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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2008)
¡UStlOUt 45 MICHAEL SCHMELLING AUGUST 1. 2008 music A Thousand Notes, A Thousand Miles Hot young composer burns through Portland • by Stephen Marc Beaudoin n the category of hotshit queer classical mu sic composers, Nico Muhly reigns supreme. Anointed by Out magazine as an “Out 100” artist to watch, courted by the Boston Symphony and Bjiirk for musical commis sions and swooned over by New Yorker magazine (which dedicated a four-page spread to him in February), 26-year-old Muhly is all but crowned as his generation’s answer to John Adams or Philip Glass (a mentor of his). But whatever you do, don’t call him a gay composer. “Just the word order is so hierarchical in English, I’d rather not participate,” he says with a typical verbal flick of the wrist. “Just linguisti cally it doesn’t move me.” Muhly, by the way, is creator and sole author of his self-named blog, NicoMuhly.com, where he rants on cooking, composing and couture in equal measure. From his New York studio, fresh from a week end of Berlioz and pink wine at the idyllic Tan glewood music festival in Massachusetts, Muhly spoke with me about his sophomore album, Mother' tongue (Brassland Records), a lovely stuttering thing soaked in strings, and his upcoming folksy-classical tour with collaborators Sam Amidon and Doveman, which touches down in Portland on Aug. 15. Stephen Marc Beaudoin: What did you make yourself for breakfast this morning? Nico Muhly: 1 had a cup of coffee at this kind of organic, annoying ice cream store. People are so self-congratulatory about being organic. I’d rather people do it and not make a thing of it. SMB: Why should I be nervous about inter viewing you? NM: Oh, I don’t know. I’m probably younger than you. So I’m not old and scary. SMB: I have all these musician and art friends in New York who always tell me about the latest Nico Muhly spot ting at such-and-such place. Why? NM: God, 1 have no idea. It could he because I’m young and up to stuff. It’s kind of exciting theoreti cally to people. 1 spot myself At 26, Nico Muhly is considered his generation's answer to John Adams and Philip Glass. all the time. I spot myself changing the cat litter and wandering around my should all have the emotional resonance of Björk occur to me to have that thought; 1 try to make apartment scantily clad. or Philip. He’s totally correct. it as flexible as possible so people can wear it at all times. SMB: The singles Web site OKCupid.com SMB: In your New Yorker feature, so fabu tells me there are three single gay guys inter lous, you said some composers relied too heav SMB: What is the last thing you did in ested in you—two in New York and one in ily on a programmatic theme or feature to drive silence? Philadelphia. their music, deriding “this stupid conceptual NM: I spent two hours today just writing mu NM: No shit, who are these faggots? Wait, can stuff where it’s like I was really inspired by, like, sic, working on a piano trio. I’m making drawings, you send me that link? When I was in school and Morse code and the AIDS crisis.” One of your I’m making sketches, I’m drawing shapes, I’m sing stuff I was really disinterested in being all out and former teachers, John Corigliano, wrote what ing things in my head. It’s a kind of ritualistic pro proud, and I didn’t want to be that fag who also I consider an exceptionally affecting work, his cess, it’s a sort of precompositional process—it’s composes. Now I’m more aggressive about it. Symphony No. 1, as his emotional response to like chopping up all the vegetables before you’re the AIDS crisis. Was Corigliano wrong to com cooking. SMB: Your blog is kind of amazing, and your pose like that, or does knowing his “program” music’s rad, too. How much of your career suc lessen the impact of his music? SMB: Do you have a desire to teach in cess do you attribute to your status as a cult NM: It’s so embarrassing, 1 didn’t really mean academia? blogging celebutante? that. The first thing I did was e-mail [Corigliano] NM: No. People in academic situations can NM: I don’t think any, really. 1 can’t imagine and say,. “Oh, John, that’s not what I meant.” get so stupid and catty and Xerox machine memos that’s the case. The thing I’m interested in doing Corigliano’s thing is a programmatic agenda that and all that shir. 1 can’t fuck with that. I feel like there is demystifying the stuff: Other composers is primarily emotional; it’s programmatic as a ve classical music, the capital-A academy, you want know what other composers do, but nobody else hicle for the emotional itinerary. to get really intense with it for five or six years, does. To write the kind of music I’m writing re then stop with it when you’re 23. But what they SMB: Let’s talk about Mothertongue. In a quires this kind of engagement with the world. want you to do is stay in the academy and teach live concert, you as composer exert some control other people. Right now is a really, really, really SMB: Time Out Chicago was somewhat over the experience of hearing your music. Ob good time for me creatively...I’m like manic and dismissive of Mothertongue: “Brimming with viously with a recording, you can’t tell a listener voracious. I read a thousand books and run a ideas, at this point Muhly mostly gloms and whether to absorb Mothertongue in the shower I thousand miles. © glues, lacking the emotional foundation of Bjork or while they’re getting an amazing blow job. Do or Philip Glass.’’ The writer also called you clas you have a way in which you wish listeners to I N i co M (i h l y perft rrms wi th Sam Amidon sical music’s “most hyped talent.” hear the album? and Dovenum 9 p.m. Aug. 15 at Aladdin NM: There we go. 1 read that as very well put. NM: No, no, 1 wouldn’t presume to. 1 kind of Theater, 3017 S.E. Milwaukie Ave. Tickets are $15 from the box office or Ticketmaster. secretly think that in the car is best. It wouldn’t It’s funny, it’s true, I do glom and gleam, and we • PHOTOGRAPHY MOBILE PJ EVENT PLANNING VENUE FRIENPLY ANP PERSONABLE STAFF One call we do it all... www.ItsPartyTimeCatering.net (503) 628-3616 Flowers by Mary Beth Bartel: (503) 203-8652 / No Cover. Dnr* procood* *0 Portland's Q Center / mum nwwm o
