Muhly in motion
American composer Nico Muhly headlines the closing concert at the Singapore International Festival of Arts.
AMERICAN composer Nico Muhly is obsessed with food-related tasks, such as stuffing a sausage or pleating a dumpling.
A project he would love to do is film Singapore’s hawkers at work and compose music for the video.
“It’s going to be me under the roti prata guy taking videos in slow motion,” he wisecracks over the telephone from Rome.
Singapore is one of his favourite getaway destinations because of the food and, on May 12, he will give a concert in Singapore summarising 10 years of composition as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts.
The annual arts festival ends on May 12 with this Muhly concert, who unites contemporary and classical music in his own genre-defying manner.
Nico Muhly Speaks Volumes includes tracks from his first album, Speaks Volumes (2006), as well as recent works such as last year’s No Uncertain Terms, commissioned by New York’s Carnegie Hall to celebrate the 80th birthday of another American composer, the iconic Steve Reich.
Much of Muhly’s work is inspired by everyday tasks and interactions. His upcoming concert here includes music he wrote for a friend and recorded in her kitchen.
Muhly, who turns 37 in August, says: “It’s not going to be a formal concert, more of a ‘welcome to this universe’ concert.”
A day before it, he will give a talk about his life and work at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
The ensemble performing with him includes Lisa Liu – the violinist whose kitchen inspired the song, Honest Music – and other regular collaborators: Matt Albert on violin and cellist Paul Wiancko.
From Singapore, pianist Lim Yan and percussion player Ramu Thiruyanam will jam with Muhly for the first time.
He is excited about working with new people and returning to Singapore. He was last here in November, decompressing after his opera Marnie opened in London.
His first visit five years ago was a stopover. “I needed to be somewhere where I could rent a keyboard for work. I was totally curious about Singapore. The fact of it is amazing. Culturally, how it functions.”
He adds with a laugh: “The emphasis on structure, the combination of high-tech and city of the future. I was fascinated.”
He enjoys sampling hawker food – after a week in northern Europe, he has been known to demand chilli – and discussing politics or music with taxi drivers in these parts.
On one trip, during a monsoon storm, he and a taxi driver bonded over the Rajasthani music the latter was playing in the car.
“He was chucking CDs back to me, like, ‘Check this one out.’”
Muhly believes in CDs and still buys them, even though he thinks iTunes and digital music have made it easier for people to sample different kinds of music.
His own style, contemporary classical, is an oxymoron that defies traditional stereotypes. He has written more than 80 works for the concert stage, including commissions for New York’s Metropolitan Opera and St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Born in Vermont, he sang as a choirboy and still geeks out over choral concerts. Last month, he attended the Good Friday mass in Vatican City, at the invitation of a friend.
He studied composition with John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse at The Juilliard School before working as an editor and conductor for American composer Philip Glass.
When asked what he learnt from Glass – whose style shaped contemporary composition – Muhly says, very simply, that he learnt to make music with friends.
“It wasn’t a situation where I talked about music. He just worked. There’s not a lot of philosophising or nonsense.”
Like Glass, Muhly just wrote music for the friends and colleagues he interacted with. Music comes out of this “social reality”, he says.
“This concert is about writing music for friends and how writing music for friends teaches you how to write for strangers. It’s an honour when strangers want you to write for them, but it starts from home.” – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
Nico Muhly Speaks Volumes is on at the Sota Drama Theatre, School of the Arts in Singapore on May 12. More info: www.sistic.com.sg and www. sifa.sg.