Behind the Curtain with Brennan Stokes - Part 2

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 96: Behind the Curtain with Brennan Stokes (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 continue our conversation with E4TT Assistant Director and For Good Measure podcast cover artist Brennan Stokes. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Brennan Stokes, check him out here: https://soundcloud.com/brennan-stokes.

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 BEGINS] 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. Today we continue our interview with E4TT assistant director and For Good Measure cover art designer, Brennan Stokes. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] Your music is marvelously lyrical - you're still an emerging composer, so your oeuvre is growing. Your works to date feature vocal music, including your wonderful song cycles that you wrote for us: "The Unseen to Poetry" by Sara Teasdale. And "Mother Love", two poems by Rita Dove. Do you want to talk about those - the inspiration writing them? They're both wonderful cycles.

Brennan Stokes  00:57
Oh, thank you. Man, thank you for commissioning me to write them for the Ensemble. Yeah, "Mother Love" was a fun insight and kind of take on the Greek story and finding, like trying to just get...shift into the mindset of, you know, I think even readers perspective of what this mother love meant. And I was very involved in I think, in kind of the, in the drama clubs during the middle of college, I was heavily involved with the dramatic art societies, so doing one act festivals and spring productions, being in kind of the the church crystal holiday programs and plays and things. So I definitely enjoy a bit of a theatricality so to speak, and more dramatic texts. I think there's, there's just a lot of humanity and a lot of depth to be a lot of soul searching to be done to feel like I really am getting as close as I can to understanding the text so that the music can be as honest as possible. For "Mother Love" going on this quite emotional journey of...kind of surprise and anger and sadness and clarity and kind of leveling out almost at the end with not still with some tinge of, you know, but you better take care of her, or else. And then with "The Unseen" that was, that was a very unexpected journey to have, it turned into what is now the unseen. But what originally started out as a single song, "There Will Come Soft Rains", which is the sixth song of the cycle. And I remember having this book of of Sara Teasdale's poetry, "flame and shadow". And the summer before I moved up to San Francisco, I'd gone through it and I was so enamored with this just really stunning lyric poetry, and I had dotted and dogeared to kind of the poems that really were speaking to me. And I remember coming across this one, along with several others and feeling kind of the power behind the words but not, but also I think, still, for me, knowing I didn't quite understand or have, I think the context or personal experience to really internalize or understand the kind of...the heavier weight of these texts. And it wasn't until the pandemic that I was rereading through poetry and rereading through this volume. And this poem, kind of finally, this is a lot of these these texts finally, I think, brought out a lot of the the feelings that I personally was going through and I'm sure many others were as well. And where this first text of "There Will Come Soft Rains" and just this kind of sense of hope amidst kind of a deathly fog and amidst these, you know, things that are horrible will, you know, eventually pass in this idea of like nature, especially kind of resuming its life again, you know, sands humans was, was a was a very pressing thing in the the fall and winter of 2020, and I remember you asking if I was working on anything and that that song was something I had started to...to noodle around with, and kind of, you know, kind of wedding the the compositional pan again. And, you know, turning it into the full cycle was a really wonderful process of finding texts that again, we're dealing with sickness and feelings of isolation and anger or frustration. And it was a really, kind of startling realization to read these words that were penned in 1920 and sitting there in 2020. This is a very eerie and of course, you know, the goosebumps definitely were hitting several times. And it was just that I remembered I took about two weeks to completely write out the texts several times over, because there's one set of the poems where I'm just, you know, her lyric poetry is...she has a very concise but beautiful way of describing things and her word choice is immaculate. So anytime there were colors or like water is the kind of a recurring idea. Various, like I said, colors or seasons are present. And I was trying to kind of find, you know, how many of these kept recurring in the kind of the set of poems. I think during one set of me writing them out I was trying to figure out like, "What is the almost the person who's going through this? Who is speaking these words? What is their emotional, physical journey through this...whole process? What's their psyche as it shifts and changes?" And what kind of as the cycle of like, kind of almost starts where it ends, almost kind of the, one of the first things is the vocalist kind of has this sharp intake of breath, almost like waking from a bad dream, to at the very end of the cycle, having kind of the final, relaxed release of breath. And there's just the kind of the beautiful transition between kind of the angst of and, and frustration and sadness of so much of the cycle that is eventually just released out. And there's a call and that kind of violence, that thin line transition of life to death and what happens after and what I think we can hope to have happen. When all is said and done for the last moment, kind of acting more as an epilogue or prayer of, you know, a gift to be to be able to come back when things are just peaceful and calm. But it's definitely I love kind of digging into the the text itself, because, you know, I think there's there's so much to be even learned and reflected upon before I try and bring myself into the picture.

Nanette McGuinness  08:23
Indeed, both poets are really fabulous poets, I love their...their texts, their writing. And you create a dramatic arc out of both cycles: the way you're describing the dramatic arc in "The Unseen" is very accurate to how it's experienced outside. So it is a wonderful piece. And you and I've talked about this, but the group is hoping to record it, not the very next one, which is already recorded and being edited, but the next recording after that, so, fingers crossed, that'll come about. Can you talk about lyricism and music in general, and what makes vocal music and lyricism so important in your music?

Brennan Stokes  09:10
Yeah! No, I think it's one of the almost...I think one of the real challenges of vocal music for me is that any given text, especially if it's spoken, as you know, in kind of the the acting and drama classes I was able to take in my undergrad, you know, there's intention and there's any 100 different ways you can say, you know, I love you, or any one given sentence can be, you can have so many choices in how you use your how your delivery of a sentence. With music, it's almost, you know, for me, you have to bake in what that intention or what that..motivation is. What's the objective to why they're singing a phrase a certain way? The note isn't going to change there. It's almost like you're, as a composer, having to add that context and motivation behind the emotion that's going to be baked in because for actors, you know, one night they can be maybe a whimsical about delivering a line of the next night, they can maybe try a little more seriously.

Nanette McGuinness  10:27
Or even be pissed off, yeah.

Brennan Stokes  10:29
Yeah, there's a wide range of how they can kind of choose to play something but, you know, music is not quite as forgiving in terms of...allowing us to just change the the emotional character of a note that's being given or the harmony that's dictated underneath.

Nanette McGuinness  10:50
Right. With text, you can think of it different ways as the singer, but, in the end, well-written music tells you what it wants to say. It's your job to interpret that and bring that out, but the music is telling you what it wants, because that's, as you say, baked in.

Brennan Stokes  11:06
Again, but I think part of the research of trying to understand what is being said, and why it's being said that way, when, when the music is sung, when the words are sung, that it feels as natural and genuine to the context of the words and that there's no moment of going "Wait, well, like, it's like, the words are saying this, like on paper, but the way that it sounded musically maybe was at odds with maybe the person's understanding of, of the character and where they're coming from," because, you know, a singer is, is the person speaking this text or being this person, and if the two are at odds, that definitely kind of creates a little a little disharmony for the listener. The suspension of belief is broken for a moment when there's that...a little disconnect.

Nanette McGuinness  12:00
Yes, and that goes back to the notion of honesty, compositional honesty that you were talking about earlier.

Brennan Stokes  12:08
Definitely.

Nanette McGuinness  12:09
[OUTRO MUSIC BEGINS] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Brennan Stokes, 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]