At our concert tomorrow, we are premiering Forge, a work by Toronto composer Patrick McGraw. We asked him a few questions so we could all get to know him a bit better. (Read through to the bottom to find the Hendrix connection.) 1) When did you start composing? What or who were your early influences? As soon as I started clarinet lessons around grade 3, I started writing tunes for the clarinet. Some of those tunes I heard in my head as themes for symphonies, but I was frustrated at not having the technical means to transfer all that I heard in my head onto the page. Even as I gained more musical knowledge, I think that sense of needing to express something that I wasnt sure how to express continued for a lot of my life, until I decided this compulsion was important enough to justify a major shift in my life, going back to school full-time. My mother is Czech and I was a huge fan of Dvořák as a young child--- that influence is surely still deep in the back of my mind. Later on, Hindemith and Bartók became big influences as I was beginning to write more seriously. 2) How does your background in physics influence your music, if at all? One thing that attracted me to physics was the idea that all of the complexity of the world could be explained by a few underlying regularities, ideas that are ultimately very simple once you have the mathematical language in which to express them, but which work themselves out in varied, sometimes unforeseen ways. That concern with the relationship between simple processes and surface complexity often influences the way I think about music. Also, in composing, I sometimes think quasi-mathematically about the material Im working with, but I tend to combine that sort of thinking with more intuitive decisions. At heart, both physics and music are aesthetic pursuits. 3) What was the inspiration behind writing a brass quintet, and Forge specifically? As a clarinetist and saxophonist who played in a lot of concert bands and wind ensembles, Ive always had an affinity for woodwinds and brass. Forge began as an incomplete fragment written for a workshop with the Canadian Brass. I learned some valuable things from their sight-reading, revised some of what I had written, and continued following where it led. It did not have a title until it was about halfway finished, but the title suggested further imagery that then helped it gain a clearer shape and helped me finish. 4) What is your process in beginning a new piece? It varies from piece to piece, but frequently I start with a fairly small opening idea, and then see how I can develop it. The beginning might be a melodic fragment, a rhythm, or even just one chord or a combination of instrumental timbres. As I remember, Forge began with a single chord -- then I began to think about ways to transform that chord and find melodies within the resulting collections of pitches. Sometimes I begin with an overall form or narrative in mind, but often that only begins to take shape later. 5) What is your musical guilty pleasure? Im sure I could list several, some guiltier than others. Some 80s pop, I suppose. Hawkwind and other overblown prog rock. The 1812 Overture. Thanks, Pat! P.S. That chord he refers to in question four? It was inspired by what is commonly referred to by guitarists as the Hendrix Chord, popularized by Jimi Hendrix in Purple Haze.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 23:03:40 +0000
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