Augusta Read Thomas
As composer in residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997-2006, Augusta Read Thomas worked closely with conductors Pierre Boulez and Daniel Barenboim. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her Astral Canticle in 2007, much of her eclectic body of work has been recorded by Nimbus Records.
I have just finished a huge piece for orchestra and bells from all over the world. Called Sonorous Earth, it was commissioned by the Chicago Philharmonic Society and Eugene Symphony Association, so had its premiere in Chicago in November and will get its second performance in Eugene in April. When I’m composing a piece, I am completely dedicated to it. I get obsessed about it, I dream about it – it is all-consuming. I only ever write one piece at a time, but on any one day, I might well touch on several others. I might be proofreading the manuscript of one, attending a concert of another, writing the programme notes of another and so on. Usually, I am working by four o’clock in the morning. In a perfect day, I’d then like to carry on until 11 at night in a composing marathon, but that rarely happens! I like to compose at home, where I usually play the piano, plus I also o en find myself singing, drawing maps of the form of the piece, or dancing to feel the rhythm and the impulse of the line.
I like to think of every element of sound being allied to every other element of sound in a kind of gestalt. For me, you can’t separate harmony from flow, counterpoint from colour or tessitura from instrumentation and so on, and I see composing as this huge three-dimensional crossword puzzle in which all of the elements are interlaced. Part of the process of working these very long days is about staying in the ‘gestalt zone’, figuring out how I make it all work.
My husband, Bernard Rands, is a fabulous composer. I admire him immensely, though our music is so di erent. Sometimes, I would like to ask him what he thinks of a piece of mine – particularly if it’s recently finished or recorded – but he’s not really into that, and normally suggests we have a glass of wine instead. And besides, if I did show him, say, a huge orchestral score such as my recent work Brio, it would take him six or seven hours to read it properly and then be able to comment! It’s not a simple ask.