interview: payback time

[cellio]

I believe I've now answered all my outstanding questions, so it's past time for me to hold up my end. (Life was busy...) If you would like a set of five questions potentially of a highly-personal or quirky nature, comment here. You should post the answers in your journal and (if you like) make the same offer to your readers.

Comments

[sebastianm.livejournal.com]

Wow -- sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this. What an amazing bunch of questions.

1. Who is your favorite living composer?

This depends on the genre of music you want me to discuss, and it is extremely difficult to tell you. For soundtracks, either Howard Shore or Tom Twyker and his collaborators (I think the soundtrack to Run, Lola, Run is about the most perfect soundtrack out there.) Preisner is also high on my list.

You see, even within one genre, it is difficult. For more popular things, the answer is obvious: Dar Williams. But if we were going for popular music with good arrangements, it might be the songs of Chemene Badi or Elodie Frege. (Francophone pop is still caught somewhere between American pop arrangements and musicals: cheesy and wonderful!)

For hardcore classical stuff: it really depends on the day and the mood that overtakes me. If I am feeling minimalistic, there is nothing like some good Philip Glass. If I am feeling complex, Elliot Carter is someone I like to rock out to (I don't think the phrases "Elliot Carter" and "rock out" have ever been used in such close proximity before, and are likely not ever to be used such again).

2. You've had a lot of students who Just Don't Get It. Please tell me about one who did. (Please restore my faith in students these days. :-) )

I don't post enough about the good students, it is true. I tend to post about the unusual things they do, or when they really get to me. I am blessed, and most of my students are pretty good. And I've had some excellent ones, who have decided to go onto graduate work and are flourishing: one at Michigan (who is working with soundtracks) and one at Brown (who is working on film in general).

And I have a few good and enthusiastic ones "on the farm" right now.

3. How do you want to celebrate your first anniversary?

Ideally? Either by having a meal on the outdoor terrace at L'Oustelet (a small restaurant in Gigondas), or a similar one that I've not yet discovered in Tuscany. Really? Getting away for a few days somewhere quiet, and hiking and reading and cuddling.

4. If you could live anywhere, with the guarantee of fulfilling jobs for you both, where would you live?

Either New Hampshire or the Pacific Northwest. I would like to have mountains and oceans in close proximity. But only if we could find another college like my own, with similar resources.

5. The genie in the bottle can arrange for you to attend one concert of your choice by anyone, living or dead. (This will involve time travel, not reanimation.) Who's it going to be?

Again, this is massively tough. There are places I would like to be just to see if our contemporary view of them is correct (such as the premieres of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring where a riot supposedly broke out, the premiere of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, because the record of the quality of the performances have been questioned). The historian in me, though, really wants to go to the private recital of Elgar's chamber works in the late 1910s - both to hear them played by performers extremely close to Elgar (such as Billy Reed, a violinist) and to be able to talk with all of Elgar's circle present (including some well-known writers, critics, and artists who were there). Not to mention the opportunity to speak with Elgar -- though he would, in all likelyhood, not speak to me unless I disguised who I was: he did not like academics.

[cellio]

Thanks for the interesting answers! (No need to apologize; it's not like I was all that prompt in getting you the questions either. :-) )

#5: There are two common approaches to this sort of thing, the folks who want to experience something wonderful (go to the best performance they can think of, for a local definition of "best"), and the folks who treat it as a research opportunity. I, like you, tend toward the latter -- it's good to know I'm not alone.