WITH JOHN KENNEDY
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SFR: What does an artistic director do?
JK:
I not only guide Santa Fe New Music in performance, but also determine the vision of the organization; beyond just what we choose to play, it's about the aesthetic and posture we put out to the community.
What is 'new music'?
It's the composition part of art music. I like to refer to it as post-classical, but I think what audiences are starting to get a grip on is that the definition of it is very broad. For young people, who look for a cool factor when it comes to music, the idea that something as organized as traditional composition might not be cool, we try to overcome those perceptions. A lot of young people speak so many musical languages and their influences are not just from the classical tradition.
At the Samuel Beckett Centenary Concert in October, I noticed only a small portion of the audience was in their 20s and 30s. Is it difficult to get young people to your performances?
I was mad after that concert because of that. Beckett, I thought, would appeal to a younger generation, and we marketed up at St. John's and the College of Santa Fe. It actually kind of depressed me because our audiences are usually older.
Can you explain your next show, PoMozart: A Postmodern Musical Wake for WAM?
There are works by four composers who have paid homage to Mozart. Two by Michael Nyman, a British composer, often thought of as the British Philip Glass because he's a minimalist. There's Alfred Schnittke, who takes one of Mozart's themes and twists it. Alexander Raskatov, whose piece 'Five Minutes from the Life of WAM' is as if Mozart's spirit walks into the room and then leaves in peace. John Cage wrote a set of instructions for creating a Mozart event, and the last piece is Mozart's 'Masonic Funeral Music,' which fits for the Scottish Rite Temple.
I've been surprised that music is still considered classical when there's electronics and sometimes no instrumentation.
Many people who call themselves composers have gone through formal education in the classical environment and that label gets attached to them. Classical music is so focused on looking backward and many organizations don't think about looking forward or even at the present. But if we're going to have music as a living art form, we need it to grow and to build threads from the radical composers of the past to the radical composers of today. Mozart pushed the envelope incessantly. It baffles me that so many people who listen to Mozart aren't willing to listen to those who are pushing the envelope today.
What is the Music and Water Festival you're doing this spring?
Every other year, we want to do an intense event, and with our resources we'd have to choose either an international festival or a season, and we don't want to sacrifice the idea of doing year-round concerts. So what we're doing in April is a variation on the theme of music and water. It's important to me that we connect this kind of art form we're involved with into issues of the day and the cultural context. We also have the benefit that Gov. Richardson declared 2007 the year of water.
How do you end up playing shows at chapels and the Scottish Rite Temple?
Santa Fe is really lacking in spaces for musicians to perform. Venues that have adequate acoustics don't have the aesthetic neutrality that we're looking for. And that does affect our programming choices. There's no black box with great acoustics out there that can accommodate an electronic production as well. If Santa Fe is really going to become a world-class arts city, we're going to need better performance spaces, not just for what we do, but for dance performances and things like that. We need an alternative to the Lensic.
One of your operas is being performed in a program put on by the Santa Fe Opera.
Not in the summer season, but as a part of their statewide outreach this spring. It's a chamber opera for four singers and a piano, and it will be done something like 45 or 50 times all over the region as part of the SFO's attempt to get opera into the area.
You play percussion, but what instrument do you use to compose?
Piano, though I'm not alone in being a composer who sometimes composes on piano and sometimes just on paper. The piano has its own limitations…so sometimes I feel constrained sitting in the middle of the keyboard, playing those notes that are right there in the human vocal range. It's important to get away from the piano. The inner ear sometimes evolves, and in my case it's the most important musical evolution.
What are the challenges of composing your own music?
As a conductor and a presenter, I'm always listening to other people's work to see what's out there and to see what's new, and I don't want it to really influence my own music. Sometimes I'm at home thinking about musical compositions and someone else wants to listen to music. I can't listen and compose simultaneously.
Do you get lots of silly jokes about your name?
It's just one of those burdens that you carry. I don't think about it anymore, but there was a time when I was young that I thought about changing my name-but it's a memorable name. When I served as the president of the American Music Center, I followed a composer named John Adams, which we found pretty funny.
