Lunar Module with Caleb Palka - Part 3

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 148: Lunar Module with Caleb Palka - Part 3

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 Lunar Module, a mini-series with the E4TT/ Luna Composition Lab Call for Scores winners and commissioned composers. Today we are joined by Caleb Palka, who we spoke to in June 2024. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more, check out his music here: https://lunacompositionlab.org/people/caleb-palka/.

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),  in SF, CA on January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), in SF, CA on October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/16799521

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, Addy Geenen, Yoyo Hung-Yu Lin

Check out Ensemble for These Times' upcoming concert 'Women in Transit' on April 4, a collaboration with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music TAC Department, featuring a multimedia program that explores women's migration and identity. For more information, go to www.E4TT.org.

Chapters

• 0:51 Today we continue talking to Caleb Palka, who we spoke to in June 2024.
• 1:00 Would you say that you think of yourself primarily as a vocal composer or equally other things?
• 1:23 Are there any mentors, interests or influences you'd like to share with us? You mentioned a little bit, do you want to expand?

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 finish our Lunar Module mini-series with E4TT's Luna Composition Lab Call for Scores winners and commission composers [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. Today we continue talking to Caleb Palka, who we spoke to in June 2024. Tune in next week as we resume our second season!

Nanette McGuinness  00:41

Would you say that you think of yourself primarily as a vocal composer or equally other things?

Caleb Palka  00:49

I think I like doing a mix of everything, but I definitely see myself wanting to pursue writing for voice a lot more in the future as well.

Nanette McGuinness  00:56

Oh, good answer. [laughs]

Caleb Palka  00:59

[laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  01:00

Appropriate and good. Let's shift gears a little bit here. Are there any mentors, interests or influences you'd like to share with us? You mentioned a little bit, do you want to expand?

Caleb Palka  01:13

Um, yeah. Well, I think, like, probably my biggest like, inspiration is nature. I love reading a lot about, like, you know, just reading a lot of nature writing, a lot of nature poets like Mary Oliver, or like nature essayists like Brian Doyle. There's a lot of authors who I really enjoy. I really love Ross Gay, his like writings about nature, and I think that just sort of going for a walk in nature and noticing little things often helps me get unstuck when I'm working on a piece. I think that the kind of like sense of time that I feel when I'm walking in the woods is often the kind of sense of time that I be want to bring the audience to in a piece, and the sense of awareness of all the sort of aliveness around me in the woods, and the kind of connection is something that the kind of connection that I think I want to kind of like cultivate in my music as well, so.

Nanette McGuinness  02:34

Yeah, there are a number of composers over the centuries who have found that to be an inspirational panacea, if you want to combine two words unusually.

Caleb Palka  02:46

[laughs] Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  02:48

But yeah. What about, do you enjoy, reading like Thoreau and those?... or not quite back that far?

Caleb Palka  02:56

I haven't read that much Thoreau. I think primarily, I read a lot of like, like science writers, like, think of like, Ed Yong has a book recently about, like, how animal senses work. Or there's this book by, I think, Jennifer Ackerman about, like, owls and sort of new science on them and stuff.

Nanette McGuinness  03:24

So more recent than like...

Caleb Palka  03:26

I like reading a lot of like, I guess, like popular science, like, writing that kind of discusses things in detail that way, as well as I like to sort of more like lyrical side of like, like, lyrical essays or poems that are...

Nanette McGuinness  03:35

mmhmm

Caleb Palka  03:42

...like approaching nature in that different way, yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  03:47

Right, right, modern Walt Whitmans as it were.

Caleb Palka  03:50

Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  03:51

Yeah. What about mentors?

Caleb Palka  03:54

Yeah. Well, I've been really fortunate to participate in, like, the Young Composers Project, as I mentioned. And also, like Luna Composition Lab, it's been really amazing, like the piece that I wrote when I was a fellow for them, was also very inspired by nature, like looking at birds that I observed, like in Oregon, and connecting those birds to like memories of my late father, who I enjoyed bird watching with and using those bird calls as a kind of like way into the piece. So I think I've always been very inspired by nature and kind of the deeper symbolism that I can sometimes find in it as well. And yeah, it's also been really amazing, going to USC and studying with all of my teachers there. I really love that we rotate from teacher to teacher each year, so I get a lot of different perspectives on things which I really value.

Nanette McGuinness  04:55

That's really nice. I'm sorry about your father though, you said your late father. Who was your mentor at Luna?

Caleb Palka  05:02

Ellen Reid, yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  05:04

Oh, nice, nice. Okay.

Caleb Palka  05:05

I really loved working with her.

Nanette McGuinness  05:08

Yeah, yeah, great. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd like to bring up or mention? We were pretty thorough, so it's okay to say no. [laughs]

Caleb Palka  05:26

Yeah, not that I can think of at the moment.

Nanette McGuinness  05:29

Great. All right, well, thank you, this was very interesting, and we're so looking forward to your piece for us.

Caleb Palka  05:36

Thank you.

Nanette McGuinness  05:37

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Caleb Palka, 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 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].