Podcast appearances and mentions of mark swed

How has the classical music industry approached representation and how has the new music community forged new paths to embrace diverse musics? On tonight's episode of Obbligato on APEX Express, Isabel Li is joined by violinist Shalini Vijayan, who discusses her vibrant career and reflects upon the ways contemporary classical music can build community.  Violinist Shalini Vijayan, deemed “a vibrant violinist” by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times is an established performer and collaborator on both coasts. Always an advocate for modern music, Shalini was a founding member and Principal Second Violin of Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble, having recorded several albums with them including 2001 Grammy nominee, Absolution. Shalini was also a founding member of the Lyris Quartet, one of Los Angeles' most beloved chamber ensembles. With Lyris, she has performed regularly at Walt Disney Concert Hall on the Green Umbrella series, for Jacaranda Music and helped to found the Hear Now Music Festival in Venice, California, a festival dedicated to the music of living composers in Los Angeles.  Shalini performed for over a decade with Southwest Chamber Music and can be heard on their Grammy nominated Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Chávez, Vol. 3. She has been a featured soloist with the Los Angeles Master Chorale in Chinary Ung's Spiral XII and Tan Dun's Water Passion, including performances at the Ravinia Festival. As a chamber musician, Shalini has collaborated with such luminaries as Billy Childs, Chinary Ung, Gabriela Ortiz, and Wadada Leo Smith on whose Ten Freedom Summers she was a soloist. Shalini joined acclaimed LA ensemble, Brightwork New Music in 2019 and also serves as the curator for Brightwork's Tuesdays@Monkspace series, a home for contemporary music and performance in Los Angeles. As a teacher, she has been on the faculty of the Nirmita Composers Workshop in both Siem Reap and Bangkok and coaches composition students through the Impulse New Music Festival.  Shalini received her B.M. and M.M. degrees from Manhattan School of Music as a student of Lucie Robert and Ariana Bronne. As a member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, Shalini served as concertmaster for Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams, Reinbert de Leeuw and Oliver Knussen. She was also concertmaster for the world premiere performances and recording of Steven Mackey's Tuck and Roll for RCA records in 2000. Shalini was a member of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra for ten seasons and also served as Principal Second Violin of Opera Pacific. She lives in Los Angeles with her son, husband and two dogs and spends her free time cooking Indian food and exploring the culinary landscape of Southern California.  Check out more of her work at:  https://brightworknewmusic.com/tuesdays-at-monk-space/  https://www.lyrisquartet.com/    Transcript  Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the APEX Express.    00:01:03 Isabel Li  You're listening to Obbligato, which is a segment about the Asian American Pacific Islander community, specifically in classical music.  00:01:11 Isabel Li  I'm your host, Isabel Li, and today joining me is Shalini Vijayan, who is a violinist, established performer, and always an advocate for modern music.  00:01:21 Isabel Li  Shalini is also a founding member of the Lyris Quartet, one of Los Angeles most beloved chamber ensembles. With Lyris, she has performed regularly at Walt Disney Concert Hall on the Green Umbrella series for Jacaranda Music, and helped to found the Here and Now Music Festival in Venice, California, a festival dedicated to the music of living composers in Los Angeles. She joined acclaimed LA ensemble Brightwork New Music in 2019, and also serves as the curator for Brightwork's Tuesdays at Monk Space series. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her son, husband and two dogs, and spends her free time cooking Indian food and exploring the culinary landscape of Southern California.  00:02:04 Isabel Li  Well, Shalini, thank you so much for joining me in this conversation today.  00:02:09 Shalini Vijayan  I'm so happy to be with you.  00:02:11 Isabel Li  Awesome. I'd like to just get to know you and your story. How do you identify and what communities do you consider yourself a part of?  00:02:18 Shalini Vijayan  I use the pronouns she, her, and I. Um, I identify as South Asian. I grew up in an Indian family. My parents immigrated to the US in the sixties to teach at medical school. And I grew up with a great deal of Indian culture. And I've spent a lot of time going back and forth to India from the time that I was very young. You know, it's interesting because I feel like in LA, where I live and work specifically, there is so much overlap between all of our different musical communities. You know, I went to school in New York, and I feel like there I was much more, I'm very connected to the new music community in New York and felt really kind of entrenched in that at the time I was there. And after coming to LA, I realized that, um, there are a lot of musicians doing so many different things. That's one of the things I love about Los Angeles, actually. And, you know, I'm definitely very, very rooted in the new music community in LA. And that was where I made my first sort of connections when I first moved to Los Angeles. But I also, you know, worked in an orchestra when I first came to LA. I played in the Pacific Symphony for almost ten seasons, and so I became a part of that community as well. And you know, as the years went on, I also became much more involved in the studio music community of LA studio musicians playing on movie scores, playing on television shows, records, what have you, Awards shows, all sorts of things. And these are all very distinct communities in LA in music. But I see a ton of overlap between all of them. There are so many incredibly versatile musicians in Los Angeles that people are able to really very easily move from one of these groups to the other and, you know, with a great deal of success. And I feel like it gives us so much variety in our lives as musicians in LA, you don't feel like you're ever just in one lane. You can really occupy all these different kinds of spaces.  00:04:23 Isabel Li  Right, yeah. So you're classically trained, from what I know, and you describe yourself as an advocate for modern music. So why modern music?  00:04:33 Shalini Vijayan  That's a great question. I have have had to answer this question quite a bit over the years, especially to non-musicians. And it's always an interesting story for me. You know, as a violinist in particular, you know, we have such a storied history of repertoire and pedagogy, and there is such an incredible, um, library of music that we have access to from the very standard classical repertoire. And there is a great deal to be learned about the instrument and about music from playing all that repertoire. I think at some point when I was in high school, I started to become interested in more modern music. And actually I grew up in Davis in Northern California.   My parents both taught at the university there, at the medical school and in Sacramento. Nearby there was a festival of modern American music that I think still goes on to this day at Cal State University, Sacramento. And it was really a great festival. And at that time, you know, they would bring professional artists, they'd have composers, they'd have commissions, all sorts of things. But at the time that I was like in high school, they also had a junior division to the festival, and I was asked to play a couple pieces in the Festival of, um, Modern Works, and I can't remember at this time what the pieces were, but it left such a huge impression on me. And I think what I really took away from that experience as a kid is that in my studies as a violinist, I was always being asked to sort of live up to this history and this legacy of violin music and violin playing in Western classical music. And it's a very high bar. And it's, um, you know, of course, there's so much great stuff there. But there was something so freeing about playing this music that had either never been played or not been recorded. So there was nothing to reference in terms of listening to a recording, um, and listening to how you, you know, quote, should be playing it that it made me feel, uh, you know, all this, this freedom to really interpret the music, how I felt, rather than feeling like I had to live up to a standard that had been set for me, you know, decades or centuries before. And I think that really something really clicked for me with that, that I wanted to have that kind of freedom when I, when I was playing. And so from there on out, um, you know, when I went to college and I really sought out opportunities in new music as much as I could.  00:07:00 Isabel Li  So you were first exposed to new music when you were in high school. Did that influence your decision to become a musician at all? Or were you already set on becoming a musician and that was just part of what shaped your works over the years.  00:07:15 Shalini Vijayan  I think by that time, I had already decided that I wanted to be a musician. I mean, as you know, so many of us as musicians and I think particularly string players, we decide so young because we start our instruments at such a young age and we start studying so early. Um, that I think by that time I, I had decided I wanted to do music, but this sort of opened another door for me that made me realize that it wasn't just one path in music necessarily. I think it's very easy as a, as a kid and as a violinist to think you admire these great soloists that you see and, you know, people like Perlman and, you know, Isaac Stern, who were the stars of the time when I was growing up. But, you know, you get to be in high school and you realize that hasn't happened yet. It's probably not going to happen. And so, you know, what's then then what's your path forward? How do you find a life in music if you're not going to be one of these stars? And I think, you know, new music really opened up that opportunity for me. And yeah, made me look at things a little differently for sure.  00:08:18 Isabel Li  And currently you're in the contemporary classical music ensemble, Brightwork newmusic, and you curate the ensemble's concert series, Tuesdays @ Monk Space. So how do you go about curating concerts with music by contemporary or living composers? What do you look for?  00:08:33 Shalini Vijayan  Well, right now I'm really focused on trying to represent our new music community in LA at Monk Space, which is such, you know, we have such a diverse community of musicians, not just in the makeup of who the people are making the music or writing the music, but also in just the styles of music. And so I think I try to really represent a very diverse set of aesthetics in our season. Um, you know, everything from, you know, last season we had, uh, Niloufar Shiri, who is a traditional Persian kamancheh player, but she also she can play very in a very traditional way, but she also plays with a jazz pianist. And, you know, it does all this very improvisatory stuff. And, you know, then we would have other programs where everything is very much written out and very through, composed and you know, it's been a very wide variety. And, you know, when I try to build the season, I try to make sure that it's really balanced in terms of, you know, the different types of things you'll be hearing because not every audience member is going to want to engage with every type of music. Um, or, you know, if we if we really stuck to one style and it was just in that language for the whole season, then I feel like we would, you know, alienate potential audience members. But with this, I feel like if we can bring people in for one concert and they're really into it, then hopefully they'll come to something else that is new and different for them and be exposed to something that they may really get into after that. So yeah, I think diversity and variety is really where I try to start from.  00:10:09 Isabel Li  How does that engage the community? Have you observed audience reception to this type of new music when there are composers from all different types of backgrounds?  00:10:20 Shalini Vijayan  Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that each composer and each artist brings their own community into the space, which and so that's another. I feel like another strong reason why I try to make things very different from concert to concert. And, you know, we have some younger players who come in and bring in, you know, everyone from college students to, you know, their friends and family. And then, you know, really established composers. Like this season we have Bill Roper, who is kind of a legend in the music community in LA. Mult instrumentalist and composer who has been around for decades. And, you know, I think people will come out just because they want to see him and he's such a draw. And, um, you know, I, I also would love to be able to incorporate more world music into the series. Like I said, we did do Niloufar concert, which I felt like I really hoped would like engage with the Persian community in LA as well. And a couple seasons ago we had Rajna Swaminathan, who is, I just think, an incredible artist. Um, she plays mridangam, which is a South Indian percussion instrument, but she also writes for Western instruments, uh, and herself. And we had her and a pianist and then Ganavya, who's a vocalist who's amazing. And, you know, Ganavya had her own following. So we had and Rajna has her own following. So we had a whole full audience that night of people who I had never seen in the space before. And that was for me. That's a success because we're bringing in new friends and new engagement. And, um, I was really excited about that. When I'm able to make those kinds of connections with new people, then that feels like a success to me.  00:12:05 Isabel Li  Certainly.  00:12:06 Isabel Li  Let's hear one of Shalini's performances. This is an excerpt from the 10th of William Kraft's “Encounters”, a duologue for violin and marimba, performed here by Shalini Vijayan with Southwest Chamber Music.  00:12:20 [MUSIC – Encounters X: Duologue for Violin & Marimba]  00:17:18 Isabel Li  An excerpt from William Kraft's Encounters, the 10th of which is called Duologue for Violin and Marimba, that was performed by Shalini Vijayan, the violinist, with Southwest Chamber Music.  00:17:31 Isabel Li  And Shalini is here with me in conversation today. We've been discussing contemporary music and her involvement in the new music scene, specifically in Los Angeles.  00:17:40 Isabel Li  Music is all about community, drawing people together. So going back to how you describe yourself as an advocate for modern music, what are other ways that you have advocated for modern music besides curating the concert series?  00:17:53 Shalini Vijayan  Well, over the years, um, you know, I feel like in all the ensembles I've been in, there's been a real focus on commissioning composers and on performing works that have not been, uh, either performed or recorded before. And I feel like the only way to really get the music out there is to, obviously, is to play it and hopefully to be able to record it. We've worked especially with the lyrics quartet. We've worked with so many young composers in LA either just strictly, you know, contemporary classical composers or even film composers who, um, have works that they'd like to have recorded. And, you know, it's been great to see a lot of those people go on to really amazing things and to be a part of their journey, uh, and to help support them. And, uh, the other thing that the quartet has been heavily involved in and now Bright Work Ensemble has been involved in as well, is the Here Now music festival, which has been going on in LA for well over a decade now. We were involved in the first, um, seasons of that festival. We've been one of the resident ensembles since the very beginning, and that festival is dedicated to the music of LA and Southern California composers. And, um, we have a call for scores every year that we, the four of us in the quartet, are part of the panel that reviews all the scores, along with a lot of our other colleagues, um, who are involved with the festival, and Hugh Levick, who is the artistic director of the festival and has we've worked side by side with him on this for a very long time. And that's also been a fantastic avenue for, um, meeting new composers, hearing new works, having them performed. And the thing I always say about that festival every time it comes around, usually in the spring we have at least three concerts. It's this incredible coming together of the new music community in Southern California, where all these great composers and all these amazing players come together and play these series of concerts, because there's such a vast number of pieces that end up getting programmed. They can't rely on just like one group or one or two groups to play them. So it really pulls in a lot of players from all over town. And I don't know, it always just feels like a really fun time, a fun weekend for all of us to see each other and connect. And, um, and again, just build our community to be even stronger.  00:20:20 Isabel Li  That's really cool. How do you ignite interest in new music? Because this is a genre that I think is slightly underrepresented or just underrepresented in general in both the classical music community and the music industry as a whole.  00:20:35 Shalini Vijayan  That's a great question, and I think it's a really important question for our whole industry and community. How do you engage people in new music and get them into a concert? Um, you know, I think one of the biggest hurdles for classical music in general, I will say, um, when I talk to people about why they don't want to come to a concert or why they don't want to, you know, let's say, go see the LA Phil or, you know, wherever, whatever city they're in, the major cultural music institution. I think there is a misconception generally that, oh, it's, you know, I have to be dressed a certain way or I it's going to be really stuffy. And, um, I, you know, I don't know what to wear or I don't know how I'm supposed to dress or how I'm supposed to act when I'm in the concert. Am I going to clap at the wrong time? You know, is it going to be really long? And, you know, and I and I get it, you know, I mean, I understand why that would be uncomfortable for a lot of people.   And it's not, um, it's something that necessarily everyone has grown up with or that it's been a part of their life. So I think it's really up to us, as you know, when we're on the side of programming concerts or putting together festivals or whatever, um, that we make things more accessible in terms of, um, concert length and interaction with audience. And, um, you know, I think it's I know I've been told so many times and I really think it's important that I think audiences love it when performers talk to them, when they talk about the music and, and set things up for a listener. I think that puts a kind of context on things that makes it so much easier for perhaps a new audience member, someone who's never come to a concert before to feel at ease and feel like, okay, I know what I'm getting into.   One of our, actually our former executive director at Brightwork, Sarah Wass, who was fantastic, and I was very happy to work with when I was just starting out programming, Monk Space had the idea of putting on the program the running time of the pieces, and I think even that is just something that, like, can prepare people for what they're getting into when they're about to listen to something new. And in terms of the music itself, I think that if someone, especially a younger person, doesn't feel like they have any connection to Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart, they might actually feel more connected to someone who is their age or a little older.   Someone who has had similar life experiences to them, or grown up in the same era as them, rather than someone who grew up, you know, in the seventeen hundreds. You know, there can be more of a real connection there, and that that person is writing this music and reflection of their life and their experiences. And, um, you know, again, I think that kind of context is important for a listener. And yeah. And then just lastly, I would say also, I feel like our space at Monk space is very inviting. It's very low key. It's, um, you know, it's casual, it's comfortable. Role. Um, we have, you know, snacks and a bar and, you know, everyone is very relaxed at intermission and has a good time. And I mean, for me, every time we host one of those concerts, I feel like I'm hosting a little party, you know? That's what it feels like for me. And that's what I want it to feel like for the audience as well.  00:23:52 Isabel Li  That brings up a really good point in that new music can make classical music or a new classical music, contemporary music, more accessible to different audiences. And certainly I've definitely heard the complaint from people over the years about classical music being a little too uptight. Would you say that these are two different genres?  00:24:11 Shalini Vijayan  I think that there is overlap, and I think, you know, for an ensemble like ours, like Brightwork, we have chosen to make our focus new music. So that's our thing. That's what we do. Um, and, uh, all of our concerts and our programming reflect that. Very rarely do we do anything that's not considered a contemporary piece. Um, but, you know, if you do look at some of our major institutions, like I think the LA Phil and I think the San Francisco Symphony, um, earlier, you know, like in the nineties under MTT, really started to pave the way for incorporating contemporary music into a standard classical format. And, you know, I think that's been very important. And I think it's really changed the way that orchestras have programmed across the country. And there has been such a nurturing of contemporary music in larger spaces. Now that I think that kind of overlap has started to happen much more frequently. I think that in more conservative settings, sometimes there's pushback against that. And even even, you know, in some of the places that I play, you know, sometimes with with the lyrics quartet, um, we are asked to just purely program standard classical repertoire, and we will occasionally throw in a little short piece, you know, just to try and put something in there, you know, something that's very accessible. Um, and, uh, you know that we know the audience will like so that we can help them, you know, kind of get over that fear of connecting to a newer piece. And I, I think in some ways, that's where the path forward lies, is that we have to integrate those things, you know, in order to keep kind of the old traditions of classical music alive. I think we have to keep the newer tradition alive as well, and find a way to put them in the same space.  00:26:00 Isabel Li  I certainly agree with that.  00:26:01 Isabel Li  Let's hear more of Shalini's work in new music. This is a performance of the first movement of Atlas Pumas by Gabriela Ortiz. Violinist Shalini Vijayan is joined by percussionist Lynn Vartan.  00:26:18 [MUSIC – Atlas Pumas, mvt 1 by Gabriela Ortiz]  00:29:21 Isabel Li  The first movement of Gabriela Ortiz's Atlas Pumas played here by violinist Shalini Vijian, and Lynn Vartan plays the marimba.  00:29:30 Isabel Li  And Shalini is actually joining us here for a conversation about new music, performances, identity, and representation.  00:29:38 Isabel Li  Many Asian American Pacific Islander artists in music have varying relationships between their art and their identity. I was wondering, to what extent do you feel that perhaps your South Asian identity intersects or influences the work that you do with music?  00:29:54 Shalini Vijayan  Growing up, um, you know, I grew up in a in a university town in Northern California and, you know, a lot of highly educated and, you know, kids of professors and, you know, but still not the most terribly diverse place. And then going into classical music. And this was, you know, in the early nineties when I went to college, um, it still was not a particularly it was very much not a diverse place at all. And, um, there certainly were a lot of Asian students at, um, Manhattan School of Music where I did my my studies.   But I would say it was a solid decade before I was ever in any sort of classical music situation where there was another South Asian musician. I very, very rarely met any South Asian musicians, and it wasn't until I went to the New World Symphony in the early late nineties, early two thousand, and I was a musician there. I was a fellow in that program there for three years that I walked into the first rehearsal, and there were three other South Asian, I think, of Indian descent musicians in the orchestra, and I was absolutely blown away because I literally had not, um, other than here and there at some festivals, I had not met any other South Asian classical musicians.   So it was really like that was the hallmark moment for me. It was a really big deal. And coming with my family, coming from India, you know, there is such a strong tradition of Indian classical music, of Carnatic music and Hindustani music. And, um, it's such a long, long tradition. And, you know, the people who have studied it and lived with it are, you know, they study it their whole lives to be proficient in it. And it's such an incredible, incredible art form and something that I admire so much. And I did as a kid. Take a few lessons here and there. I took some Carnatic singing lessons, um, and a little bit of tabla lessons when I was very young. Um, but I think somewhere in middle school or high school, I kind of realized that it was, for me at least, I wasn't, um, able to put enough time into both because both of them, you know, playing the violin in a Western classical style and then studying Indian classical music require a tremendous amount of effort and a tremendous amount of study. And I at that point chose to go with Western classical music, because that's what I'd been doing since I was five years old. But there has always kind of been this longing for me to be more connected to Indian classical music. Um, I'll go back again to Rajna. When I presented Rajna Swaminathan on Monk Space a couple of years ago, it was a really meaningful thing for me, because that's kind of what I'd always wanted to see was a joining together of that tradition, the Indian tradition with the Western tradition. And, um, I'm so happy that I'm starting to see that more and more with a lot of the artists that are coming up now. But at the time when I was young, it just it felt almost insurmountable that to to find a way to bring the two together. And, um, I remember very clearly as a kid listening to this, um, there was an album that Philip Glass did with Ravi Shankar, and I thought that was so cool at the time. And I used to listen to it over and over again because I just again, I was so amazed that these things could come together and in a, in a kind of successful way. Um, but yeah, there is, you know, there there's a part of me that would still love to go back and explore that more that, that side of it. Um, and but I will say also, I'm very happy now to see a lot more South Asian faces when I, you know, go to concerts on stage and in the audience. And, you know, a lot of composers that I've worked with now, um, of South Asian descent, it's been, you know, I've worked with Reena Esmail and Anuj Bhutani and Rajna and, um, there's so many more, and I'm so glad to see how they're all incorporating their connection to their culture to, to this, you know, Western kind of format of classical music. And they're all doing it in different ways. And it's it's really amazing.  00:34:22 Isabel Li  That's fantastic.  00:34:24 Isabel Li  I was wondering if you could maybe describe what this merging or combination of different styles entails. Do you think this makes it more accessible to audiences of two different cultures?  00:34:36 Shalini Vijayan  For me, one example, before I started running the series at Tuesdays at Monk Space, Aron Kallay, who is our Bright Work artistic director, had asked me to come and do a solo show on Monk Space, which I did in November of 2019.  00:34:52 Shalini Vijayan  And at the time, I wanted to commission a piece that did exactly that, that, that, um, involved some sort of Indian classical instrument or kind of the language of Indian classical music. And so I actually did reach out to Reena Esmail, and she wrote me a very cool piece called blaze that was for tabla and violin. Um, and I really had so much fun doing that. And Reena, Reena really has a very fluid way of writing for the violin, which she actually was a violinist, too. So she's she's really good at doing that. But being able to write for any melodic instrument or for the voice, which she does quite a bit as well, and incorporating sort of the tonality of Indian classical music, which obviously has its own scales and, um, has its own harmonic, harmonic world that is different from the Western world, um, but finds a way to translate that into the written note notation that we require as, uh, Western classical musicians. And, you know, I think that's the biggest gap to bridge, is that in Indian classical music, nothing is notated. Everything is handed down in an oral tradition, um, over the generations. And for us, everything is notated. And in Indian classical music, you know, there's much more improvisation. And now, of course, with modern classical music, there now is a lot more improvisation involved. But in our old standard tradition, obviously there isn't. And in the way that we're trained, mostly we're not trained to be improvisers. And um, so it's it was great. She has a great way of writing so that it kind of sounds like things are being tossed off and sounding sounds like they're being improvised, but they are actually fully notated, um, which I really appreciated.  00:36:50 Isabel Li  Yeah.  00:36:51 Isabel Li  So your career has spanned orchestras, recording ensembles, chamber music. Having had so much experience in these types of performance, what does representation in classical music mean to you?  00:37:04 Shalini Vijayan  Well, representation is is very important because we're talking about a tradition that was built on white men from centuries ago, European white men. And and it's again, it's an incredible tradition and there's so much great repertoire. But I'm going to circle back to what you were saying or what you asked me about connecting to audiences and, you know, connecting to audiences with new music. It's I think people like to see themselves reflected in the art that they choose. They choose to consume. And, you know, whether that's movies or television or music, I think that's how you connect with your audience is by being a bit of a mirror.  I think the only way that we can really continue to connect with a diverse audience is by having that type of diverse representation on our stages and on our recordings. And again, also not just the people, but the types of music, too. You know, musical tastes run wide, genres run wide as well. And it's I think It's good for all of us to be exposed to a lot of different kinds of music, to figure out what we connect with the most. And, um, yeah, the only way we can do that is by really, you know, opening our arms to a, a much wider variety of styles of music. And so I, you know, I mentioned improvisation, improvisation earlier. And I think that is something that's now starting to happen so much more in modern classical music. And, you know, I think there's something about the energy that a player has when they're improvising that is maybe not something that an audience member could quantify verbally, but there's a looseness and a freedom there that I think, you know, for a lot of audience members, they probably really can connect to. And, you know, that's a lot of why people go and listen to jazz is because there's so much freedom and there's so much improvisation.   I've been very lucky to be able to work with, um, Wadada Leo Smith, who's a trumpet player and composer. I've worked with him for probably almost ten years now. And um, through Wadada, actually, I have learned to become much more comfortable with improvising on stage and not within a jazz language of any kind or any kind of harmonic structure necessarily, but within the language of his music, which is very unique and very open and very free and, um, but also has a really strong core in its connection to history. And, um, you know, he's written a lot of amazing works about the civil rights movement and about a lot of, you know, important moments in history for our country. And, um, that's been a real learning experience for me to connect with him in that, in that way and learn from him and learn to be more comfortable with improvisation. Because I think growing up, improvisation for me always meant jazz, and that was not a language I was comfortable in. And um, or even, you know, jazz or rock music or folk music or whatever, you know, it was just not something that came naturally to me as a kid to, I mean, I listened to all of it. I listened to everything when I was a kid, but I never played in any of those styles. And I think the older you get, the scarier it gets to start branching out in those ways. But, um, I think, uh, that's been a an incredible, like, new branch of my life in the last decade has been working with Wadada.  [MUSIC – “Dred Scott, 1857,” from Ten Freedom Summers, by Wadada Leo Smith]  00:42:23 Isabel Li  An excerpt of Wadada Leo Smith's music to give you a sense of the jazz influences in these types of contemporary new music pieces that also touch on pieces of history. This was an excerpt from his album, Ten Freedom Summers, which also consists of compositions based on pieces of American history. For example, what we just heard was from a piece called Dred Scott, 1857.  00:42:49 Isabel Li  Now that I realize that we've been having a conversation about new music, I realize that, hmm, when does new music really start? So if you take a look at maybe music history, when does new music really become new music?  00:43:07 Shalini Vijayan  I guess it depends on who you ask, probably. Um, it's it's pretty recent. You know, it has to be really legitimately pretty new. And, um, again, you know, if you ask an audience member, um, and I think of some of my friends or family who are maybe who are not musicians who come to concerts, and I'm always so interested in talking to them and hearing their opinions about things. Um, you know, they will listen to Bartok and say, oh, that sounds like new music to me. But, you know, Bartok, Bartok passed away a long time ago, and it's, you know, and for me, that's more like canon now. You know, that's like now for me, part of the the standard repertoire. But there was a time when Bartok was new music. And I think for, you know, maybe the listeners who are more comfortable with the very diatonic, you know, world of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, then something like Bartok really does sound so modern for me. Boy, maybe around the time that minimalism started, you know, John Adams and Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, all of that for me feels like maybe that's the older like the The edge of new music now even though that was that would be the eighties, probably seventies 80s, you know, but that we're talking about like, you know, fifty years ago. So yeah, I mean, it's not that new, but those are all still living composers. So maybe, maybe that's part of what it is for me is that it's the composers of our era, the composers who are alive, who we can communicate with and ask questions of. And, um, you know, at the very least, if you can't talk to John Adams, you can talk to somebody who has worked directly with him and get their impressions of how something should be played, um, as opposed to composers who have been gone for hundreds of years. And you can't have that level of communication with them. I think that, for me is what new music, new music is about. It's about working with living composers and, um, having that type of interaction.  00:45:15 Isabel Li  Yeah. So would the word or the phrase contemporary classical music, be a little oxymoronic in a sense?  00:45:26 Shalini Vijayan  No, I don't think so. I think it's still part of the same tradition. Um, yeah. I really do think it is, because I think there is a lineage there. Um, for a lot of composers, not all of them, um, that I mean, I think particularly if you're writing for, let's say, an orchestra or a string quartet or sort of one of these very standard classical ensembles. Um, even if you're writing in a very new language and you're writing in a very different way, I think there is still a through line to the canon of classical music. I guess for me, new music and classical music are not mutually exclusive. I think they can be the same. So I don't I don't think they're totally different. I think that there is a lot of a lot of overlap.  00:46:16 Isabel Li  For sure, considering how new music fits into the classical music or the classical music industry as a whole. Have you noticed any sorts of shifts in the classical music industry in the past several decades in regards to diversity, equity, inclusion? And have you just noticed any changes?  00:46:35 Shalini Vijayan  I have noticed some changes. I mean, I think that most organizations in this country are making an effort to be more inclusive in their programming now. And, um, you know, another another South Asian composer who I just think is fantastic is Nina Shekhar. And, um, she has had pieces played by the New York Phil for the last couple seasons. I mean, you know, so on on major, major stages, I feel like now I'm seeing more representation and that is definitely Encouraging and, um, you know, uh, same for Anuj and Rajna and Reena. They've all, you know, had their works done by major ensembles. And, um, I think I think there is definitely movement in that direction, for sure. I think it could always be more.   I think also for women and women composers, women performers, I think that has also always been a struggle to find enough representation of women composers and you know, especially if like as I mentioned before, when you're in a situation where an organization asks you to program a concert, like, let's say, for our quartet and wants much more standard repertoire than it does limit you, you know, how because there isn't much from the older canon. You know, there is. You know, there's Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann and, um, you know, I think in the last five to ten years they've both been played a lot more, which is great. But, you know, I think, uh, there's so many amazing female composers right now that I think are starting to get much more recognition. And I think that just needs to be more, more and more, um, but, uh, you know, that is why, again, like on those programs, sometimes we try to just sneak one modern piece in because it's important for those voices to be heard as well. But yes, I do see some forward movement in that direction with, um, classical programming. And, you know, you just have to hope that the intent is always genuine in those situations. And I think, um, you know, I think that's the most important thing. And giving a platform to those voices is really important.  00:48:59 Isabel Li  How would you go about arts advocacy during this current time when, well, the arts are being defunded and devalued by our current administration and how everything is going on right now?  00:49:10 Shalini Vijayan  Yeah, it's really, really difficult right now. And, um, you know, I think a lot of arts organizations are losing a lot of government funding. Obviously, I know of a couple projects that lost their NEA funding because of DEI, and which is so disheartening. And, um, I think, you know, there's going to be a lot of leaning on private donors to try and, uh, make up that difference or, you know, private foundations to make up the difference in funding, hopefully. And, um, uh, you know, it's yeah, it's scary. It's  a scary time. And I think, you know, even for private funding and, um, private donors, it's, you know, everyone is feeling stressed and feeling concerned about our future right now, just as a country. and there's so much uncertainty. And, um, but I think people who really rely on the arts for all the things that it can provide, you know, an escape and pleasure and, you know, stimulation of a different kind. And especially in a time like this, when you want to be able to get away from maybe what's going on around you, you know, I'm hoping we can find a way to really come together and, um, kind of, you know, rally around each other and find a way to support each other. But, um, I think it is going to be hard for the next few years if we can't find ways to replace that funding that so many people have lost. And I certainly don't think that anyone wants to back away from the progress that's been made with inclusion and representation, you know, just to get funding. So I know we have to be very creative with our path ahead and find a way to, to keep doing what we're doing in this current environment.  00:51:07 Isabel Li  Yeah, on a brighter note, I read about your work with Lyris Quartet earlier this year when you presented a concert with Melodia Mariposa called Altadena Strong with the Lyris Quartet, raising funds for those who have been affected by the LA fires. Can you talk a bit about the power of music? And we're going to end on a stronger note here about the power of music in bringing communities together and accelerating community healing.  00:51:31 Shalini Vijayan  Well, I have to say that concert was really a special one for us. You know, um, so many musicians were affected by the fires in LA. And, you know, I, I've lived in LA for over twenty years now, almost twenty five years and, um, certainly seen my share of wildfires and disasters, but this one hit so much more close to home than any of the other ones have. And, you know, I know at least twenty five people who lost their homes in between the Palisades and Altadena and Altadena in particular.   When I moved to LA, it was a place where a lot of musicians were moving to because you could it was cheaper and you could get a lot of space, and it's beautiful. And, you know, they really built a beautiful community there among all the musicians out there. And it's just heartbreaking, um, to see how many of them have lost everything. And I have to say, Irina Voloshina, who is the woman who runs Melodia Mariposa, and just an amazing violinist and an amazing, wonderful, warm, generous person. You know, she started that series in her driveway during COVID as a way to just keep music going during the pandemic, and it really turned into something so great. And she's, you know, got a whole organization with her now and puts on multiple concerts a year. And when she asked us if we would play that concert for the community in Altadena is, you know, there's no question that we were going to do it. I mean, we absolutely jumped at the chance to support her and support the organization and that community. And people really came out for that concert and were so excited to be there and were so warm and, um, you know, and and she talked to the crowd and really connected with everybody on a very personal level, because she also lost her home in Altadena and, um, you know, it was it was a really meaningful show for all of us. And again, those are the moments where you realize that you can use this art to really connect with people that you may have never met before and show your your love for them, you know, through music, as corny as that may sound, but it's true.  00:53:54 Isabel Li  Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much, Shalini, for sharing your visions, your knowledge with new music and community building with us today. Thank you so much for being on Obbligato.  00:54:07 Shalini Vijayan  Thank you so much for having me, Isabel. It was really a pleasure.  00:54:10 Isabel Li  What a wonderful conversation that was with LA-based violinist Shalini Vijayan. If you go to kpfa.org, you can check out more of her work. I put the links to two of her ensembles, Brightwork New Music and Lyris Quartet up on kpfa.org. And thank you for listening to our conversation here on Obbligato on Apex Express.  00:54:32 Isabel Li  We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.  00:54:42 Isabel Li  APEX Express is produced by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, and Cheryl Truong. Tonight's show was produced by Isabel Li. Thanks to the team at KPFA for their support. Have a great night.  [OUTRO MUSIC]  The post APEX Express – 11.13.25 – Obbligato with Violinist Shalini Vijayan appeared first on KPFA.

Synopsis On this day in 1900, the world first heard the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré in its full orchestral version at a concert at the Paris World Exhibition. Faure's Requiem ranks today among his best-known and best-loved compositions, and omits all reference to the terrors of the Last Judgment which appear in the traditional liturgical text, concentrating instead on comforting the bereaved. The Requiem was originally written for chorus and a more intimate chamber ensemble, and was occasioned by Fauré's sorrow at the death of his own father. The American composer Christopher Rouse has written a number of works dealing with the passing of friends and colleagues – works half-seriously, half-jokingly referred to as Rouse's “Death Cycle.” Rouse's Pulitzer Prize-winning Trombone Concerto from 1991 is dedicated to the memory of Leonard Bernstein; his Symphony No. 2, from 1994, contains a tribute to the young composer Stephen Albert, who died in a car crash; and a section of his Flute Concerto from 1993 reflects the composer's shock upon reading an account of the senseless tragedy of a two-year-old child, abducted from an English shopping mall and killed by two ten-year-olds. Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed has noted that much of Rouse's work is “music of leave-taking… but it is also a music of catharsis, survival and a celebration of being alive.” Music Played in Today's Program Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) – Requiem (The Cambridge Singers; John Rutter, cond.) Collegium 101 Christopher Rouse (b. 1949) – Symphony No. 2 and Flute Concerto (Carol Wincenc, flute; Houston Symphony; Christoph Eschenbach, cond.) Telarc 80452

The Piano Pod team had a wonderful conversation with the musical power couple, Juhi Bansal & Nic Gerpe, from L.A.! 

Today's guest is Steph Richards. Editing this episode in the wake of the New York Philharmonic's news, seemed serendipitous. During this pandemic we have all been scrambling to find a way forward, and most artists have been lost in this effort, because they have not been accustomed to swimming in the waters of change and hunger for far too long. This is obviously not the case with artists like Stephanie Richards, whose latest project, Supersense, is awe inspiring. Steph is NOT going to be caught in the wave of extinction facing many artists in the coming years. Conversations like the one you are about to hear matter, it's time to understand that the people we are propping up in this fetishistic madness, are those stuck in the structures that led to a catastrophe which Covid has only accelerated: boring programming, poor audience relations, unsound financial practices, and exorbitant salaries for administrators, music directors, and concertmasters. For those out there listening who are starting their careers, or who still have ambition, it's time to think more deeply about what it means to be an artist, and take your destiny into your own hands…the institutions won't be here for you. But for now, if Mark Swed's list constitutes the heroes of the industry…count me out, and sign me up a ticket to the first Steph Richards or Dan Rosenboom show at the earliest convenience. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/artssalon/support

Concert: CDMX: New Music from Mexico (Contemporary Mexico) Upbeat Live provides historical and cultural context for many concerts, featuring engaging speakers, audio examples, and special guests. These events are free to ticket holders and are held in BP Hall, on the second floor, accessible after your ticket is scanned. For more information: laphil.com/upbeatlive About the Speaker: Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes “her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life.” She was one of 6 composers involved in the acclaimed mobile opera Hopscotch. Alex Ross of the New Yorker called Hopscotch, “a remarkable experimental opera.” Her first opera, The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, was premiered at the New York City Opera's VOX 2008 festival. A full production was mounted in Los Angeles in August 2010 to sold-out audiences. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera, “Something novel this way comes.” Her newest opera Ghost Opera, a dramma giocoso with libretto by André Alexis and The Old Trout Puppet Company, will première with Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in May 2019. Commissions and performances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Industry, New York City Opera, Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Ensemble musikFabrik, Chicago Architecture Biennial (2016), Piano Spheres for Gloria Cheng, The Vancouver Symphony, ERGO Projects, Esprit Orchestra, Fort Worth Opera, Jacaranda Music, Motion Music, and the Penderecki String Quartet. Krausas has music composition degrees from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at USC in Los Angeles, where she is a faculty member in the Composition Department. She serves on the advisory boards of Jacaranda Music and People Inside Electronics.

Concert: Salonen & Sibelius Upbeat Live provides historical and cultural context for many concerts, featuring engaging speakers, audio examples, and special guests. These events are free to ticket holders and are held in BP Hall, on the second floor, accessible after your ticket is scanned. For more information: laphil.com/upbeatlive About the Speaker: Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes “her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life.” She was one of 6 composers involved in the acclaimed mobile opera Hopscotch. Alex Ross of the New Yorker called Hopscotch, “a remarkable experimental opera.” Her first opera, The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, was premiered at the New York City Opera's VOX 2008 festival. A full production was mounted in Los Angeles in August 2010 to sold-out audiences. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera, “Something novel this way comes.” Her newest opera Ghost Opera, a dramma giocoso with libretto by André Alexis and The Old Trout Puppet Company, will première with Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in May 2019. Commissions and performances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Industry, New York City Opera, Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Ensemble musikFabrik, Chicago Architecture Biennial (2016), Piano Spheres for Gloria Cheng, The Vancouver Symphony, ERGO Projects, Esprit Orchestra, Fort Worth Opera, Jacaranda Music, Motion Music, and the Penderecki String Quartet. Krausas has music composition degrees from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at USC in Los Angeles, where she is a faculty member in the Composition Department.  She serves on the advisory boards of Jacaranda Music and People Inside Electronics.

Concert: Mirga Conducts Mozart & Haydn Upbeat Live provides historical and cultural context for many concerts, featuring engaging speakers, audio examples, and special guests. These events are free to ticket holders and are held in BP Hall, on the second floor, accessible after your ticket is scanned. For more information: laphil.com/upbeatlive About the Speaker: Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes “her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life.” She was one of 6 composers involved in the acclaimed mobile opera Hopscotch. Alex Ross of the New Yorker called Hopscotch, “a remarkable experimental opera.” Her first opera, The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, was premiered at the New York City Opera's VOX 2008 festival. A full production was mounted in Los Angeles in August 2010 to sold-out audiences. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera, “Something novel this way comes.” Her newest opera Ghost Opera, a dramma giocoso with libretto by André Alexis and The Old Trout Puppet Company, will première with Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in May 2019. Commissions and performances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Industry, New York City Opera, Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Ensemble musikFabrik, Chicago Architecture Biennial (2016), Piano Spheres for Gloria Cheng, The Vancouver Symphony, ERGO Projects, Esprit Orchestra, Fort Worth Opera, Jacaranda Music, Motion Music, and the Penderecki String Quartet. Krausas has music composition degrees from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at USC in Los Angeles, where she is a faculty member in the Composition Department.  She serves on the advisory boards of Jacaranda Music and People Inside Electronics.

Concert: Dances of Death Upbeat Live provides historical and cultural context for many concerts, featuring engaging speakers, audio examples, and special guests. These events are free to ticket holders and are held in BP Hall, on the second floor, accessible after your ticket is scanned. For more information: laphil.com/upbeatlive About the Speaker: Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes “her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life.” She was one of 6 composers involved in the acclaimed mobile opera Hopscotch. Alex Ross of the New Yorker called Hopscotch, “a remarkable experimental opera.” Her first opera, The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, was premiered at the New York City Opera's VOX 2008 festival. A full production was mounted in Los Angeles in August 2010 to sold-out audiences. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera, “Something novel this way comes.” Her newest opera Ghost Opera, a dramma giocoso with libretto by André Alexis and The Old Trout Puppet Company, will première with Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in May 2019. Commissions and performances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Industry, New York City Opera, Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Ensemble musikFabrik, Chicago Architecture Biennial (2016), Piano Spheres for Gloria Cheng, The Vancouver Symphony, ERGO Projects, Esprit Orchestra, Fort Worth Opera, Jacaranda Music, Motion Music, and the Penderecki String Quartet. Krausas has music composition degrees from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at USC in Los Angeles, where she is a faculty member in the Composition Department.  She serves on the advisory boards of Jacaranda Music and People Inside Electronics.

Concert: Green Umbrella: All-Reich Upbeat Live provides historical and cultural context for many concerts, featuring engaging speakers, audio examples, and special guests. These events are free to ticket holders and are held in BP Hall, on the second floor, accessible after your ticket is scanned. For more information: laphil.com/upbeatlive About the Speaker: Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes “her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life.” She was one of 6 composers involved in the acclaimed mobile opera Hopscotch. Alex Ross of the New Yorker called Hopscotch, “a remarkable experimental opera.” Her first opera, The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, was premiered at the New York City Opera's VOX 2008 festival. A full production was mounted in Los Angeles in August 2010 to sold-out audiences. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera, “Something novel this way comes.” Her newest opera Ghost Opera, a dramma giocoso with libretto by André Alexis and The Old Trout Puppet Company, will première with Calgary Opera at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in May 2019. Commissions and performances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Industry, New York City Opera, Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Ensemble musikFabrik, Chicago Architecture Biennial (2016), Piano Spheres for Gloria Cheng, The Vancouver Symphony, ERGO Projects, Esprit Orchestra, Fort Worth Opera, Jacaranda Music, Motion Music, and the Penderecki String Quartet. Krausas has music composition degrees from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at USC in Los Angeles, where she is a faculty member in the Composition Department.  She serves on the advisory boards of Jacaranda Music and People Inside Electronics.

VERONIKA KRAUSAS Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia, raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes "her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life." Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth “Something novel this way comes.” Performances ?include Ensemble musikFabrik (at the Darmstadt Music Festival), The Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Esprit Orchestra, The Vancouver Symphony, San Francisco Choral Artists, Alexander String Quartet, Fort Worth Opera, Motion Music, and the Penderecki String Quartet. Her work was an official selection of the US for the 2012 World Music Days in Belgium and she was the featured composer at the 2013 Céret Music Festival. She was one of the composers for The Industry’s mobile opera project Hopscotch. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has commissioned a work for 5 basses to be performed in a tent designed by artist Ana Prvacki in the fall of 2016. Krausas has music composition degrees from ?the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she is currently on faculty. www.veronikakrausas.com

VERONIKA KRAUSAS Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia, raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes "her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life." Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth “Something novel this way comes.” Performances ?include Ensemble musikFabrik (at the Darmstadt Music Festival), The Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Esprit Orchestra, The Vancouver Symphony, San Francisco Choral Artists, Alexander String Quartet, Fort Worth Opera, Motion Music, and the Penderecki String Quartet. Her work was an official selection of the US for the 2012 World Music Days in Belgium and she was the featured composer at the 2013 Céret Music Festival. She was one of the composers for The Industry’s mobile opera project Hopscotch. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has commissioned a work for 5 basses to be performed in a tent designed by artist Ana Prvacki in the fall of 2016. Krausas has music composition degrees from ?the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she is currently on faculty. www.veronikakrausas.com

VERONIKA KRAUSAS The works of composer VERONIKA KRAUSAS are performed throughout Europe and North America, where she is recognized for her innovative use of dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes "her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life." Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera "Something novel this way comes." Since 1998 Krausas has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events in Los Angeles that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. Her chamber opera The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, was premiered at the New York Opera's VOX 2008 festival. A full production was mounted in Los Angeles in August 2010 to sold out audiences. Other productions were by Goat Hall Productions in San Francisco, Fort Worth Opera's Frontiers Festival, and New Fangled Opera in New Orleans. Her chamber orchestra work Spirals was premiered at the Darmstadt Music Festival (1996) and had a subsequent performance by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The Penderecki String Quartet gave the US Premiere of midaregami, her work for string quartet and mezzo-soprano at REDCAT Theater in Los Angeles and was performed by the Opium Quartet at the Céret Music Festival. Language of the Birds, a commission for the 25th Anniversary of the San Francisco Choral Artists and the Alexander String Quartet, using text by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was premiered in 2011 in San Francisco and released on CD with Foghorn Classics. Analemma for chamber orchestra was an official selection of the US for the 2012 World Music Days in Belgium. Recent premières have included: her solo piano pieces UN-intermezzi, performed and recorded by pianist Aron Kallay with subsequent performances by Steven Vanhauwaert at the Amigos De Música de São Lourenço in Almancil Portugal, a new work for harpsichord solo l'ombre du luth (shadow of the lute) for Gloria Cheng for Piano Spheres, and a song cycle The Alchemist's Suite for bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood and Sillages for 4 double basses on the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Chamber Music Series at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, and a Piano Spheres commission for pianist Steven Vanhauwaert at REDCAT in June 2015. She is one of six composers involved in The Industry's new mobile opera project Hopscotch, the first mobile opera premiering in Los Angeles October 31, 2015. Of Lithuanian heritage, she was born in Australia and raised in Canada. Krausas has music composition degrees from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at USC. She is currently a Professor in the Composition Department at the Thornton School of Music, on the advisory council of Jacaranda Music and People Inside Electronics, an associate artist with The Industry, and a pre-concert lecturer at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. http://www.veronikakrausas.com/

VERONIKA KRAUSAS The works of composer VERONIKA KRAUSAS are performed throughout Europe and North America, where she is recognized for her innovative use of dance, acrobatics and video. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) writes "her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature's frozen objects are springing to life." Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said of her chamber opera "Something novel this way comes." Since 1998 Krausas has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events in Los Angeles that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics and video. Her chamber opera The Mortal Thoughts of Lady Macbeth, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, was premiered at the New York Opera's VOX 2008 festival. A full production was mounted in Los Angeles in August 2010 to sold out audiences. Other productions were by Goat Hall Productions in San Francisco, Fort Worth Opera's Frontiers Festival, and New Fangled Opera in New Orleans. Her chamber orchestra work Spirals was premiered at the Darmstadt Music Festival (1996) and had a subsequent performance by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The Penderecki String Quartet gave the US Premiere of midaregami, her work for string quartet and mezzo-soprano at REDCAT Theater in Los Angeles and was performed by the Opium Quartet at the Céret Music Festival. Language of the Birds, a commission for the 25th Anniversary of the San Francisco Choral Artists and the Alexander String Quartet, using text by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was premiered in 2011 in San Francisco and released on CD with Foghorn Classics. Analemma for chamber orchestra was an official selection of the US for the 2012 World Music Days in Belgium. Recent premières have included: her solo piano pieces UN-intermezzi, performed and recorded by pianist Aron Kallay with subsequent performances by Steven Vanhauwaert at the Amigos De Música de São Lourenço in Almancil Portugal, a new work for harpsichord solo l'ombre du luth (shadow of the lute) for Gloria Cheng for Piano Spheres, and a song cycle The Alchemist's Suite for bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood and Sillages for 4 double basses on the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Chamber Music Series at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, and a Piano Spheres commission for pianist Steven Vanhauwaert at REDCAT in June 2015. She is one of six composers involved in The Industry's new mobile opera project Hopscotch, the first mobile opera premiering in Los Angeles October 31, 2015. Of Lithuanian heritage, she was born in Australia and raised in Canada. Krausas has music composition degrees from the University of Toronto, McGill University in Montreal, and a doctorate from the Thornton School of Music at USC. She is currently a Professor in the Composition Department at the Thornton School of Music, on the advisory council of Jacaranda Music and People Inside Electronics, an associate artist with The Industry, and a pre-concert lecturer at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. http://www.veronikakrausas.com/

Last week, a Los Angeles jury found that the pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give it Up" in their song "Blurred Lines." The jury awarded the singer's estate $7.4 million. Gaye’s family celebrated the decision. But a lot of composers wondered if copyright is now being extended to cover not just song lyrics and melody but much else – tone, rhythm, tempo. On this week's episode, Naomi Lewin speaks with two experts about the case's implications: Mark Swed, the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times, and Lawrence Ferrara, a professor of music at New York University. He's also a music copyright consultant for record labels, music publishing companies and film studios, and was briefly involved in the "Blurred Lines" case. Segment Highlights Add Caption Here Our guests have vastly different takes on the case's implications. For Swed, "the tradition in music, in most musical traditions, is to build one thing on another. Rhythmic patterns, bass lines, and things like this are generally thought of as common property." Besides, Renaissance composers such as Josquin des Prez frequently built "paraphrase" or "parody" masses on preexisting Gregorian chants. J.S. Bach lifted entire from Vivaldi. Debussy quoted Wagner's "Tristan" chord. "Everything is very vague and nobody is quite sure how this is all going to work out," said Swed, who recently wrote about the case. "Music works in a different way than the courts work. The arts are often about breaking rules and the courts are about maintaining rules." Robin Thicke (L) and T.I. perform the song 'Blurred Lines' at the The Grammy Nominations Concert Live. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images) Ferrara, however, believes that the rules around copyright enforcement are clear. "One can always find works with similarities," he said, but the "feel and vibe" of a composition cannot be monopolized by one composer. "Melody tends to be the meat in a copyright issue. That's what gets you at the musical expression that's ultimately the test of whether there's ultimately been an infringement." Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and tell us what you think below: Is plagiarism a problem in music? Should copyright laws be more or less strictly enforced?

The Metropolitan Opera's decision last week to drop its HD and radio broadcasts of the John Adams opera The Death of Klinghoffer continues to draw strong responses – from newspaper editorial boards, anti-censorship groups, and music critics around the world. But this is only the latest chapter in the fraught history of this work. The opera's January 1991 premiere at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels took place in a tense atmosphere around the launch of the Gulf War, and patrons were greeted with metal detectors in the lobby (a rarity at that time). After the U.S. premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in March 1991, two co-commisioning organizations – the Glyndebourne Festival and Los Angeles Opera – decided to drop Klinghoffer from their schedules. And in 2001, the Boston Symphony dropped a scheduled performance of choruses from the opera.  But in recent years, performances have gone off as scheduled, and with mostly minimal debate; many critics have lauded the work's music and drama. The dialogue ramped up again when the Met cancelled its HD broadcasts, citing fears by Jewish groups that it could incite global anti-Semitism. In this week's podcast, Mark Swed, the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times and longtime Adams-watcher, tells us what he thinks is behind the outcry. Segment Highlights: What's driving the recent outcry over the opera "It's a lot of hearsay. The people who have only reacted very superficially to the opera have been very loud. There has been a lot of misinformation. It's very easy to drum up outrage these days. You have opinions that are being promoted through social media and all the ways that you can now make a lot of noise without knowing anything and without having any ability to create a context."  On whether concerns of anti-Semitism are justified "Not at all. The problem with the opera of course is that there are anti-Semitic lines that are said by the terrorists. But that's what terrorists say. It would be highly unrealistic if they didn't have anti-Semitic attitudes and were hijacking the Achille Lauro. It would be like making a movie about Hitler in which he only said nice things about the Jews... "It's easy to hate your enemy. But to understand your enemy, to understand where your enemy is coming from, and to even have some feeling for that, and then be horrified by that person – that is so much stronger than a simple good guy, bad guy movie."  On the production itself "I actually didn't think this Klinghoffer production would be a problem. It treats the opera almost like a thriller. It's the least controversial of any production I've seen. And in fact, once people see it, I don’t think that there's going to be a problem." Listen to the full segment above and tell us what you think about the opera and its reception below: .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "what-do-you-think-mets-decision-cancel-klinghoffer", "survey_what-do-you-think-mets-decision-cancel-klinghoffer");  

As the Los Angeles Philharmonic arrives in New York to give a pair of concerts on March 16 and 17 at Lincoln Center, its music director, Gustavo Dudamel, faces an increasingly difficult political situation back in his native Venezuela. It’s been a month since violent clashes between opposition demonstrators and government forces in Venezuela first grabbed global headlines. Protests rage on with no sign of ending. Dudamel himself has been pressured to speak out on the situation, notably by a fellow Venezuelan musician, pianist Gabriela Montero. Montero and others have said that Dudamel should use his global stature – and exercise his ethical responsibility as an artist – to take a stronger stand against what they see as a repressive government. But others argue that Dudamel can’t afford to get involved in partisan politics because of his close ties to El Sistema, Venezuela’s vast, state-funded national music education system. Tricia Tunstall, author of Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema, and the Transformative Power of Music, says that El Sistema’s mission has always been “to stay out of partisan politics and to continue in the work that is their highest priority, which is to work with hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan children, giving them safe haven, musical training and an environment where they can learn to be productive citizens.” El Sistema was founded in 1975 by Jose Antonio Abreu, a musician and economist, and it has flourished under eight different governments while aiming to keep many impoverished kids on the straight and narrow. “Yes, they are funded by the government but [Abreu] does not identify the Sistema with any political program and that is why the Sistema has been able to flourish, survive and grow from eleven kids in 1975 to almost 600,000 kids in 2014,” Tunstall added. Mark Swed, the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times, interviewed Dudamel after the conductor led a controversial concert in Venezuela on February 12, the same day that three people died in anti-government protests there. Dudamel told him that he was unaware of the nearby protests, and insists that he’s firmly opposed to any violence from either side of the conflict. “Ultimately, we have no idea how Dudamel, maestro Abreu and others are functioning in El Sistema,” Swed said. “Abreu’s way of working has always been to try and influence the politics subtly from the inside. The second he takes a public stand, he can’t do that anymore.” Meanwhile, other musicians are taking a firm political position, albeit from a distance. Venezuelan conductor Carlos Izcaray is organizing a “Concert for Peace and Liberty” in Berlin this Sunday, which will feature a number of fellow expats including Gabriela Montero. Izcaray says that the goal of the concert is to raise awareness for victims of political violence, including several musicians who he says have been “detained, beaten, tortured and threatened by the national police.” Izcaray says he doesn’t hold any bad feelings towards Dudamel or other Venezuelan musicians who aren’t speaking out, noting that being a musician in Venezuela means usually relying on the government for support. “I’m pretty confident a lot of this has to do with fear of losing support for the institution, maybe they’ll cut their funding or be fired.” He adds: “As far as artists go, we do have to defend each other.” Listen to the full podcast above and tell us what you think below: what is the responsibility of artists in times of political unrest? Should art and politics remain separate or do creative people have a duty to speak out? Photos: 1) People shout slogans as they protest against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in front of riot policemen outside the Cuban embassy in Caracas on February 25, 2014 (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images) 2) Gustavo Dudamel, Jose Antonio Abreu and Venezuelan president Nicholas Madura.