spring
2022
issue
17
Ecomusicology
MUSIC & NATURE
Contributors
CRYSTAL HAMMON is a freelance writer and an ardent fan of classical music and opera. She loves playing “the airline bump game” to earn free travel vouchers and blogs at CrystalHammon.com.
Ecomusicology
AMY LYNCH is an Indianapolisbased freelance writer and active vice president of the Midwest Travel Journalists Association. She enjoys live music and breakfast any time of day.
NICHOLAS JOHNSON, PH.D. is an assistant professor of musicology at Butler University, the musicology director of the Vienna Summer Music Festival and a local musician.
ELIZABETH FRICKEY is a master’s student studying musicology at Indiana University. Her current research interests include music and gender, ecomusicology, and electroacoustic music and cognition.
MICHAEL TOULOUSE has worked in broadcasting for nearly three decades, sharing classical music with radio audiences throughout Indiana. As an experienced interviewer and program host, he is known for immersing himself in a subject to highlight the fascinating details that often go unnoticed.
JENNIFER HUTCHINSON DELGADILLO is a MexicanAmerican artist and writer living on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis.
ALLISON TROUTNER is a freelance content marketing writer on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. The things that make her tick include her two toddlers, pink suede shoes and coffee in excess.
Lover of coffee, blogging and stationery, ALECIA M. WHITE is an author and administrator. Born and raised in Benton Harbor, Michigan, she now resides in Indianapolis.
E M O
M
ECO MUSIC OLOGY
Music & Nature
02 Editor’s Note
04 Sound Field I
ROB FUNKERHOUSER’S SOUNDWALK AT GARFIELD PARK
06 Unified Stream
LANDON CALDWELL’S SOUNDWALK AT GARFIELD PARK
08 Weaving a Spell
ASHA SRINIVASAN EXPLORES ELECTRONIC MUSIC AND NATURE.
SPECIAL THANKS TO NOTE MAGAZINE COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD AND CONTRIBUTING STAFF:
Crystal Hammon
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Amy McAdams-Gonzales DESIGNER
Lisa Brooks, D.M.A. Lillian Crabb Rob Funkhouser Gregory Heinle Lindsey Henry Kyle Long Stephania Pfeiffer Eric Salazar Michael Toulouse Julian Winborn Special thanks to Megan Telligman and Indiana Humanities for their partnership on this edition.
10 Listening Practice
JACOB JOYCE MAKES CLASSICAL MUSIC ACCESSIBLE.
12 At the Heart of Change EMILY WELLS
14
Natural Composer
LIBBY LARSEN
16 Natural Attraction KATELYN CALHOUN
18 Maestro of the Playlist SALVADOR PEREZ LOPEZ
20 Music Unites Artists TRICIA BONNER
22 My Music. My Story. KIPP NORMAND
24 My Music. My Story. TATJANA REBELLE
To access other digital editions, visit www.classicalmusicindy.org. For more information contact us at info@classicalmusicindy.org.
26 Classical Pairings
MUSIC MEETS CALVIN FLETCHER’S COFFEE COMPANY.
29 On Air
MARCH TO THE SCAFFOLD
Ecomusicology
NOTE magazine is a publication of Classical Music Indy, Inc.
Dear Classical Music Fans and Friends, After six years with this amazing organization, this is my final issue as editor of NOTE and president and CEO of Classical Music Indy. My transition is related to a life change; I am stepping down June 30 to spend more time with my partner, who retired last year. With an exceptionally talented team of staff, a dedicated board of directors, strong partnerships with local artists, and a new strategic plan in development, CMI is well positioned for a new leader and its next phase of service to our community. This issue of NOTE is the intersection of two things I deeply love: music and nature. Dive in this issue to find stories on soundwalks, acoustic ecology, nature in film, and more. Leonard Berstein said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” I feel I could never have had quite enough time to accomplish all the great things my colleagues and I planned to do, but I will have many treasured moments and a sense of pride for what we accomplished together. CMI’s dedicated donors and generous funders have my sincere appreciation for continuing to make our work possible and accessible to all members of our community. Whether you listen on a radio, laptop, or cell phone, the CMI team serves our community 24/7. Our team welcomes people of all ages, backgrounds, and identities to explore classical music in ways that are relevant and engaging. Please join me in supporting these exceptional programs – on-air, online, and in the community – so they may flourish for years to come.
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Classically yours,
02
Jenny Burch
President & CEO
The largest locally-owned national bank is proud to be a major supporter of the Arts. 317-261-9000
©2019 The National Bank of Indianapolis www.nbofi.com Member FDIC
Ecomusicology
CMI City Sounds is supported by the Indy Arts and Culture Restart & Resilience Fund: An Arts Council of Indianapolis program made possible by Lilly Endowment Inc.
Sound Field I AT GARFIELD PARK
ROB FUNKHOUSER RECONTEXTUALIZES A BELOVED PARK FOR VISITORS. ____
Ecomusicology
Words by Allison Troutner
04
West of Bean Creek in Garfield Park, Rob Funkhouser’s virtual art installation is invisible to the eye, but the geofenced soundwalk Sound Field I transforms an ordinary park into a fantastic soundscape for visitors who wish to engage. Funkhouser says Sound Field I is written for visitors hanging out in the park, and participating is entirely optional. Creating unintrusive art installations for parkgoers is a crucial concept of his work. “I try to be conscientious of how I present things, specifically so that I can make the work that I want, while also being able to sleep at night, knowing that I didn’t foist it on a community that doesn’t want or need it.” Funkhouser is a composer, performer, instrument builder and long-term resident of Big Car Collaborative’s Artist and Public Life Residency Program (APLR). Before APLR, he shared a residency at Cat Head Press with composer Landon Caldwell. This led to a longterm partnership based on experimental ideas of how sound art installations keep communities at the center. In the fall of 2021, the pair received funding from the #IndyKeepsCreating Cultural Connection Grant, administered by Big Car Collaborative. The grant was the spark the two needed to make their idea a reality. The following December, Funkhouser and Caldwell presented Frozen Frequencies, a geofenced virtual art installation composed of two unique soundwalks in Garfield Park, including Funkhouser’s Sound Field I.
1. Download the echoes.xzy app and search based on location in Indianapolis. 2. Scan the attached QR code and follow the prompts.
Using the GPS-driven Echoes.xyz app, a listener’s location triggers the zones, and the soundscape erupts into layers of sound. “I think there’s something fun about it, adding this layer of beauty or magic on top of something that people do every day,” he says. Funkhouser’s compositions are recorded at home using relatively common instruments, like a thumb piano, synthesizer and a recording of the waves of Lake Michigan. “For me, it was an attempt to make something ordinary a little bit more extraordinary,” he says. When designing virtual art installations in the community, Funkhouser embraces a gardener’s mentality, patiently tilling the soil, preparing for growth over time. “When you think about long, slow, repeatable, responsible work, you end up with results that add to the people around you and your neighborhood, in a more meaningful way,” he says. “It’s something that will have a lasting impact beyond what I could ever hope to do with one concert.” How does the Garfield Park community feel about the art installation? “I would assume right now it would not be that important at all, to a certain extent, because I have a lot of inroads to make in the neighborhood,” he explains. His goal is not immediate value but adding to the larger context within the Garfield Park community. In this regard, he says, “I’m still at the very beginning of what I hope is a long journey.” ■
Ecomusicology
“My hope is that somebody could have a special, magical experience in this part of the park just by walking around and exploring,” says Funkhouser. “I like that idea of surprise and people finding significance in things that aren’t really meant to be significant.” One of his favorite sections of the installation happens along an unremarkable stretch of sidewalk leading to the Pagoda. There Funkhouser added several “zones”of composition.
HOW TO ACCESS SOUNDWALKS
05
Unified Stream AT GARFIELD PARK
LANDON CALDWELL’S SOUNDWALK COMPOSITION RECONNECTS LISTENERS TO THEMSELVES AND NATURE. ____
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Words by Allison Troutner Photo by Atinuke Olonoh
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After more than two years of social disconnection, there couldn’t be a more appropriate time for composer Landon Caldwell’s GPS-driven sound art installation at Garfield Park, a conduit for reconnecting with the story of ourselves and the natural environment. Caldwell’s Unified Stream is one of two augmented reality sound series in Garfield Park; the other is Sound Field I, composed by Caldwell’s friend and project partner Rob Funkhouser. Their idea of transcending time and space with sound art was born during a shared residency at Cat Head Press. Thanks to the support of the #IndyKeepsCreating Cultural Connection Grant, administered by Big Car Collaborative, the pair released their culminating project, Frozen Frequencies, in December 2021. Frozen Frequencies was a temporary event, but the project continues as a cost-free, ad-free, semi-permanent installation at Garfield Park. East of Bean Creek, Caldwell’s composition, Unified Stream, features two different ensembles and the music of several musicians improvised from one of Caldwell’s earlier compositions, Unity. The installation comprises dozens of orbicular zones with site-specific compositions triggered by a listener’s location using the Echoes.xyz app. “Unified Stream is a composition, but it’s also an installation,” says Caldwell. “I want to push the boundaries of what is considered a composition, so we’re borrowing elements of installation art in this context.”
Walking through the Sunken Gardens, listeners may hear a single reverberating composition. In the next step, their ears are filled with three or four
1. Download the echoes.xzy app and search based on location in Indianapolis. 2. Scan the attached QR code and follow the prompts.
overlapping arrangements featuring trumpets, organs or electronic sounds. The pieces of Unified Stream are modally complimentary and yet technically distinct. As zones overlap along the walk, sounds swell and combine to tell a new story — a story about Caldwell himself, but more importantly, a chronicle of connection for the listener. “It was about exploring this idea of using a composition to communicate with yourself, through space and time and different points in your life and different places,” Caldwell says. The muse behind Unified Stream was, in some ways, inspired by a Wendell Berry essay, Caldwell says. Published in 2011 on The Contrary Farmer, a personal blog, Berry describes a bucket that collects leaves, debris and moisture. Over time, the matter decomposes and turns into soil. For Berry and Caldwell, the life cycle of the bucket’s contents is analogous to human culture. Humans must collect folklore, songs and snippets of life to grow local experience. “Building soil is an analogy for this important local work where we all know each other’s stories and build the soil of culture and community,” Caldwell explains. “I’m creating works that are only accessible on a hyper-local level, and that is an intriguing idea to me, an antagonism to how music is made today.” Caldwell’s compositions help park visitors have experiences that are deeply personal and entirely original. In this way, they contribute to the larger story of the Garfield Park community. “The listener becomes the conductor, to an extent, because they determine how that piece unfolds,” he says. “That’s a power that listeners have never had before.” ■
Ecomusicology
Garfield Park’s natural wooded and floral landscape is very much part of Caldwell’s design and intention within the virtual installation. “Unified Stream is a conduit for getting people to connect with the natural world,” Caldwell says. “The simple act of connecting can be a panacea for many ills we experience, whether it’s anxiety, depression or how we relate to the decisions we make.”
HOW TO ACCESS SOUNDWALKS
07
Weaving
a Spell ASHA SRINIVASAN EXPLORES THE INTERSECTION OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC AND NATURE.
Ecomusicology
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Words by Amy Lynch
As an associate professor of music at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, Indian-American composer Asha Srinivasan was going about the usual business of teaching when opportunity came knocking. Emailing, actually.
In a serendipitous gesture inspired by plant ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, oboist Sara Fraker reached out to Srinivasan in 2015 with the intention of commissioning her to write a 10-minute piece that incorporated oboe, electronic music and natural sound. “I’m a big NPR fan; I’d just listened to an interview with Kimmerer on ‘To the Best of Our Knowledge’ about the grammar of animacy she talks about in her book, and I found it so evocative,” Srinivasan remembers. “When I randomly got the email from Sara about composing a piece related to sustainability and the environment, she brought up the interview.” After talking broadly about the project, Srinivasan and Fraker discussed Braiding Sweetgrass and conferred on each chapter, enjoying Kimmerer’s distinctive voice and descriptions, listing sections that stood out to see what overlapped.
Like the strands of a braid, Srinivasan drew upon the principles of music, ecology and Native American traditional ecological knowledge to inform her work, skillfully weaving the three into something beautiful. Although Kimmerer’s book served as an initial catalyst for the project, the author didn’t get to hear “Braiding” for the first time — or meet Srinivasan and Fraker — until the world premiere of the piece at the University of Arizona in 2017. “Her response was amazing; she loved it,” Srinivasan recalls. “There was even a moment when I saw her wipe away a tear.” Defined by ethnomusicologist Jeffrey Todd Titon as “the study of music, culture, sound and nature in a period of environmental crisis,” ecomusicology is gaining awareness in modern music circles, but Srinivasan says the notion isn’t really new.
Asha Srinivasan,
“Ever since recording equipment was invented, people have been recording the sounds of nature,” she explains. “Acoustic ecology has been going on for a while. Music isn’t just about pitches and rhythm. For instance, when I go on a hike, the sounds I hear in the woods are music.”
Photo by Rachel Crowl
“I hadn’t done much with natural soundscapes before, so I wanted to keep it simple with some bird and nature sounds,” Srinivasan says. “Originally, I thought about doing a multimovement piece with three or four different chapters, but it evolved into one continuous piece that touched on the three central concepts of the book — gratitude, listening to our natural world and animacy.”
*Braiding: Lessons from Braiding Sweetgrass is available on YouTube and Spotify.
Ecomusicology
The finished piece, Braiding: Lessons from Braiding Sweetgrass* opens with an expression of thanks through oboe and spoken word, thrusting the listener into a surreal, noisy dystopia before settling into a natural soundscape, then transitioning to close on a joyful, uplifting note with wind chimes.
Next up for Srinivasan — a new piece for the Damselfly Trio, a high school band piece and a solo piece for the 2023 National Flute Association high school competition. She also recently finished a new composition for violin and cello to premiere this year. “I go where the projects take me!” she laughs. ■
09
Listening Practice THE ISO’S JACOB JOYCE MAKES CLASSICAL MUSIC ACCESSIBLE. ____
Ecomusicology
Words by Elizabeth Frickey
10
Anahid Khassabian opens his book Ubiquituous Listening with a simple statement: “Whether we notice or not: our days are filled with listening.” Humans are naturally predisposed to gather information about our environments through sound. But classical music? Many people would insist that they are NOT predisposed to this kind of listening. If classical music is in some ways a “language,” it might feel foreign at best.
musical ideas or even connect them as “musical landmarks” on a larger landscape. This technique of mapping can be especially helpful when listening to longer stretches of music. It can be much easier, even for beginners, to imagine a sort of environment within a piece of music. This kind of visualization might come more naturally for some pieces than others, however. As Joyce notes, “the more music uses sounds that are reminiscent from sounds of everyday life, the more accessible it might feel.”
Check out more of Jacob Joyce’s work on his website, https://www.jacobjoyceconductor.com/ and listen to Attention to Detail wherever you get your podcasts.
Ecomusicology
In fact, some works might get composed with a particular image or narrative in mind — what we would call programmatic music. Not all programmatic music is created equal. Associate Conductor of the We might even imagine a sort of Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra “spectrum” of programmatic elements (ISO) Jacob Joyce considers music to from the highly evocative nature of be almost a native language. “Music Richard Strauss’s tone poems to the as a native language means that I more “absolute music” of J.S. Bach. don’t have to go through a translation However, Joyce often encourages process,” Joyce says. “Certain musical beginning listeners to seek out more ideas just have a natural meaning [for overtly programmatic music precisely me].” When Joyce isn’t busy preparing because it calls forth such strong Jacob Joyce for his next ISO concert, he is also visual imagery, such as the falling the host of the Attention to Detail snow of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four podcast, a project dedicated to helping people Seasons, or the Nordic landscape in Jean Sibelius’s build their listening practice for classical music. En Saga. He even created a two-week program designed to prepare classical music newcomers for a real trip If learning to listen differently seems a bit to a live concert. intimidating, Joyce reassures us that “there are no wrong answers!” This program emphasizes Joyce’s two-week program draws on four main that there is not just one way to listen to a piece listening strategies: attentive listening, noting of music and not just one message you should be ideas, grouping and mapping. Attentive getting. Joyce insists, “it is always better to get listening requires participants to apply aspects something, even hatred, out of a piece of music of mindfulness to their focused listening. In than to completely write it off without having a noting their ideas, listeners can learn to reflect on reason why.” But this practice of listening is about exactly what they are hearing in their own words. more than just enjoying classical music in the Grouping and mapping are slightly more directed short term — it’s also about becoming a more in their instruction, asking listeners to group attentive and mindful person in the long run. ■
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At the Heart of Change EMILY WELLS IMMORTALIZES MESSIANIC MUSES IN REGARDS TO THE END . Ecomusicology
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Words by Crystal Hammon Photo by Rachel Stern
The pandemic shutdown of 2020 had an unexpected flipside for composer, vocalist and instrumentalist Emily Wells. At first, Wells felt disoriented and unfocused, but she quickly discovered that her ability to focus and to “hem” herself into her practice were changed for the better. “On a spiritual level, I was extremely grateful to be an artist as a way to work through ideas, as a way to distract my mind, as a way to be engaged in something bigger than myself,” Wells says.
That period of isolation fell neatly into a cycle the former Indianapolis resident has followed since her career took flight in the early 2000s. Loosely speaking, the pattern is this: a year or so of making a record followed by a year of touring to promote the album. She had just finished a year of touring in 2019, and 2020 was slated as a year of making. Her latest album, Regards to the End, reveals what was on her mind as she got acquainted with the woods near a home she had recently purchased. “I would take walks at the beginning of spring, and I was starting to build a relationship with these woods and individual trees, and all the little shoots of green that were springing up,” says Wells, who learned to play violin via the Suzuki Method and played with the New World Youth Orchestra when she was a teen. “There was all this chaos in everyone’s life, and yet the woods were exactly right, as if they knew exactly what to do.” While capable of “extreme amounts of fear around climate dystopia,” Wells draws hope from the higher power and intelligence she finds in the natural world. As proof, she points to The Year Earth Changed, the 2021 documentary film that chronicles how quickly the earth began to heal as a result of the pandemic shutdown. “That was such an incredible lesson in
how much impact we are having on the planet,” she says. Could hardships like the AIDS crisis and the COVID pandemic could be primers for curbing climate change? Wells thinks so. Her reflections yielded elegant tracks like The Dress Rehearsal, which opens with these lines: “All day the trees are praying I go down in their splendor Then I am praying too, then I am praying too” This year Wells is back on the road, promoting Regards to the End in the first live performances since the pandemic began. The album’s David’s Got a Problem and Love Saves the Day are inspired by the work and writing of people like environmental activist David Buckel, who self-immolated in 2018 as a political protest against global warming, and David Wojnarowicz, an artist and AIDS activist who died of AIDS in 1992. “David Wojnarowicz is someone I feel extremely close to, and that’s in part because of the kind of artist and writer he was, very much at the surface and present, but it’s also because his work is available to me because he made it,” Wells says. In her ethereal, heart-wrenching voice, Wells delivers lyrics that waver between hope and dread. If you’re moved to action or your conscience is pricked, she is okay with that, but it isn’t her intention to proselytize. Wells doesn’t feel obligated to make climate change a theme or use it to define a listener’s experience. Music, she says, can be a lot of things: purposeless play, comfort or a rhythm for dance.
Learn more about Emily Wells and her new album, Regards to the End, at https://www.emilywellsmusic.com
Ecomusicology
At the same time, she admits that working with conceptual structures is helpful to her creative process. “If that means that my audience or listener wants to engage in those structures with me, and through that, some kind of consciousness or faith is aroused, then I dig it,” she says. “Maybe that’s empathy. And isn’t empathy the heart of all political movements and change?” ■
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Natural Composer LIBBY LARSEN USES THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC TO GIVE LISTENERS EMBODIED Ecomusicology
EXPERIENCES IN NATURE.
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____ Words by Crystal Hammon Photo by Ann Marsden
Writing the music of nature fills Larsen with reverence and humility for living “in a world that snows and burns, and is so rich in its quest for infinite being,” she says. “I feel joy and gratitude for being human, in stewardship with nature. I try to use my music to do what I can to inspire and affirm this feeling in other people,” she says. Grammy Award-winning composer Libby Larsen has lived on Lake Minnetonka just west of Minneapolis for decades. A marathon athlete and lifelong sailor, the 72-year-old composer spends time outdoors every day, regardless of the weather. “When I was a young girl — there were five girls in our family, no boys — my father bought us a beat-up, old sailboat and joined the Lake Harriet Yacht Club in Minneapolis,” Larsen says. “We raced sailboats all my growing up years. At 7 years old, I was out on Gull Lake, a large lake, racing my sailboat in pea-soup fog, which taught me to be one, or as one as you possibly can, with the elements.” The Minnesota artist has been composing music since the 1970s, marking herself as one of the most prolific composers of her time with over 500 commissioned works. Although family, religion and place are prominent themes, Larsen’s first compositions and a significant share of her work capture what she knows best: being in nature. Within this oeuvre, Larsen aims to let people “get inside nature and deeply feel what it is to actually be nature—not comment on it, but be it.”
Composed by Larsen in the early 1990s, this choral composition has six movements that follow a traditional Catholic mass, but the content is anything but traditional. Even the texts are diverse and expansive, including words from Native American animists, the Bible, and authors such as Meister Eckhart, Wendell Berry, M.K. Dean and Joy Harjo. In Missa Gaia, Larsen celebrates nature’s cycles and expresses her view that humanity and nature are united, and holiness is accessible to everyone. Within the text, she incorporates a line from Berry’s poem Closing the Circle to suggest humanity’s harmonious relationship with the earth: “In the hold of hands and eyes we turn in pairs, that joining joining each to all again.” Larsen is currently writing music that embodies snow, no small endeavor given the “meager set of tools” a composer has to convey abstract human emotions. “My intention is to make a sonic shape that a person can enter, and then leave transformed,” she says. “I’m not trying to facilitate how, or when, or what kind of transformation.” ■ Learn more about Libby Larsen at https://libbylarsen.com.
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Those intentions resonate in her first symphony, Water Music, composed in four movements: Fresh Breeze; Hot, still; Gale; and Wafting. In that work, “I’m using the forces of the symphony orchestra to make calm or [make] that first day in spring, especially in the Plain States, when the wind changes direction and blows from the south or southwest, and brings this kind of freshness, and you just know ‘Oh, now it’s spring,’” Larsen says. “Even the puddles are different almost immediately.”
THE MIND OF AN ICONOCLAST
With few female role models to follow, Larsen has invented her own creative life, steering clear of archaic ideologies, hierarchies and power structures, especially those related to religion. Her innovative spirit is evident in pieces like Missa Gaia: Mass for the Earth, a rebuttal to religious theologies that say human beings have dominion over nature.
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Natural Attraction KATELYN CALHOUN EXPLORES
NATURE THROUGH FILM AND MUSIC. ____
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Words by Amy Lynch Photo by Winston Garthwaite
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As a kid, Katelyn Calhoun loved being outside so much, her dad would have to call her home with a megaphone when she lost track of time. In her teen years, the Ohio native discovered she enjoyed tinkering with video production. Now, she’s parlaying her dual passions for nature and film into a career. When Calhoun moved to Indianapolis after she graduated from Ball State University, she immediately began making connections within the city’s close-knit film community. “I’ve met a lot of folks through the commercial video world,” she says. “When you meet a few of them, you suddenly know all of them because the network is so strong. Everybody knows everybody, and if you really want to work with someone, you can find a way.”
intriguing amphibian that would go on to inspire Calhoun’s latest project, Hellbender in the Blue. “The salamander is endangered in Indiana, and a species of concern in the eastern U.S.,” she points out. “The Nature Conservancy has a Blue River office where you can actually find the salamander, and Purdue also has a program called Help the Hellbender.” Hot on the heels of a Kan-Kan Cinema premiere, Calhoun is gearing up for a film festival circuit. Hellbender will run during the International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Montana this April, and make the regional rounds as part of the Indiana Humanities Waterways Films tour this spring, March through June. Having worked with composer Eric Salazar on both Snag and Hellbender, Calhoun is quick to recognize the value that music brings to her films.
After a year and a half in sales administration at NUVO, Calhoun ventured out on her own in 2016 to form Teardrop Pictures, a nature documentary production company telling stories that celebrate people, places and animals.
“I always include a composer in my budget,” she says. “To have someone who knows music theory and can bring their own human element to tell the musical side of the story, it’s everything.”
“The vision is to get a teardrop trailer and travel around the country making small documentaries and sharing them with the world,” she explains. “We’re still working on getting the trailer, but we have made a few films!”
Nature, movies and music — it’s a winning trifecta. “If I’m having a bad day, sometimes I just take my shoes off and go out in the backyard, and I feel better in 30 seconds,” she laughs. “Film and music have the power to do the same thing. There’s magic in that.” ■
The Indiana Forest Alliance then invited Calhoun to shadow along during its northern long-eared bat surveys in the Hoosier National Forest, leading to her second film Snag in the Plan in 2019. Next came an introduction to the eastern hellbender salamander, an
Learn more about Calhoun’s work at https://www.teardrop.pictures/ Calhoun’s work is featured in Classical Music Indy’s CMI City Sounds project. Find these installations at Richard G. Lugar Plaza, Indianapolis International Airport, and Garfield Park. Learn more about Indiana Humanities’ Waterways Films and Unearthed initiative at https:// indianahumanities.org/program/films/
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While many big-picture nature conservation films tend to address sprawling topics like the rain forest or climate change, Calhoun’s projects thus far shine a light on exotic creatures and locations here in Indiana. Funded by an Indiana Humanities Council grant, Teardrop Pictures’ first film Braided with the Current examines the impact of the White River on local lives, positioning the waterway itself as a main character.
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Maestro of the Playlist 18
CMI’S SALVADOR PEREZ LOPEZ CULTIVATES COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS TO PRODUCE A VAST RANGE OF MUSIC FOR LISTENERS OF TWO STREAMING SERVICES.
____ Words by Elizabeth Frickey Photo by Madeleine Budde from Memories by Madeleine
Classical Music Indy’s (CMI) Streaming service was only about a year old when Salvador Perez Lopez took over as producer and streaming host in 2020. An accomplished clarinetist, Perez Lopez had graduated from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with a master’s degree in clarinet performance the same year, during the full force of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the shift to working at CMI felt natural. “I’ve always been kind of a nerd with music, so I’ve always had my Spotify playlists filled with old and new classical music,” he says. “I’m always soaking up the sounds of these artists.” Since then, Perez Lopez has made the position completely his own, producing for the organization and curating over 100 playlists for CMI’s streaming service. Under his direction, CMI releases a new streaming playlist every week. Every playlist is crafted with care, and Perez Lopez considers not only how each track will sound in succession, but how they represent the faces of the Indy community and the classical music community as a whole. As such, playlists generally fall into one of two categories: “New Classical” and “Local Classical.”
His playlists feature music by prominent living composers, including Emmy Award-winning
These conversations are even more central to the “Local Classical” playlists, where Perez Lopez gets the chance to highlight community members of all different backgrounds, including composer and Indiana University South Bend Professor of Music Jorge Muñiz. These playlists often take on even more of a collaborative format, as the subject of many playlists are given a say in what gets programmed and how. As a composer, Muñiz found this collaboration with Perez Lopez particularly insightful. “Our meetings have provided me a nice respite to stop and look back at my trajectory, which sometimes for a composer it is hard to do, as we are often keep looking forward into the next project and falling in love with new ideas,” Muñiz says. Occasionally, “Local Classical” playlists feature non-musicians as guest curators, such as Consuelo Poland, executive director of the Latinas Welding Guild. Even as a relative newcomer to the world of classical music, Poland found joy in getting to collaborate and represent her experiences through music. “I’ve never put together a playlist that coincided with the work that I do, but it was a really great experience to talk with [Salvador] and have him curate the playlist based on what I talked about,” Poland says. For Perez Lopez, the streaming service is about far more than making playlists as a tangible product –– it’s also about community and visibility. “By the end of every playlist, I want to make sure I have a wide representation of music for everyone,” he says. ■ You can find Salvador Perez Lopez’s work with CMI Streaming online at https://classicalmusicindy.org/cmi-streaming/#/ .
Ecomusicology
With these categories comes a fair share of flexibility. Especially with “New Classical” playlists, Perez Lopez has space to introduce exciting new artists, such as the group Sō Percussion, or to create playlists based off of relevant recent events, such as an Olympic Playlist for the 2021 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo or a playlist featuring film scores in honor of the 94th Academy Awards.
composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. With this playlist and others, Perez Lopez has featured interviews with artists to get a taste not just of their music, but of their lives and careers as well.
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music unites artist
In Sync with Nature WITH MORE OUTDOOR PERFORMANCES ON HER ROSTER, MUSIC UNITES ARTIST TRICIA BONNER FINDS NATURE TO BE A FORMIDABLE CREATIVE PARTNER. Ecomusicology
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Words by Jennifer Delgadillo • Photo by David Bonner
Tricia Bonner was practicing composer Jamie Christopher Webber’s Birdsong Fantasia in her kitchen with the windows open when she noticed something interesting. “I was working on this piece for hours and hours because it was incredibly difficult,” says the Indianapolis violinist and Music Unites Artist for Classical Music Indy. “I would actually have birds come to the window and start chattering like, ‘What are you doing?’ at me.” Bonner interpreted Webber’s work as part of Waterloo Region Contemporary Music Sessions, a weeklong series where each musician is paired with a composer. She attended as part of the violin and piano duo Ascending, co-founded in 2014 with pianist Caitlin Frasure. Webber’s work opened her eyes to a whole new musical language. “The tonal language of this piece is microtonal, so instead of our western ‘do re mi fa sol la ti do’ scale, it includes all the fractions of pitches in between each one,” she says. Since then, Bonner’s music career has been informed by more experiences in nature. During the pandemic, she accepted many gigs where outdoor spaces were transformed into performance halls, including Classical Music Indy’s #VirtualRandomActsofMusic and the Music in Nature series at Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park.
After Classical Music Indy launched #VirtualRandomActsofMusic during the pandemic, the video component proved to be a successful way
Embracing nature in a musical composition is not only about symbiosis, but also about surprise and site-specific moments that cannot be replicated. “The soprano line doesn’t have lyrics. She is just using her voice like an instrument, and we’re out — literally in nature — performing and recording this piece. And you have all of the sounds: birds singing along with us, rain falling and distant thunder rumbling in the background,” Bonner says. Surrounded by nature, Bonner felt her relationship to the performance space transform. Outside the concert hall, in a natural environment, she paid attention to other elements like the wind in her face and the sun in her eyes. “You’ve got all of these other stimulants you don’t have in a concert hall, and all of these factors do play into how you’re interpreting the music,” she says. In the premiere performance of Birds Calling, the program also included A Portrait for Solo Violin, a solo piece written by Canadian composer Keenan Reimer-Watts and performed by Bonner. ReimerWatts wrote the piece specifically to be performed outdoors whenever possible. The composition is designed with violin phrases interspersed with long pauses (fermata of silence) to allow for the musician’s individual voice and other sounds happening in nature. In one live performance, a cicada filled the silence with its own music. “Every performance of A Portrait for Solo Violin is going to be different depending on where you’re playing and what little creatures are making sounds around you,” Bonner says. ■ Watch Bonner, Boelter, and Smith perform Birds Calling online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-EqxNxUEhg
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These new environments were already being explored by contemporary composers inspired by the sounds of various ecosystems and their connections to the nuanced capabilities of music instruments. For audiences struggling with a new reality, these avant garde compositions came to mean something newly hopeful. “I was invited to perform for one of those programs, a piece by composer Hanna Benn,” Bonner says. “It was called Birds Calling, and it’s scored for soprano voice, violin and cello.”
of engaging music lovers through local talent and musicians who later recorded high-quality videos of the compositions. Hanna Benn’s Birds Calling was recorded at Fort Harrison State Park with Chloe Boelter on vocals, Leilah Smith on cello and Tricia Bonner on violin. The video performances are rooted in the traditions audiences already know and love, but they also resonate with a fresh sonic palette of running water and the gentle flutterings of leaves and bees.
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My Music. My Story.
Kipp Normand ____
Words by Jennifer Delgadillo TUCKED INSIDE THE STUDIOS OF THE HARRISON CENTER, THERE’S A CAVE OF WONDERS WHERE SAINTSAËNS’ AQUARIUM PLAYS ON THE PHONOGRAPH. KIPP NORMAND HAS OCCUPIED THIS SPACE FOR OVER 18 YEARS. Looking around, one can see cutouts of butterflies, statues of saints, piles of books and other printed curiosities. Ornate mirrors, glass cases, royal-looking props and boxes with assembled narratives bring the chaos into focus: Normand is an artist. He is also a musician and a selfdescribed armchair historian. When you live a life like Normand’s, you are bound to accumulate beautiful, interesting things and their stories. Classical Music Indy invited Normand to discuss his relationship to music. Here’s the interview, edited for brevity and clarity.
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WHAT ROLE DOES MUSIC PLAY IN YOUR LIFE?
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I think music is everything. Of all of the forms of art, it has the most direct connection, I think, to the human spirit. Something about the sound can affect your emotions—sometimes just a song can remind you of the smell, or the sight, or the feeling of wind. Or even something from your childhood. It’s just so wonderful.
HOW DID YOU START PLAYING MUSIC?
I started to learn to play musical instruments when I was a little kid, and it was in a really formal sort of situation, in the orchestra in my elementary school. They would take us to the symphony and the art museum. Those were fancy, culturally-uplifting field trips. For years, I played the violin, and then I just stopped. When I was in college, 15 years later, I picked it up again. My primary interest was in playing old-timey music, so I had a lot to learn. But I was familiar with a lot of the tunes because one of my violin teachers used to give me sheet music for folk tunes, which is crazy because nobody who plays proper folk music ever learned it from a sheet of paper. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT CLASSICAL MUSIC?
I really love it. I really, really love it. My grandma was not a big fan. She used to say, “Oh, that’s long hair music,” and she preferred to watch Lawrence Welk on television or Guy Lombardo. But my grandfather thought classical music was great and he loved it. He especially liked Mozart and a record that I have. I got it after he was old and he was giving me stuff. It’s a recording from the late 1940s. And Tchaikovsky. I think people are tired of The Nutcracker at Christmas, but I go every year. I love it. With Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, I became a Beethoven addict. My mom bought me a complete box set. I wanted to play them all the time. My brother had a fancy stereo for which he saved up money from his paper route, and I was not allowed to touch it. [Mine] was not very elaborate, so I played all my Beethoven there and I would really crank it up sometimes. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF MUSIC TO LISTEN TO FOR PLEASURE?
I like lots of contemporary music on records, too. I love Andrew Bird, Kishi Bashi. Both of these dudes have taken their violin virtuosity and turned into something really amazing. Of course, since I am from Detroit, I love Aretha Franklin. I like weird modern, music too, and I love music by people who invent their own instruments. HOW DOES MUSIC INFLUENCE YOUR ART PRACTICE?
I find that music really fuels my imagination and gives me energy for creative work. It is interesting to note that many of my installations and even two-dimensional works are made from old sheet music, piano rolls, broken violins, drums, horns of all types, parts of pianos and harmoniums and whatever bits of musical junk I can get my hands on. Also, I don’t know if you have ever seen my installation The Museum of Psychphonics at the Murphy Building. It’s all about music and its connection to the human spirit. WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT THE LOCAL CLASSICAL MUSIC SCENE?
I love what people are doing — especially Classical Music Indy, what those folks are doing to bring audiences to classical music. They are bringing attention to female composers, composers of color who have been doing work for many years, but it has often been overlooked, or not performed. Commissioning new compositions, airing shows like Melanated Moments in Classical Music, and highlighting new music is so different from what a lot of organizations are doing. I applaud that. ■
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It depends on my mood. I like to listen to a lot of different things. There was a record company called Esoteric Records. They specialized in putting out the weirdest, most obscure stuff. Also, the opera singer Claudia Muzio. She’s good. She was known for having one of the broadest
ranges of any singer at the time. There’s a story about how she was singing a duet with this male singer — I think he was either a tenor or a baritone — and he was ill, or he ran into some piece of scenery on the stage and knocked himself unconscious. So, instead of bringing down the curtain, she sang his part, as well as hers and finished the whole thing. The audience went nuts.
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WHAT DOES MUSIC MEAN TO YOU?
It’s a spiritual thing for me, a place of release and refuge. It’s where I go to get connected to other people who understand what it’s like to exist on earth. So, it’s a very spiritual and deep thing for me. I could not exist without it. [Music] is almost always on in my home. It’s very important to me.
My Music. My Story.
HOW DOES MUSIC CONNECT WITH THE WORK YOU DO IN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE?
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WHAT IS THE BEST PART OF BEING INVOLVED WITH EARTH CHARTER INDIANA AND YOUTH PROGRAMMING?
Tatjana Rebelle Words by Alecia M. White SPEAKER AND ACTIVIST TATJANA REBELLE IS THE DIRECTOR OF YOUTH PROGRAMMING FOR EARTH CHARTER INDIANA AND THE FOUNDER AND FORMER CURATOR OF VOCAB INDY. CLASSICAL MUSIC INDY INVITED REBELLE TO DESCRIBE MUSIC’S IMPACT ON THEIR WORK WITH YOUTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF MUSIC AND WHY?
Climate justice is especially important for youth. They are concerned and activated. There’s a lot of movement and recognition that if we don’t change our ways, [young people] are not going to have the future that we keep saying that they are supposed to have. They really want us to change. HOW DOES MUSIC BENEFIT THE COMMUNITY?
We need music and art as a form of expression. For me, there’s a freedom that you get as an artist that you don’t get in other realms. HOW CAN READERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE ENVIRONMENT?
Pay attention. Listen to the message and see if something resonates with you. Take a moment to sit in that space. If we all did a little bit of change, if we all pressured bigger groups to change, we could see some movement. ■ Learn more about Earth Charter Indiana and Vocab Indy.
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I am really into 70s R&B, soul and funk music. My mother was a disco DJ during the 70s, and her record collection was impeccable, so I’m kind of reconnecting with that now.
Music creates emotion. It’s another means to get people to pay attention, another means to get people to understand and connect. I think it’s important as a vehicle for connecting with the earth itself.
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Classical Pairings visits Calvin Fletcher’s Coffee Company ____
ALL ARE WELCOME AT THIS COFFEE SHOP WITH A CONSCIENCE. ____
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Words and photo by Nicholas Johnson, Ph.D.
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This spring, Classical Pairings host Nicholas Johnson visited Jeff Litsey, roaster and co-owner of Calvin Fletcher’s Coffee Company on Virginia Avenue. Here, Johnson suggests music to enjoy with your next cup of joe at the local shop where their hearts are as expansive as the scent of freshly-roasted coffee. THE COFFEE:
THE SNACK:
Forward Latte
Coffee Cake
THE MUSIC:
THE MUSIC:
Suite de Caballos de vapor: II. Boat to the Tropics, by Carlos Chávez (1899-1978)
Suite de Caballos de vapor: III. The Tropics
Calvin Fletcher’s Coffee Company features a rotating menu of seasonal options. I tried a latte with Mexican-grown coffee, sumac garnish, a sweet syrup of concentrated brown sugar, cascara (the outer layer of a coffee cherry), sarsaparilla and orange blossom water. The taste is a fascinating blend of sweet, nutty, root beer and dark fruits. When Jeff Litsey roasts coffee, he blends art and science to “draw out whatever is in the coffee bean.” He tests small batches to find just the right blend of heat and air. “I taste it at different levels and see where it really shines,” Litsey says. “You want that combination in a coffee of mouthfeel, texture, aroma and flavor. I’m trying to get a good balance that represents the farmers well.”
Decadent, crumbly and crunchy, this coffee cake’s rich cinnamon and caramel flavors pair impeccably with a hot latte. After hearing part II of the Caballos de vapor suite, it makes sense to listen to the finale. Here, Chávez mixes folk and urban styles in a playful collection of dances. Listen to this fun rhythmic work while the caffeine courses through your veins and you’ll be dancing in your seat at Calvin Fletcher’s. (Make sure to wear headphones!)
Subscribe to the Classical Pairings podcast and get more recommendations for pairing food and drink with classical music.
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This coffee’s rich notes of chocolate and fruit pair perfectly with the work of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez. Based on his ballet Caballos de vapor, the music captures the spirit of Mexican dance styles. Chávez often contrasts folk elements with modernism. This piece blends natural charms with contemporary techniques, a perfect companion for the drive and energy felt after drinking the Forward Latte.
Nearly all the sweets at Calvin Fletcher’s, including the coffee cake, are made by Circle City Sweets. This partnership reflects the shop’s ethos, which prioritizes support for other local businesses and champions local charities. Fifty percent of all tips are donated to designated charities in Indianapolis. Since 2019, over $35,000 has been contributed to local non-profits by the Calvin Fletcher’s Coffee Company Charitable Foundation.
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ON AIR:
March to the Scaffold AT THE TOP OF A COMMUNITY LEADER’S PLAYLIST, A CLASSICAL MARCH FOR A COURAGEOUS MOMENT. ____ by Michael Toulouse March to the Scaffold, from Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, is a bold choice for a radio show. A musical hallucination culminating in a public execution, it doesn’t exactly fade into the background as you compose email. Nonetheless, this Berlioz piece was on the mind of a listener who recently emailed me. And he had a right to put it on the air. Chris Douglas purchased that right years ago in a charity auction, possibly during his tenure as board president of Dance Kaleidoscope (DK). There was no expiration date on his prize: the pleasure of browsing the stacks of our music library and building a playlist. Helping Douglas complete the task, however, would be difficult in our current circumstances. We work remotely, using a digitized collection. The only people who set foot in the CMI music library are staff who come in occasionally to add new CDs.
In an era when so many gay Republicans were still closeted, it was a dangerous move. Yet Douglas says it was also necessary. “Those who did not come out proactively were sort of defined in the workplace by innuendo and shame … while those who came out proactively really could define what they were,” he says. The repercussions of his announcement were swift and life-changing. Douglas lost his corporate job and went into business for himself. He also began to build a legacy in volunteerism. In addition to DK, his current obligations include the finance committees of the Indiana Historical Society, the Columbia Club and Trinity Haven, which provides transitional housing to homeless LGBTQ youth. Chris Douglas may never get to choose music for the radio. But it would be hard to improve on the choices he has already made. ■
Michael Toulouse is the award-winning host of Anytime Classical, exceptional syndicated classical music radio programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Learn more at www.anytimeclassical.org.
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Not knowing what to do, I decided to contact Chris. I learned that Berlioz’s march had been at the top of his playlist for a long time. It was the piece he played at home in 1996, just before
telling a reporter about his new organization for politically-conservative people who happened to be gay.
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