The Default in Our Stars

It is November 2024, and I am DISTRACTED by the US Election.

XX vs. XY weighs heavily on my mind.

In life, and art, and elections, there is a “default” setting. Sure, things are changing, things are NOT THE SAME, there is certainly an EFFORT being made to expand past the default.

Nonetheless, it is true that—by default—our bookshelves, our music libraries, our playlists, the art on our museum walls, the protagonists in our movies, our candidates, and our opinion-makers…favor men, white men, generally speaking.

Just imagine if XX hunched over the lectern, glowering as XY did. Imagine.

This is not news, so I’m not going to dwell on it. But as a little project of mine to actively seek out women’s art, music, and literature has collided head-on with the news cycle, I’m making this little report on my project, as a way of sending an SOS your way.

Mind you, I have nothing against men’s creativity—I have many favourites: in art: Matisse, Chagall, Rembrandt; in music Bach, Stravinsky, Brahms; in literature J. M. Coetzee, Julian Barnes, Robertson Davies.

But—not too surprisingly— whole other worlds open up when women are counted in. Perhaps in literature, being less abstract than art and music, the difference is most notable. Women’s experiences and ways of expressing those experiences are revealed when their own stories are told by them, and rich insight about human nature and relationships are perhaps a reader’s reward.

Just imagine if XX ever dared not to smile, as XY does. Imagine.

Many of my favourite authors explore a second sense of “outsider-ness” as well, such as being an immigrant, queer, or a minority—or several of these. As an American living abroad, this has resonance for me, even though our situations are not exactly parallel. To be a musician, and what’s more a classical musician, is also a form of being “outside” the norm, non-default.

Some of my favorite writers are Jhumpa Lahiri, Hilary Mantel, and Elena Ferrante. But at the moment I’ve been reading some newer-to-me writers, who I want to recommend:

I recently discovered Bernardine Evaristo, who won the Booker Prize in 2019. So far, I’ve read her autobiography “Manifesto on Never Giving Up” and “Mr. Loverman”, a novel. Evaristo is British of Nigerian heritage. The musical flow of her sentences and her characters' dialog is a delight—Mr. Loverman” is Caribbean, and I can hear his lilting voice so well. Evaristo’s life informs the novel, which runs the gamut from humorous, to heartbreaking, to wrenching, to redeeming. I’ll be reading all her other novels ASAP!

Just imagine if XX ever painted her face as crudely as XY does. Imagine.

Utterly different in tone are the semi-autobiographical novels of Annie Ernaux. Reading her frighteningly honest and microscopically observed “reportage” from the front lines of being a woman (or a girl), I realised the full extent to which “male” is the default. In a hundred ways per chapter, she lays bare her experiences, as if to the cold glare of an operating theatre: clinical, brutal, detached. So much for ladies “pink romance” novels… I have not read her masterpiece “Les Années” (“The Years”),  but I am working up to it—hey, I’m reading in French, which requires a pencil, a dictionary, a glass of wine, and a helluva lot of patience!

Just imagine if XX spoke one single time as XY speaks daily. Imagine.

I also have two non-fiction recommendations: firstly, a quirky book called “Traces” by Patricia Wiltshire. Morbid curiosity made me pick it up: it is about using biological traces—pollen, spores, fungi and such—to solve murders. More “pink romance”… NOT! What is amazing is how Wiltshire, now in her ’80’s, basically invented the methodology, using her botany background, allied to her instincts, endless curiosity, and intellectual discipline.

The juxtaposition of Wiltshire’s descriptions of the glorious English countryside, its oaks, elms, foxgloves, rushes, and a thousand other species, and the hideous crimes committed amidst that beauty leaves a lasting impression. She is clearly a remarkable person, an excellent writer, and someone able to stomach the truly un-stomach-able. I’d love to meet her, perhaps we could play sonatas together—she is an amateur pianist—in any case, better to converge around my profession than hers!

Just imagine if XX shattered every norm of decent behavior, as XY has. Imagine.

And finally, a music book and a listening recommendation: “Becoming a Composer” by Errollyn Waller, a Belize-born British composer who has certainly “never given up”. Along the way to being named “Master of the King's Music” earlier this year, she has sung jazz and pop, worked on TV, composed all sorts of chamber music and…twenty-one operas! Her excellent book reflects on her life, artistic collaborations, and her working methods, which include absconding to a windmill-house on the northern shore of Scotland in order to find the necessary peace and quiet for composing.

Just imagine if XX were a convicted felon, as XY is? Imagine.

Wallen as a young girl tells her Uncle Arthur (with whom she grew up) that she “heard sounds in my head” and he replied “perhaps you are a composer”. Wow. How many adults are so observant? She writes: “I am… a composer of classical music. I am not quite sure how that happened to a girl born in Belize and brought up in Tottenham.” Well, someone in her life suggesting she COULD become “non-default” and she followed through…that’s how that happened.

Any artist or performer will enjoy her book and also—of course—listening to her music, for example, the song “Daedalus” performed by Errollyn herself.

Just imagine if XX hunched over the lectern, glowering as XY did. Imagine.

Is the default really in our stars? Is change out of our reach? Can we imagine it?

We’re about to find out.

Announcing: a BIG DEAL!

Or maybe not…You see, I’m in the throes of preparing a concert that is a BIG DEAL—at least, it feels that way to me. To everyone else, who knows, it may be a “nothing-burger”…and I’ve been contemplating mightily the weirdness of that.

Along with other “big-deal” elements (a duo recital! a fab acoustic! with the incredible FC!), I’ll be formally premiering two recent compositions of mine, brazenly placing them alongside favorite works by “real” composers, and presenting them to a “real” [read: paying] audience.

In my mind, this is a huge step forward into the light for my “little project” of composing. At the same time, I realize that for the audience, the presenters, and my friends and fellow musicians, this might be a real nothing-burger… What are two more pieces for flute in a sea of flute music stretching back centuries, and—as I write—in the process, surely, of being devoured, digested, and spat back up into flute-pablum by the AI machines?

Naturally, I’m doing my absolute best to thwart banality: one piece is for contrabass flute with singing intertwined, the other is for the Indian bansuri flute. Take THAT, AI! Take THAT, same-old-same-old!

And I’ve done my best to create music with meaning—at least to me, but hopefully to others as well, even if, as is one of the charms of instrumental music, that meaning is fairly abstract. This is perhaps by design: the composer tells their “story” and the listener hears their “story” of the composition. The two are superimposed into a unique meaning, in a bit of magic.

In any case, and by way of a little PR, “Prayer (Dona nobis pacem)” was composed in a few days in Spring of 2022, just after the war in Ukraine began. It seemed unfathomable to see World War II-type images nightly on the TV. And yet, here we are, two years on, with the Middle East at war as well, and few signs of hope. Thus “Dona nobis pacem”—give us peace—because we humans seem incapable of giving it to ourselves, to each other. I’d like to think my music expresses both heartbreak and hope.

The other piece, “Bansourire” comes from a completely different place: it is a joyous romp, wherein a good-natured battle between the rhythmic, foot-tapping urge and the desire for lyricism is played out. Dancing vs. Singing, if you will. The title is a fusion of the words “bansuri” (the Indian bamboo flute) and “sourire” — french for “smile”. It’s a take on several flute traditions, expressed with the means of the bansuri and its slip-sliding glissandi, via an American who simply can’t get 4/4 out of her system!

If I succeed, will it be a BIG DEAL, and if not, a nothing-burger?

This can only be answered if we agree on what success is. Which is not as simple as we generally pretend it is.

In the online drawing classes I take on Friday evenings, we’ve been exploring the drawings and paintings of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Was van Gogh a success? If we know his troubled history, we know that he was NOT a success. He sold a single painting in his lifetime, he cut his ear off, he was admitted to an asylum, etc. His brother Theo was his only supporter.

In modern terms then, we can say that poor Vincent was a nothing-burger: a “nobody” with a mere, single “follower”, a single person “liking” his art, a marketing disaster.

And yet, as of 2022, his painting “Orchard of Cypresses” sold at auction for over $117 million dollars—and it’s not even one of his most famous works, such as “Starry Night”, “Sunflowers”, and the self-portraits.

The guy has gone viral! Here’s a little graphic, a quaternity, to demonstrate:

(By the way, spending millions on art is what the fantastically rich do with it all…interesting, no?)

Why did van Gogh’s work finally go viral?

I believe it is because of the meaning embedded in it. Every brushstroke, choice of color, and subject is imbued with his unique essence, his humanity. This far outlasts our “mortal coil”, having the power to communicate across time and distance, through the ages. And—eventually—other people also found meaning in his art. As in music, we overlay our own experiences and meanings on those of the artist, arriving at a “personal van Gogh”.

By the way, I am in no way comparing myself or my compositions to van Gogh! I’m just saying that he appears to have once been a “nothing-burger” whereas he is now a VERY VERY BIG DEAL.

This can give us all some comfort. For who has not feared that what is to them a BIG DEAL is considered a nothing-burger by everyone else? No one!

Rather than basting ourselves in this fear, let’s follow some wise words of van Gogh:

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”

That’s all I’m trying to do with my compositions. Everything else will work itself out, sooner or later.

FYI: the Concert is Thursday, October 10th at 7:15pm in Tomar. Duo (flut)uações - myself and Francisco Cipriano, percussion, play works by Moody, Delgado, myself, Marta Domingues, and Gareth Farr on an array of flutes and percussion instruments!

Rewriting the Narrative, or, "What I Did on my Summer Vacation"

I frequently complain about TECH: tech driving me crazy, not working, updating itself (and outdating me)… yes, it’s been a bit of a theme, and I’m NOT proud of all my bitchin’!

However, I am happy to report that “on my summer holiday” (remember those back-to-school writing assignments?) I “rewrote the narrative”. Hand me a huge gold star, please?

Let’s face it, it was either push through somehow or give up a whole lot of my creative plans. To let tech beat me would be an embarrassing throwing-in of the towel…and then what? Drift further and further away from the pleasant-if-slippery shores of techie competence in a tiny dinghy, sure to spring a leak, sure to be overturned in the next middling wave…

Drastic problems (drastic resistance on my part) call for drastic measures. Or maybe just simple ones like DEVOTING SOME TIME to learning the %&/(#% software! How much time, you ask? To quote my guru: “as much as it takes…nanoseconds, millennia.” (For a witty-but-true perspective on time, go here.).

Normally it’s hard to find an expanse of time that encourages the willingness to dive in, knowing a priori that the pool is far deeper than it looks. I am reminded of a dear adult student in New York City, who, after a year or so of lessons told me “If I’d known how hard this is—learning to play flute—I wouldn’t have started…but now that I’m started, I'm going to do it!” And he absolutely did.

But being on holiday for an entire month (ahhhh!!), I had all the time and no excuses. And what I found out was, if you allow the “thing” — in my case, learning the basics of Final Cut Pro video software— whatever time it takes, without being impatient or resentful, well, things move along quite a bit better! It was a classic case of the resistance to spending a pile of time causing the thing to take even more time, adding frustration and annoyance. Stop pushing and half the friction disappears.

Good old F. M. Alexander expressed this as “stop doing the wrong thing and let the right thing do itself.” But he was smarter than me; I (apparently) need to re-learn this on a regular basis. Yup, learning to take time to learn…takes time!

In any case, I have “rewritten my narrative” about tech. Although as far as Final Cut Pro goes, I am still only up to my ankles in the kiddie pool, I must admit that it is a miraculous piece of kit! Not so long ago it might have cost $5K or $50K even $100K to get a program with such capacities. So OF COURSE you can’t learn it all quickly…or possibly ever. Just as I haven’t “learned flute” all yet, either.

And that’s ok. I have rewritten the narrative, and now I know I can learn a complex program if I just give the time it needs, rather than the time I think it “should” take. And now I know the path to a rewrite any of the other countless narratives I have in my head, too.

Which is good, because I just got the news that Finale music notation software—my previously much-complained-about techie bugaboo program—has been KILLED OFF! Whaaaat???? So I get to test myself once again soon…😊 🤓😩

PS. I also “did” the holiday things: rest up, read, take walks, and especially la dolce far niente. The famous “do nothing”. And believe me, that, too was a narrative rewritten—see photo!

Celebrating: Time Off, Humanity, and… Simone Biles!

My music season has finally wrapped up: what a year, a real blast, full of surprises and novelties. Part of me wants to rest one day and then launch into next season straight away, but the wiser (and pretty exhausted) part of me says “Whoa there, how ‘bout some serious down-time?”.

As if on cue, to save me from myself, the 2024 Paris Olympics have begun, and folks, I am a longtime fan of the Olympic Games!

It’s not just that I was pretty sporty as a kid (I attended a track and field meet for my 10th birthday), and that I have a long memory of Olympic highlights (Nadia Comaneci’s groundbreaking score of a perfect 10, Mark Spitz’s 7 gold medals), tragedies (Munich, 1972), and dramas (Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding). Nor that I spent too many hours in my youth splayed on the carpet watching TV…and the Olympics is great TV.

It’s that I find the Olympics so incredibly inspiring: the athletes’ back-stories, their abilities, dedication, stamina, determination, and their equanimity in the face of disappointment. So many lessons there for us musicians!

You might even say that these athletes—like us?—have dedicated themselves to perfecting useless skills. Well, I wouldn’t say it to their face, but you know, no one actually needs to be able to flip and twist as they fall off a 30-foot board into a pool. Not VERY often, in any case! Just like no one needs to play the flute…

So (not counting the slight possibility of fame and glory and riches…) what’s the point of it? (A therapist once asked me “what’s the point" of my daughter learning the cello…I was aghast. I wish I had replied: “what is the point of living without learning to play the cello?”

Because we can. Because we’re human. Because we strive. Because (to quote a book by Glennon Doyle I’ve not yet read) “we can do hard things”.

And because it’s BEAUTIFUL.

Ok, sports is supposedly not “about” aesthetics. But it is there anyway—because we humans do value beauty (even if some don’t want to admit it… yeah, yeah, go to law school…).

I’ve just watched Simone Biles nail all four rounds to qualify for the finals in gymnastics. Aesthetics are present everywhere in her performance: the exuberance, the clean lines, the gestures her body makes as it flies, nay, SOARS across the arena…Also the theatrical outfits (hate to admit, but the Swarovski gems looks amazing), the hair, the makeup. With Simone Biles—and all her competitors—we have a total expression of the beauty of the human form in movement.

On the other hand, there is the incredible training involved, quite similar to that of musicians. Years upon years of discipline and preparation. It is hard, and we humans can do it.

And yet—they also “hit wrong notes”; a hand misses the bar and suddenly, the extreme difficulty of what they do is laid bare. They—these OLYMPIANS!—wobble a bit on that hideous, sweaty-palm-inducing 4-inch balance beam; they overstep the edge of the floor after a tumbling series of double whatevers.

Can we not agree that these moments make them more human? Giving us a better sense of the courage needed to go out there and perform, knowing it might not go perfectly, in spite of years of training? While the perfect routine is truly something to behold, not even Simone Biles reaches perfection—it’s an ideal, a direction, not a destination. When I watch, these “errors” only increase my appreciation of their abilities, inspiring me to aim high myself.

As I’m taking a well-deserved break, I’m going to cheer every athlete on, cry with them when things go south, cry in joy when they nail it. It’s all good. It’s all human. And when I get back in the saddle, soon enough, I’m going to give the same cheering and joy to myself, my colleagues, my students—no matter what. We are human.

Women’s Gymnastics Team Final is on July 30th; the Women’s All-Around Finals are on August 1st. I’ll be watching and rooting for every single athlete! (But especially, I admit, for Simone!)

If you'd like to download this free inspirational poster (PDF) I made featuring Simone Biles, click here. Happy summer, everyone!