THE AMERICAN MASTERS SERIES PURE The exuberantly prolific Augusta Read Thomas has no time for creative boundaries By Thomas May 24 April 2018 / Strings StringsMagazine.com 25 ANTHONY BARLICH o matter how gloomy she withdrew because she felt they failed to you may be feeling meet her standards. about the state of the The early Edgar Allan Poe–inspired opera world, it seems impos- Ligeia (1994), for example, was commissioned sible to come away by Mstislav Rostropovich for the Evian- from an encounter les-bains Spring Festival in France, and was with Augusta Read produced multiple times in Europe and the Thomas without a surge of fresh hope. The United States back in the 1990s, but Thomas NChicago-based composer radiates an exuber- withdrew it “because I’m a perfectionist and ance about music’s inexhaustible potential I was so young when I wrote it.” Currently, for that is both powerful and infectious. And she Santa Fe Opera’s new initiative Opera for All has been channeling it for decades into a Voices: Stories of our Time, Thomas is at work vast, ongoing body of compositions that rep- on an (as yet unnamed) one-act opera with resents one of the most remarkable achieve- the writer and literary scholar Leslie Dunton- ments of contemporary American music: a Downer (her librettist for Ligeia as well) to unique vision of the poetry of sound that is at premiere in the fall of 2019. the same time anchored in an exquisite Thomas has written extensively for attention to craft and technique. orchestra and for chamber configurations, It’s also easy to feel like a slacker when including a wide spectrum of pieces for confronted with Thomas’ prolific creativity. strings. Her approach to stringed instru- Speaking via cellphone while en route from ments in particular can be seen as a micro- academic obligations—she’s just given a lun- cosm reflecting her overall aesthetic outlook cheon lecture at the University of Chicago— as well as her sense of mission as a composer. Thomas, who turns 54 this month, says she “I’ve been writing for strings my whole life works “365 days a year, starting at 4 in the and find endless inspiration here because morning. But I don’t want to take a vacation. there is so much expressiveness and human- I have so much more music to write!” ity and singing that comes straight through She’s been doing that since she was a small the instrument. It’s just natural for me to child in Glen Cove, New York. As the young- write for strings, even though my own instru- est of ten siblings, Thomas made a habit of ment is the trumpet. My husband tells me lying down underneath the family piano, all that I have a ‘string soul,’” Thomas says, refer- the better to absorb its sounds. “One reason I’ve been writing ring to British-American Bernard Rands, a I love to teach is because I love to talk about fellow composer she married in 1994. sound. Any sound: something improvised on for strings my “But along with that natural, organic a subway, a baby crying, Beethoven quartets, expressiveness, my love of counterpoint and African music. It doesn’t matter what it is.” whole life and find sense of compound-melody and harmony Thomas went on to study with Oliver also make me gravitate toward strings. A solo Knussen at Tanglewood and Jacob Druck- endless inspiration violin can be like an orchestra in a certain man, who was spearheading the wave of way. Strings can be flexible and sonorous in “Neo-Romanticism” at Yale. Thomas herself here because so many different dimensions that they’re a now ranks as a leading compositional mentor; there is so much natural fit with my musical ideas. I like music she is one of only 21 individuals from the that is multidimensional”—which helps entire University of Chicago faculty to hold expressiveness explain why J.S. Bach is one of her idols. the position of “university professor.” Thomas In lieu of the common designation “String was the Chicago Symphony’s longest-serving and humanity and Quartet No. X,” Thomas’ works for resident composer (1997–2006), where Dan- string quartet characteristically bear such iel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez championed singing that comes evocative titles as Sun Threads (1999–2002) her work—and this is only one of her many and Helix Spirals (2015). “That’s because I’m residencies. straight through dealing with a different purpose and differ- “Each piece in my catalogue is its own the instrument.” ent material for each piece,” Thomas adventure. I’m not a composer who rewrites explains—indeed, sometimes for each sec- BARLICH ANTHONY the same work over and over,” says Thomas. tion of a larger work. “So a composition is a Her publisher, G. Schirmer, currently lists a —Augusta Read Thomas priori its own individual vision that has to be total of 158 titles (ranging from 1½ to 45 min- organically related to the material. I’m con- utes); excluded are hundreds of earlier pieces stantly going on a new adventure of my own.” 26 April 2018 / Strings Augusta Read Thomas’ “map of form” for ‘Selene,’ her octet for percussion quartet and string quartet StringsMagazine.com 29 Take Helix Spirals, a three-movement quar- of BRIO, a compact new orchestral piece com- Thomas is especially thrilled to be return- tet composed to celebrate what has been called missioned by the Des Moines Symphony, is ing to the Eugene Symphony in April for her “the most beautiful experiment in biology” scheduled for late March. In April, Thomas ongoing composer residency, since the pro- (the Meselson-Stahl DNA replication experi- undertakes the second part of her composer gram is structured to combine her love of ment of 1957–8 that supported the Watson- residency with the Eugene Symphony writing music with mentorship of perform- Crick hypothesis). “I used a whole palette of Orchestra, which culminates on April 19 ers and music students. “They wanted to do pizzicatos and Bartók snaps and double-stops with a performance of Sonorous Earth (featur- something more holistic than just commis- based on what I was saying in that piece, ing Third Coast Percussion) for percussion sion and then play a piece and then: It’s inspired by this scientific experiment.” quartet and chamber orchestra. done. Instead, Eugene has an integrated A very different—and more ominous— Given Thomas’ experimentalism and approach that involves having a composer in epochal experiment prompted still another imagination, it’s not surprising that Third the community.” recent string work: Plea for Peace, which adds Coast Percussion and the JACK Quartet are The culminating project will be a new a wordless soprano soloist to the quartet tex- frequent collaborators. Indeed, she wrote an orchestral version of her frequently per- ture (available, as many of Thomas’ pieces octet combining both in her 2015 work Selene formed Resounding Earth (2012) for percus- are, on YouTube). This brief composition was (Moon Chariot Rituals), which is being fea- sion quartet. Titled Sonorous Earth and commissioned to commemorate the 75th tured as part of another residency (at the calling for about 300 pieces of metal, it pays anniversary, in 2017, of the world’s first arti- University of Michigan School of Music) and homage to a panoply of other composers who ficial nuclear reactor, which was developed at which receives its Canadian premiere in late wrote heavily for percussion who have influ- the University of Chicago as part of the May at the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener, enced Thomas’ distinctive sound world: World War II Manhattan Project. Ontario (with different ensembles). Olivier Messiaen, Igor Stravinsky, Boulez, “I was asked to write this for a day that Much as Thomas shapes the character and Lou Harrison, Edgard Varèse. would be devoted to lectures about this leg- formal design of each composition according While each of her pieces is custom- acy of the atomic age,” she says. “At first I to the relevant musical materials, she tailor- tailored to create its own world, there are didn’t want to, since I worried it would be makes her work for specific musicians. In recurrent signatures, such as the composer’s strange to have music amid these panels and view of the scope of her commissions, that obsession with bell sounds, which here runs discussions—and my pieces tend to be spiri- entails a lot of flexibility. “I try to get into the riot. “I’ve always loved bells, and there really tual or about universal themes. I can only mood or the vibe of a particular player for is nothing like Sonorous Earth. I use spinning STEP OUT IN accept commissions when they feel natural. whom I’ve been commissioned by going to Burmese bells, Indian Noah bells, Thai TOTE-AL STYLE With all of my works, it has to be from my as many of their concerts and listening to as gongs, Japanese singing gongs—such a WITH THE heart: If I can feel something then I can do it. many of their recordings as possible.” unique palette!” But then I realized I care about world peace The paradox is that, once the initial col- The interface with the public that is part CLASSIC profoundly, and I wanted something with laboration is over, the piece can go on to have of Thomas’ residency fits in with her ongoing TOTE BAG! universal meaning that would be felt by lis- an afterlife with different musicians who sense of what it should mean to be a com- teners whether in Korea, Australia, or Chi- contribute an entirely new outlook.