Darian Donovan Thomas - Part 1

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 21: Darian Donovan Thomas (part 1)

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In this week’s episode, we talk to Darian Donovan Thomas about finding his identity and voice as a composer, his multicultural background, and what it means to be media queer. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Darian Donovan Thomas, check him out here: darianthomas.myportfolio.com . Parts of this episode originally premiered on January 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

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness: 0:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, artistic executive director of Ensemble For These Times. In this week's episode, we're joined by Darian Donovan Thomas, who we spoke to in December 2021. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. You're a violinist who performs in multiple genres a composer, immediate queer artist, and more. You write my identity is intersectional I am black, I am gay. I am Latina X. I am a musician. I am an installation artist. I am bipolar. I am happier than your average New Yorker. And you also say it all comes down to this question. Who am I supposed to be? Who am I to you? Will you let me be complicated? How do all those aspects of your life influence interact with and balance each other?

Darian Donovan Thomas: 1:12

Right? Yeah. I think in school, and maybe in previous generations, there was kind of this idea that things need to be segmented. I know especially before New Amsterdam records, right? Like, there's this mentality of music versus not serious music goes pretty hardcore. And then I think, with albums like finality, or with William Patel's experiments, and works, I think we start getting to a point where it's like, oh, you can really merge the two. And everything can be considered serious, everything can be a worthwhile source point for inspiration and action. And I just remember hearing these artists while I was down in Texas, where I'm from, and finding this music in high school, and early college being like, wow, they sound so much like themselves, and finding in house music and being like, she sounds so much like herself, and no one else sounds like this. And it's so refreshing and exciting to hear a person who just, I don't know, creates with a way of like, this is what I want to say, this is how we want to say it. And this is how I'm going to say it kind of uncompromising, and it felt remarkably authentic, and enticing. And I was like, oh, there's no way I can do anything other than that. And so I had to do some internal research, you know, and just be like, Well, okay, if they sound like themselves, it must be because they know themselves. So then I have to know myself, which is terrifying, but at the same time, really wonderful and really healthy. And so I just, I feel like the process of being a composer or being an artist is the eternal process of coming to terms with yourself, and really figuring out like, who am I? How has that changed from who I was? How could that change from who I'm going to be? And how do I represent that accurately. And the easiest way, honestly, is just pulling from the different sound worlds that I'm have, right? Like, my parents had a small music label when I was a child. My dad was a producer of non classical music, like lots of dance, hip hop, stuff like that. And so I got all this critical discussion about music, pop music as a child by accident. And it's like, well, there's no reason to discredit that, like, I should absolutely be using that. And so I use a lot of electronics in my music I use. Sometimes four on four drumbeats. I, like pull from different genres for percussion, and bass. And I think it makes a lot of sense. And then when it comes to the personal side, like, what is the music of a queer community, you know, like, dance is really important in queerness. And that expression of body and that expression of presence and space, this overlaps with blackness to have like, rhythm of community. But also of talking about, as I said before, like what's going on in the present tense, like many of the most remarkable black artists, comments on the society that they're in, and comments on how they fit within that, how they don't fit within that, and also give a bit of an idea of how it should or could be, too. And this ties into like, the other half of me that's Mexican, right, with magical realism and these ideas of the worlds being both what it is and what it isn't at the same time, and how we move through that and a lot of nature ism, and really discussing, I don't know, existence with the entities of the land or with rivers, and things like this. It kind of all synthesizes in a really beautiful way that makes sense to me because I'm mixed in because I am have all these experiences and also in a weird way, like, even with the bipolar illness, right, like, as I said before, they're kind of two modes. I find myself often choosing like, Am I this way or this way at the beginning of the piece, it's like making something that's just beautiful. I mean, making something that's aggressive and making something that's extremely political and like pointed or making something that's so soft, wow, it's just pretty. And that feels like it comes from having these two experiences of like manic states versus depressive states, or just like emotional nothingness. I don't know. It all kind of ties in. And I think the most authentic thing that I can do then is to represent what the synthesis of all this is, because the synthesis of all of it is, quite literally me, you know. And so if I can represent that in sound, then I'm representing myself in sound, which feels like I'm doing my job as a composer, or as a violinist improvising and fitting myself into these bands and being like, with my very fun, instrument dysphoria of like, I don't really want to sound like a violin, but I have all these cool friends at my seat that can like with all the pedals that can make me sound completely different. And that just also feels tight into figuring out like, how do I represent my experience and my personhood have been sound.

Nanette McGuinness: 6:13

What does it mean to be media queer.

Darian Donovan Thomas: 6:17

So being media queers, like because I do work with music, but I also do installation art and performance art, and have kind of like nothing that's been published, but have dabbled in writing plays before. And of course, the written word is super important to me. And it finds its way into my compositions pretty often. And I don't know just, I like being referred to as media career because it allows me the room to move between mediums as I choose. Which kind of feels freer than like being a composer and people being like, okay, so you're just gonna do sound. And then if I want to branch out from that, giving me side i and being like material composer, you're not like a blah, blah, blah. If people just get this carte blanche type title at the beginning, I think it makes it easier for me to be versatile, as versatile as I want to be in this versatile.

Nanette McGuinness: 7:12

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Darian Donovan Thomas 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]