to be. Morten Feldman
has a piece I was teaching just this week that piano, violin, and voice, and there is
(09:36):
no text. So we don't need a poem. But for me, I usually start with a poem if I'm writing
for voice. And so that text will give me a lot of information. Sometimes it's things
I don't want to do. The text might suggest something and I purposely obfuscate that or
do the opposite. But so in writing for voice, the uniqueness is there's text and then what
(10:01):
we do. Do we betray the text? Do we uphold the text? That's this object that we're playing
with. With voice, writing for the voice, of course, it's a living, breathing instrument,
literally. And so voices, there's not a sameness that there is with a piano. For the most part,
most pianos have the same notes and we can do the same techniques. But with the voice,
(10:27):
it's harder. There are less sort of, there's less stability. There's no tenor that's the
same. There's no soprano that's the same. And what might work in one song for the singer
who commissioned this art song might not work for others. And so that can be a real thing
to work through as a composer. So that can be tough, but it's also the beauty in writing
(10:50):
for the voice. And I think writing for the voice takes great skill. We forget how important
it is to breathe and that singers are not violins that can bow endlessly. And it's taxing
to sing in the same register for a long time, whether that's high or low. Whereas, you know,
(11:11):
if you have an ostinato on a clarinet, so long as you give the clarinettist time to
breathe, they can sort of do that robotically, perhaps. They may not like it, but the singer,
if you ask the soprano to sing the same note for a minute straight, it becomes really challenging.
So there's all these intricacies with writing for the voice that is not present with writing
(11:32):
for instruments. That can be really beautiful. And how as a composer, you take that restriction
and find solutions to it. It's something that always interests me.
That's beautiful. And you've been described as someone who writes with an honesty, which
enchants. What does honesty and emotion in music mean to you? And how does it show up
(11:54):
in your music? I don't know, actually. I think that was a
nice description. And it's humbling to know that, yeah, somebody calls my music honest.
And my students know this, but I have a sign in my studio that says rule number one is
(12:17):
write music that you like from your heart. And perhaps that's honesty. Write music that
you as the composer believe in. Whatever style, whatever aesthetic, whatever pitch collection,
timbre, if it comes from your heart, somebody will hear that and that will translate across
the page. So maybe that's one answer to what is honest music and what is my honest music.
(12:46):
In my own writing, I try to, perhaps like Arvo Pärt in some pieces, get rid of things
that are unnecessary. I try to say things as clear as possible with as few pitches.
So sometimes I've been described as sparse or yeah, I try to get rid of things that I
don't need, which maybe is a cliche composer answer. I'm not sure, but if I don't need
(13:10):
it in the piece, I take it out and save it for another piece. Maybe that speaks to that
honesty. So it's this idea of very clean cut music.
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Switching gears now a little bit. If you could describe Canadian
music in three words, what would they be?
(13:32):
Canadian music in three words.
Where's three words that come to mind?
Relevant. Canadian music is relevant. Diverse, of course, in terms of the experience of the
listener, but also of style and aesthetic. And then borderless or boundaryless? Borderless.
(13:54):
Boundless?
Boundless. Yeah.
And in terms of this relevance, what do you think makes Canadian choral music then distinct
on the global stage?
That I don't have a great answer to. There is a real interest in Canadian choral composers
right now that I think is new. A lot of choirs are looking to Canada and Canadian composers.
(14:19):
I don't know if that's a political thing, if that's a looking to the north and this
exoticism of looking not to America or Europe. I mean, maybe it's because, of course, we're
writing great epic music for choirs. Or not, of course. That is the reason, obviously.
But yeah, I'm not sure. I know a lot of my composer colleagues are interested in setting
(14:44):
Canadian texts and Canadian texts by living poets in a lot of cases. And so there's a
relevancy there of writing music for today, by today, by living poets and composers, which
perhaps maybe is less common elsewhere. A lot of Canadian composers right now are exploring
(15:07):
different timbres, whether that's with small handheld percussions, body percussion, exploring
different timbres of exploiting the consonants in texts or evoking the sound of some other
thing through different manipulations of the voice. I don't do that too much, but most
(15:28):
of, not most, many of my composer friends are doing those explorations, which maybe
on the global stage is helping raise our Canadian choral awareness.
Having lived in so many places in Canada, throughout Canada, do you find you take inspiration
from Canadian landscapes or nature, for example?
(15:50):
Definitely nature is inspiring. And this idea of geography and place or placelessness is
always interesting to me as a composer. I'm always inspired by where I am, whether that's
in rural Ontario, where I grew up and I'm seeing endless cornfields and barns and silos
(16:12):
and that rural architecture. And we sort of see this attempt to live in harmony with nature,
but also there's a clear influence of humanity on the land through farming. But I also am
inspired equally by living right downtown Toronto and being put up and confronted literally
(16:32):
with the brutal concrete of the city and the long, you know, endless streets that meander.
And I find great inspiration in that. So yeah, definitely anywhere in Canada I've lived,
I've been inspired by. When I was in Vancouver, some of my titles were Vancouver-y, I'll say,
(16:56):
like the mist trapped in the trees. I remember distinctly living in Vancouver and the mist
looked like it was being caught in like the branches and it was almost like clouds or
something but of mist within the branches of the tree. I wrote, I forget the title now,
it was a really long title about the rain that was evaporating on the pavement and how
(17:21):
it gently goes from dark grey to light grey. And so nature was a key maybe influence in
the titles and the narrative inspiration when I was living out there. This idea of rain,
I had a lot of songs that dealt with rain in a positive way. I like the rain. And then
(17:42):
in Toronto, I was writing pieces at times inspired by buildings and so some titles of
pieces are the street, you know, addresses of buildings or the intersections or even
the material like steel and glass. I wrote a chamber work that was the title and so maybe
the urban influence of living right downtown in this big metropolis, it was inspiring that
(18:08):
way.
It sounds to me like your music is very observant and really aware of your environment, which
is so cool. Do you find that you come up with the titles before writing the piece or is
that something that comes when you're finished or somewhere in between? How does that process
work?
Hmm, it's a bit of both. Yeah, sometimes the title will come first as part of the inspiration
(18:34):
perhaps. But in the choral music and art song, usually the title is the last thing. And sometimes
it's a poem, it's a word of the poem. Sometimes it's a line from the poem. Sometimes it has
nothing to do with the poem at all.
But yeah, that's curious. In my chamber music, titles usually come first, maybe because there
(18:58):
is no poem. So I like that narrative aspect like Berlioz who would write these literary
texts but wasn't including the text in the music. I like something to shape as I'm thinking
about inspiration. But yeah, in pieces with poems, the title is usually the last thing
I pick.
(19:19):
Looking back at your career so far, what are some works or moments that you're especially
proud of?
I'm proud of a piece, well, yeah, so the composer answer is I like every piece that I write.
There's a piece called Lead Us Home that's for choir. And it was commissioned by the
National Youth Orchestra of Canada. And so at the end of every orchestral concert, they
(19:44):
typically sing two pieces, one in English and one in French. And so several years ago
now they commissioned me to write the English one. And they were going on a tour of the
UK and Germany, I think. And they wanted a piece that reminded them of home in some way.
And I found this Marjorie Pickthall poem, who was born in England and spent much of
(20:08):
her life in Toronto. And it was a poem that talks about how something, in this case music,
was the guide in times of strife, in times of celebration, in times of wandering. Music
can be this thing that links you, us, the orchestra together. And that work has gone
(20:31):
on to have a miraculous life. It's been performed in 18 countries all over the world. And so
that's becoming a really important piece that I'm proud of. The funny story with that is
I had about a week to write the commission. And it was one of these things where I got
(20:52):
the call and I went to my Pickthall poetry book and I just opened it right to that poem.
And it was just like, this is the poem. And I sat down and wrote the piece in about five
minutes. The time it takes to sing the piece, it just flowed perfectly and effortlessly.
And yeah, it's a piece that really has, yeah, I'm quite proud of that. As a professor, I'm
(21:21):
constantly inspired and proud of my students who now go on and have careers of their own
and are published and are getting commissions and having their own albums made. And I'm
so proud of my students and yeah, they inspire me. I get as much out of my lessons and interactions
with them as I hope they get from me and some of the mentorship I give them. But seeing
(21:45):
my students now be published by the same publisher as I am, it's a really nice feeling. And when
we share premieres at the same concert, it's really cool. And I remember when I had that
experience with my professor, Steven Chapman at UBC, it was like, wow, this is so cool.
And so things are coming full circle and I'm really proud of that as well.
(22:08):
That's so beautiful. And as an educator, what do you strive to instill in your students?
What do you believe is essential for aspiring composers to understand about the art and
the industry? Well, rule number one is write music that
you like from your heart. You know, once you've put the music out there, it's, I mean, you
(22:32):
can sort of take it off your website or, you know, but once it's out there, it's out there.
So share the music that you're proud of. And it's okay if that takes a year or two or four
to get there. We're all finding our voice and I write quite quickly and some composers
don't. They take very long time. Beethoven is that example where there's several versions
(22:57):
of pieces where you see Beethoven agonizing over should it be in an A natural or an A
flat or like we see his revisions where he's making very small changes, but it's a slow
process. For me, it's quite quickly. And so that for composers that, you know, how I compose
is not how you compose. You should compose what works for you.
(23:20):
The next thing I try to instill is make a community. Find people that want to perform
your music, find people that you want to write music for, and you'll create a community there
of support. And now, especially with the internet and zoom and like that can be anywhere in
(23:41):
the world. It doesn't have to be where you are right now. But writing music for people
that you know that will play it is a really big thing when you're starting out. It's,
I think the hardest part of composing is once you've written the music, getting it performed
and then of course, getting it performed second time can be even trickier. But in some ways,
(24:03):
writing the music is the easy part. It's how do you then get it played that can be quite
tricky. So yeah, write music that you like from your heart. And then number two, write
music that will be played hopefully by a community that you as the composer are part of.
That's amazing. And finally, Matthew, if there's one thing you hope people take away from hearing
(24:26):
your music, what would it be?
I hope that they're comforted in some way that it's a place that my music takes them
somewhere if only for a blink of an eye that somewhere better than where they are currently.
You know, not that they're in a bad place now, or they're looking for that, but that
(24:49):
when they listen to my music, they can think for a millisecond of the day, wow, okay. And
that's enough. It doesn't I like that. I don't like that. But that they listen to it really
deeply for even a moment. And to have that small impact on the listener and the audience.
That would be my goal.
That's absolutely lovely. Well, that brings us to the end of today's episode. So thank
(25:15):
you so much, Matthew, for sharing such beautiful pieces of your art and heart.
Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening.
Until next time, folks, keep listening for the notes of the North.
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