¡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
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