Jennifer Higdon - Part 1

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 220: Jennifer Hidgon - 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 start our third season, “Talking About Text,” which focuses on creatives, including lyricists, singers, and composers, who work on music with text. Today, we talk to Jennifer Higdon about her musical path and working with text as a composer. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Jennifer Higdon, check her out here: http://www.jenniferhigdon.com/. This episode was originally recorded in February 2026.

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/19652040

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, 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're excited to start our third season, "Talking About Text," which focuses on creatives who work on music with text. We'll be talking to lyricists, singers, and, of course, composers. Today, we are joined by Jennifer Higdon.

Nanette McGuinness  00:37

Thank you so very much for agreeing to do this interview with us. 

Jennifer Higdon  00:41

Oh, it's my pleasure, really.

Nanette McGuinness  00:43

Yeah, your parents exposed you to many different art forms as a child, but you didn't begin formal musical studies until you were 18. How did that early engagement and later education shape who you are as an artist and how you think about composition?

Jennifer Higdon  01:00

That's a good question. I've long pondered this. I think the fact that I grew up around art all the time because my dad was always not only was he doing commercial art, he was he did... he basically worked at home, which meant I was really absorbed in art making. But he also made experimental videos with first an eight millimeter camera, and then sixteen..And I remember my mom did painting in some abstract quilts, which is kind of a... an odd thing.

Nanette McGuinness  01:28

[laughing]

Jennifer Higdon  01:28

But they were always, they were always taking my brother and myself to puppet shows, film festivals. They were big on exposing to us as much different art as possible, so I think living in that environment, you just don't ever think about the world, what it would be like not to be an artist. [laughing]

Nanette McGuinness  01:48

Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  01:49

Somehow seems like I mean when I think about it, my younger brother Andy, who's not here anymore, he did art-related things.

Nanette McGuinness  01:56

Sorry.

Jennifer Higdon  01:56

Yeah, drawing, and my other brother Key, who I think a lot of people don't know. I've got a brother who lives in Los Angeles. He's into videography, so it...

Nanette McGuinness  02:05

Oh.

Jennifer Higdon  02:05

...it feels like art has just kind of been my universe from probably day one in reality. So it's, but that kind of also empowers you as a young student to think, okay, I want to be an artist. What do I need to do? And in a way, I guess I was learning lessons all along because my dad was one of the first freelance artists...

Nanette McGuinness  02:26

mmm...

Jennifer Higdon  02:26

...to work at home. He had commenced advertising agencies in Atlanta to allow him to work at home and bring things in, and they were very hesitant at first because...

Nanette McGuinness  02:38

[laughs]

Jennifer Higdon  02:38

...it used to be the creative divisions and art agencies, any kind of advertising agency would, they'd have their own section...

Nanette McGuinness  02:46

Yes.

Jennifer Higdon  02:46

...on the same corporate floor, but it didn't occur to them to allow the artists to work away self-employed and just bring things in.

Nanette McGuinness  02:55

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  02:55

So I remember my dad was talking about. I remember picking him up when he worked in a corporate office, he'd go in with like a shirt and tie. But now I think about that, and it seems totally comical. I mean...

Nanette McGuinness  03:10

[laughs]

Jennifer Higdon  03:10

...I must have been five when we were picking him up, but most of my life, when I was at home, he... he worked at... he had a studio in the in the house.

Nanette McGuinness  03:13

That's fabulous. Yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  03:20

Yeah, it's ideal, actually.

Nanette McGuinness  03:23

I think so. I mean, creating and when you're in your own space and you can shut out other things or let them in as you wish.

Jennifer Higdon  03:31

Yes, like the cats. Like the cats... [laughing]

Nanette McGuinness  03:35

Right. [laughing]

Jennifer Higdon  03:35

...or they push their way in. Yes.

Nanette McGuinness  03:38

Yeah. It's interesting, though. What drew you to music?

Jennifer Higdon  03:43

Boy, that's a really good question. It's obvious going back and looking at my drawings from when I was like five and six that even though I didn't know anything about music, I obviously was headed in that direction because we we found this little booklet that I had made out of paper, that I had made like a real booklet...

Nanette McGuinness  04:03

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  04:03

...I had cut all the pages out and I folded them and stapled them. But inside this booklet was a music staff with, with a treble clef and some notes. I mean, it's when I found it. At that point, I was a professional musician. I was a little shocked, but...

Nanette McGuinness  04:18

[laughs]

Jennifer Higdon  04:18

...so something. I remember we always had music on in the house...

Jennifer Higdon  04:23

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  04:23

...because my dad would be working at home, and it wasn't a ton of classical music. It was much more pop. It was, and at that time we're talking 60s pop. So Beatles, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary...

Nanette McGuinness  04:36

Classics.

Jennifer Higdon  04:36

...The Kingston Trio. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So early reggae. I remember he had some of the early reggae and Bob Dylan's basement tapes, but that kind of music, because he had speakers in his studio. That's actually what I grew up around. And... but I remember thinking when I was really really young, like kindergarten age, that music was powerful. I don't know where this came from. But some seed was planted. But my parents never made me take lessons or anything like that. So...

Nanette McGuinness  05:00

Interesting.

Jennifer Higdon  05:08

It's a bit of a mystery.

Nanette McGuinness  05:09

I think it's those kinds of things where the... the person's spirit is going that direction. Because...

Jennifer Higdon  05:15

Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  05:15

...I mean, I took lessons and so forth. But there are pictures of me at you know a Hammond organ, and I'm maybe age three, and my little legs are dangling, and...

Jennifer Higdon  05:24

Yes!

Nanette McGuinness  05:24

...you know I'm probably just pounding along. But you know the die was cast. [laughing]

Jennifer Higdon  05:28

[laughing] Yes, absolutely. I think that's actually true. Sometimes everything seems to be pointing in that direction, even though you don't, you're not aware when you're that young. So...

Nanette McGuinness  05:37

Mmhmm... yeah, yeah. Well, great. You've written for a variety of instrumental forces, both with and without voice. Do you approach writing for voice differently from other instruments, and how does writing with text and/or for large-scale versus small-scale forces change how you approach composition, if at all?

Jennifer Higdon  05:58

Yeah, it changes everything. First of all, I do approach writing with text differently than straight instrumental writing...

Nanette McGuinness  06:06

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  06:07

...because the text gives you kind of a shape and a form.

Nanette McGuinness  06:11

Definitely.

Jennifer Higdon  06:11

So it's that's a little built in, and I and I also think about what do I need to do in the text to kind of emphasize or maybe underline what the text is saying. I remember doing a series of poems for Sasha Cooke. That was it was about summer, summer, different aspects of summer. And I remember I had one that was about summer showers, and what I ended up doing was actually making the piano part sound like drops falling randomly, but I also had her make those sounds as well with her voice before she started singing words...

Nanette McGuinness  06:51

Ah.

Jennifer Higdon  06:51

So she was making... So I always think about what the... the text is saying and... and what it, where it needs to draw attention, a particular thing. So a good example of that is, I just did something for, and this was the first for me for narrator...

Nanette McGuinness  07:10

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  07:10

...and string quartet, and it's a. I had to stop and think about voice again. How do you write this to cue it? The the simple technical things, but I also thought about what kind of music needs to sit underneath...

Nanette McGuinness  07:24

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  07:24

...different aspects of the text. So this was a text about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice. So I I knew that some of the music the character needed to have kind of the that profound thing. She was a very profound, very brilliant woman. If you ever talked to her, I mean, you knew within seconds how smart you could feel it emanating off of her. But I also addressed her relationship with her husband, which was pretty famous. She never cooked; he always did the cooking. They had a very equal partnership at a time when that just did not exist.

Nanette McGuinness  07:57

Happen. Yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  07:58

Yeah. And so the music needed to be different for that aspect of the piece. It didn't need to be kind of the judicial sound...

Nanette McGuinness  08:06

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  08:07

...which to me sounded much more kind of profound and I don't know. I guess have more emphasis. And I think the for her husband Martin, I wrote music that was much gentler because their relationship...

Nanette McGuinness  08:08

Ah.

Jennifer Higdon  08:08

...they worked so well together, and it really was an equal relationship way before this was a thing. This was at a time when there was like no one, no women on judicial...

Nanette McGuinness  08:32

Yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  08:32

...benches at all. So yeah, it was so it was kind of, but it really made me think. And you know, the process of writing operas extraordinarily different than writing like art songs...

Nanette McGuinness  08:43

hmm

Jennifer Higdon  08:43

...they're very very different. I just completed a set of art songs on Benjamin Franklin's texts, and some they wanted some lighter stuff, so I had some comical things. But when you're writing an opera, you really have to think about how are you going to underline these characters with music so that when they come back repeatedly on the stage, you have a psychological sense through the music of what this person is like.

Nanette McGuinness  09:07

Right.

Jennifer Higdon  09:07

And I remember when I was doing my first opera, "Cold Mountain," I approached it in a way. There was one character who was just awful. He was an awful person. He was always killing people, and so I I didn't tell anyone this, but in the percussion section, I would use sounds that were close to a rattlesnake sound.

Nanette McGuinness  09:09

Ooo... [laughing] nice.

Jennifer Higdon  09:12

And so I just had that running under the music, his music, because this guy seemed like a snake to me. So [laughing] you can really, you can really think about down to real detail about what to put under, but you have to also you got to set it so that the words can be understood.

Nanette McGuinness  09:42

Thank you, yes. [laughing]

Jennifer Higdon  09:43

Yes, and also so respects the voice in terms of certain words are just awkward to sing, and in...

Nanette McGuinness  09:50

Yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  09:50

...certain ranges they're really awkward. So I worry about that a lot. And when I'm writing instrumental, I I have to change it up because the fact is I've got no guidance from the text one, and two, the instruments are different.

Nanette McGuinness  10:03

Yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  10:03

They, you know, what's loud, what's what doesn't sound like strong range versus what sounds like strong range. You know, certain people have to breathe more quickly than others. You have to think...

Nanette McGuinness  10:15

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  10:15

...about that kind of thing. You can't have brass playing all the time. They have to have actual breaks...

Nanette McGuinness  10:21

Right.

Jennifer Higdon  10:22

...so there's it's there are a million little things you think about, but the words I I find it intriguing setting words and different settings song opera, and now narrating, which that was really tricky. I was surprised how hard that was. [laughs

Nanette McGuinness  10:37

[laughs] You know, yeah, I've moved over the last few years to doing things where I'm narrating either between or in. I'm finding it fascinating, but...

Jennifer Higdon  10:46

Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  10:46

...but you're right. The last one I did, we just had to mic it to make sure that the voice was heard in the loud sections.

Jennifer Higdon  10:52

That's the thing, you all. And you know, I was. I always try to be really careful. I was very fortunate when "Cold Mountain," my first opera, was done. I may be the first composer ever to have under orchestrated where people were singing. We had to boost the sound of the orchestra.

Nanette McGuinness  11:07

Wow! [laughing]

Jennifer Higdon  11:08

I've never heard of that happening, especially on a first opera. Usually, everyone overwrites, but...

Nanette McGuinness  11:12

Yes, yes.

Jennifer Higdon  11:13

I think I was so paranoid of doing that that I kind of went under...

Nanette McGuinness  11:18

Thank you. [laughing]

Jennifer Higdon  11:18

[laughing] Yeah, I know. You know, it's. I think there's a reason for that, Nanette, and I think it's because I used to perform on flute, and I can remember struggling against pieces, and I was really...

Nanette McGuinness  11:31

Ah.

Jennifer Higdon  11:31

...struck by that. I thought a composer shouldn't be writing something that the performer has to struggle against. You should be writing in a way that helps the performer sound good and make sense of what they're doing because you're not helping your case when you're making music that is tough to deal with. It becomes a wrestling match.

Nanette McGuinness  11:49

Yes.

Jennifer Higdon  11:49

The composer's not going to get a very good experience out of it. And I think I struggled through so much music that it immediately imbued in me a sense of responsibility to do well by the performer. I mean, that's really is a it's imperative for me. But I think I went through playing enough new music that was not very friendly.

Nanette McGuinness  11:52

[laughs]

Jennifer Higdon  11:53

So I think about that a lot.

Nanette McGuinness  12:12

Well, thank you, and that... that makes sense. I've actually sung pieces by composers where they say, "Well, yes, we want that sound, or we want it, or you've got that down there, and I'm like, but it doesn't feel good, and I don't like it.

Jennifer Higdon  12:25

Yeah. I know it's really, and you really do have to think about it. I think it's, it's important, but I think it's the ultimate compliment if... I've had a couple people come up to me and say, you know, you're a performer's composer...

Nanette McGuinness  12:26

Yes.

Jennifer Higdon  12:26

...and I think that's like just the most incredible compliment a composer can get.

Nanette McGuinness  12:43

Well, having sung a bit of your music, I would echo that you are a performer's composer. So...

Jennifer Higdon  12:49

Ooh, thank you. [laughing] I love that compliment. It's really incredible.

Nanette McGuinness  12:53

[laughs] No, you're welcome. It sounds like you're thinking more and more about text more recently. Do you have, at this point, a favorite child?

Jennifer Higdon  13:04

Oh no, not really. They... every single one of them was an adventure.

Nanette McGuinness  13:08

[laughs]

Jennifer Higdon  13:09

You're gonna [laughing] you're gonna laugh when you hear this. I I just started thinking when I finished these songs for Lyric Fest in Philadelphia...

Nanette McGuinness  13:17

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  13:18

...I thought to myself, I'm finally getting the hang... hang of writing for... [laughing]

Nanette McGuinness  13:21

[laughs]

Jennifer Higdon  13:22

...voices and text, which is ironic. I've had two operas go up, you know, and a whole slew of songs.

Nanette McGuinness  13:29

Yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  13:29

So it's funny that I'm saying that, but I really feel like I'm just starting to get there, [laughing] literally.

Nanette McGuinness  13:36

Well, you know, I think... I think that humility probably characterizes you, but you're under-singing your own praises there.

Jennifer Higdon  13:43

[laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  13:46

I am curious, in terms of text, have you ever found a text that just won't work to be set to music, or kind of the flip side of that... that says what it says in... It's such a pearl. It's so perfect in its own format and genre that it shouldn't be set, or resists being set. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Higdon  14:08

Yeah, you know there are lots of texts I've seen that I thought, ooh, that doesn't look like it would sing very well.

Nanette McGuinness  14:15

[laughs] Thank you.

Jennifer Higdon  14:15

But I also, I know as a composer, you also have to make sure the text is resonating with you...

Nanette McGuinness  14:18

mmm

Jennifer Higdon  14:19

...because if you don't, if you're not having an emotional response, it's a it's hard to... to create an emotional response in the music.

Nanette McGuinness  14:31

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  14:31

So I don't know that I've ever said a text that I thought, oh, this is awful. I can remember being around awful characters in the operas...

Nanette McGuinness  14:39

mmhmm

Jennifer Higdon  14:40

...because both of my operas had dark characters...

Nanette McGuinness 14:43

Villian.

Jennifer Higdon  14:43

They made me feel, yeah, they made me feel ill every time I had to write for them, and and but and you know I have yet to run across something that I thought oh I can't set this it's too people ask me that all the time and I don't know that feeling yet so I don't think it's happened to me yet but. There's got to be stuff out there that, to me, I would look at it and go, "Oh, oh yeah, that's perfect as it is."

Nanette McGuinness  14:43

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Jennifer Higdon  15:08

That's a that's a it's I it I need to have that happen so I can experience it because I don't have a context.

Nanette McGuinness  15:14

Yeah.

Jennifer Higdon  15:14

But there's got to be stuff out there that is perfect as it is. Ned Rorem used to say that all the time to the students...

Nanette McGuinness  15:21

Ah.

Jennifer Higdon  15:21

He would talk about you know this poem is perfect. We don't... it doesn't need music, and I'm like, well, how do you decide what needs music and what doesn't? I'm like putting music on everything, you know, so... [laughing]

Nanette McGuinness  15:34

[laughs] No sense of gilding the lily here.

Jennifer Higdon  15:35

I know, I know. It's really it's... it's very interesting. So I know there are texts out there that would fit in that category somehow, I just haven't bumped into any of them.

Nanette McGuinness  15:45

Well, good. That's good. [laughs]

Jennifer Higdon  15:47

[laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  15:48

That's a great answer.

Nanette McGuinness  15:49

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