Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Monica Chew and Madeline Clara Cheng

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 195: Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Monica Chew and Madeline Clara Cheng

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 Monica Chew’s and Madeline Clara Cheng’s perspectives on who or what inspires them. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Monica Chew and Madeline Clara Cheng, check them out here and here. Parts of this episode originally premiered in June 2022, click here, and January 2025, click here.

This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, SF Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, 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/18609334

Co-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, Christy Xu

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists. 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 Monica Chew's and Madeline Clara Cheng's perspectives on who or what inspires them. Here's what Monica Chew had to say.

Monica Chew  00:40

There are so many composers that I don't know, and every, every day, I hear something by someone that I would love to play, that I, whose music I don't know very well. And this morning, it was Adolphus Hailstock's Scherzo, which I just thought was fantastic. And I'm not going to try to enumerate all the contemporary composers that I think are underrated, but I'll just say that recently, I've really enjoyed learning the studies in African rhythms by Fred Onovwerosuoke, and those are pieces that I think are so fun, and I hope to keep them in my repertoire forever. I have unsections etudes on my piano desk. They're very difficult, so they may not ever make it out, but I I totally love them. And and, you know, the past few months, I've heard music by Reena Esmail and Aida Shirazi that I would love to learn. And that's, you know, that's only the tip of the iceberg. I'm not going to go on and on and on because I I'm going to leave somebody else. There's never enough time, and the list is always growing. So it's actually, it's true. It's one of my great joys, is actually doing music research, research, which basically just means listening to lots of music and figuring out what I could possibly program next.

 Nanette McGuinness  02:21

Yeah, it's true. It's a little like being in a toy store, a bookstore or a candy store. All the shelves are in front of you, and you wander down one aisle and discover more and more wonderful selections. So you're like, I want to do this. That's terrific. I love this. It's really amazing how much good music and how many good composers are out there when you just start to tiptoe along just a little bit? So one leads to another, Yeah.

Monica Chew  02:48

 It is. It really is. 

Nanette McGuinness  02:50

Here's what Madeline Clara Cheng had to say,

Madeline Clara Cheng  02:54

Oh there's been so many people that have been very instrumental, no pun intended, to my musical journey. I think if I, if I listen to everyone, we'd be here for another few hours. Off the top of my head, though, I think, well, most recently would be a lot of my professors, a lot of my peers at at USC, I would say, like my first composition professor here was Veronica Krausas, who is also very involved in Luna lab, and I also had Brian head, who I'm going to be studying with next semester, who, like, kind of really nurtured my compositional voice and made me sort of like realize that, like, what my artistic voice is, and that anything I write will inherently be a part of of my voice and my story, which was really meaningful to hear. I also worked a lot with Camae Ayewa, who her stage name is Moor Mother, which more people might know her more by that. But she really got me a little bit more into the electronic space and more into this like experimental phase, which was really exciting, and I'm really excited to see who else I get to learn from more at USC. A lot of my peers have been major inspirations to me as well, both performers and composers with their, you know, inherent, you know, creative aspirations and how they're just not afraid to go for what they want. It feels I love being at USC, Thornton School of Music, specifically because it doesn't feel ever like we're competing against each other, even when we're applying for the exact same things, because everyone is on their own creative journey, and we just get to support each other in what we want to do. But I'd be remiss to not mention the reason why I get to be here in the first place, which is the Luna Composition Lab. I think I never would have even considered going into the music industry otherwise. I have no idea what I would have, like, at this point, I have no idea what I would have done, if not for music. But when I was, at the time, when I was in Luna lab, I was in the 2019 to 2020 term, which was unfortunately, the online term, but I still learned so much from that. We even had just this one workshop where there was a bunch of, like, arts administrators, people who work behind the scenes, music publishers too, people who, you know, aren't the like forefront artists that always get the most attention. But I, for some reason, I had never even considered that, like, that, that there were that many possible avenues that you could be in the music industry. And as soon as I saw like that's that's so amazing. And then seeing all of these incredible working composers, seeing Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid do their thing, was so inspiring to me, because I, I it just never really like, I never really seen it in front of me that you could be a, like, you could be a working composer, that you could thrive in this industry. Because I always, you know, especially where I grew up, it was always like, oh, like, you're going to be like a starving artist. You're going to, you can't, you can't live that way. Like music is just like a hobby you put on your application for college admissions. It's not, it's not something you you seriously...

Nanette McGuinness  06:09

Real.

Madeline Clara Cheng  06:10

...pursuing Yes. And I'm sure, like many of my many of my relatives are secretly thinking that as well. But, you know, I'm, I'm doing my own thing, and I will, I will figure it out. And I'm already really happy with where I am and where I'm going.

Nanette McGuinness  06:25

Now, that's really great. Who is your mentor for the Luna Composition Lab?

Madeline Clara Cheng  06:30

It was Tamar Muskal. Absolutely lovely, absolutely lovely person. She also was very instrumental in shaping my, my sort of musical journey. That was one of, like, the first, like, formal trainings I had as a composer. There was a lot of, you know, figuring things out based off of what I already knew about performing music. But she was, she was so important to my musical development, she called, we actually, like, called recently, and because she's New York based, I'm hoping to to meet up with her in person for the first time. So it's, she's, she's so wonderful. And she taught me so many things about about both, both how you know how to write music, but also like how, how I write music. There's so many things that, like I did, and I didn't realize that she noticed all these, all these patterns. There are so many things that I didn't realize I was, quote-unquote, good at that. She was like, ' oh, but like, the way that you, you shape this, you have a really good ear for this.' I was like, oh, okay, maybe I should, maybe I should lean into this more. Maybe I should embrace it.

Nanette McGuinness  07:33

Yeah. 

Madeline Clara Cheng  07:35

I owe so much to her, and I'm so excited to see her. But, um, I, I was, I had no idea how formative Luna Lab would be in my compositional journey. It is, without a doubt, the most important thing that has happened to me in my musical career. It, I like to say that it's the gift that keeps on giving. I mean, I said I was a 2019-2020 fellow, and look at this, um, incredible way that I've gotten to connect with Ensemble for These Times. I never would have gotten that without, without Luna Lab, you know, having this, having this Call for Scores with you. So I, I'm super grateful for them, just just every year, I think like they've got to be done with me at this point, something new happens. I was able, I was so grateful to I got to go to Amsterdam because Ellen Reid had a Concertgebouw residency, and she had one of my pieces programmed there. And I thought that was a scam email when I first received it. I realized that was too specific to be a scam email. I looked it up. It was all it was all legit. I just couldn't believe it. But it really is the gift that keeps on giving. And they just, they just, it seems like they just cannot stop providing incredible opportunities for not only their current fellows, but also so many alumni that have been with them for years and years.

Nanette McGuinness  08:57

We think very highly of what they're doing. It's an amazing program. And when we were thinking of who we might want to do a collaboration with for a Call for Scores, their name came right to mind, because there's such a synergy in the missions of their organization and ours. And I think they're great so.

Madeline Clara Cheng  09:15

Oh it's so wonderful. 

Nanette McGuinness  09:16

[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 by grants from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, 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]