For Good Measure

Nicolas Lell Benavides - Part 2

September 26, 2022 Nicolas Lell Benavides Episode 17
For Good Measure
Nicolas Lell Benavides - Part 2
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For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 17: Nicolas Lell Benavides (part 2) 

Looking for a way to listen to diverse creators and to support equity in the arts? Tune in weekly to For Good Measure!

In this week’s episode, we’re joined again by Nicolas Lell Benavides, who talks about how growing up in the New Mexico and the Southwest influences his identity as a composer.  If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Nicolas Lell Benavides, check him out here: ww.nickbenavides.com . Parts of this episode originally premiered on Oct 18, 2021, found on Youtube, click here.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!


Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Roziht Edwards and Merve Tokar

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Nanette McGuinness:

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to "For Good Measure," an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists, sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Nicolas Lell Benavides, who we spoke to in October 2021. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] How did growing up in New Mexico affect your music?

Nicolas Lell Benavides:

Yeah, I would say, you know, in my formal training, I avoided like so many people to I sort of avoided what I considered the what was least exciting, which was just where I grew up, because someone who's new to classical music when you're 18. And jumping in, you're suddenly just like, there was whole eras, like there, there was romanticism and I could, I could dive into, you know, vintage iser, and then Oh, my God, like Ray Vaughan Williams, like these people were living through wars and messy and and, like, all this history becomes very, very seductive. And so I really dove into that style of music, and I really enjoyed it. And it wasn't until right at the end of my master's actually, when I was at the San Francisco Conservatory, when I started really consider, you know, okay, well, maybe I've gotten this formal education at a high level, you know, maybe it's time to revisit where I'm from. And I will say the first few pieces I wrote about New Mexico because I had spent so long being a tourist in the place that I really was from, and being a tourist in a place that I wasn't from just being a tourist all around. I didn't really know how to write music and that style. So the first few pieces were kind of trash, I felt like I was culturally appropriating myself. And so I just kind of stopped. And I think I was trying too hard to really transcribe and frame things rather than just accept that my family has been in New Mexico for hundreds, if not 1000s of years. Whatever I do is just by definition, New Mexican. And if I imagine your Mexican themes, and I imagined my upbringing, and I imagine the sounds that I authentically heard growing up, that it will naturally just fall into place, I don't need to try to force any specific system. And ever since then, about four years ago, things have been clicking a lot better, I find that I can draw from the toolkits that I that I, I learned from various composers living and dead, who have nothing to do with New Mexico, I can pull from them. And I can sort of pour that into my knowledge of New Mexico. And sometimes, you know, I Gabriela Lena Frank talks about this with her own music. Sometimes people will say, Oh, I heard it like that was so Southwestern, it was, it blew my mind how, how relevant it was to the experience of someone who speaks Spanish. And sometimes people are like, I have no idea. Like, that was nice, but I have no idea what that had to do with being Latino or Hispanic whatsoever. And I think that's fine. I think that's, I'm okay with that, with how my music manifests that way. Because it's, you know, culture is a practice, it's not really an achievement, you do it, you get better at it by just doing it, and you'll never be the best at it, you just hope to get better and better. And so that's part of my process.

Nanette McGuinness:

You spoke about Latino and southwest identity, do you see those as separate? Or do they intermingle for you?

Nicolas Lell Benavides:

Oh, that's a good question. It's sort of like a big Venn diagram, right. You know, I think it's helped, it's helpful to think of locations that we generally partitioned very easily in our mind, just by nature of living in a western society. So it's very easy for us to imagine different countries within Europe, and different cities within Europe, right. Like, I think a lot of people in the United States based because of our culture, know that Rome is different from Naples is different from you know, Sicily, you know, people are from different areas, like Milan and Sicily are very distinct. And I think actually, that's similar. When we think about Hispanic and Latino culture in general. It's a similar thing. There are a lot of shared things like you know, Europe has a shared history. And I will use these terms fairly openly, like there are shared colonial histories that I have, as someone from the American Southwest that someone from Central America or even South America would share language, idioms, historical connections, political movements, right, those things are flow very easily, just like the European Union. But at the same time, my experience as an American born from New Mexico, versus even someone from Mexico City would be extremely different in other respects. And so I do you know, I use the term I'll use all the terms above depending on the context. And really, it depends where I am in New Mexico for example, people don't ever use The word Latino like ever, and maybe it's because we're, it's a different state, but everybody uses the word Hispanic. In California, the term Hispanic has different connotations, it's more of a colonial connotation, even though it doesn't have the same meaning in New Mexico. So people think about Latina dad in general and the unifying nature of Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans and people from the southwest. And then when I want to be very specific, I'll say I'm New Mexican, or northern Mexico, no, because that is my particular culture, just like someone from Mexico City would be from there. But realistically, I would also admit that New Mexico historically is more like another state of Mexico. Culturally, Mexico is our, our grandfather and culture. And forgive me, other New Mexicans, people hate to admit that, but it's true, you know, a lot of things that we share, a lot of things that I grew up doing, are shared by people in in Chihuahua, you know, shared by people south of the border, almost to an exact parallel, our cuisine, I would say, is more similar with people just south of the border, than it is with people from Mexico City. And the same for them, they share more with New Mexico than they do with Mexico City. So it's, it's a big, it's a big layers of definitions within definitions. But it kind of depends, I think, who you're talking to?

Nanette McGuinness:

Do you think identity is something to explicitly mindfully include or remove in music or just something to let bubble out?

Nicolas Lell Benavides:

I don't think there should be any one way for a composer to work. I think that's what makes the art form really fun, is composers have different levels of engaging with things, and how they choose to and the materials that they choose to use. I mean, I think everybody, you know, I think we're learning is not that we are bringing out identity, or composers who write music, about their personal identities, rather than it's always existed. And it's an act of like self censorship, to not include it, you know, like, rather than, rather than build identity out of nothing, it's really more like identity is always there, and to not use it as more like to cover it up to actively obscure it. Because it takes work to just not be yourself. It takes a lot of hard work. And so I think being comfortable with composers, reaching for those tools and experiences more quickly, is a good thing. I also don't think every composer should have to do that some composers prefer to work in a more abstract realm where things are symbolic, or things or mathematics where things are really sands culture as best as they can do. I think that's fine as well, I have nothing against that. But I do think that everybody has an identity. And one other thing I'd like to point out too is a since you are in a unique position of being a performer, and, and a presenter and administrator, all these different roles that come with running an ensemble is there's um, I'm sure you're well aware of this is there's a difference between performative diversity and like authentic community building diversity, I think we get really addicted to the idea of bringing in, you know, diverse artists from all over the country and the world. And what happens is, we get the same touring circuit of artists who fulfill a certain program a certain month of the year, going to the major symphony orchestras, and then they leave. And I think part of personal identity has to do with the diversity that comes from where you are from. And I think there is extreme diversity that one should pay attention to, even if you're from a county in the middle of the country, that's 100% or 99%. White, right? There's diversity and demographic experiences, socio economic statuses, personality traits, you know, I think, teachers, presenters living in those places to discover their own identity could do a lot with looking around and saying, you know, am I including kids from the same socio economic background in my programming? Am I? Am I including kids with disabilities? You know, they have diverse points of view as well that, am I including affluent kids, am I including kids who need help who need scholarship? I think it's possible to to have a diverse program. That is all one ethnicity, but at the same time, a whole multitude of experiences. And I just say that out there because I'm on a crusade to talk about this. Because, as from the Bay Area, I feel like there's such a culture of importing talent from New York, which is, you know, our, our guess our cultural capital in this country. And there's I love artists from New York, but I think, really cultivating artists at home keeps you from getting into that anemic situation in the first place. And that's why I'm happy to talk to you. It's also nice to talk to artists in California. Promote each other think about how we can build on one another rather than always import import import because I think that that is really ruining us for further down the road when it comes to these diversity discussions.

Nanette McGuinness:

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guests, Nicolas Lell Benavides for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT Our concert season online and in the Bay Area where to make a tax deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors like you. "For Good Measure" is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and designed by Brennan Stokes. With special thanks to audio engineer extraordinaire Stephanie Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]

How did growing up in New Mexico affect your music?
You spoke about Latino and Southwest identity. Do you see those as separate, or do they intermingle for you?
Do you think identity is something to explicitly, mindfully include or remove in music or just something to let bubble out?