THE ‘MUSIC DEVELOPER’
Braid’s classical, jazz mix
More and more musicians are positioning themselves at the intriguing intersection of jazz and classical music. But few are as thoughtful about it as Toronto’s David Braid.
As part of Chamberfest, the 42-year-old Juno-winning pianist and composer (he’s conflicted about that term) plays his latest lush and expansive music with a string quartet Saturday night at La Nouvelle Scène.
Braid, a globe-trotting performer who was also responsible for the music in the 2015 jazz film Born to be Blue, discusses his outside-the-box music.
Q: You began as a jazz pianist, but branched out into the classical realm. Why have you taken this musical path?
A: When I began as a jazz pianist, I didn’t know much about music at all. However, I knew I was attracted to jazz for its stylized sound and spontaneity. I was also very attracted to classical music for its vast range of colour, harmonic beauty and long tradition.
I was a keen late starter, so learning to play jazz was just the quickest way for me to start playing and writing music. As a beginner, I wanted to absorb a wide range of historical jazz piano styles, without any concern whatsoever for my own voice. It wasn’t until I started to sustain myself in a professional career that I began to pay more attention to my own ideas rather than follow others. I began writing more detailed music and I felt this was met with less enthusiasm among some of the jazz bands I was leading at that time. I was also growing less enthusiastic about the extreme volumes that jazz bands were playing at.
It was an eye-opening experience to begin collaborating with classical musicians because I discovered a wide-open space in acoustic nuance, compositional detail and potential to weave in jazz elements as a kind of “active ingredient” in the music.
I still think I’m just as much a jazz musician as I ever was, but I’ve found a new way to apply it and it doesn’t fit neatly within what people identify as either jazz or classical music.
Q: How important to you is it that improvisation figures in the music that you’re making?
A: Improvising (spontaneous choices) is essential to the music I’m making because it provides the “active ingredient” that channels the experience of its players, the social energy of the audience, the acoustic space and all other unique variables within any given performance. Unlike fully written music that is fully formed at the time of creation, the active ingredients in my music allows the composition to evolve as performance practices evolve over time.
Q: What music will you be presenting in Ottawa? What does that music mean to you?
A: I’ll be presenting some new manifestations of music I composed for my album Flow. I believe this music is a basic representation of work that might define me as a “music developer” since I don’t like the term composer. Perhaps my music might be a part of an emerging movement in creative music that I’ve seen in Canada (for example, with the The Turning Point Ensemble), Australia (Monash Art Ensemble), U.K. (Sinfonia UK Collective) and many other examples in Europe.
Q: You’ve also said: “Rather than think of myself as a composer, I prefer to think more like a film director stimulating the audience’s imagination.” What did you mean?
A: That statement refers to the amount of thought I put toward pondering the inner experiences of my audience as they listen to one of my pieces — like how a filmmaker might think about the sensory and intellectual responses of viewers out in the cinema. When I’m writing or improvising, I aim to create forward drive in a musical narrative line because I believe this will keep my audience inside the musical experience, just like how people are under the spell of a film with a powerful storyline.
I didn’t have formal studies in composition, so perhaps I’ve just come up with a thinking system that is easy to design without getting bogged down too early with musical details.
For example, I find it easier to create grand musical “form” when I restructure it into acts and scenes — not like in programmatic music — but just as a way to organize a flow of events in time. I also think of musical structure — such as counterpoint — like building physical structures, as in a set design.
But that’s only part of the story, as that only describes the “noun” or “defined elements” of the music. I’m interested in the “verb” or “active ingredient” in music, which is creating room for spontaneous choices or improvisation that’s organized to enhance the narrative.
I’m also interested in combining the experiences and imaginations of the musicians performing my work — much like how a good director allows a certain amount of freedom for the actors in a film. This way, the authorship of the work is now enhanced by a wider range of experiences. In this way, I identify more as a “musical developer” rather than composer.
Q: This year you’re bringing your music to audiences in Europe, the U.K., China and Australia. How gruelling and how rewarding is it for you to be on the road this way?
A: The obvious answer to me is that every opportunity to create and perform a piece of music for an audience is absolutely a gift. Actually, for me, it’s borderline miraculous. I’m probably naturally disposed “to keep my eye on the prize” so I see no reason for complaining about exhausting travel days.
Q: What other projects have been or will be occupying your time this year?
A: My latest project is a leap into new territory. I’ve created a 40-minute work for soprano, choir and chamber orchestra. It’s a sacred piece entitled Corona Divinae Misericordiae. This work doesn’t resemble Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts, but it similarly combines musical styles suggestive of both the terrestrial and divine, similar to Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos, which was a huge inspiration.
I have a half-dozen performances of it this year, first with Sinfonia UK Collective, and I’ll be recording it next month in Prague. Before Prague, the Elmer Isler Singers are performing it at Festival of the Sound on Aug. 11. I plan to find a way to tour this project.