MUSIC ON THE MOUNTAIN THE LEHIGH UNIVERSITY/ ACDA COMPOSERS FORUM MARK A. BOYLE Mark A. Boyle Director of Choral and Vocal Activities Seton Hill University Greensburg, Pennsylvania ACDA Eastern Division Men's Choir R&S Chair [email protected] 46 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 56 Number 4 On the slopes of South Mountain in historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, sit the many collegiate gothic buildings of Lehigh University. The town is steeped in the musical history of the United States. The Moravian community situated Steven Sametz here, which contributed ACDA Brock Commission much to the early vocal music Composer 2013 Sackler Award Winner of the American Colonies, continues to support music in various ways, from hosting chamber music concerts at Central Moravian Church, to the Christmas Vespers at Moravian College. Here, in 1901, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, the oldest choir of its type in the country, off ered the fi rst American performance of J. S. Bach’s Mass in B minor and continues to off er a variety of concerts, often at Lehigh’s Packer Tania León Grammy-nominated composer Chapel. Music is alive and 2014 Composers Forum well in this colonial town. Guest Composer 2013 ASCAP Victor Herbert Award Winner CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 56 Number 4 47 THE LEHIGH UNIVERSITY/ Among those classic, ivy-covered buildings of Lehigh ers and adventurous students. is a more contemporary structure: the Zoellinger Arts Center. It is here where the Lehigh University/ACDA Oxford University Press helped sponsor the Forum Summer Choral Composers Forum fi nds its home and from 2002 to 2004, and the overall atmosphere shifted to appropriately, new choral music comes to life. Steven more of a festival. Alongside the newly composed pieces, Sametz, the Ronald J. Ulrich Professor of Music and a large community choir performed large-scale works with Director of Lehigh University Choral Arts, curates a orchestra. Student conductors worked more indepen- program unlike any other. Composers, young and old, dently from the composers. During these years, Ameri- student and professional, come to Lehigh’s campus every can Composers Forum co-founder Libby Larson (2002), other summer for a week of intense investigation of the conductor/composer Bob Chilcott (2003), and Pulitzer choral composition process. They come from across the Prize winner Zhou Long (2004) mentored composition continent to expand their palettes, add to their toolboxes, participants, while British choral luminaries Peter Phillips and learn from Sametz and an ever growing list of guest (2002), conductor of The Tallis Scholars, and Nicholas composers, including Pulitzer Prize winners, Guggenheim Cleobury (2004), principal conductor of the Oxford Bach Fellows, several recipients of the Raymond Brock Memo- Choir, worked with conducting students. The late Stephen rial Composition commission, and faculty members from Paulus served as guest composer in 2006, and Z. Randall some of the best music schools in the country. Participat- Stroope in 2008. ing composers arrive with nothing but a text to set. In a In 2010 ACDA partnered with the Forum and has done week, more than a dozen new pieces of choral music, so ever since. Tim Sharp, Executive Director of ACDA, uniquely refl ecting the composers who crafted each work, has made it a point to visit the Forum and experience the will be set free from a simple ink and paper existence. creative environment himself. Sharp states that the “Fo- The journey is one of growth, and like any worth-while rum is a glimpse into the future for me. I observe mentor- journey, there are stories to be told. composers coaching talented emerging composers, and I hear the results of their instruction. I am very proud that ACDA can support such a high level intensive.” He goes History: Birth, Growth, and Partnership further and fi nds that the Forum lives into the organiza- In 2001, with the support of Lehigh University, Sametz tion’s very mission. founded what would develop into the present-day Forum. The vision, to invite composers and conductors for a I have observed three iterations of the Com- week of making new music together, brought people from poser’s Forum, and as a result, I have gained around the country to Eastern Pennsylvania. This inau- valuable insight into one of the four “pillars” of gural year featured two guest artists: composer Chen Yi, ACDA’s misson statement...” to inspire excellence distinguished professor of composition at the University in choral composition…” I take this mission very of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and seriously, and I want ACDA to remain at the Dance, and composer/conductor Alberto Grau, founder front edge of choral composition internationally. of the Scholar Cantorum de Venezuela. Sametz explains: Further, this event allows me to hear directly from our ACDA Brock Memorial Composition Student composers would write a new work in a Composers, which has been a wonderful legacy week to be premiered under the baton of student to be a part of. conductors. In these early days, composers and conductors alike sang in the chorus. This full immersion experience in a collaborative creative The Mentor-composers process planted the seed for the development of Over the years, some extremely successful composers future composer forums. We have been blessed have served as guest mentors for the Forum, working from the very beginning with exceptional teach- with Steven Sametz to provide guidance, feedback, and 48 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 56 Number 4 ACDA COMPOSERS FORUM direction for the participants. During daily one-on-one family of instruments, including choral voices, has meetings, group seminar-style discussions, and the reading its own strengths and limitations. I will say that sessions with the Princeton Singers, the mentor-composers I’ve tried to be alive, in recent years, to the pos- are present, advising, teaching, and at times, shepherding sibility of borrowing from instrumental textures the process. to enrich my vocabulary in choral music. Steven Stucky, current composition faculty member at the Juilliard School, helped guide the process as guest In 2014, composer and conductor Tania León came mentor-composer of the 2012 Forum. His Brock Com- to the mountain to mentor the latest cohort of talented mission, Take Him, Earth, setting texts by Prudentius, artists. Born in Cuba and a fi xture of the new music scene Aeschylus, and Shakespeare, received its premiere at the in New York City for many years, León’s music has been 2013 ACDA National Conference. Stucky served as the performed across the globe by leading ensembles. A 2012 guest mentor-composer in 2012 and for him, the process Latin Grammy nominee for Best Classical Composition, of choral composition starts with a good text, refl ecting she has lectured at several universities, including Yale, the nature of the Forum: come with a text, nothing else. Harvard, and the University of Chicago. Currently, León Stucky states: serves as the director of music composition and distin- guished professor at Brooklyn College’s Conservatory of For me, the text is a part of the sound world. Music. Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times noted You’re not just looking for the syntactical her work contains “dense counterpoint and wildly zigzag- meanings, but also for the sounds of the text. ging melodic lines, and Caribbean rhythms.” This breadth I try to make use of that in a musical way. of experience informs her composer’s ethos. Text is not a neutral subject; it’s not just about León describes the Forum as “a gathering of musical what the words say, it’s about how they sound. minds–a place of exchange of ideas, and not just from one point of view, simply discussing the technicality of I try also to pick texts which are fairly simple, so writing, but also motivation and personal interaction that I’m not surpassing my own abilities to deal among the composers.” She continues, “Composers are with metaphysical meanings and deep poetic constantly explaining themselves to everybody. How do content and really concentrate on sound. you transcend what the composers wanted to do with a sense of freedom? This atmosphere allows for that. These Before I even begin to write music, I take time to new colleagues were interacting with each other.” mark the text, divisions, tempo possibilities, and The feedback participants receive from Sametz and perhaps even textural or text setting ideas. So the mentor-composers is a crucial aspect or the Forum, there’s a form laid out which has been suggested however, León points out that the group dynamic is also by the structure of the text itself - and then I just important: stumble my way through. It’s special. [Composers] are talking constantly Learning how an established composer such as Stucky about explorations from one day to another. It’s approaches the creative process is invaluable to the par- personal but communal at the same time. The ticipants. When asked about diff erences between instru- sense of community is very real. It’s an explora- mental and choral composition, he underscores some of tion of the work. It’s what we all aspire to achieve. the reasons a gathering such as the Composers Forum We hope that the composers would retain their exists. Stucky states: own voices while absorbing new techniques. For me, it is diff erent. I think it has to do with When you interact with another composer, questions of tuning and sonority in the chorus, student, or colleague, you never know where strictly diff erent than instrumental families. Each it leads to. It has to do with communication. CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 56 Number 4 49 THE LEHIGH UNIVERSITY/ What we, the mentor-composers, end up doing incarnations.