Da Capo Conversations with Jonathan Bailey Holland and Darian Donovan Thomas

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 81: Da Capo Conversations with Jonathan Bailey Holland and Darian Donovan Thomas

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

Today we revisit Jonathan Bailey Holland’s and Darian Donovan Thomas’ perspectives on music they have written. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Jonathan Bailey Holland and Darian Donovan Thomas, check them out here and here. Parts of this episode originally premiered on January 27, 2021, click here, and December 20, 2021, 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.

Co-Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-Producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
With assistance from Hannah Chen, Sam Mason, Renata Volchinskaya

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00
[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 Da Capo Conversations, a mini-series where we'll be giving familiar segments a topical twist. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] Today, we revisit Jonathan Bailey Holland's and Darian Donovan Thomas' perspectives on music they have written. Here's what Jonathan Bailey Holland had to say.

Jonathan Bailey Holland  00:40
In my opinion, all artists just respond to the world in terms of how they experience it. Artists may be doing other things, but that is often what artists do. Perhaps it's what we're supposed to do. In terms of synchrony, and when it was written and recorded, I wanted to convey the economy of being African American. And watching all of the events unfolding that drove the Black Lives Matter movement at that time. The work incorporates both optimistic messages, and tragic, and unfortunately, still relevant messages from that time of individuals who I think you know, even though they're not identified explicitly in the music, we know who they are. And I decided to include audio clips in the work because I think experiencing these events, we can listen to things on the news, we can read a headline and only partially engage But when you're in a concert hall, you go to a concert to sit and listen and pay attention,  and hear what's being presented to you. And so to experience these words, in that context, you don't have a choice but to pay attention and be affected by it.

Nanette McGuinness  02:22
Here's what Darian Donovan Thomas had to say:

Darian Donovan Thomas  02:26
That work is really old. Which is really fun for me, that it's like being performed and recorded and, and finding this new life now. There's something really comforting about that, actually, that people are down to just go to my SoundCloud and find things and be like, Oh my god, can we perform this? Like, wow, yes. You know, anyone who would want that? It's, yeah, the process of making it was definitely more I would say like, academic almost, it was kind of a self assignment during school where I wanted to make something, I had this idea of what piano music sounded like in my head. But I realized I'd never written it. So I wanted to figure out, okay, well, what can I do to pull this sound out, and to prove to myself that that sound actually even exists. And I thought, like making an etude would be cool. But I also kind of wanted to be flashy. So it should be Caprice type thing. And then when I tracked that I wanted to be Caprice-like, like, I thought of, as a violinist, the Paganini 24th. And I was like, this piece is cool, because it's segmented off into different sections. So it gets to be a lot of different things. And maybe it would be cool to make an etude that's like, asking the person to work on a lot of different things at the same in the same piece, but with the same theme, you know. And then also knowing that like, as a composer, I'm participating in an etude as well, because it's like, can I create these different worlds? Can I create these different spaces and sounds in the same piece, but make it all feel connected? And if I can do that, then I think I have a shot at being a decent composer. And yeah, and then I just kind of wrote it very swiftly, lots of pieces in college happened very fast for me. And when I was done, I was really happy with it. But I couldn't find anyone near me to play it. And then I kind of just gave up on it for years. But of course as many of my composition teachers have told me, like, never throw anything away. Always keep the file nearby and like just keep things in the drawer because you never know when you might need something. And yeah, like this year, people started reaching out about reforming it and using it. Like wow, really gifted to be surrounded by a lot of amazing pianists who can pull it off. And yeah, I'm just glad that it's alive now.

Nanette McGuinness  05:10
[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure's Da Capo Conversations, and a special thank you to our guests 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 or 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 co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]