Ursula Kwong-Brown - Part 1

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 122: Ursula Kwong-Brown - Part 1

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 talk to Ursula Kwong-Brown about her path to becoming a composer and how doing research in neuroscience as well as being a sound designer and arts technologist have added to her compositional life. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Ursula Kwong-Brown, check her out here: https://www.ursulakwongbrown.com/. This episode was originally recorded in February 2024.

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.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/15652872

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Hannah Chen, Addy Geenen, Yoyo Hung-Yu Lin

Curious to hear music by Luna Composition Lab alums? Check out E4TT's annual concert of music by women and non-binary composers, "Midnight Serenades," on January 25.

Chapters

• 0:34 In this week's episode, we're joined by Ursula Kwong-Brown, who we spoke to in February 2024.
• 0:51 So, you're a pianist and a composer. You've got an undergraduate degree from Columbia, and a Doctorate from UC Berkeley. Can you talk about your path to becoming a composer?
• 1:44 And I remember your... what's your degree at Columbia, though? It was an interesting...
• 2:22 Was that what made the penny drop as it were, that you saw what the salaries were? What led you to realize that this was an actual career?
• 4:30 And, a musician would have been the one to notice, as you say. Have they figured out why? Why the different intervals and why they're triggered to the different genetic lines?
• 5:43 You're also a sound designer and an arts technologist. And this is a really terrific combination with being a composer. Can...

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're joined by Ursula Kwong-Brown, who we spoke to in February 2024. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

Nanette McGuinness  00:29
Thank you very much for agreeing to do this podcast. We're so thrilled to have you join us.

Ursula Kwong-Brown  00:35
Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to chat with you.

Nanette McGuinness  00:39
So, you're a pianist and a composer. You've got an undergraduate degree from Columbia, and a Doctorate from UC Berkeley. Can you talk about your path to becoming a composer?

Ursula Kwong-Brown  00:50
Yeah, it's funny because I, it doesn't even feel like a path. Like I started first writing music when I was like, six years old. Before I could even read music, I would write down these little melodies on strips of paper that were like A, B flat, C. And I couldn't even read music, and I would store them all in a little like hexagonal panda tin. I was, you know, six. So it just didn't feel like a path. It just sort of feels like like coloring or something like that kids do and that I always did and then I just kept doing.

Nanette McGuinness  01:27
So you always wanted to do it. So that's great. And I remember your, what's your degree at Columbia, though? It was an interesting...

Ursula Kwong-Brown  01:36
Yeah. So I got a double major in biology and in music. I come from a family of scientists and doctors. So going into music, I didn't even really realize that was an option for a long time, I guess, I was just something I did. I didn't realize you could do it as like a living. I had actually been working as an as a neuroscientist researcher for like two years after my undergraduate when I realized I could make the same salary as a PhD student in music. So I was like, clearly, I should just do this. This sounds more fun.

Nanette McGuinness  02:10
Was that what made the penny drop as it were, that you saw what the salaries were? What led you to realize that this was an actual career?

Ursula Kwong-Brown  02:19
Ah, I mean, is it even an actual career? It's such a, I feel like, yeah, I feel like, you know, in the States, you did say maybe like teaching is an actual career. And composing is something you do on the side. But then throughout most of history, right, everybody had you've worked for the church, you worked for something. Right, you had a patron. I mean, I just remember my mom who's a scientist being like, you should love what you do. Because life is so hard that unless you love it, you're never going to put enough time into it to be like, the best at it, you know? And I was like, okay, well, I really love this, like writing music. Like I clearly, any path in life that I imagined, I was like, okay, but how do I also write music? And since that's how my mind was formulating, it's like, okay, if I have to, if I were to go live in Germany and work at this institute, could I bring a keyboard? Like the fact that I was like, already thinking about the musical side of things instead of science research it just, yeah, it was clear that that was my first priority.

Nanette McGuinness  03:29
That makes a lot of sense, actually. Just random curiosity. What was the... you were working as a lab assistant, did you say or am I?

Ursula Kwong-Brown  03:36
Yes, I was working as a researcher in Darcy Kelley's laboratory at Columbia University, and she was studying frog songs. And I actually discovered that these frogs sang musical intervals in their songs. And that it was like phylogenetically significant. Like there's the whole family that were related genetically that sang perfect fourths, and these other ones singing like major and minor thirds, the other ones sang like octaves. Yeah. And they definitely would not have noticed it if it wasn't for me, because I'm, you know, a composer. So that was really, really fun. I actually, I'm giving a talk with her in New York, in like three weeks.

Nanette McGuinness  04:16
That's intensely cool. And, a musician would have been the one to notice, as you say. Have they figured out why? Why the different intervals and why they're triggered to the different genetic lines?

Ursula Kwong-Brown  04:30
So, we did these experiments where you take the larynx or the frog out of the larynx, and you trigger it in a dish electrically, and that you get the same intervals. And so it seems to be something like just physical about the geometry, sort of, of the cartilage other larynx. And the thought is that there can be hybridization across species, and then the musical intervals seem to be within a family that can hybridize so you hear or another perfect fourth, and it's not your own call, but you can actually hybridize with that species and make another species.

Nanette McGuinness  05:07
How interesting that it's kind of a marker of, "there I can breed."

Ursula Kwong-Brown  05:12
Right. Well, because they, they're, you know, they live in these murky ponds. They can't see anything. So it's all aural, there's no visual cue.

Nanette McGuinness  05:22
No, I love it, that is fascinating. I can see why that would have interested you and pulled, and yet felt fulfilling to the musician in you. That's very cool. So you're also a sound designer and an arts technologist. And this is a really terrific combination with being a composer. Can you talk about those as well, please?

Ursula Kwong-Brown  05:41
Yeah, I feel like, you know, it's really a continuum, like sound design to composition, in when you're working with sounds, whether that's, you know, sounds of wind or raindrops or clanking chains, or whatever a play might need, right? Whatever, I work in theater with my husband, Danny Erdberg, who's worked in sound design for about 20 years in theater. And so we work together, we do music for plays, we do sound design for plays, and musicals. And, you know, working with sound and working with music, I mean, if you ask John Cage, he would say it's all one in the same. And I, and I think so too. I mean, when I sketch things in my notebooks, I often I'll sketch notes, right, that's music paper, but I'll also just take like, you know, like a black pen and, and do these like little circles and I, and it means like, some sort of sound design-y, like, low rumbly sound, and it, it it's there with the music, right? And I'll write on top of it some notes or some chords like, it's, it's all of one world, I would say sound design and composing.

Nanette McGuinness  06:53
Yeah, I mean, if the purest definition of music is sound through time, then that incorporates all of that.

Ursula Kwong-Brown  07:02
Yeah, and I think in our contemporary lives, like, we hear and integrate so many electronic sounds naturally these days, you know, like, maybe 150 years ago, you wouldn't have but now it's pretty normal, like, to hear. To hear, I don't I mean, like, I lived in New York City for a long time, right. So like, you hear traffic, you hear horns, you hear chords with those horns, because they're musical, too. But you also hear the sounds of the city. And it you no longer question, I think that they should be mixed together. They don't seem of such different worlds, you know?

Nanette McGuinness  07:37
Yeah, yeah. Especially with the easy capacity we have now to work with and manipulate sound. Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  07:45
[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Ursula Kwong-Brown, 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 design 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]