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David Felder

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An excerpt from David Felder's "Memento Mori"

Why you should know who he is: Globally recognized as one of the leading American composers of his generation, David Felder has held the Birge-Cary Chair as Professor of Composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo since 1992 and has served as the artistic director of the June in Buffalo Festival since 1985.

Your works have been featured at many of the leading new music festivals worldwide, and you’re very well respected in that arena. Why do you choose Western New York as your home? “That’s probably a long answer. In my particular field of endeavor—that is, the composition of contemporary music and the production of concerts and events surrounding it—Buffalo has about a 40-year tradition and is known internationally. So it’s one of the best spots in the country for creative people like me to be. I’ve remained here despite numerous opportunities to leave because I really like the programs at our university. I love the community and personally I feel it’s a great place to live and also to be with my family.”

On Sunday, you’ll premiere a new work as part of a weekend-long tribute to Robert Creeley. Would you describe it? “It’s got an interesting history because Bob and I always had planned to do something and then he left Buffalo…and before we could get to do this, he left permanently. Bruce Jackson knew about all of this and approached me with the idea of making something for the tribute, which I was very honored and touched to be able to do. So what I’ve done is to take some poems which I find particularly touching—from Bob—and I found recordings of those poems and I’ve managed to create what I hope is a musical environment which extrapolates from some of the text that’s in the poems—both in terms of their semantic meaning, their spiritual yearnings, and as well I would say the sonic material in his speech, which is very unique…if you’ve ever heard Bob read it’s a really, really unique and interesting incantation style he has.”

Did you find that Creeley’s work lent itself well to this kind of treatment? “Well, you know, the first question that I wrestled with was whether or not you could do what I’ve done with other poets, which is—and what many composers do—you sort of stylize the text and make a musical setting where you have a singer basically moving the text out of the realm of speech into the realm of what we traditionally would consider music, which is notes identifiable on a keyboard, etc. But knowing his reading, in hearing the way he read, I eventually decided that I just couldn’t bring myself—because I know his voice that well—I just couldn’t bring myself to have a piano go “kerplunk” and then have a singer go “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” I just couldn’t bring myself to do that, and so I used his voice entirely. And sometimes it’s there literally, and sometimes it’s there in a kind of musical process. But it’s always there in the background behind the poems, creating some different kinds of sound sources. It’s a kind of long and technical process and I’ve got to talk about it a little bit at the Albright-Knox on Sunday.”

How do you teach the art of composition? [Laughs] “Well, to begin with, there are some aspects of it which are unteachable. That is, I’m not saying that one is born a composer, but there are certain musical instincts that one inherits from studying music and the tradition and, depending on one’s own view, maybe these are earned through karma in one way or another. I don’t know. But I just know that composition has aspects of it that are likened to craft. That is, there are lots of things that one needs to know and so part of the transmission of the teaching of composition is teaching people on the technical level what it is they need to know, and then trying to create an environment through which individuals can realize their own particular directions and dimensions. And so that’s something that I concentrate on very, very hard…I’m trying to work with each of the young composers that I work with at the doctoral level on what their particular gifts are, what their intentions are and how they can begin to make a body of work which focuses those items through their own particular musical and philosophical outlooks.”

What will be new and exciting at this year’s June in Buffalo Festival? “We have 25 younger composers that we’ve picked from all around the world and we have some great groups from various locations…we have a wonderful ensemble from Germany called Ensemble Surplus. We have a group called the New York New Music Ensemble, which is one of the longest-running contemporary music groups in the United States, having recently celebrated its 25th anniversary a year ago. And just really great composers who are coming, like Charles Wuorinen and Bernard Rands and some others. The people this year are people who have had long associations with the festival, because the first one of these I did was in 1986 and some of these people have been very helpful to me during the last 20 years. So a lot of them are coming back now and it’ll be interesting for people who would’ve come 20 years ago to hear Charles Wuorinen and Harvey Sollberger, to hear them again now after 20 years.”