Hitomi Oba - Part 8

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 163: Hitomi Oba - Part 8

In this week’s episode, we talk to Hitomi Oba about the differences between the music scenes, living in LA and growing up in the Bay Area. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Hitomi Oba, check her out here: https://www.hitomioba.com/. This episode was originally recorded in December 2023.

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/episodes/17156426

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

Chapters

• 0:22 In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Hitomi Oba, who we spoke to in December 2023.
• 0:30 Like you, many of the composers we talked to on For Good Measure, have moved from LA to the Bay Area or vice versa. And so I always ask in these cases, are there differences you feel in the musical cultures in the two regions? What do you like about...

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 conversation with Hitomi Oba, who we spoke to in December 2023. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] Like you, many of the composers we talked to on For Good Measure, have moved from LA to the Bay Area or vice versa. And so I always ask in these cases, are there differences you feel in the musical cultures in the two regions? What do you like about where you are? What do you like about where you were? Would you change anything? And we've gotten a little of that as you've gone along, but this is your opportunity to kind of consolidate what you've been saying in that. 

Hitomi Oba  00:59

Yeah, absolutely! So I left the Bay Area pretty long ago as a resident. I left in 2002. 

Nanette McGuinness  01:07

Oh, wow!

Hitomi Oba  01:07

So it's been a while. It's been a while, and I'm familiar through occasional performances and also through people I know there, including Erica, my sister. But yeah, it hasn't been my my home base, for a long time, so I don't know if I'll have as much insight as you know people who've made the move recently. Educationally, I know just I benefited you know, so much from, you know, the educational programs in the Bay Area, and that's something that I'm not as familiar with down here. So I guess I'll have somewhat more of a comparison as my children grow up, as, you know, LA people, Long Beach people. In terms of the music scene: so just speaking to, you know, Los Angeles, obviously, the commercial and entertainment industries is huge, right? So they're always, you know, string, you know, there are always some relationships related to that work. You know that might be with, you know, your chamber music players. You know, also have, you know, you know your, whoever's doing a production for, you know, television or whatever, like everybody seems interwoven into that professional landscape somehow, and that is so important because of, you know, financial support. 

Nanette McGuinness  02:19

[Laughs] 

Hitomi Oba  02:19

So it seems like a lot of times, both in the kind of like jazz and the classical world, it seems like people are somewhat willing to kind of engage with creative projects, even if they are not that financially [laughs] beneficial, because they have, you know, maybe they had a good movie, you know, studio session or, you know, so I feel like that's really important that, you know. And obviously, you know, this isn't the case for everybody. A lot of people are financially very shaky, you know. And it's, it's, that's a problem in itself, but I think the fact that there is work for a fair number of people does allow for there to be creative space. And I think it seems like a lot of people are wanting to engage with creative music after engaging with, you know, more commercial music and such. So that's always encouraging. When you go into space and people are like, you know, they're doing it for not as much as you'd like to pay them, or that you'd like to get paid.

Nanette McGuinness  03:21

Tell me about it!

Hitomi Oba  03:21

Of course, that is a problem too. You know, everybody should be getting paid, you know. But I think just speaking to the enthusiasm, I guess, is what you know, that I do cherish, you know. So it's there seems to be an enthusiasm for creative music, maybe because, maybe because there is more work, I'm not sure. But yeah, and I think there, the things I like about LA like, in particular is that it is kind of much like just, it's like social landscape, the musical landscape also has a lot of, like, lot of pockets of vibrant communities, right? So there's like, a huge mariachi scene, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, several taiko groups, like, they're all these, like, small pockets. And, you know, it's kind of how the city's laid out. It's actually quite segregated. 

Nanette McGuinness  04:12

Yeah.

Hitomi Oba  04:12

But, you know, there's, like, Koreatown, and, you know, there's but, but it also results in a lot of different vibrant communities of music, and it's also a very large city, right? Include, if you include, like, Long Beach, and all of LA County, it's very big. And so, you know, also in music, there was also a lot of interaction between these various, you know, musical communities. And so I think that's, that's a huge, huge thing. There's always a lot going on. It feels like, you know, and there are people practicing at a very high level in a lot of different fields. So I think that's inspiring. You can find inspiration like everywhere, outside of your field, you know, within your field, [laughs] 

Nanette McGuinness  04:53

Yeah!

Hitomi Oba  04:53

So it's vibrant. I guess there's another way, but it's very vibrant. The detriment is that, again, it is very large. Geographically spread out. So I don't know that that seems to be a big problem. Maybe people can't access things as much as they would like, right? So I don't know if it were easier to get to places then that would, I think, connect things even more.

Nanette McGuinness  05:16

Traffic in public, transportation being an issue.

Hitomi Oba  05:19

Bus, I think the bus system is actually, like, quite it's a good network. It goes everywhere.

Nanette McGuinness  05:24

Oh, great!

Hitomi Oba  05:24

But it's slow, you know, it takes a long time. And if you know, it's a large, large, large city and county. So I don't know, I think they're working on the train system, but I think there's a lot that needs to be done, you know. And then traffic, yeah, just being here, traffic. So yeah, from an environmental standpoint, you know, also an access, accessibility standpoint, it's not great, you know, speaking of accessibility, like, yeah, things that I mentioned like, what would I change like? I think accessibility in terms of like, so we just mentioned transportation, but also like, you know, there are still, like, accessibility issues in terms of, like, finances, or like, you know, maybe age, you know, for like, you know, especially for, like, my jazz students, you know, they're like, there are a lot of, I guess, blocks they hit terms of accessibility and that, now that I'm a parent, I'm seeing more of the like families, you know, circumstances inhibiting people from accessibility and with both transportation and time, right? So, like, you know, for people in, you know, my my peer group right now, it's like we're expected to show up places professionally, right? Even if you're not, you know, being hired, right? You want to be, you want to be attending things, but they all take place when you know you're supposed to be with your children, because, you know, or you could hire a babysitter, but that's when they're most expensive. And, you know, it's like, there aren't concerts during the day where you could actually just bring your kids to, you know, like, just like, I don't know. I like, I know my university would like, they proposed, like, maybe a small fund for like, you know, low level professors to be able to, like, get childcare to attend concerts or something, you know, it floated, but it never manifested, you know. So there's still this, like, kind of unequal burden on certain demographics of people in terms of music accessibility. So that's, you know, that's something that I think can be approached from a lot of different angles, but, but, yeah, LA is pretty vibrant. There are a lot of people moving here, I think, from the East Coast, especially, I know, especially in the jazz scene, a lot of people are moving from New York, you know. So things are getting, yeah, it's very exciting right now. I think wish there were more venues, but it's exciting.

Nanette McGuinness  07:42

Oh gosh, that's always such an issue! It comes up in meetings up here, too, all sorts of you know when, when you get troubleshooting or thinking about the area, what can we do? Venues, venues with with pianos, venues where the rental is not prohibitive.

Hitomi Oba  07:58

Yeah!

Nanette McGuinness  07:58

That kind of thing. It's a constant thing venues where it isn't the huge Symphony Hall that isn't necessarily appropriate to the kind of new music or improvisational or exploratory music.

Hitomi Oba  08:10

Right, right, absolutely. There's so many factors, so many factors, yeah, yeah. But people are getting creative, though it seems like, right?

Nanette McGuinness  08:20

Yeah, they are, no, they're always, they're always creative. But it sounds to me that a lot of the things you're talking about in terms of LA, are the non musical things affecting the musical scene, which is really interesting, right?

Hitomi Oba  08:32

Absolutely. And yeah, again, I think it'll take a lot of people thinking about it, approaching it from, like, a lot of different angles.

Nanette McGuinness  08:39

Just like climate change, 

Hitomi Oba  08:40

Right, exactly!

Nanette McGuinness  08:41

Getting lots of people, it has to get to percolate to a certain level, and then everybody is all of a sudden deciding to focus on problem solving in that arena, and bad things happen. 

Hitomi Oba  08:54

Absolutely, absolutely. It takes a lot of people, absolutely, from a lot of different angles.

Nanette McGuinness  08:56

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Hitomi Oba, 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]