Composer makes the case for new music
When you envision a composer at work creating a mammoth orchestral or choral work, it’s usually some imposing figure, typically male, earnestly laboring at a piano while jotting notes down on a page of sheet music.
That’s not how Augusta Read Thomas works. The acclaimed composer usually hides away in a room in her house, typically before dawn, in sweatpants with a cup of coffee nearby, laboring over long sheets of paper that more closely resemble architectural drawings or medieval manuscripts.
But she’s like her forebears inasmuch as she tries to shun the intrusive distractions of the 21st century while she’s working, which means no texting or emails.
“It’s easy for me to work long hours,” Read explained to students at Washington & Jefferson College Monday night. “It’s extremely physical and labor intensive.”
The creativity Thomas has conjured in the hours when most of us are just coming to consciousness has paid some serious dividends. A finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago, Thomas’ works have been performed by orchestras in London, Berlin, Philadelphia, New York and elsewhere. Just this past weekend, a performance of one of her new works, “Resounding Earth,” received a glowing review in The New York Times, which praised its ambition and “painterly delicacy.”
On both Monday and Tuesday, the 50-year-old Thomas visited W&J as part of the college’s long-running Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar program. Along with a talk in the Dieter-Porter Life Sciences Building on Monday, Thomas worked with and talked to students in music classes.
Amid an hourlong discussion that traveled down some technical avenues, Thomas explained that “to be a composer is a condition, not a profession … It’s really my whole life.” She also played excerpts of some of her works, including “Resounding Earth,” which was written for bells and metal objects.
Although Thomas has won plaudits within the world of highbrow music, she pointed out that all forms of music have validity and that no single composer or period “has a monopoly on musical truth.”
Thomas is also a champion of new works. Though many orchestras lean on a repertoire that includes departed heavyweights like Liszt, Chopin and Debussy, Thomas said that “old music needs new music, and new music needs old music.
“If Mahler were alive today, he’d want a world premiere next to one of his pieces.”