>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. [ Pause ] >> Nicholas Brown: Good evening. Hi, everyone. Welcome. My name is Nick Brown. I'm one of the music producers here for the Library of Congress music division. Very excited to have you hear tonight for a very special occasion. We have a lot of celebrations going on, and the most exciting celebration tonight is the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon's viola concerto, which was a co-commission between the Library of Congress, the Curtis Institute of Music, the National Symphony, and the Aspen Music Festival with support from some really amazing family foundations and individuals around the country. So we're so pleased to celebrate that, and best of all, we have for you Jennifer Higdon right here - >> Jennifer Higdon: Oh, it's a pleasure being here - >> Nicholas Brown: And she's happy to be here, I think - >> Jennifer Higdon: What an amazing place. I'm in awe actually. I'm trying not to be so awestruck that I can't speak. The history in this building, but also with music. It's kind of amazing - >> Nicholas Brown: Yeah - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yeah. >> Nicholas Brown: So for those who don't know Jennifer yet, Jennifer is one of the top American composers on the scene today. Sorry for the flattery - >> Jennifer Higdon: Oh, that's alright. >> Nicholas Brown: The Library has commissioned her once in the past through the [Inaudible] Music Foundation, and so this is now her second Library of Congress commission. Jennifer's on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, and she has had all kinds of really neat positions as composer in residence with various orchestras. She has a long relationship with Robert Spano, the conductor of tonight's concert. Both at Aspen and in Atlanta and at Curtis now as well, which is really exciting. So is there anything else from your bio that you'd like to - >> Jennifer Higdon: Well, let's see. Ah, that's a good question. Yeah, I actually met Robert Spano in my undergraduate days in Bowling Green, Ohio. A lot of people don't know that. So I've known him, like, 29 years, which sounds like a lot of time. We both look at each other and say, well, there's no way we're that old. There's just no way. I don't know. Any bio stuff. I have a Pulitzer for which I'm still adjusting to. When I hear people say it, I still break out into a sweat. In fact, I had a concert not long after I had gotten it, and someone said from the stage we have a Pulitzer Prize winner attending, and I, like, turned around and looked. I'm, like, oh, who's here, and then realize, oh, they were talking about me. It was kind of a strange sensation, but for me, it's about writing music, though. I mean, that's what I actually focus on, and I'm very fortunate because I get to write all the time. I have lots of projects always going it seems like, and this one actually generated quite a few years ago. I think we were at a Carnegie Hall concert with my violin concerto. Hilary Hahn was playing it with the Curtis Orchestra. So it, this all kind of swirling and coming together at the dinner before the concert - >> Nicholas Brown: And that's the music business for you, right - >> Jennifer Higdon: That's what, over food. It's always over food. This is how the best business gets done, over food. >> Nicholas Brown: Could you tell us a bit about the way that you entered music? Because you came into it a little later than most people would have thought perhaps - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yeah, I know. You know, I teach at the Curtis Institute of Music, and it's an extraordinary place with incredible talent, but everyone there seems to have started when they were three or four years old on their instrument. I started at the age of 15 on flute, and I was self-taught. I actually didn't have flute instrument. My mom had gotten some sort of a no-name flute at an antique store or something. I think she only paid, like, $75 for it. She had a beginning band method book. So I picked it up one day, and I taught myself to read music and play the flute, and I enjoyed it so much I decided I was going to major in music, and I knew absolutely nothing about, especially classical music. I knew about rock and roll. My dad was a commercial artist. He worked at home. He always had rock and roll playing. So, but I didn't. I went off to college. I didn't even know, I didn't know the Beethoven symphonies. I knew nothing. I didn't really know any music of Mozart, Haydn, anyone. And so I went off to Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and because I was starting so late, I had to take all the remedial classes, the most basic harmony. This is how you spell a chord. This is how an interval. This is how you label this interval. Basic ear training, basic keyboard, and I went through there. I was a flute performance major, but my flute teacher, Judith Bentley, got me started on composing, and I actually asked her. There was this flute player, composer, Harvey Solberger, coming in for a master class, and I went into my lesson. I said, OK, Mrs. Bentley, what do I need to prepare for this flute master class, and she said, oh, you're going to write a piece, and I actually literally said, well, how do you do that. So she showed me how to do an eight-note row. It wasn't a 12-note row. I don't know if she thought I wasn't advanced enough to handle 12 notes, but she showed me how to take eight notes and kind of build a piece around it. So I went off and wrote a little two-minute piece for a flute and piano. I guess you could call me Opus One, but I actually call it, like, my Opus Minus Ten because it's far enough back, it's probably lost somewhere. That may be a good thing, though, but it's a very short little piece. It had, like, one note [inaudible] on the piano. Very venturesome. I've advanced a little bit since then, but once I did that, I kind of, it was like getting bitten by a bug. I was, like, this composing thing's pretty cool. So I finished my degree in flute performance, and for many years I played actually quite a bit after I left Bowling Green, but I did switch when I went to Curtis to composition and really started focusing. And I was still taking remedial classes. I was that far behind. I was trying to catch up. So I got an artist diploma in composition at Curtis, and then I went up the street to the University of Pennsylvania, and I got a master's and a doctorate in composition, and even going through the master's and doctorate, I still felt like I was catching up to what my colleagues. They all had, like, a lot of more knowledge about it, and I, to this day, I still feel like I'm learning. It's kind of an incredible journey, and a little surprising when that call comes that says you've won a Pulitzer, and you're, like, wait a minute. What? Is this a joke? Really? Because you think I was in remedial classes. It didn't seem like it was that long ago, but the thing is, I've written a whole lot of music. So I've been learning, and it's been a fantastic experience because I love music, and I love learning, and I love growing, but I've been lucky to have good teachers who kind of, like, supported me and encouraged me in the process. And so that brings us to here I guess - >> Nicholas Brown: Great. Do you think there's an advantage to coming at a career in music away from the sort of accepted stereotypical routes - >> Jennifer Higdon: You know, I think for me it [inaudible], it didn't feel like it when I was going through school. I always felt like I was struggling to get through the classes. When my classmates could do things easily, I, it was really a lot of work for me, but now that I'm on the other side of the degrees, and I'm not having to sweat the tests, it does seem like an advantage because I wonder how my brain may be wired differently because I didn't grow up around classical music. We had so much, we had a lot of Beatles playing in the household. Bob Dylan, the early reggae stuff. My dad had music playing all the time in the house, but it was, like, 60's and 70's folk and rock, and I sometimes wonder. Because a composer tends to write their music, it's, in a way, your brain gets trained by what's around you all the time. The language you speak. If you speak French, your music's going to sound very different than if you speak English or if you speak German, but also the music that's in your childhood, and growing up in East Tennessee and hearing a lot of bluegrass, I'm sure that has filtered in. I just finished writing an opera based on Charles Fraser's book "Cold Mountain", and I was able to kind of pull on my memories of bluegrass and kind of incorporate that in the opera. But even in going back and revisiting bluegrass music, it was kind of startling. I'm, like, oh, yeah. Some of these rhythms I think are kind of connected a little bit - >> Nicholas Brown: Very cool. How do you approach composing a concerto for an instrument as opposed to the opera, for example - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yeah, you know, I, this is a good question. I try to get to know the soloists, but in this case, Roberto Diaz, I've known him a long time. He used to be principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and my first breakout piece was a concerto for orchestra written for them. And so over the years, I've had pieces done by the Philadelphia Orchestra, and I can remember when I would go out to take a bow, Roberto was actually sitting right there in the kind of the front circle of strings. And then he took over at Curtis. So I'm pretty familiar with his playing style. And, amazingly, for me, when I was in school, the very sonata I wrote was a viola sonata. Now this came about because violists want repertoire. So they're the ones who will ask you for something. Usually, the violinists are, like, oh, we got a lot of stuff. You just go on and do something else, but the violists are, like, would you write something. So I was, like, OK. This, the dream thing for a composer to have a musician say will you write something for me. Now I looked at a lot of repertoire, and what I discovered about viola concertos, they're all dark. They're actually really dark. I was, in fact, I couldn't sit down for hours at a time and go through lots of concertos because I would get depressed. So I could, like, do two concerto a day, looking at them, and I'd say, alright, I got to go do something else. But by the time I hit, like, the eighth or ninth concerto, I thought, you know what, I need to try to write a concerto that is a little more up in sound. It was, like, a goal for me, and I thought, you know, it's kind of nice to be able to add to the repertoire of an instrument, but do something a little different than all the previous pieces. And so I kind of approached it that way. I wanted something that was a little lively. Not that the other concertos aren't great, but I just felt like we need a different spice in the soup for the violists for their sake. And so I look at all the rep. That's the thing. I look at the literature that's been written for that particular instrument, and I look at how composers through the years have balanced the solo instrument with the ensemble. How do you balance? Now in this case, it was a little easier because we knew the premiere would take place here, and the stage is small. So I think they said you have a maximum of forty instruments that you can put on the stage. So it meant that I had to actually really think about everything I wrote in the music, and I kept a list of instruments, trying to figure out what instruments I could eliminate. That sounds kind of strange, but I thought, alright. So I can only have one percussionist, and they've got to be small little instruments. I looked at the list of winds, and I thought, alright. Which instrument would battle the viola more than any of the other wind instruments, and I decided it will be the oboes. So you will not hear any oboes in my viola concerto. Not that they're weeping. I think they're off having snacks offstage or something, but it was interesting to kind of sit down and try to dream up what would be cool for Roberto to play with a chamber orchestra that eventually would also be playable by a symphony orchestra. I wanted the piece to be really flexible. And when I'm writing, I often sit down and try to, sit at the piano and come up with chord progressions or musical lines that are interesting, and I write them down in a manuscript notebook, and I just, I look at it. I often say where does this fit in the piece. Sometimes I get an idea, and it's actually in the middle of the piece. It fits in the middle, but what it is, it's like a giant jigsaw puzzle. You look at the piece, and you're, like, where does this fit. I'm not sure where this fits exactly. Let me try. See if I can expand this material. And it became evident, the first ideas I got that maybe it should be the opening movement. I thought wouldn't it be nice to have just kind of a slow lyrical, and this viola that Roberto's playing is extraordinarily special. It has an amazing tone, and I wanted to kind of highlight the tone of this instrument. It's a Strad viola. It's one of the few in the world. Tuscan Medici, is that what they call it? Am I saying that correctly? Yeah. Made in 1690. We all kind of look in awe at this instrument. It's kind of, it's a lot of history there. But I knew right off the bat that that first movement, I wanted it to be lyrical, for you to be able to hear kind of the tone kind of emerging out of the chamber orchestra. So the first movement I decided should be slow. Then I got a bunch of funny sort of ideas. I thought what if I do a [inaudible] for the second movement. That's really unusual. I don't think anyone has done that before in a concerto, and so I started coming up with musical rhythms and themes that I thought would work well. So the whole second movement is a [inaudible], but I decided to make sound like a [inaudible] that's never quite settled. It's always kind of got uneven phrases and uneven number of measures in each phrase. The rhythms are shifting, the colors are shifting constantly in the orchestra, and it's, like, the voila is kind of leading the little merry band around, except it's a merry band that's a little drunk. You know what I mean? There's a little bit of a thing going off to the left and the right, regather the musicians. Come on, let's go on down the street. Now did someone wonder off here? It's a little bit like that. So finally I decided on the third movement. I needed to, like, be more normal. So I actually started that movement slowly, and I use material from the viola sonata that I wrote when I was at Curtis as a student as some fifths, and I have kind of a corral between the violists and the brass, and then I have the music really kind of kicking off and moving, just really kind of like a little fun romp, albeit a little more square than the drunk middle movement. And so before I knew it, I had a concerto, and it's, like, one measure at a time. It's so funny. People ask me. It's about 22 minutes, this concerto, and I had the computer count up the number of notes, 21,000. I think it was 21,824 notes in this concerto. See you can't ask Beethoven that, you know. This is the advantage of having a living composer. It's kind of cool, too, to write the music and hand it off, and then we have rehearsals, and you can adjust it. You can figure out, oh, maybe this balance isn't working. I can tell you that when the trumpets were playing, I gave them some solos. There was a debate, like, which mute needed to be in. I didn't have a mute in the trumpet. The mute changes the color and the tone of the instrument, and so we actually went through a whole bunch of things. I thought, gosh, the trumpet sounds kind of obnoxious next to the viola, which has this warm sound. So I asked the trumpet players could you bring in some mutes, and we went through a series of three mutes trying to find out which one was the right color. And we finally got it, but that's the kind of the beauty of, for the kids at Curtis, they can see what it's like for a piece to be born. Because standard repertoire, you know, it's out there, and everyone accepts what it is, and usually people deal with whatever the challenges are in that piece, but with a composer, you can say, hey, I can't play this. Will you change this, at which point I usually say no, but practice it. You'll be OK. But I actually try to help the players. If there's some sort of issue, if I've written something awkward. It's a lot of fun. It's a little scary, too, because you hear it in your head, but then when it starts coming out of the ensemble, you're, like, whoa, where did that come from. >> Nicholas Brown: Are there any instrumentations that you avoid or that you're hesitant to work in? >> Jennifer Higdon: Oh, that's a good question. I once got an offer for a concerto for juggler and orchestra, and I said to the juggle's agent what would I do with this. What does the juggler do that would be something I could compose. He says, well, he makes rhythms by dropping things on the ground, and I said I thought jugglers were supposed to keep things up in the air actually. So that was one thing I couldn't imagine. I find some things challenging. The guitar scares me a lot. It's very different than other instruments, but Jason [inaudible] just asked me about writing a concerto, and he just won a Grammy recently, and I thought, well, you know what, sometimes when you're an artist, it's good to really stretch and do the things that you find completely terrifying because it'll, it keeps you engaged, and it helps you to explore and expand your horizons. >> Nicholas Brown: You did a, in this commission that you did for us for the [Inaudible] Foundation, you worked with text by a former US poet laureate, which is one of the appointments that the Library bestows. Can you tell us about working with him, and specifically the text in that piece - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yes. This is W. S. Merwin's "In the Shadow of Sirius", which is a beautiful book, and I pulled, if I remember correctly, five, I've written an opera since then. This is the problem. The opera has wiped out my memory of everything I've written before the opera. It would, I believe it was five poems from his book "In The Shadow of Sirius". It's a beautiful book. If you love poetry, check out W. S. Merwin's works. They're incredible, and I was concerned, a lot of times for composers it's very hard to get permission to use a text of a living artist. Lot of times, we will shy towards things that are out of copyright because there can be a delay of six months to a year to get permission, and often even after waiting all that time, they'll say you can't. But I got this book, and I looked at the publisher on the front. The poems really just, they really struck home. They're a musical. I don't know what it is. It's kind of hard to describe. Some of the subjects were music, but there was just something musical about the way the lines were laid out, and so I called the publisher, and someone answered the phone, and I asked them. They said, well, just send us a letter, and I sent the letter, and I couldn't believe it. Within a couple of weeks, they said yes, and I'm, like, good grief. This guy's won two Pulitzer's and has been the US poet laureate. I was a little surprised, but I wrote a piece for soprano and string quartet, which actually we're getting ready to do at Curtis in a couple weeks with the very singer who is singing the soprano songs tonight. So the same young lady. >> Nicholas Brown: Great. Thank you. Tell us about other projects besides the opera that you're working on right now. >> Jennifer Higdon: Well, I'm recovering from the opera. So I, right after I finished the opera in July, I did a piece for the Yale glee club. They had an unusual request. They said, a lot of the choral pieces we get are very kind of slow, [inaudible] very serious. They said can you write something up, very up. And so I went to one of my colleagues at Curtis, Jean Minahan, who writes poetry and teaches liberal arts, all the English courses at Curtis, and she had this really neat poem called "Telegram" that was basically her picking up a box of telegrams that she would have liked to have sent herself in her youth with the perspective of how your life changes. You know, the things you worry about when you're older versus when you were younger, you know. How when you're older, you wish you had more time. Now you got the money. Before it was you wish you had the money and you had lots of time. So I wrote a very up sort of piece for the Yale glee club. It's kind of nice to have, boy, it's incredible to go to Yale. I was blown away when I went for the rehearsals. Just the voices. They were in a room this size, and the entire room was filled, and they started singing, and I was, like, back in my chair going holy cow. It was nice, though, to kind of come out of the opera and write something for voice that was not so intense. Like, no one was being shot, you know, that kind of thing. And so I did that. The viola concerto was the next thing. I also did a song cycle for Thomas Hanson that Carnegie Hall commissioned. It was based on five poems that I picked, one which appropriately for today because I understand this is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural. I had part of his Inaugural in this song cycle, and I took a bunch of poems related to the Civil War from that era that showed the trajectory of the War. A mother sending her son off, and Lincoln's wonderful Inaugural Address. This is kind of, it was kind of amazing to set, and at the end, actually a farmer, an older farmer going off. He's lost two sons in the War and a third son did not return when the War ended, and he has gone off to, someone has reported that they found another body. So he's gone off at the end of the day, and he's exhausted, and it's incredible because he sees the cows coming home, he's about to bring home, and walking behind the cows is his son. And I thought it's unusual to find a poem that talks about the war aftermath, but in a positive light. So it was incredible. Thomas Hanson did these. It was kind of, like, about a month ago at Carnegie. He's had them out on tour. In fact, I think this viola concerto is going out on tour in the exact same place that Hanson was doing the songs. And so, and I just finished a piece Evelyn Glenny, the percussionist. She, it's her 50th birthday. She commissioned 50 composers to write works that are 50 measures long. We were each assigned one instrument. You couldn't veer off that instrument, and I had the vibraphone. So I had a lot of fun. I've got her at one point holding two bows and four mallets. So this, but she will try it. That's the thing. The percussionists will try absolutely anything, which I absolutely kind of adore. I'm, like, try hitting this, and what does this sound like. So I think next up, I have a string orchestra piece for [Inaudible] group. Her group, New Century Chamber Orchestra out in the Bay Area. So I'm going to get to write for some strings, and believe or not, I've got commissions running up through 2020 I think at this point. There's two possible operas, five concertos, a couple of chamber works, a couple of pieces for chorus and orchestra. Sounds like I need to go write right now actually. It's making me nervous even thinking about that. >> Nicholas Brown: One fun fact, just to segway on that is that the Library owns the manuscript of President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, and it's actually at this moment sitting about 150 yards down the hall, which is pretty spectacular - >> Jennifer Higdon: Oh, wow, really. That's kind of amazing - >> Nicholas Brown: Yeah, we put out, we put away the Gutenberg Bible because this is clearly more - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yeah [multiple speakers] really cool - >> Nicholas Brown: It's literally in the case that the Gutenberg Bible is usually sitting in - >> Jennifer Higdon: Wow, that's amazing. Wow, that's incredible - >> Nicholas Brown: So typical day at the Library. So tonight the program includes works by [inaudible], Mozart, and then also [inaudible]. Is there an ideal formula for programming your music? Do you mind being put up against sort of the war horses in the repertoire - >> Jennifer Higdon: Actually, my music is almost always on with standard rep. I, it's very rare that I'm on with a bunch of new music. Beethoven is the one I get partnered with the very most, and which I love it. I love the fact that you can be on with standard repertoire. I think that's a, when you're writing music now, I think you have to aspire to be able to stand up with the guys. They call them, you know, the big guys. Beethoven and, the hard one is always Beethoven Nine. That's a hard one to be on with, and I've been on that with five different, on five different occasions. I had one season where I had fifty concerts where I was on with Beethoven. Performance of string quartets, it was orchestras, and in a really bizarre, I don't know this was a strange twist. That year, there was a drum and bugle corps, professor corps that had set some of my music as their show. If you don't know about drum and bugle corps, this is a surreal way to experience music. It's marching band. It's high speed. It's only brass percussion, but they also have sabers and flags, and they do these precision military drills, and they play music that is very complex. They were doing my concerto for orchestra. In that year, they had a, during the summer, they have these competitions. They accrue points, and at the end of the year, there's a world final. The top ten corps go out and compete against each other, and one will be awarded the championship. So the corps that was doing my music, the Boston Crusaders, was, like, number five. They had actually done really well during the season, and this takes place in a stadium, and there are so many people there. I'm, like, wow, this, maybe we need this with orchestras. I don't know. It's, like, they're fanatical, the fans of this, of DCI. And so by some weird ironic twist, the corps that went on before the Boston Crusaders did an Beethoven show, and I'm, like, wow. I've gone through the entire season, me and Beethoven, and here we are, drum and bugle corps. I go to check in at Madison, Wisconsin at the Holiday Inn. This is where they're putting me, right, and I go in, and there's a picture of Beethoven on the wall in the hotel. Yes. This guy is haunting me, but, you know what, he's a good guy to hang out with. So I thought it was a real complement, but I had, I got a good laugh out of that. But I like being on with standard repertoire. It's a, it, there's just something about it that's kind of nice. You can kind of see the linage. You can kind of hear it. >> Nicholas Brown: We have Beethoven's death mask downstairs if you want to see it - >> Jennifer Higdon: Really? Man. I tell you - >> Nicholas Brown: Some of his hair believe it - >> Jennifer Higdon: [multiple speakers] I'm going to stay here for the next couple of days. There's just too much to see. That's totally cool. This is a party worth attending, isn't it? >> Nicholas Brown: And it's all here and free for all of you to see anytime. One of the other cool Beethoven items that we have, sorry to get off track for you all. Just cut me off when it's time - >> Jennifer Higdon: It's kind of cool, though - >> Nicholas Brown: We actually have some of Beethoven's hair, which was taken from his head while he was alive because he did authenticate it with a letter that accompanies the hair. And last time one of these came up at auction, it was plucked from him after he had died - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yeah - >> Nicholas Brown: And it went for, his starting bid was 25,000 Euros for that one. Ours has been here for a while, and it was donated - >> Jennifer Higdon: Wow - >> Nicholas Brown: So it's worth some crazy priceless amount of money - >> Jennifer Higdon: You know, I found out a very interesting fact about Beethoven, and I often speak to young composers. They're always, like, worried about, oh, am I going to be able to make a career or anything, and I found this incredible book called "Beethoven and the Construction of Genius", and in that book, is a, there's actually a table that lists the number of performances that Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn had in Vienna during a 19 year period when Vienna was the music capital of the world. And I was really shocked to see that in the 19 years, Beethoven had something, like, I think it was, like, 88 performances of his works during 19 years. I have between 150 and 200 performances a year, and that realization really hit home. I thought good grief. You know, we all worry about this. So I often tell young composers, look, don't sweat it. Beethoven actually, and they actually broke out the years. There were years he had no, no public performances at all. It was kind of a startling thing to realize. It's a very interesting book if you ever get a chance, if you're interested in music facts. I'm impressed that anyone would even think to even research this, and that there would even be some sort of, like, record of this, but, heck, if they're collecting hair, why not, you know. >> Nicholas Brown: We had, this one is even stranger, but I'll mention it anyways. Gentleman named Francis Maria Scala was the band master, the president's own, and he was actually the one before Sousa who made it into what it is today. So he was Lincoln's bandmaster, and they were pretty close, and we have a note from President Lincoln to the bandmaster telling him to go see Mrs. Lincoln, which is interesting, but what's even more interesting is that this gentleman's moustache is in an envelope. >> Jennifer Higdon: Really - >> Nicholas Brown: Yeah. So apparently back in the day it was really cool to collect hair. So we got some. >> Jennifer Higdon: I know when I signed my contract, they didn't say I was going to have to contribute some hair. So I'd be willing to bet everyone in this room, this is the most unusual preconcert you have ever been to, but I bet you won't forget it, will you. >> Nicholas Brown: I've done my job. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the importance of copyright, being the home of the US Copyright Office here - >> Jennifer Higdon: It is absolutely everything. Copyright, because if we didn't have copyright, there would be no artists making any music, performing it. There would be no composers writing it. There would be no writers writing because no one, absolutely no one would be able to make a living. So that copyright, because it didn't used to always be there, but the copyright through the years has been built into the system in a way to help protect artists because when you're an artist, you don't make a lot of money, and one of the few ways you can make money is the sharing of your work. But if we didn't have that, anyone could steal it, share it. This is kind of a danger we're running across right now with the Internet because the law is fairly old, and, in fact, is in the process of being reexamined to figure out how to calculate for the digital age. I can tell you, this was interesting. I've been in discussions. I'm on a board at ASCAP, and I, so I get royalties from radio airplay and all, and I think it was on one of the streaming services. I think I got four cents, four pennies in royalties for it must have been something, like, 3,000 streamings or something. If I had to depend on that, I would be in serious trouble. And what's even more shocking, because in classical music, we don't sell a ton of CD's. I actually sell more than I think the norm, but the fact is, even the rock bands are complaining about it. They sometimes will have 30 million streamings, and they'll get $3,000 for the 30 million. So the copyright is there to protect the artists so we can have more art. This is the only way we can have the art. No copyrights, no art, and I understand there's a lot of work underway to make the laws fit the digital age. They couldn't have anticipated, the Founders of the country couldn't have possibly anticipated what we have now in terms of sharing and streaming. But it's something that I defend wholeheartedly, and I'm often telling people, look, the copyright is there so that you can have more art. That's the idea. So composers and writers and artists and photographers, people who put out magazines, who do writing, there has to be a way to make it possible to make a living in this country, and this is the only way to do it is to have the copyright to protect us - >> Nicholas Brown: Thank you. I encourage everyone to read a new report that the US Copyright Office released just before the Grammies last month, and it's a really comprehensive look at all of these digital issues, streaming. Also looking at retroactively fixing folks who are not getting proper royalties back fifty years ago. Some headliners who you wouldn't imagine have never gotten money out of their major recordings - >> Jennifer Higdon: It is amazing, yeah. I actually read that, and I was kind of amazed. There are people who were big hits in Motown who have made, basically are very poor as they've moved into an age of retirement. They didn't get money, and they're not getting royalties now. So it's kind of shocking actually when you look at it, but that's why it's important, and it's important to figure out a way to make it work with a new digital world - >> Nicholas Brown: Great. Thank you. I think we're going to open up for a couple questions now. We have a few minutes. So if you could just raise your hand and wait for a microphone to come by you - >> Jennifer Higdon: That was an impress, oh, I see, he's got a microphone back there. That was impressive how fast the hands went up. >> I was interested in the previews to read that one commentator at least said that this was American, and, you know, I've been looking at the string quartet on "Amazing Grace", and wondering whether American is particularly Appalachian or whether it's got a larger context for you. >> Jennifer Higdon: American is a large context for me, and it's so funny. You know, composers write music, and we don't think about it being American, but then a lot of reporters start talking about your music sounding American. So after a while, you're, like, oh, I guess my music does sound American. I have a deep fondness for Aaron Copeland, really, and the Samuel Barber. I teach at Curtis. Samuel Barber went to school at Curtis. He also taught there. And I think that my music has an American sound, but it's really hard for me to describe what that is. It's almost, to me, it's the noise in my head. I have to depend on other people to describe it, but I imagine it probably reflects all the music I grew up around. Whether it was Appalachian music or whether it was the rock and roll my dad had playing in the household, and the English language must affect. My southern accent can come out as when I get very tired. I know I probably sound southern to you, but when I go back to Tennessee, people think they, like, you talk like a Yankee. So I've, I still have a little bit of my southern, but I would imagine, sometimes the argument is is my music American because I'm an American, and I wrote it. I'm not really sure, but you have to be the judge. You can listen to it. That "Amazing Grace", you're talking about the string quartet arrangement I did. I did a string quartet arrangement of a choral arrangement of "Amazing Grace" that's part of a large cycle, and I think it's pretty American sounding, although that's not an American tune. But I think if you kind of look at my music overall, the whole picture, it probably comes across as American. But, you know what, I'm not, ask a musicologist or a theorist, the people that, like, analyze this stuff because what happens is I just go onto the next piece. I just write the next piece. I don't even, like, sit there and think about it. So people ask me about the key of a piece, and I'll be, like, oh, I don't know what key it's in. I just write the music. So other questions. >> Yes. >> Couple of questions. I have to follow up on the percussion and orchestra because immediately, Michael Motion came to mind, and I'm wondering if Michael Motion was the percussionist who you were asked to compose this piece for - >> Jennifer Higdon: You mean my percussion concerto - >> Yeah - >> Jennifer Higdon: Actually it was Colin Curry - >> Oh - >> Jennifer Higdon: The English/Scottish [inaudible] the percussionist, and he is, oh, he's something - >> OK. I guess it was the juggler, the juggler, and - >> Jennifer Higdon: Oh, you know, they didn't tell me who it was actually - >> Oh, because I'm pretty sure it would be Michael Motion - >> Jennifer Higdon: They were being very secretive about it, and they actually didn't tell me who it was. They said, well, we can't tell you, and I said, well, I understand, but, you know what, I wasn't feeling it. So I was, like, oh, it's probably not a good idea I'm not, because I'm not feeling it, but it might have been. You might be right - >> OK, but nothing of it came - >> Jennifer Higdon: You know, I've written a lot of percussion music. That's what I thought you were referring to [multiple speakers] so this concerto has very little percussion action. I think the percussionist was really disappointed. I mean, they're used to, like, playing lots of things, and because I love writing for percussion, but this was, I kept it basic. You know, I figured, well, we can put a lot of percussion on there, but we'd have to move all the strings into the audience, and that didn't sound so good. So. >> And can I ask another - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yes - >> Following up, I resonate as a second alto with your comment about composing for viola, and I'm wondering whether you've done vocal pieces more for the lower female voices and sort of leave the sopranos aside for a while and - >> Jennifer Higdon: So you're advocating for the lower female voices - >> Absolutely - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yeah, yeah. You know what, I actually do have some songs, and that, I love writing, I love writing for all voice types. Choral, solo pieces, pieces of piano. I even have a violin concerto that's actually violin, full chorus, and orchestra called "The Singing Rooms", but I always think about writing interesting things for the instruments that don't have much usually in traditional repertoire. Tuba plays are always excited and terrified when they get my music because I have very active tuba parts. My percussion concerto has this one measure that's really dramatic. I think there are, like, 20 notes in this one measure, and when we were recording the piece with the London Phil in London, I saw the tuba player during a performance. We recorded live. He played this one measure. It's a very distinctive measure. He put his tuba down, and he raised his arms like this. Right in the performance. So since then, I've thought, you know what, I need to give interesting material to the poor instrumentalists who are always stuck playing the offbeats, you know. They work hard, don't they? They should have interesting parts. So I work really hard at that. Often, the violists, all of my string quartets, the violas actually has a longer part than the first violin. It's a good question. Yes. >> I have two questions, Jennifer. I'm, and you may have said some of this at the beginning. So if you don't want to repeat it, you don't have to, but you talked about the music. At home, you grew up with Appalachian music, folk music, rock and roll, the Beatles. If that's the case, how was it you came to classical music, and my second question is I've heard this Beatles reference a lot of time. Can you say anything about how, about how that influence - >> Jennifer Higdon: Well, yeah. That's, they're really good questions. I don't, for the life of me, I don't know how it is I got started playing. I can't figure out what it was in me that triggered that. I really, although not that long ago, we found a little of piece that I had apparently drawn when I was, like, seven that had an actual music staff on it. That it was a correct music staff with a treble clef and an actual melody that had symmetry, and I knew nothing about music at all. I mean, I was a little kind of staggered. I'm, like, what is this? I don't know. I'm not sure what happened that made me go in that direction. I was interesting in a lot of arts, but there was something about classical music, and there, it wasn't around me. In East Tennessee, we had marching band. We didn't have an orchestra around. My school didn't have that. So I, the first question, I have no idea. The reference to the Beatles, my dad, when the "Sgt. Pepper's" album came out, my dad was a commercial artist, and that album cover is extraordinary. He went out and bought the record for the art, and he handed my younger brother and myself the album, and he and I played that every day, literally every day for about a year. So I think it's probably infiltrated everything in my head. I don't know how it could not. I don't know if you can hear it clearly, but one of the things I did realize when I started writing the opera, because it's pretty intimidating to think two and a half hours of music. That's a lot to write, and it can seem like a very large mountain, but I suddenly realized the "Sgt. Pepper" album, each one of those tracks is a very different sound world. Every single one sounds really different from the other, and I thought, wait, that's what opera does, isn't it. You go scene by scene. You make a separate world for each scene, and in truth, when I write works, I'm always writing on commission. My pieces actually change depending on who I'm writing for. I wrote a bluegrass concerto for the time for three guys, two violins and a bass. [Inaudible] all the time. The piece I wrote after that was Hilary Hahn's violin concerto. I mean, you couldn't get any more different. That was, like, straight classical, but when I move from piece to piece, I actually change the sound world, and I'm pretty sure that has to do with the Beatles. Strangely enough, I also like a clear rhythm. I like for people to be able to follow the musical ideas. That, for me, that's important. I think you should be able to walk in to a classical concert having never been to any classical concert, and you don't need to have a Ph.D. The music should speak to you. So I take that very seriously as a responsibility as a composer. It's about communication. >> Nicholas Brown: Great. I think we have time for one more question up here - >> I was just going to ask you to elaborate a little bit more on the viola concerto itself and the viola since I play viola - >> Jennifer Higdon: Yeah, the viola is great. >> Did you think about the C string? Did you think about the high register? What makes it different from a violin? I mean, how did you go about really bringing out the special characteristics because violists are so used to leftovers and - >> Jennifer Higdon: I know - >> Yeah. >> Jennifer Higdon: I didn't wanted to have leftovers. I wanted to be filet mignon, you know. Like the best cut of meat. The big thing for me usually with a concerto is show off all the colors of an instrument. So the viola has such a great low sound, and my first thought was I've got to show off the low sound, but when you're writing a concerto, you have to keep the orchestra out of the way so that you can hear that, but I also pushed this viola to the extreme upper range as well, and everything in between. I mean, there are a lot of notes. Roberto Diaz is earning his fee tonight, let me tell you. If you paid him by the note, he would think he needs a minimum wage law. The other thing is I just wanted to, the first thing, making the viola sound like joyful. I wanted it to be a joyful celebration of the viola and not the viola sounding, like, oh, this is what's leftover that someone. I didn't want the violins to have all the fast notes. That's usually what happens. The violas don't get the fast notes ever. And I decided, heck, the violas now are incredible. They are better than they've ever been in any time in history. I mean, they're really virtuoso violas. You could take the section that's playing in the orchestra, all those kids are playing. They could all get up and play this concerto. The concerto is really hard, but it's just that the level of playing has gotten so good. So my intent was to show that off. To show off the lyrical side, kind of the richness of the low. The intensity, the high and a million notes in between, and I, it has to be dramatic. It has to be dramatic because it's got to be exciting for you guys. Because it was the Curtis Chamber Orchestra doing it, and these kids, if you don't tell them, if you don't say, oh, it's hard, they will go and play anything. So I actually did some jazzy sort of rhythms in there because that's sometimes hard to put together in a short amount of time. We basically had, I think we've had, like, two rehearsals for this concerto. It's not a lot, but those kids, because they don't know it's hard, they're digging in and playing it, but I realize that this would be the moment to actually try something like that. So it's a joyful celebration of a beautiful instrument in answer to your question - >> Nicholas Brown: Great. Thank you, and a perfect segway to mention a couple things before we conclude here. Tonight, we're beginning a celebration of the 325th birthday of the Tuscan Medici viola - >> Jennifer Higdon: Wow - >> Nicholas Brown: Which was created in 1690 as part of the Strativari [phonetic] powerhouse of instrument making. Part of our mission here at the Library is to make sure that these treasured instruments are used in performance. So it's really exciting to be able to hear the viola tonight with Roberto, and then also you can hear it again on Friday, March 13th, next Friday with Kim Kashkashian. And throughout the year, we have string quartets and other chamber ensembles using the instruments, which is really exciting. The other thing to mention is that this is the second commission that's kicking off our 90th anniversary season. The Library of Congress concert series was founded in 1925 by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge on January 23, 1925, I think I'm right. I got the nod from David. President Coolidge, who was not related to Mrs. Coolidge, signed into law this legislation that accepted in private money to the federal government for one of the first times in history, and believe or not, between January and October, they constructed the entire concert hall, and made it serviceable - >> Jennifer Higdon: Wow - >> Nicholas Brown: Within ten months. So there's a model for doing things quickly, which is pretty exciting. The next commission is by [Inaudible]. It's going to be performed in the world premiere here on May 22nd. So do stay tuned to our website, join our mailing list and such, and feel free to say hi to any of the staff members, and we can help you out with getting some more info. So if we could all please give Jennifer a huge round of applause. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc dot gov.