"Sapiens: A Human History at the Piano" feat. Sean Hickey, Composer

WEBVTT
00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:06.180
Hey everyone, it's Yukimi. Welcome back to another
00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:08.659
episode of The Piano Pod. This season we are
00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:11.040
exploring creativity and connection, highlighting
00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:13.459
artists who are reshaping what it means to perform,
00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:16.680
create, teach, and inspire people through piano
00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:20.939
across the modern era. Today's guest, Sean Hickey,
00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:24.060
embodies that spirit as a true visionary of the
00:01:24.060 --> 00:01:27.810
21st century music landscape. A celebrated composer
00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:30.730
whose work spans solo, chamber, and orchestral
00:01:30.730 --> 00:01:34.049
projects, Sean also brings a unique perspective
00:01:34.049 --> 00:01:37.069
from deep within the industry, currently serving
00:01:37.069 --> 00:01:41.129
as the CEO of Pentatone Music. His musical journey
00:01:41.129 --> 00:01:44.629
began with the electric guitar in Detroit, and
00:01:44.629 --> 00:01:47.769
that early curiosity has evolved into a career
00:01:47.769 --> 00:01:50.689
dedicated to exploring the profound intersections
00:01:50.689 --> 00:01:55.400
of humanity, memory, and scale. In this episode,
00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:58.560
we dive deep into his most ambitious work for
00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:02.099
solo piano to date, Sapiens, A Brief History
00:02:02.099 --> 00:02:06.079
of Humankind. Inspired by the landmark book by
00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:09.520
Yuval Noah Harari, this 50 -minute cycle acts
00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:12.620
as a meta -instrument observing 70 ,000 years
00:02:12.620 --> 00:02:16.039
of human evolution from the first primeval breath
00:02:16.039 --> 00:02:19.199
to the complex global systems of our modern world.
00:02:19.530 --> 00:02:22.210
It is a work that challenges us to look through
00:02:22.210 --> 00:02:25.569
the lens of history to find meaning in our own
00:02:25.569 --> 00:02:30.030
period of rapid acceleration and change. Before
00:02:30.030 --> 00:02:32.569
we dive in, a huge thank you to our listeners
00:02:32.569 --> 00:02:35.629
for supporting the PianoPod. Your engagement,
00:02:35.789 --> 00:02:38.370
whether through sharing episodes, leaving a review,
00:02:38.530 --> 00:02:41.430
or simply listening, helps sustain this growing
00:02:41.430 --> 00:02:44.729
community of artists and thinkers who are redefining
00:02:44.729 --> 00:02:47.680
what it means to make music today. If you're
00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.039
watching on YouTube, please take a moment to
00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:53.340
like and share and subscribe to our YouTube channel
00:02:53.340 --> 00:02:57.120
and hit that notification bell. If you're tuning
00:02:57.120 --> 00:02:59.960
in from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other
00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:02.800
platform, please follow the show and leave a
00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:06.180
rating or review. It only takes a second, but
00:03:06.180 --> 00:03:09.139
it's the best way to help others find these conversations.
00:03:09.979 --> 00:03:13.379
Here is Season 6 of The Piano Pod with composer
00:03:13.379 --> 00:03:17.849
and industry leader, Sean Hickey. Please enjoy
00:03:17.849 --> 00:03:24.789
the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod,
00:03:24.949 --> 00:03:27.509
where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
00:03:27.509 --> 00:03:30.050
about how they are bringing the piano into the
00:03:30.050 --> 00:03:33.289
future and thriving in a complex, ever -evolving
00:03:33.289 --> 00:03:38.610
world. Sean, welcome to The Piano Pod. It's really
00:03:38.610 --> 00:03:41.870
such a pleasure to have you today here. Thanks
00:03:41.870 --> 00:03:43.710
for having me. Great to be here. Thank you so
00:03:43.710 --> 00:03:46.659
much for being here. So before we dive in, Where
00:03:46.659 --> 00:03:49.879
are you joining us from today? I am joining you
00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:52.900
from New York, New York, particularly and specifically
00:03:52.900 --> 00:03:57.139
Brooklyn, from home. Oh, yeah, I'm in Brooklyn,
00:03:57.319 --> 00:04:00.939
too. Where in Brooklyn? Bay Ridge, right on the
00:04:00.939 --> 00:04:03.419
water at the entrance to the harbor. Oh, nice.
00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:07.539
You've lived there for a while? Well, I've lived
00:04:07.539 --> 00:04:13.099
in Brooklyn since, what, 99. But we've lived
00:04:13.099 --> 00:04:16.610
in this place, my family and I, since 2019. yeah
00:04:16.610 --> 00:04:20.490
oh okay great and i live in williamsburg so i
00:04:20.490 --> 00:04:23.569
mean we're a little far but still within the
00:04:23.569 --> 00:04:28.810
same yeah uh borough so cool yeah great and i'm
00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:33.889
so happy because uh we met once uh actually it
00:04:33.889 --> 00:04:36.089
was a few months ago at the pianopod live event
00:04:36.089 --> 00:04:40.170
you came and i was so so happy to meet you thank
00:04:40.170 --> 00:04:42.470
you so much for being there it was a very special
00:04:42.470 --> 00:04:45.269
day It was for me, too. I thought it was really
00:04:45.269 --> 00:04:47.550
great and really stimulating conversation. And
00:04:47.550 --> 00:04:49.870
I was invited there by my dear friend, Eleanor
00:04:49.870 --> 00:04:52.750
Byneman, who was part of your discussion, who
00:04:52.750 --> 00:04:54.990
you've spoken with, I think, more than on one
00:04:54.990 --> 00:04:58.250
occasion for the PianoPod. And she's a dear,
00:04:58.310 --> 00:05:02.300
dear friend and supporter of my work. Don't hold
00:05:02.300 --> 00:05:04.519
it against her, my former piano teacher when
00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:07.939
I first moved here. Oh, no way. I didn't realize
00:05:07.939 --> 00:05:11.399
the connection, really. She's a fantastic pianist.
00:05:11.860 --> 00:05:15.379
She is. I, however, am not, and I am her worst
00:05:15.379 --> 00:05:19.120
student, but I got a lot out of it, I have to
00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:21.279
say, and a great friendship with her and her
00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:25.060
family. Wonderful. Yeah, she told me about the,
00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:29.379
I think, a week before my event, so that was
00:05:29.379 --> 00:05:32.269
October 4th, so a week before that year. actually
00:05:32.269 --> 00:05:35.230
had a presentation, a concert at the same venue.
00:05:35.709 --> 00:05:40.970
Yeah, at the same venue. So my piece, a very
00:05:40.970 --> 00:05:42.949
epic piano piece called Sapiens, A Brief History
00:05:42.949 --> 00:05:48.029
of Humankind, which actually was partially developed
00:05:48.029 --> 00:05:50.410
and workshopped in that exact same room. This
00:05:50.410 --> 00:05:52.449
is, of course, at the Manus School of Music at
00:05:52.449 --> 00:05:55.600
the New School in New York City. We concluded
00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:58.939
a small U .S. tour of the piece there at Manus
00:05:58.939 --> 00:06:01.740
when I saw you in whatever that was, September,
00:06:01.899 --> 00:06:06.139
I believe. And yeah, with a brilliant pianist
00:06:06.139 --> 00:06:07.680
that I've had the great pleasure of working with
00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:10.300
and who has recorded the piece. And his name
00:06:10.300 --> 00:06:13.420
is Vladimir Rumyantsev, and he's a true force
00:06:13.420 --> 00:06:16.060
of nature. Wonderful. Yeah. And then Eleanor
00:06:16.060 --> 00:06:18.600
told me how fantastic the event was. And then
00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.040
so the following week when I had my event, I
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:23.000
was like so surprised to see you. And then afterward,
00:06:23.220 --> 00:06:26.480
I think we ended up at the same restaurant together
00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:32.040
in the seating. That was fun. Great. So it feels
00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.480
especially fitting that we're here today focusing
00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.199
on a conversation on sapiens. As you mentioned,
00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:40.920
a brief history of humankind, a work that reflects
00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:44.000
on humanity, memory and the shared spaces we
00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:46.860
move through, particularly in the light of the
00:06:46.860 --> 00:06:51.319
profound shifts and uncertainties that many of
00:06:51.319 --> 00:06:56.350
us. are experiencing right now. But before that,
00:06:56.449 --> 00:07:00.110
let's start with this question. So you've been
00:07:00.110 --> 00:07:02.250
described as one of the most successful American
00:07:02.250 --> 00:07:05.610
composers of our generation and a deeply influential
00:07:05.610 --> 00:07:09.350
leader within the industry when it comes to arts
00:07:09.350 --> 00:07:12.810
administration. So looking back, what is the
00:07:12.810 --> 00:07:17.730
core artistic impulse or mission that has quietly
00:07:17.730 --> 00:07:21.699
tied together your diverse body of work? over
00:07:21.699 --> 00:07:25.259
the years well that's a big one and uh one to
00:07:25.259 --> 00:07:27.959
really kind of uh grapple with i think overall
00:07:27.959 --> 00:07:32.379
i mean when i started uh so i started in music
00:07:32.379 --> 00:07:35.800
at age 12 so it wasn't exactly a young prodigy
00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:40.180
or whatever but i my parents uh essentially said
00:07:40.180 --> 00:07:41.740
you're gonna do something this summer other than
00:07:41.740 --> 00:07:45.120
sit around and and do nothing you're gonna um
00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:47.980
do something constructive and in my case we rented
00:07:47.980 --> 00:07:50.439
an electric guitar and within minutes of doing
00:07:50.439 --> 00:07:55.360
so i had already written my first song not nothing
00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:58.019
about it but uh and certainly not memorable but
00:07:58.019 --> 00:08:01.620
um from that point i've just always been been
00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:04.240
obsessed with you know creating music and just
00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:06.779
you know it's just been an impulse to me that
00:08:06.779 --> 00:08:11.829
i can't quite fathom living without And certainly
00:08:11.829 --> 00:08:14.269
over the years, I've composed a lot of music.
00:08:14.329 --> 00:08:16.370
I think I've composed about 100 different works
00:08:16.370 --> 00:08:20.050
in a variety of genres, nearly everything except
00:08:20.050 --> 00:08:22.430
for opera, which I'm not personally particularly
00:08:22.430 --> 00:08:27.250
interested in. But over time, and certainly in
00:08:27.250 --> 00:08:29.810
the last, oh, I don't know, say nine or 10 years,
00:08:30.089 --> 00:08:34.509
my work has really been focused on a lot of issues
00:08:34.509 --> 00:08:39.840
of... well, just sort of societal things, changes,
00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:43.759
the systems that we have in the world and in
00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:48.039
our country specifically. And I've been particularly,
00:08:48.179 --> 00:08:50.919
I suppose, in the last 10, 15 years, moved or
00:08:50.919 --> 00:08:53.720
influenced by a lot of things that I have seen
00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:57.419
or heard or read so that my work over time has
00:08:57.419 --> 00:09:00.460
been, at least in its framework or in its initial
00:09:00.460 --> 00:09:05.110
inspiration, inspired by and guided by some bigger
00:09:05.110 --> 00:09:07.110
and broader concepts and that wasn't something
00:09:07.110 --> 00:09:10.529
that was happening when i was say in my 20s i
00:09:10.529 --> 00:09:12.370
wanted to write a string quartet i called it
00:09:12.370 --> 00:09:14.710
string quartet and that was it and then i wrote
00:09:14.710 --> 00:09:17.490
another one so that was number two um you know
00:09:17.490 --> 00:09:19.549
thing things have changed and i've developed
00:09:19.549 --> 00:09:24.629
over over the years yeah then of course this
00:09:24.629 --> 00:09:28.289
magnificent piano music sapiens a brief history
00:09:28.289 --> 00:09:31.629
of humankind that also tied together what you
00:09:31.629 --> 00:09:34.860
just mentioned so For listeners encountering
00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:37.500
this piece of music for the first time, what
00:09:37.500 --> 00:09:40.340
is Sapiens? And what kind of response were you
00:09:40.340 --> 00:09:45.759
hoping to offer through music? Well, to me, this
00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:48.679
was among most of the pieces I've written, like
00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:54.220
a real, real artistic imperative for me. In,
00:09:54.460 --> 00:09:58.519
I believe, early 2018, I read the book of the
00:09:58.519 --> 00:10:01.649
same name by Yuval Noah Harari. Sapiens, A Brief
00:10:01.649 --> 00:10:06.009
History of Humankind. And it's the first of the,
00:10:06.110 --> 00:10:08.250
I think, six published books that he has done
00:10:08.250 --> 00:10:11.009
and hundreds and hundreds of articles. He is
00:10:11.009 --> 00:10:16.750
a great historian and thinker and not necessarily
00:10:16.750 --> 00:10:21.870
a sociologist, but certainly a very, very brilliant
00:10:21.870 --> 00:10:26.750
writer and someone that I at least can draw a
00:10:26.750 --> 00:10:28.929
lot from in nearly everything that he's written.
00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:33.360
And Sapiens, when I read the book, was one of
00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:35.460
those books, maybe the only book I've ever read,
00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:38.399
that after reading the first page, I could hardly
00:10:38.399 --> 00:10:42.779
turn it because I was just incredibly inspired
00:10:42.779 --> 00:10:48.799
by and moved by this incredibly large and wide
00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:51.919
scope of things. And, you know, in the last 25
00:10:51.919 --> 00:10:56.559
to 30 years, in sort of the broad things of nonfiction,
00:10:57.320 --> 00:10:59.519
There's been a lot of micro histories like, you
00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:01.440
know, salt, the spice that changed the world
00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:04.539
and cod and, you know, various things having
00:11:04.539 --> 00:11:08.440
to do with how certain things, you know, have
00:11:08.440 --> 00:11:11.399
really influenced our current living. And then
00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:15.299
there's the mega, mega macro histories and macro
00:11:15.299 --> 00:11:17.440
looks at things. And Sapiens is probably the
00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:20.360
best known example of such a book and among the
00:11:20.360 --> 00:11:27.360
first. And for me, I read it and. i had no idea
00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:29.759
what was to come next but i just felt that it
00:11:29.759 --> 00:11:32.360
was imperative for me that in some way i was
00:11:32.360 --> 00:11:34.500
going to fashion a piece of music out of the
00:11:34.500 --> 00:11:38.379
inspiration that i found in this book yeah i
00:11:38.379 --> 00:11:42.720
i read it too i think i read it during 2020 when
00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:45.240
i was home and then finally being able to read
00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:48.779
such a you know massive amount of uh content
00:11:48.779 --> 00:11:52.940
in in uh in a really focused time and it was
00:11:53.769 --> 00:11:56.049
Yeah, as you mentioned it, like first few pages,
00:11:56.129 --> 00:11:58.970
I had to reread over and over again, because
00:11:58.970 --> 00:12:05.029
it was such a shocking thing to read. It really
00:12:05.029 --> 00:12:08.090
is. Yeah, yeah. It's such a big and broad scope
00:12:08.090 --> 00:12:10.970
of things. And, you know, I just, I think it's
00:12:10.970 --> 00:12:13.110
amazing how this utterly brilliant individual
00:12:13.110 --> 00:12:15.070
and it's not the only book that he's written.
00:12:15.110 --> 00:12:19.230
His other books are almost no less. No less shocking
00:12:19.230 --> 00:12:21.570
to me and impressive, but this was the first
00:12:21.570 --> 00:12:23.710
of them and therefore it really stays with me.
00:12:24.809 --> 00:12:27.409
Yeah, I mean, I felt the same way and then read
00:12:27.409 --> 00:12:30.029
it again the second time and as the pandemic
00:12:30.029 --> 00:12:34.970
bore down on our city and our world. And I really
00:12:34.970 --> 00:12:37.049
kind of redoubled my efforts at the end of 2020
00:12:37.049 --> 00:12:39.649
to finish a piece that I had started a couple
00:12:39.649 --> 00:12:43.110
of years earlier. But what stood out for you
00:12:43.110 --> 00:12:47.049
to me? One thing is, as you said, it's the scope
00:12:47.049 --> 00:12:52.009
of the book. You know, how basically he writes
00:12:52.009 --> 00:12:58.110
70 ,000 years of human history or longer into
00:12:58.110 --> 00:13:03.289
this book. Here I am, you know, reading from
00:13:03.289 --> 00:13:06.809
my apartment in Brooklyn in 2020 by myself. I
00:13:06.809 --> 00:13:10.009
just felt overwhelmed, too, about the history.
00:13:10.070 --> 00:13:12.549
But also, at the same time, I felt... at the
00:13:12.549 --> 00:13:15.049
end of the book? I don't know. It's a strange
00:13:15.049 --> 00:13:20.870
thing, but was also be able to be hopeful about
00:13:20.870 --> 00:13:24.590
humankind. I don't know. How did you experience
00:13:24.590 --> 00:13:26.809
this book? I mean, in the end, that's kind of
00:13:26.809 --> 00:13:29.370
the way I came away with it. I mean, I know that
00:13:29.370 --> 00:13:32.730
some people have, you know, maybe read the book
00:13:32.730 --> 00:13:34.610
or read his work in general and felt that, oh,
00:13:34.610 --> 00:13:37.370
we're doomed as a species. And it might be easy
00:13:37.370 --> 00:13:40.350
to say that for, you know, ecological collapse.
00:13:41.580 --> 00:13:43.820
the world that we've inherited now where everybody's
00:13:43.820 --> 00:13:46.559
in their you know fixed camps and pointing knives
00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:49.700
at each other and all that um but there is um
00:13:49.700 --> 00:13:52.299
there's quite a bit in the book that i find quite
00:13:52.299 --> 00:13:56.600
hopeful in that um i find it comforting and i
00:13:56.600 --> 00:13:58.940
don't know that everyone agrees with me to understand
00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:02.419
how small and insignificant that i am as a cog
00:14:02.419 --> 00:14:04.519
in the wheel of human history very small one
00:14:04.519 --> 00:14:10.730
uh and um Yeah, I think that, you know, many
00:14:10.730 --> 00:14:12.669
of the concepts that are explored in the book,
00:14:12.769 --> 00:14:17.190
some of which I helped or tried to use as inspiration
00:14:17.190 --> 00:14:22.750
for my piece later, allowed me to, you know,
00:14:22.750 --> 00:14:27.490
feel very confident. And I think, as you say,
00:14:27.590 --> 00:14:32.370
a little more hopeful in a time of great uncertainty.
00:14:32.649 --> 00:14:34.730
I'm referring to the pandemic, I'm referring
00:14:34.730 --> 00:14:38.399
to... our modern world and all of what was coming
00:14:38.399 --> 00:14:41.139
unraveled in those few years and still is in
00:14:41.139 --> 00:14:46.019
my mind, that, you know, understanding the fact
00:14:46.019 --> 00:14:47.779
that, you know, throughout all of human history,
00:14:47.879 --> 00:14:49.480
all of what we're talking about, the span of
00:14:49.480 --> 00:14:52.259
a single lifetime, mine or yours, is, I mean,
00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:55.080
frankly, utterly insignificant in the march of
00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:58.120
time. And then compare that to geologic time.
00:14:58.179 --> 00:15:00.799
I mean, human history is 70, 80 ,000 years, but
00:15:00.799 --> 00:15:03.519
geologic time goes back seven to eight and nine
00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:09.529
million years. um and uh all of the species and
00:15:09.529 --> 00:15:12.370
that's kind of how the book you know starts to
00:15:12.370 --> 00:15:16.350
establish itself that didn't survive some have
00:15:16.350 --> 00:15:19.629
some haven't but why did we i think it's fascinating
00:15:19.629 --> 00:15:22.129
why why and how did we develop these brains that
00:15:22.129 --> 00:15:24.190
allow this conversation to happen i think is
00:15:24.190 --> 00:15:28.330
uh i think it's quite fascinating yeah and then
00:15:28.330 --> 00:15:32.669
he says that it's the uh Because of the, of course,
00:15:32.710 --> 00:15:35.590
cognitive revolution, he says, and being able
00:15:35.590 --> 00:15:39.909
to understand the sort of abstract concept, whether
00:15:39.909 --> 00:15:44.889
that is being able to dream. I don't quite remember.
00:15:45.029 --> 00:15:47.850
I have to revisit. But do you remember? Yeah.
00:15:47.950 --> 00:15:50.250
So the cognitive revolution is, you know, the
00:15:50.250 --> 00:15:53.830
development of the minds to the minds of any
00:15:53.830 --> 00:15:57.450
sentient living human being to understand. uh
00:15:57.450 --> 00:15:59.429
some of the things that we understand so right
00:15:59.429 --> 00:16:01.350
now we're speaking in a shared language of english
00:16:01.350 --> 00:16:04.149
that when i speak it you understand me and you
00:16:04.149 --> 00:16:06.710
speak it i i understand you or hopefully most
00:16:06.710 --> 00:16:09.970
of it in most in both cases um and these are
00:16:09.970 --> 00:16:11.870
just these are symbols these are things that
00:16:11.870 --> 00:16:15.009
we've adopted as a as a culture as part of our
00:16:15.009 --> 00:16:17.149
cognition and they're developed widely developed
00:16:17.149 --> 00:16:19.169
brains that maybe the animal world doesn't have
00:16:19.169 --> 00:16:21.269
but you know one of the things that the animal
00:16:21.269 --> 00:16:24.580
world does have to some degree is that i know
00:16:24.580 --> 00:16:26.539
if i'm walking down the street with you and you
00:16:26.539 --> 00:16:28.679
stand behind a tree i know that you're still
00:16:28.679 --> 00:16:33.200
there even if i can't see you and um you know
00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:35.379
that was one of the kind of breakthroughs in
00:16:35.379 --> 00:16:37.759
the cognitive revolution that the animal world
00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:41.899
for the most part has understood and recognized
00:16:41.899 --> 00:16:45.860
that uh just because i can't see or hear a particular
00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:50.360
thing or a person or a threat doesn't mean that
00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:53.559
that person or thing or threat is gone um so
00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:57.620
um that that's you know one small example of
00:16:57.620 --> 00:17:00.019
you know what a dog or cat might understand you're
00:17:00.019 --> 00:17:03.399
still present if you're standing behind behind
00:17:03.399 --> 00:17:07.980
a tree yeah so i need to revisit and reread again
00:17:07.980 --> 00:17:11.920
uh it's such a wonderful book so how many movements
00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:18.210
make up this cycle of your versions uh yeah so
00:17:18.210 --> 00:17:21.049
there are eight movements or eight sections um
00:17:21.049 --> 00:17:28.529
and i chose as um you know if if if you know
00:17:28.529 --> 00:17:30.410
the book and you know that know it well it's
00:17:30.410 --> 00:17:33.890
not as if i uh titled my sections after the chapters
00:17:33.890 --> 00:17:38.690
i and instead took what i think are some broad
00:17:38.690 --> 00:17:42.009
concepts and maybe kind of added one in the in
00:17:42.009 --> 00:17:43.630
the end of the last section called commonwealth
00:17:43.630 --> 00:17:48.430
that is mostly my own uh to um some of the teachings
00:17:48.430 --> 00:17:51.470
and understandings of the book and just to talk
00:17:51.470 --> 00:17:54.390
about one of them the first time is a section
00:17:54.390 --> 00:17:57.789
called that i call prehistory which you know
00:17:57.789 --> 00:17:59.869
is just one of those fascinating words that to
00:17:59.869 --> 00:18:01.650
me is like prehistory what what happened but
00:18:01.650 --> 00:18:03.549
it's like kind of like post -modernism it makes
00:18:03.549 --> 00:18:06.390
no sense at all uh but we throw it around a lot
00:18:06.390 --> 00:18:09.250
and it sounds good and generally we understand
00:18:09.250 --> 00:18:11.609
what it's supposed to mean prehistory really
00:18:11.609 --> 00:18:16.750
uh you know attempts to determine what there's
00:18:16.750 --> 00:18:19.269
a word used to define what happened before humans,
00:18:19.490 --> 00:18:23.029
before our species, Homo sapiens, really developed
00:18:23.029 --> 00:18:28.849
into the individuals that we are now. And I should
00:18:28.849 --> 00:18:30.849
mention at first, you know, when I was inspired
00:18:30.849 --> 00:18:33.910
by the book, I didn't know what, didn't have
00:18:33.910 --> 00:18:36.329
any idea how to shape the piece, didn't even
00:18:36.329 --> 00:18:40.930
understand or recognize who it was going to be
00:18:40.930 --> 00:18:43.650
for. It was not a commission. I'm fortunate that
00:18:43.650 --> 00:18:46.650
most of my work in the last 10 or 15 years is
00:18:46.650 --> 00:18:49.869
on commission so um this was not a case it was
00:18:49.869 --> 00:18:52.509
just something that i wanted to do my additional
00:18:52.509 --> 00:18:55.569
uh initial idea was to write for ensemble perhaps
00:18:55.569 --> 00:19:00.430
orchestra um and then you know as my id my broad
00:19:00.430 --> 00:19:03.289
kind of drafting and ideas started to take shape
00:19:03.289 --> 00:19:07.410
um i realized that this was probably not a work
00:19:07.410 --> 00:19:11.230
for orchestra and i had a huge amount of sketches
00:19:11.230 --> 00:19:13.630
of the piece which are now archived at a great
00:19:13.630 --> 00:19:17.740
um A great other place in Brooklyn called Mind
00:19:17.740 --> 00:19:21.539
to Music, the Mind to Music Project, has some
00:19:21.539 --> 00:19:23.759
of my very initial sketches of sapiens on there,
00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:26.619
which, because I sat at the piano and drafted
00:19:26.619 --> 00:19:29.299
them, in the end it really kind of morphed into
00:19:29.299 --> 00:19:32.259
a work that I felt was going to be a very substantial
00:19:32.259 --> 00:19:36.140
work for piano. And I find the piano very intimidating.
00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:39.539
I find it also comforting to sit at and write
00:19:39.539 --> 00:19:43.279
at, which I've been doing for years. As I said,
00:19:43.299 --> 00:19:46.460
I think at the start, I'm not a pianist per se.
00:19:46.599 --> 00:19:50.119
I really can only perform one piece of music
00:19:50.119 --> 00:19:56.019
I've ever written in my life. But in the end,
00:19:56.019 --> 00:20:01.140
that seemed to be the sort of suitable instrument
00:20:01.140 --> 00:20:04.799
for me. And when I really kind of embraced the
00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:09.740
idea of the piano as this sort of meta instrument,
00:20:11.500 --> 00:20:14.500
We know the incredible expressive range that
00:20:14.500 --> 00:20:16.940
comes from this instrument, the modern instrument.
00:20:17.059 --> 00:20:19.880
We know the fact that the modern instrument developed
00:20:19.880 --> 00:20:22.740
out of other things that might have been a little
00:20:22.740 --> 00:20:26.539
less expressive and less complex than we have
00:20:26.539 --> 00:20:30.700
today. And yet it has largely stayed fixed for
00:20:30.700 --> 00:20:36.079
the last 200 years, just about. And I imagine
00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:38.539
the piano as sort of a voyeur or witness to history
00:20:38.539 --> 00:20:42.529
at the birth of music. So my particular piece
00:20:42.529 --> 00:20:44.890
that starts Sapiens is called Prehistory as a
00:20:44.890 --> 00:20:50.910
subtitle. And it consists of a very strange amount
00:20:50.910 --> 00:20:52.829
of music that doesn't really sound music. In
00:20:52.829 --> 00:20:55.210
fact, the very first instruction in the piece
00:20:55.210 --> 00:20:58.809
is for the pianist to breathe into the instrument,
00:20:58.990 --> 00:21:01.490
you know, a single exhalation, single breath.
00:21:02.710 --> 00:21:05.369
And it doesn't really start on the piano, it
00:21:05.369 --> 00:21:10.809
starts at the piano. And from there, music. in
00:21:10.809 --> 00:21:14.250
a series of C's really kind of grows out of that
00:21:14.250 --> 00:21:17.910
particular impulse as if someone had, you know,
00:21:17.910 --> 00:21:22.089
been launched into this strange thing and encountered
00:21:22.089 --> 00:21:24.430
it for the first time. And what would they make
00:21:24.430 --> 00:21:27.230
of it? That's really the piece grows out of that,
00:21:27.269 --> 00:21:32.329
those first impulses. Wow. Yes. I, I've been
00:21:32.329 --> 00:21:34.970
listening to this whole series over and over
00:21:34.970 --> 00:21:39.059
and then, yeah, I, First I started, I heard the
00:21:39.059 --> 00:21:42.940
breath. And also, you mentioned that I realized
00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:47.279
there are a few pieces that are centered in the
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:51.400
key of C major. So I thought, maybe, is there
00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:55.119
a message behind that? Yeah, I think maybe not
00:21:55.119 --> 00:21:59.720
a conscious one. So yes, it starts with a bunch
00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:02.460
of Cs, maybe not C major, but the pitch C, the
00:22:02.460 --> 00:22:07.430
note C, in various octaves. It ends... I think
00:22:07.430 --> 00:22:09.890
very hopefully in a particular section called
00:22:09.890 --> 00:22:14.289
Commonwealth that to me is among the most successful
00:22:14.289 --> 00:22:17.710
parts of it. And it's also fairly rooted in C
00:22:17.710 --> 00:22:21.769
as well. And there's also a work in the middle,
00:22:21.789 --> 00:22:27.730
a section in the middle called Mean Temperament.
00:22:28.190 --> 00:22:31.529
And Mean Temperament consists almost entirely
00:22:31.529 --> 00:22:34.130
of the note C in every one of its iterations
00:22:34.130 --> 00:22:37.799
on the piano. There are seven of them. And I
00:22:37.799 --> 00:22:42.319
really felt challenged to make a piece of music
00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:45.039
or a section of a piece of music that incorporates
00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:48.759
a single note only. It involves a huge amount
00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:52.279
of jumping around of hands because each of the
00:22:52.279 --> 00:22:54.660
octaves of that particular C only happened one
00:22:54.660 --> 00:23:00.900
at a time. And mean temperament, of course, is
00:23:00.900 --> 00:23:05.569
a bit of a double, I don't know, ironic. play
00:23:05.569 --> 00:23:08.490
on words, mean temperament, obviously referring
00:23:08.490 --> 00:23:11.690
to the pitch and the tuning of a modern instrument
00:23:11.690 --> 00:23:15.089
and modern music for Westerners anyway, and also
00:23:15.089 --> 00:23:20.589
maybe a comment on our nature as a species too.
00:23:21.430 --> 00:23:25.569
And yeah, that movement came together rather
00:23:25.569 --> 00:23:28.509
quickly, I have to say. Oh, wow. And I want to
00:23:28.509 --> 00:23:30.829
go through each one of them, but when you first
00:23:30.829 --> 00:23:35.589
read the book, you thought, wow. I want to write
00:23:35.589 --> 00:23:38.670
a music about this. I mean, did the inspiration
00:23:38.670 --> 00:23:41.750
came like immediately? The inspiration to write
00:23:41.750 --> 00:23:43.230
the piece came immediately. What I was going
00:23:43.230 --> 00:23:47.089
to do with it did not. I should mention that
00:23:47.089 --> 00:23:49.849
everything that you hear in the piece, I did
00:23:49.849 --> 00:23:51.990
write sequentially. It seems like I started with
00:23:51.990 --> 00:23:54.029
section seven or whatever and went back to section
00:23:54.029 --> 00:23:58.650
two. So it was sequential. I went and read the
00:23:58.650 --> 00:24:00.730
book. I reread the book. I read the graphic novel,
00:24:00.910 --> 00:24:03.930
which is fascinating too. Sapiens, which is also
00:24:03.930 --> 00:24:06.279
graphic. graphic novel and quite interesting.
00:24:06.579 --> 00:24:09.400
Oh, there is a graphic novel? There sure is.
00:24:09.500 --> 00:24:13.640
Yeah. And it's really, really quite good. Yeah.
00:24:13.779 --> 00:24:17.420
And so the idea to write the piece was quick,
00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:21.480
but how it was going to take shape was not. But
00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:23.619
I really wanted to focus on, you know, the sort
00:24:23.619 --> 00:24:26.519
of key principles that I took some inspiration
00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:29.460
from when reading the book. And that really kind
00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:31.319
of gave me the sort of broad architecture to
00:24:31.319 --> 00:24:35.829
start putting things in place. So you mentioned
00:24:35.829 --> 00:24:39.690
that it started with the prehistory. Then the
00:24:39.690 --> 00:24:44.210
next piece is the Lascaux, right? Yeah. So the
00:24:44.210 --> 00:24:47.869
inspiration for Lascaux is, you know, though
00:24:47.869 --> 00:24:50.930
it's been eclipsed by some other findings in
00:24:50.930 --> 00:24:54.410
the last several years, Lascaux refers to the
00:24:54.410 --> 00:25:00.069
cave in central France where some of the first
00:25:00.069 --> 00:25:03.640
instances of representative art were found. painted
00:25:03.640 --> 00:25:05.960
on the cave walls. They were some 40 ,000 years
00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:10.779
old, 45 ,000, I believe. And it was a major breakthrough
00:25:10.779 --> 00:25:15.960
in that, you know, the thing that I do and that
00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:18.740
we do as artists, which is to, you know, is to
00:25:18.740 --> 00:25:21.579
explore and act upon this impulse to do something.
00:25:22.269 --> 00:25:24.609
That doesn't necessarily better the world. It
00:25:24.609 --> 00:25:27.529
doesn't keep a structure intact or keep you warm
00:25:27.529 --> 00:25:29.970
or feed you. The things that really directly
00:25:29.970 --> 00:25:32.109
relate to survival, these are things that an
00:25:32.109 --> 00:25:35.869
artist would do because he or she feels a very
00:25:35.869 --> 00:25:39.910
strong need. And the Lescaut cave drawings are
00:25:39.910 --> 00:25:43.029
as mysterious today as they were when they were
00:25:43.029 --> 00:25:46.910
discovered, which is to say probably a mystery
00:25:46.910 --> 00:25:50.750
for the intervening 45 ,000 years. that depicts
00:25:50.750 --> 00:25:54.730
buffalo hunts, that depicts men and women, weaponry,
00:25:54.730 --> 00:25:59.069
various things having to do with life in that
00:25:59.069 --> 00:26:34.140
part of the world at that time. I wanted to use
00:26:34.140 --> 00:26:37.119
it because I took some inspiration from that,
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:40.839
which, of course, is talked about in the book
00:26:40.839 --> 00:26:49.259
as a particular piece. And that particular section
00:26:49.259 --> 00:26:52.640
of it is, I think, clouded in a lot of ambiguity,
00:26:52.980 --> 00:26:56.759
a lot of mystery. It's a little more, you can,
00:26:56.759 --> 00:27:00.140
I think, sense the piece in terms of sort of
00:27:00.140 --> 00:27:03.420
a metric and rhythmical structure. kind of coming
00:27:03.420 --> 00:27:05.480
together a little better in that section than
00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:08.960
it is in prehistory so you're seeing the sort
00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:12.319
of evolution of a piece start to take shape just
00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:15.279
as humankind said i am i at this moment i am
00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:18.700
going to create art and i'm doing it for reasons
00:27:18.700 --> 00:27:23.420
that are unknown to history and it's quite impressionistic
00:27:23.420 --> 00:27:27.200
in style right yeah yeah i think so too i mean
00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:30.119
the pigments of the walls and and i for the record
00:27:30.119 --> 00:27:32.500
i've never been to lisco um i've only read about
00:27:32.500 --> 00:27:35.200
it and seen it uh and on the page or whatever
00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:38.940
but uh you know the pigments of it uh i think
00:27:38.940 --> 00:27:42.640
are are very evocative and they almost look impressionistic
00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:46.339
for me And the fact that something is so, I mean,
00:27:46.359 --> 00:27:48.700
I have had the benefit of seeing some, you know,
00:27:48.700 --> 00:27:53.299
really interesting Navajo and Ute art and that
00:27:53.299 --> 00:27:56.000
in the desert southwest of the United States.
00:27:56.500 --> 00:27:59.259
This is very, very different. Much of that art
00:27:59.259 --> 00:28:01.799
is no more than a thousand years old. This is
00:28:01.799 --> 00:28:06.240
40, 40, 45 times more than that. I mean, it's
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:10.539
quite, quite ancient. Yeah. Yeah. And then. Moving
00:28:10.539 --> 00:28:13.640
on to the third piece, Fertile Crescent. And
00:28:13.640 --> 00:28:19.700
I thought, wow, this was quite contrast to Lascaux,
00:28:19.819 --> 00:28:24.000
quite fugue -like, you know? Lots of conversations
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:27.859
happening. Yeah. So Fertile Crescent is probably
00:28:27.859 --> 00:28:31.980
the biggest and densest piece. It's the longest
00:28:31.980 --> 00:28:35.880
in the work, longest section in the work. Fertile
00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:39.160
Crescent, of course, is inspired by... something
00:28:39.160 --> 00:28:40.680
else that Harari talks about in the book, and
00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:43.380
that's the agricultural revolution. And the agricultural
00:28:43.380 --> 00:28:45.440
revolution, like the cognitive one beforehand,
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:49.279
which is about 12 ,000 years old, allowed for
00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:51.880
something that we very much take for granted
00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:54.680
now, is the ability for human beings to gather
00:28:54.680 --> 00:28:58.319
together in groups and cooperate in some way
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:00.519
or another. So whether you live in New York City
00:29:00.519 --> 00:29:04.579
or a small town, or you work in a factory, or
00:29:04.579 --> 00:29:09.380
you work... In any endeavor, we often usually
00:29:09.380 --> 00:29:14.960
need the help of others to survive and to create.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:20.720
And that was not necessarily the methodology
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:22.920
for most of human history. For most of human
00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:26.960
history, Homo sapiens was solitary. They traveled
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:29.619
in very small groups, perhaps as a family, perhaps
00:29:29.619 --> 00:29:33.539
as a couple of families. They hunted game for
00:29:33.539 --> 00:29:37.279
survival. They found the appropriate foods to
00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:40.359
eat that would allow them to thrive and give
00:29:40.359 --> 00:29:42.059
them the appropriate amount of vitamins, protein,
00:29:42.339 --> 00:29:46.119
and they kept on the move. They did not necessarily
00:29:46.119 --> 00:29:49.799
have homes, per se. They kept on the move, often
00:29:49.799 --> 00:29:53.859
across very wide geographic regions. The Fertile
00:29:53.859 --> 00:29:57.500
Crescent, of course, refers to the band of something
00:29:57.500 --> 00:29:59.559
that happened, which is the plantation of crops
00:29:59.559 --> 00:30:03.819
in a rough stretch from western Turkey. going
00:30:03.819 --> 00:30:06.279
to the east and around into the Sinai Peninsula
00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:09.519
in northern Egypt, modern Egypt, and encompasses
00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:13.460
many of the countries in the Middle East. Interestingly,
00:30:13.680 --> 00:30:15.779
many countries that we would very much consider
00:30:15.779 --> 00:30:20.079
to be dry and desert -like now were, at that
00:30:20.079 --> 00:30:25.140
time, fertile enough to support the planting
00:30:25.140 --> 00:30:29.119
of crops, and many of the first grains and cereals
00:30:29.119 --> 00:30:32.119
were planted in that particular region. And when
00:30:32.119 --> 00:30:33.740
they were planted in that particular region,
00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:36.640
it required the ingenuity and gathering of people
00:30:36.640 --> 00:30:40.680
together in smaller groups. And it's no surprise
00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:44.220
that the first established cities happened in
00:30:44.220 --> 00:30:46.579
some of the river valleys of the area, namely
00:30:46.579 --> 00:30:49.319
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern -day
00:30:49.319 --> 00:30:53.740
Iraq. And that allowed for people to settle together.
00:30:54.079 --> 00:30:55.859
And one of the other interesting things that
00:30:55.859 --> 00:30:57.799
allowed people to settle together was the fact
00:30:57.799 --> 00:31:00.859
that when they did settle together, longevity
00:31:00.859 --> 00:31:05.299
improves because people were and would over time
00:31:05.299 --> 00:31:08.680
develop immunities to one another and develop
00:31:08.680 --> 00:31:11.000
immunities to the livestock around them at a
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:13.660
time when our first livestock where people were
00:31:13.660 --> 00:31:18.910
herding animals into small and living with those
00:31:18.910 --> 00:31:21.190
animals or living in close proximity to them.
00:31:21.390 --> 00:31:24.809
And this incredible reason that it's not just
00:31:24.809 --> 00:31:26.829
called agriculture and that it's an agricultural
00:31:26.829 --> 00:31:30.769
revolution is that revolution almost in a matter
00:31:30.769 --> 00:31:32.630
of a handful of generations, we don't really
00:31:32.630 --> 00:31:37.029
know who, almost doubled life expectancy, maybe
00:31:37.029 --> 00:31:41.650
up to age 30 to 35 for a lot of people. And so
00:31:41.650 --> 00:31:45.910
all of that is a background of my... piece called
00:31:45.910 --> 00:31:48.809
Fertile Crescent and in it I have essentially
00:31:48.809 --> 00:31:53.450
two crescent -like shapes. One is the shape of
00:31:53.450 --> 00:31:58.170
a particular figure in the right hand that really
00:31:58.170 --> 00:32:00.890
kind of opens the piece that goes up in a crescent
00:32:00.890 --> 00:32:03.730
shape and comes down lower in pitch and volume
00:32:03.730 --> 00:32:45.470
and is presented several times. The bigger one
00:32:45.470 --> 00:32:51.309
is the midsection of the piece, which starts
00:32:51.309 --> 00:32:54.769
with a very low pedal and the left hand and a
00:32:54.769 --> 00:32:58.529
series of very dense and chromatic chords, almost
00:32:58.529 --> 00:33:03.009
hard to really discern the pitch. That entire
00:33:03.009 --> 00:33:06.869
section, chord, chord, chord, chord, essentially
00:33:06.869 --> 00:33:10.309
rises to the upper limits of the piano, the upper
00:33:10.309 --> 00:33:12.910
limits of the volume that the piano is capable
00:33:12.910 --> 00:33:18.160
of producing. And each measure going up to that
00:33:18.160 --> 00:33:20.640
particular point, a half a beat is slashed off
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:23.680
of each of them to the point where when you get
00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:25.440
to the end, there's no more beats to slash off.
00:33:25.539 --> 00:33:29.099
It's essentially there's no more notes. And then
00:33:29.099 --> 00:33:31.859
at that point, everything turns around backwards
00:33:31.859 --> 00:33:34.900
and a retrograde inversion mirror image of itself.
00:33:35.799 --> 00:33:40.579
That exact same section is played backwards and
00:33:40.579 --> 00:33:45.140
upside down. And that is the broad. fertile crescent
00:33:45.140 --> 00:33:49.259
of that whole particular movement and it's quite
00:33:49.259 --> 00:33:52.779
a challenging thing to play and I have to say
00:33:52.779 --> 00:34:15.469
maybe a concept to understand too. to say that
00:34:15.469 --> 00:34:17.789
that particular movement probably took me as
00:34:17.789 --> 00:34:20.510
long to compose as the entirety of the rest of
00:34:20.510 --> 00:34:23.949
the piece oh really yeah because i had the idea
00:34:23.949 --> 00:34:27.090
in my head and i have to say i'm not uh such
00:34:27.090 --> 00:34:30.130
a dogmatic uh composer that i play around with
00:34:30.130 --> 00:34:33.550
um uh particular theories or whatever i'm not
00:34:33.550 --> 00:34:37.250
a serialist i'm not a uh you know not i don't
00:34:37.250 --> 00:34:39.050
consider myself a serialist or minimalist or
00:34:39.050 --> 00:34:40.590
any of those things i write the music that i
00:34:40.590 --> 00:34:44.630
wish to write and not not be constrained by any
00:34:44.630 --> 00:34:46.929
of the isms that are out there but i had the
00:34:46.929 --> 00:34:49.769
idea of you know this series of chords and i
00:34:49.769 --> 00:34:51.409
could understand the pitches and how they would
00:34:51.409 --> 00:34:55.750
very very very slowly and imperceptibly imperceptibly
00:34:55.750 --> 00:35:00.710
uh modulate to higher pitch levels and a half
00:35:00.710 --> 00:35:03.489
a beat lopped off of each measure until you ran
00:35:03.489 --> 00:35:05.949
out of room in which case everything turned around
00:35:05.949 --> 00:35:07.869
and flipped and that was just a very big and
00:35:07.869 --> 00:35:11.250
broad crescent that uh probably took me a couple
00:35:11.250 --> 00:35:13.130
of months to uh more than a couple months to
00:35:13.130 --> 00:35:19.750
compose Then followed by Jericho, which is the
00:35:19.750 --> 00:35:26.769
name of the city. Also, it's a biblical city,
00:35:26.949 --> 00:35:31.969
right? It sure is. Yeah. So Jericho is, you know,
00:35:31.989 --> 00:35:35.090
the biblical Jericho and the modern Jericho were,
00:35:35.230 --> 00:35:38.369
well, I should say the biblical Jericho is best
00:35:38.369 --> 00:35:43.170
known as a walled city. And why do we? Why do
00:35:43.170 --> 00:35:45.369
we at some point in our history put walls around
00:35:45.369 --> 00:35:48.050
our cities to protect ourselves from invaders
00:35:48.050 --> 00:35:53.170
and hostile forces? But for me, Jericho, and
00:35:53.170 --> 00:35:55.309
maybe this departs from the book a little bit,
00:35:55.409 --> 00:35:58.869
is symbolic of the fact that, you know, one of
00:35:58.869 --> 00:36:00.989
the greatest and most diabolical human inventions
00:36:00.989 --> 00:36:06.159
is the wall. and obviously it provides us comfort.
00:36:06.260 --> 00:36:08.619
I'm surrounded by them now. It sounds like you
00:36:08.619 --> 00:36:12.559
are too. It keeps us free and separated from
00:36:12.559 --> 00:36:15.619
our neighbors. It allows for privacy. It allows
00:36:15.619 --> 00:36:19.900
for warmth and comfort and safety, and that's
00:36:19.900 --> 00:36:24.119
critically important. But in history, no wall
00:36:24.119 --> 00:36:27.059
has ever stood for very long, and Jericho is
00:36:27.059 --> 00:36:29.980
probably the first example of such walls. I mean,
00:36:30.039 --> 00:36:33.219
the Horn of Gabriel. blew down the walls of jericho
00:36:33.219 --> 00:36:37.800
in the bible and um you know i i started to think
00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:39.679
of you know sort of the development of the wall
00:36:39.679 --> 00:36:42.380
um you know certainly the great wall of china
00:36:42.380 --> 00:36:46.059
and hadrian's wall in northern england neither
00:36:46.059 --> 00:36:48.000
of which stand completely as they were intended
00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:51.960
um and then the ridiculous thing of a border
00:36:51.960 --> 00:36:55.320
wall uh across any two countries which was very
00:36:55.320 --> 00:36:59.519
much in the news then and still now and i was
00:36:59.519 --> 00:37:02.789
inspired to write a piece that is very uh brittle
00:37:02.789 --> 00:37:08.769
granitic uh the pitches aren't uh you know as
00:37:08.769 --> 00:37:12.769
as specifically defined i was very much inspired
00:37:12.769 --> 00:37:15.309
by some of the composers who wrote in the city
00:37:15.309 --> 00:37:18.150
i'm i'm a big fan of alberto ginastera great
00:37:18.150 --> 00:37:21.190
argentine composer and his piano sonatas which
00:37:21.190 --> 00:37:25.789
i think are fascinating and incredible so more
00:37:25.789 --> 00:37:27.949
along the lines of ginastera bartok and a few
00:37:27.949 --> 00:37:31.579
others you know compose this particular work
00:37:31.579 --> 00:37:37.480
in homage to the wall as being imposing and ultimately
00:37:37.480 --> 00:37:41.000
futile. And, you know, there's a particular point
00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:43.900
in the piece where a very thick set of clusters,
00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:47.119
I think they're 10 note chords, are resounded
00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:49.280
13 times, exactly the amount of times that you
00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:52.800
hear in the Rite of Spring, in the third section
00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:56.400
of the Rite of Spring. And to me, that's sort
00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:58.900
of a sublimation of the walls that come crashing
00:37:58.900 --> 00:38:29.090
down. Get Jericho. fairly successful section
00:38:29.090 --> 00:38:33.230
of the piece overall and um it's a pretty big
00:38:33.230 --> 00:38:36.670
contrast to what is around it i have to say so
00:38:36.670 --> 00:38:42.409
um and and again it's uh i think if i uh just
00:38:42.409 --> 00:38:46.010
called this piece and gave it a anonymous title
00:38:46.010 --> 00:38:48.030
not anonymous title but a different title like
00:38:48.030 --> 00:38:50.190
piano sonata or something like that and that
00:38:50.190 --> 00:38:52.449
was plopped in the middle of it i think it would
00:38:52.449 --> 00:38:55.050
have a very different meaning Even if you didn't
00:38:55.050 --> 00:38:56.730
understand the book or didn't read the book or
00:38:56.730 --> 00:38:59.210
understand the concepts, the fact that it has
00:38:59.210 --> 00:39:02.329
a title, Jericho, and that has that particular
00:39:02.329 --> 00:39:04.429
sound world that's very different from what comes
00:39:04.429 --> 00:39:07.329
before or after, hopefully it's understood by
00:39:07.329 --> 00:39:12.750
listeners. Yeah, evident. Then that followed
00:39:12.750 --> 00:39:16.610
by mean temperament, which you mentioned. So
00:39:16.610 --> 00:39:21.530
maybe we should talk about double helix. This
00:39:21.530 --> 00:39:25.639
is one of my favorite. out of eight pieces so
00:39:25.639 --> 00:39:29.739
it's about dna yeah right so inspired by one
00:39:29.739 --> 00:39:32.659
of the great uh scientific discoveries of the
00:39:32.659 --> 00:39:37.440
20th century is is dna of course and um you know
00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:40.380
in the discovery of dna you know we have determined
00:39:40.380 --> 00:39:47.369
that uh quite a lot of human history and all
00:39:47.369 --> 00:39:50.030
of the suffering that we must endure is you know
00:39:50.030 --> 00:39:52.969
can be enshrined in these little microscopic
00:39:52.969 --> 00:39:55.530
strands i mean it's pretty revolutionary that
00:39:55.530 --> 00:39:59.230
this uh particular discovery uh has happened
00:39:59.230 --> 00:40:04.570
and i think in in many ways uh it it's so big
00:40:04.570 --> 00:40:08.070
and so unwieldy and so earth shattering that
00:40:08.070 --> 00:40:10.030
we might be able to look at it something like
00:40:10.030 --> 00:40:13.309
this and determine when we will die uh unless
00:40:13.309 --> 00:40:16.110
we're hit by a bus or some other uh the external
00:40:16.110 --> 00:40:19.630
factor uh is overshadowed by the fact that it's
00:40:19.630 --> 00:40:23.230
uh it's quite frightening in the way that ai
00:40:23.230 --> 00:40:26.710
is frightening today um in the 20th century i
00:40:26.710 --> 00:40:29.369
think the discovery of dna was frightening to
00:40:29.369 --> 00:40:31.929
the people of the 20th century and through to
00:40:31.929 --> 00:40:36.219
today i took it as kind of an inspiration uh
00:40:36.219 --> 00:40:39.039
of a particular piece it's a very big and mysterious
00:40:39.039 --> 00:40:43.840
piece the left hand in its entirety plays in
00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:45.960
one key b flat and the right hand plays in another
00:40:45.960 --> 00:40:52.260
key d um and this is a bit of a mind melt for
00:40:52.260 --> 00:40:56.800
the pianist i think and it was for me to write
00:40:57.579 --> 00:41:00.780
But once I established that, I mean, what I came
00:41:00.780 --> 00:41:03.480
up with in terms of combinations of sonorities
00:41:03.480 --> 00:41:06.900
and chords was to me very deeply satisfying.
00:41:43.239 --> 00:41:46.079
of the piece is truly two strands of melody.
00:41:46.280 --> 00:41:49.300
So that is a rare, as this is my music, very
00:41:49.300 --> 00:41:52.980
rare of a fugue. And the fugue in the right hand
00:41:52.980 --> 00:41:55.079
is in D and the fugue in the left hand is in
00:41:55.079 --> 00:41:58.340
B flat. And yet it does observe the rules of
00:41:58.340 --> 00:42:00.760
the fugue with the introduction of the subject,
00:42:01.019 --> 00:42:04.619
the transition up to the fifth, the stretto at
00:42:04.619 --> 00:42:07.000
the end, and then coming on some different music
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:36.889
altogether. interweaving of the strands. I mean,
00:42:36.929 --> 00:42:39.630
the DNA molecule is a weave together a pair of
00:42:39.630 --> 00:42:42.969
strands that we, I think, know and understand
00:42:42.969 --> 00:42:44.730
in its shape. And that was kind of the shape
00:42:44.730 --> 00:42:48.110
that I was referring to in my particular movement.
00:42:48.550 --> 00:42:52.710
Wow. Engineering is involved into your composition,
00:42:52.989 --> 00:42:57.849
I guess. Yes. That's cool. Then that followed
00:42:57.849 --> 00:43:01.929
by conformation bias. So tell us about the piece.
00:43:02.360 --> 00:43:04.920
So perhaps a little bit also of a departure from
00:43:04.920 --> 00:43:09.019
the book, but maybe not so. But I think one of
00:43:09.019 --> 00:43:13.300
the most dangerous things of our time, certainly
00:43:13.300 --> 00:43:16.559
any time, but particularly so in a time when
00:43:16.559 --> 00:43:19.900
we are divided into our camps and determined
00:43:19.900 --> 00:43:23.699
that our opinions are right and perhaps everyone
00:43:23.699 --> 00:43:26.079
else's are wrong, except the people that agree
00:43:26.079 --> 00:43:28.980
with us, is the concept of confirmation bias.
00:43:29.789 --> 00:43:32.050
And the confirmation bias, of course, refers
00:43:32.050 --> 00:43:36.030
to the fact that, you know, if I believe something
00:43:36.030 --> 00:43:41.530
to be true, and I hear that something that confirms
00:43:41.530 --> 00:43:45.250
that what I already believe to be true is true,
00:43:45.449 --> 00:43:48.210
then therefore it must be, and there's no further
00:43:48.210 --> 00:43:51.250
proof needed. And this is a particular thing
00:43:51.250 --> 00:43:54.750
that Homo sapiens do, and likely the animal kingdom
00:43:54.750 --> 00:43:57.130
does not do, and the plant kingdom does not do.
00:43:58.559 --> 00:44:01.199
And I find it very, very dangerous because what
00:44:01.199 --> 00:44:04.780
is it done in our era of the Internet and social
00:44:04.780 --> 00:44:08.559
media? It's allowed us to only surround ourselves
00:44:08.559 --> 00:44:11.679
with people that really kind of confirm our biases,
00:44:11.840 --> 00:44:15.880
feed them on these algorithmic structures over
00:44:15.880 --> 00:44:19.440
time and further entrench us in our particular
00:44:19.440 --> 00:44:22.519
part of the world. And I find that incredibly
00:44:22.519 --> 00:44:26.000
dangerous. I deeply question social media for
00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:29.329
a variety of reasons. uh something that i limit
00:44:29.329 --> 00:44:32.590
myself very very very strictly to for reasons
00:44:32.590 --> 00:44:36.349
of mental and physical health uh i don't i'm
00:44:36.349 --> 00:44:40.170
surely in the minority of that but um so confirmation
00:44:40.170 --> 00:44:44.690
bias uh as a you know musically starts with a
00:44:44.690 --> 00:44:47.429
particularly falling octave this is a g flat
00:44:47.429 --> 00:44:50.369
and f with a chord in the middle which i think
00:44:50.369 --> 00:44:55.590
is b flat and c And that particular falling thing,
00:44:55.670 --> 00:44:58.610
which is really kind of a sort of sort of falls.
00:45:00.570 --> 00:45:05.070
And there's a huge amount of activity in that
00:45:05.070 --> 00:45:08.210
work around that falling thing. That falling
00:45:08.210 --> 00:45:10.570
figure occurs in every single measure, every
00:45:10.570 --> 00:45:15.030
single one. And it's a very blank and mysterious
00:45:15.030 --> 00:45:43.860
and enigmatic kind of sonority there. And that
00:45:43.860 --> 00:45:45.920
piece was also composed rather quickly too. That
00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:48.469
section was composed rather quickly. But there's
00:45:48.469 --> 00:45:53.409
a huge amount of activity, a lot of noise, a
00:45:53.409 --> 00:45:56.090
lot of outside influence, a lot of things that
00:45:56.090 --> 00:45:58.510
essentially are telling the player, the pianist,
00:45:58.510 --> 00:46:01.409
the composer, the listener, no, consider this,
00:46:01.630 --> 00:46:05.530
look outside yourself, here's another perspective.
00:46:07.110 --> 00:46:10.550
And the player essentially ignores it the whole
00:46:10.550 --> 00:46:14.269
time, that falling thing, that tolling figure.
00:46:17.369 --> 00:46:19.510
which maybe I lifted from Ravel a little bit
00:46:19.510 --> 00:46:24.730
in one of his pieces, is on the present throughout
00:46:24.730 --> 00:46:28.949
the whole thing until the very last chord. It
00:46:28.949 --> 00:46:32.909
kind of almost resolves upwards in a sort of
00:46:32.909 --> 00:46:37.929
stasis, a sort of peace, equilibrium. Wow. Then
00:46:37.929 --> 00:46:41.570
ending with Commonwealth, and I like the title.
00:46:42.030 --> 00:46:46.199
And also it actually ends with like a... toward
00:46:46.199 --> 00:46:50.760
the end of probably 20, 30 seconds, it's silence,
00:46:51.019 --> 00:46:55.440
right? Or maybe something else is going on, but
00:46:55.440 --> 00:47:02.019
tell us. Yeah, so I'm glad you find the word
00:47:02.019 --> 00:47:06.019
Commonwealth resonates with you. I like it very
00:47:06.019 --> 00:47:09.420
much too. As I was deep in the piece and writing
00:47:09.420 --> 00:47:14.420
it, I really wanted to have... a title or a word
00:47:14.420 --> 00:47:17.079
or a series of words in the final section that
00:47:17.079 --> 00:47:20.719
i feel would maybe just personally represent
00:47:20.719 --> 00:47:23.639
what i would want for humanity what i do want
00:47:23.639 --> 00:47:27.900
for humanity and the the word commonwealth probably
00:47:27.900 --> 00:47:31.059
embodies that better than most words that i know
00:47:31.059 --> 00:47:35.739
uh and you know the the idea of a commons a public
00:47:35.739 --> 00:47:39.679
space which is the foundation upon um public
00:47:39.679 --> 00:47:42.039
parks and public spaces of any kind in a city
00:47:42.039 --> 00:47:45.699
uh where people can gather together and exchange
00:47:45.699 --> 00:47:49.840
ideas and argue and fight or or whatever uh is
00:47:49.840 --> 00:47:51.880
is very appealing to me that particular word
00:47:51.880 --> 00:47:55.719
common is used a lot in um you know certainly
00:47:55.719 --> 00:47:59.780
uh puritan england and uh new england where it
00:47:59.780 --> 00:48:02.099
exists in many towns and cities boston common
00:48:02.099 --> 00:48:04.860
is one of them the commonwealth of course refers
00:48:04.860 --> 00:48:07.119
uh also to the british commonwealth of nations
00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:10.190
which to me is a very pejorative, very negative
00:48:10.190 --> 00:48:14.969
thing, which is, you know, is a sublimation of
00:48:14.969 --> 00:48:19.909
empire. But the word itself, I think is, you
00:48:19.909 --> 00:48:22.670
know, to me is a gathering together of peoples
00:48:22.670 --> 00:48:27.250
with the understanding of hopefully achieving
00:48:27.250 --> 00:48:30.550
prosperity for a group, and that no one should
00:48:30.550 --> 00:48:35.010
be excluded from that particular group, you know,
00:48:35.010 --> 00:48:39.230
in any particular way, and that wealth and security
00:48:39.230 --> 00:48:44.269
and progress can be enshrined in this particular
00:48:44.269 --> 00:48:49.269
concept of commonwealth. And that, to me, certainly
00:48:49.269 --> 00:48:52.449
touched upon in Harari's book quite a bit, but
00:48:52.449 --> 00:48:55.130
not explicitly so, not at all. But it's something
00:48:55.130 --> 00:48:57.670
that I really wanted to end my piece with. So
00:48:57.670 --> 00:49:02.389
it starts with a series of whole notes, rather
00:49:02.389 --> 00:49:05.269
thick chords starting quietly and ending loudly.
00:49:06.170 --> 00:49:08.550
uh and then that set of chords repeated again
00:49:08.550 --> 00:49:12.690
and then it really kind of uh explores and again
00:49:12.690 --> 00:49:14.429
as you mentioned we're really in the key of c
00:49:14.429 --> 00:49:20.309
again almost entirely in in in the piece um and
00:49:20.309 --> 00:49:23.489
uh i think i'd like to think it ends hopefully
00:49:23.489 --> 00:49:29.650
big positively optimistically i do think that
00:49:29.650 --> 00:49:32.269
you know maybe not to get on any sort of soapbox
00:49:32.269 --> 00:49:35.400
and i certainly can't predict anything but I
00:49:35.400 --> 00:49:37.539
choose to live in a world where I think there
00:49:37.539 --> 00:49:40.400
are better days are ahead of us. And even if
00:49:40.400 --> 00:49:43.539
I have absolutely no influence on any of that,
00:49:43.639 --> 00:49:46.360
other than the fact that I can contribute to
00:49:46.360 --> 00:49:49.860
the world and model a piece of music, then I
00:49:49.860 --> 00:49:53.300
want to be the one to do that. And Commonwealth
00:49:53.300 --> 00:49:56.179
is a way of me, you know, essentially saying
00:49:56.179 --> 00:50:00.679
that this is, you know, this is my contribution
00:50:00.679 --> 00:50:03.139
to it and ends at a very, very, very loud and
00:50:03.139 --> 00:50:06.210
high. Note that the top of the piano is also
00:50:06.210 --> 00:50:46.010
a C. There's actually also a little quotation
00:50:46.010 --> 00:50:48.650
in there for those that are paying attention.
00:50:50.989 --> 00:50:55.070
I am deeply moved by one of my artistic heroes,
00:50:55.250 --> 00:50:57.329
which is the composer Dmitry, who is the composer
00:50:57.329 --> 00:51:00.530
Dmitry Shostakovich, who of course was the Soviet
00:51:00.530 --> 00:51:02.750
Union's most celebrated composer and lived in
00:51:02.750 --> 00:51:06.150
a time of incredible oppression, unbelievable
00:51:06.150 --> 00:51:10.610
circumstances that I cannot as a white male American
00:51:10.610 --> 00:51:16.429
and born when I am. imagine at all um and in
00:51:16.429 --> 00:51:19.750
so many of his works starting with the eighth
00:51:19.750 --> 00:51:22.570
string quartet and this piano trio and the tenth
00:51:22.570 --> 00:51:26.690
symphony and on and on has a particular um a
00:51:26.690 --> 00:51:29.090
series of pitches that outlines his name d e
00:51:29.090 --> 00:51:32.769
flat c and b natural uh and even that is in the
00:51:32.769 --> 00:51:35.769
very beginning because even in the very end of
00:51:35.769 --> 00:51:39.289
commonwealth because that to me is one of the
00:51:39.289 --> 00:51:43.420
brave artistic utterances in music history in
00:51:43.420 --> 00:51:48.980
that this man, this brave man who survived incredible
00:51:48.980 --> 00:51:53.860
oppression of Stalinist Soviet Union, put his
00:51:53.860 --> 00:51:56.780
stamp on everything that said, this is me. This
00:51:56.780 --> 00:52:00.800
is who I am. And I wanted to have one small,
00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:04.280
sublimated, hard -to -hear quote in that, which
00:52:04.280 --> 00:52:07.820
I've used in another piece. My cello concerto
00:52:07.820 --> 00:52:12.980
uses it as well. in my particular piece. Well,
00:52:12.980 --> 00:52:17.260
incredible work and congratulations. Thank you
00:52:17.260 --> 00:52:21.539
very much. How do you feel about creating such
00:52:21.539 --> 00:52:25.340
an expansive, it's like a total length of this
00:52:25.340 --> 00:52:27.579
piece itself is 50 minutes or something like
00:52:27.579 --> 00:52:30.940
that? It is, yeah. I mean, I have to say I have
00:52:30.940 --> 00:52:33.780
a kind of a hate -hate relationship with music
00:52:33.780 --> 00:52:38.539
after I've written it. I mean, I find sometimes
00:52:38.539 --> 00:52:42.840
what I do hard to listen to, and I'm usually
00:52:42.840 --> 00:52:45.000
on to the next thing and really focusing on that
00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:47.260
and feeling that I can do more, do better, do
00:52:47.260 --> 00:52:52.199
different. But Sapiens is just, to me, it's been
00:52:52.199 --> 00:52:54.639
quite successful and in the hands of such a great
00:52:54.639 --> 00:52:58.679
interpreter, Vladimir, who, frankly, I happened
00:52:58.679 --> 00:53:00.800
to meet in the middle of its composition. So
00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:04.519
I had very, very different ideas for Sapiens.
00:53:06.889 --> 00:53:08.349
You know, you mentioned when you were reading
00:53:08.349 --> 00:53:11.989
the book in 2020, we had quite a bit of change
00:53:11.989 --> 00:53:16.349
in our particular family circumstances. And the
00:53:16.349 --> 00:53:19.849
idea that when I finished writing the piece in
00:53:19.849 --> 00:53:25.969
21, that we would do some sort of global premiere
00:53:25.969 --> 00:53:28.550
in three different continents with three different
00:53:28.550 --> 00:53:31.090
pianists taking sections of the piece. And we
00:53:31.090 --> 00:53:34.449
do it all on Zoom. And to be perfectly honest.
00:53:35.869 --> 00:53:38.610
I just got overwhelmed by the logistics of doing
00:53:38.610 --> 00:53:40.489
that, and I just didn't have my heart in it.
00:53:40.550 --> 00:53:42.650
I liked the idea. I had three pianists and three
00:53:42.650 --> 00:53:46.329
continents that were willing to take it on, which
00:53:46.329 --> 00:53:49.130
I think would have been very cool. And in the
00:53:49.130 --> 00:53:52.190
midst of it, I was introduced to Vladimir by
00:53:52.190 --> 00:53:57.269
a dear friend of mine, Shain Wang, who commissioned
00:53:57.269 --> 00:53:59.510
and premiered probably my second largest piano
00:53:59.510 --> 00:54:01.869
piece, which is called Cursive, years ago, for
00:54:01.869 --> 00:54:04.480
Lincoln Center. And Cheyenne is on the faculty
00:54:04.480 --> 00:54:06.880
at Manus too. And she said, you have to hear
00:54:06.880 --> 00:54:10.119
this guy, Vladimir Rumyantsev. He's one of the
00:54:10.119 --> 00:54:13.639
handful of people that I think could really play
00:54:13.639 --> 00:54:21.139
your massive piece of music and realize and articulate
00:54:21.139 --> 00:54:26.480
your ambitions for it. We were at the time, my
00:54:26.480 --> 00:54:28.559
daughter was at Interlochen Arts Academy. We
00:54:28.559 --> 00:54:30.880
were living, I was in residence there. We were
00:54:30.880 --> 00:54:33.260
living temporarily in Northern Michigan, supporting
00:54:33.260 --> 00:54:37.099
her. And Cheyenne sent me a clip of him playing
00:54:37.099 --> 00:54:40.840
one section, Confirmation Bias, actually. And
00:54:40.840 --> 00:54:42.559
I said I had to meet him when I come back to
00:54:42.559 --> 00:54:45.719
New York. So I met him, we hit it off. He gave
00:54:45.719 --> 00:54:48.800
the premiere here in New York. We did the recording
00:54:48.800 --> 00:54:51.300
at the Sono Luminous Studios in February of last
00:54:51.300 --> 00:54:55.489
year, which is in Virginia. And we, as I mentioned
00:54:55.489 --> 00:54:57.530
in the fall, did a little tour in Chicago and
00:54:57.530 --> 00:55:01.849
New York where he performed a piece, I lectured
00:55:01.849 --> 00:55:04.329
and talked about it, did some interviews, and
00:55:04.329 --> 00:55:06.670
it's just been such a great experience because
00:55:06.670 --> 00:55:10.329
he is truly one of, I mean, I've been blessed
00:55:10.329 --> 00:55:12.829
to work with a lot of brilliant musicians, especially
00:55:12.829 --> 00:55:15.849
pianists, it seems, and he just, there's nothing
00:55:15.849 --> 00:55:19.889
in his, nothing seems to intimidate him at all.
00:55:21.150 --> 00:55:24.250
incredible memory for Tempe that I do not have
00:55:24.250 --> 00:55:28.230
at all. And, well, in fact, everything about
00:55:28.230 --> 00:55:30.769
him is exactly what I love about him. I don't
00:55:30.769 --> 00:55:34.650
possess it on myself. So it's really been such
00:55:34.650 --> 00:55:38.190
a great experience. So he's, we wouldn't be here,
00:55:38.210 --> 00:55:39.809
wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't
00:55:39.809 --> 00:55:43.090
for Vladimir. And just out of curiosity, have
00:55:43.090 --> 00:55:45.769
you ever had any direct contact with the author,
00:55:45.969 --> 00:55:49.969
Harari, Mr. Harari? So, not direct with him,
00:55:50.050 --> 00:55:53.090
but I do have the permission from his publisher
00:55:53.090 --> 00:55:58.210
and for Sapienship, which is the nonprofit organization
00:55:58.210 --> 00:56:03.409
that Harari started to promote the ideas and
00:56:03.409 --> 00:56:06.630
the vision and the book several years ago. Before
00:56:06.630 --> 00:56:08.869
I really got, well, I shouldn't say before I
00:56:08.869 --> 00:56:12.429
got started, while I was started and, you know,
00:56:12.429 --> 00:56:14.150
really thought that this was going to come together,
00:56:14.210 --> 00:56:16.429
I contacted them and it took a while for me to
00:56:16.429 --> 00:56:19.400
really. pin them down but they gave me the blessing
00:56:19.400 --> 00:56:21.500
to utilize the work and the inspiration of the
00:56:21.500 --> 00:56:24.039
book provided that the author was acknowledged
00:56:24.039 --> 00:56:26.960
which well certainly he is in every interview
00:56:26.960 --> 00:56:29.980
I do and every piece of text that we write about
00:56:29.980 --> 00:56:33.239
it's inspired by him but I've not yet met him
00:56:33.239 --> 00:56:35.900
directly and I would have to say I would love
00:56:35.900 --> 00:56:40.260
to yeah and he should listen to your music he
00:56:40.260 --> 00:56:44.469
might have already I hope so. I've sent it to
00:56:44.469 --> 00:56:47.389
him and to his people, and they're very, very
00:56:47.389 --> 00:56:50.730
aware of it, but I haven't heard back yet. So
00:56:50.730 --> 00:56:53.929
you mentioned you've been traveling, touring
00:56:53.929 --> 00:56:57.469
with the pianist Vladimir with the piece, right?
00:56:57.590 --> 00:57:03.449
So he is performing, and at the same time, are
00:57:03.449 --> 00:57:06.489
you giving some sort of lecture, master class
00:57:06.489 --> 00:57:10.829
together? Yes, so we did that at the Manus School.
00:57:11.420 --> 00:57:15.000
um where i met you a few months ago um you know
00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:18.179
basically a lecture demonstration on my inspiration
00:57:18.179 --> 00:57:20.139
for the piece and some of the signposts that
00:57:20.139 --> 00:57:22.960
to listen throughout it he of course performs
00:57:22.960 --> 00:57:25.360
it we did a somewhat similar thing in chicago
00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:28.380
at a very cool new venue called the checkout
00:57:28.380 --> 00:57:32.000
uh in early september that was more of an interview
00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:35.440
with seth bausted who runs um access contemporary
00:57:35.440 --> 00:57:38.280
music there and is the owner of the venue um
00:57:38.280 --> 00:57:42.800
so We like to be able to do this as a sort of
00:57:42.800 --> 00:57:47.280
collaborative thing where I don't touch the piano
00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:49.159
at all, but I'm happy to talk about the piece
00:57:49.159 --> 00:57:51.460
and the inspiration behind it, and he's happy
00:57:51.460 --> 00:57:54.480
to play it. We'd like to do more. We do have
00:57:54.480 --> 00:57:58.780
Wigmore Hall in London on our horizons. I don't
00:57:58.780 --> 00:58:00.679
have anything firm yet, though I did meet with
00:58:00.679 --> 00:58:03.420
him two weeks ago and at least planted the seed,
00:58:03.519 --> 00:58:07.539
so I'm hopeful at some point. We may be able
00:58:07.539 --> 00:58:10.460
to make that a reality sometime in the next couple
00:58:10.460 --> 00:58:14.380
of years. It has not yet been played in Europe
00:58:14.380 --> 00:58:16.719
or Asia or anywhere else for that matter. So
00:58:16.719 --> 00:58:20.719
my hope is that the recording will, like any
00:58:20.719 --> 00:58:24.119
recording should, give it life outside, you know,
00:58:24.119 --> 00:58:27.820
my feeble little head in the hands of one performer.
00:58:28.340 --> 00:58:30.480
And hopefully, you know, others will be inspired
00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:34.039
to play it too. There's surely a ton of great
00:58:34.039 --> 00:58:36.460
pianists that could make something of it. I would
00:58:36.460 --> 00:58:38.260
love to continue working with Vladimir and we
00:58:38.260 --> 00:58:43.320
definitely will. But, you know, we really want
00:58:43.320 --> 00:58:45.719
to expand it into performances in other parts
00:58:45.719 --> 00:58:48.000
of the world and discussions if they're merited.
00:58:48.800 --> 00:58:52.760
Yes. Yeah. And then I saw, I think, photo or
00:58:52.760 --> 00:58:57.280
video of you at Manus with the piano. And then
00:58:57.280 --> 00:59:00.360
also I saw, how do you call it, projector or
00:59:00.360 --> 00:59:04.449
screen. showing the but have you ever done any
00:59:04.449 --> 00:59:06.510
of these things like where there's a picture
00:59:06.510 --> 00:59:08.889
showing while performing or something like that
00:59:08.889 --> 00:59:11.409
or have you thought of it i have thought of it
00:59:11.409 --> 00:59:13.210
and i have to say i hadn't thought of it before
00:59:13.210 --> 00:59:15.110
that and that's problematic because a couple
00:59:15.110 --> 00:59:17.389
people came after up to me after that show and
00:59:17.389 --> 00:59:21.349
said like you know this is great great talk great
00:59:21.349 --> 00:59:23.329
thing that you had the image of the album which
00:59:23.329 --> 00:59:29.070
is you know right here um right up there But
00:59:29.070 --> 00:59:32.929
what you didn't have is, at the very least, letting
00:59:32.929 --> 00:59:36.489
me know what section I'm in. Because even though
00:59:36.489 --> 00:59:38.949
there are pauses between all but one of the movements,
00:59:39.190 --> 00:59:43.429
the people weren't really clear where they were.
00:59:43.630 --> 00:59:46.309
And a couple of people said, wow, the piece sounded
00:59:46.309 --> 00:59:48.030
shorter than it was. I can't believe that was
00:59:48.030 --> 00:59:52.030
52 minutes or whatever it was. So at the very
00:59:52.030 --> 00:59:53.929
least, I would like to do something where we
00:59:53.929 --> 00:59:56.550
can indicate the movement sections in sort of
00:59:56.550 --> 00:59:59.800
an AV. type presentation and maybe just maybe
00:59:59.800 --> 01:00:04.219
um if we want to uh you know i would love to
01:00:04.219 --> 01:00:07.960
one day commission someone to do a film to accompany
01:00:07.960 --> 01:00:13.780
uh accompany this i have a um colleague who i've
01:00:13.780 --> 01:00:15.340
met within the last couple years actually met
01:00:15.340 --> 01:00:17.780
him at another piano recital that i had of another
01:00:17.780 --> 01:00:21.920
piece of mine uh early last year his name is
01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:25.659
j henry fair And he does an enormous amount of
01:00:25.659 --> 01:00:29.159
film and video and photography taken from airplanes
01:00:29.159 --> 01:00:33.380
and helicopters. And his focus is on what man
01:00:33.380 --> 01:00:37.360
has done to the landscape of the world. So there's
01:00:37.360 --> 01:00:42.579
a lot of very interesting river deltas and polluted
01:00:42.579 --> 01:00:45.199
and degraded landscapes and mine tailings and
01:00:45.199 --> 01:00:46.780
things like that. It might be a little depressive.
01:00:47.400 --> 01:00:48.980
um but there's certainly a lot of inspiration
01:00:48.980 --> 01:00:51.820
that we could you know maybe look at uh for something
01:00:51.820 --> 01:00:53.699
down the road so yes i would like to do that
01:00:53.699 --> 01:00:57.980
for sure yeah it would be amazing such a great
01:00:57.980 --> 01:01:01.920
piece so as a pianist you know but as a composer
01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:04.920
do you hope the pianist to play the in its entirety
01:01:04.920 --> 01:01:10.000
in back to back in order in one concert or can
01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:14.019
we play maybe one separately Well, as I mentioned,
01:01:14.139 --> 01:01:16.519
the confirmation bias was performed a couple
01:01:16.519 --> 01:01:18.940
of times by Vladimir on its own as part of a
01:01:18.940 --> 01:01:21.679
recital program with Mozart and Haydn and Chopin
01:01:21.679 --> 01:01:23.800
or whatever else. And I think that's just fine.
01:01:23.900 --> 01:01:26.099
I would prefer it performed as a whole piece,
01:01:26.239 --> 01:01:30.000
but I would never, well, I don't think in any
01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:32.260
case of anything I've ever written, say that
01:01:32.260 --> 01:01:36.679
it would be not right to play a section of a
01:01:36.679 --> 01:01:40.710
piece. Two of my concertos that I've written
01:01:40.710 --> 01:01:43.130
have been excerpted. The final movement has been
01:01:43.130 --> 01:01:47.690
played of each, which I felt was just fine. I
01:01:47.690 --> 01:01:50.530
don't really consider this a multi -movement
01:01:50.530 --> 01:01:53.010
piece, but it really is a multi -sectional piece.
01:01:53.369 --> 01:01:55.969
So I think if someone feels particularly connected
01:01:55.969 --> 01:01:58.630
to one or more sections of the piece, by all
01:01:58.630 --> 01:02:01.329
means, you have my blessing as a composer, for
01:02:01.329 --> 01:02:05.159
sure. Is the score available? It sure is. For
01:02:05.159 --> 01:02:07.219
anyone who asked me, I send it out all the time
01:02:07.219 --> 01:02:10.840
via my website. It's not there present on the
01:02:10.840 --> 01:02:14.539
website to view in its entirety. There are, I
01:02:14.539 --> 01:02:17.519
believe, segments of it. But for anybody who
01:02:17.519 --> 01:02:21.059
wishes to contact me directly, I'm happy to share
01:02:21.059 --> 01:02:24.719
it with anybody. I work with a couple of different
01:02:24.719 --> 01:02:27.679
publishers, but much of my work is published
01:02:27.679 --> 01:02:31.119
in my own company called Cantabile, and I make
01:02:31.119 --> 01:02:33.940
it available freely. and without charge to anyone
01:02:33.940 --> 01:02:36.920
who wants any of my piano work. So it's just
01:02:36.920 --> 01:02:43.059
reach out to me. So how can we be in touch with
01:02:43.059 --> 01:02:46.119
you? Is there a website, SeanHickey .com? SeanHickey
01:02:46.119 --> 01:02:49.619
.com is there. Contact me, Paige. Send me your
01:02:49.619 --> 01:02:52.579
info. I'll get the email, and either I or my
01:02:52.579 --> 01:02:55.579
assistant will have it emailed. And for those
01:02:55.579 --> 01:02:59.119
that want it printed and bound. Just require
01:02:59.119 --> 01:03:02.420
a bit of postage for that. We can ship that out.
01:03:02.500 --> 01:03:05.420
That's not a problem. And then where can we listen
01:03:05.420 --> 01:03:09.500
to your music? So you can, and I hope others
01:03:09.500 --> 01:03:11.820
do, follow me wherever you listen to music on
01:03:11.820 --> 01:03:14.679
any of the platforms. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon.
01:03:15.880 --> 01:03:18.820
If you go to my website, SeanHickey .com, you
01:03:18.820 --> 01:03:22.280
will see listen links and buy links for most
01:03:22.280 --> 01:03:24.639
of the recordings I have. Sapiens, I believe,
01:03:24.760 --> 01:03:29.260
is my 12th commercially available. I had another
01:03:29.260 --> 01:03:32.400
one earlier this year, another piece on a program
01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:38.440
this year, interesting program. So wherever you
01:03:38.440 --> 01:03:41.380
listen, you can find me. I would encourage your
01:03:41.380 --> 01:03:44.480
viewers and your listeners to follow me on Spotify
01:03:44.480 --> 01:03:47.940
or wherever they normally listen to music. The
01:03:47.940 --> 01:03:49.440
vast majority of the people, and this is what
01:03:49.440 --> 01:03:54.059
I do in my other job, stream where access is
01:03:54.059 --> 01:03:57.409
more important than ownership. In our world of
01:03:57.409 --> 01:04:01.130
streaming, you can access my music anywhere and
01:04:01.130 --> 01:04:02.909
it's as easy for you as it is for the person
01:04:02.909 --> 01:04:05.809
next door. But for those that really want to
01:04:05.809 --> 01:04:08.869
buy and purchase and experience the physical
01:04:08.869 --> 01:04:11.690
manifestation of the piece, again, that's it
01:04:11.690 --> 01:04:16.170
right there. You will be able to buy that wherever
01:04:16.170 --> 01:04:19.190
records are sold. So Amazon record stores or
01:04:19.190 --> 01:04:23.420
via the website sonoluminous .com. record label
01:04:23.420 --> 01:04:25.900
based in Virginia run by a dear friend of mine,
01:04:25.980 --> 01:04:29.139
Colin Ray, who really got behind the recording
01:04:29.139 --> 01:04:32.320
of this piece when I first presented it to him.
01:04:32.460 --> 01:04:36.280
So sonoluminous .com as well. Sonoluminous .com.
01:04:36.360 --> 01:04:39.599
Great. Thank you so much. Is there anything else
01:04:39.599 --> 01:04:43.719
you want to mention about this album, Sapiens?
01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:48.059
I think I just encourage people to listen, to
01:04:48.059 --> 01:04:50.260
listen critically. It doesn't necessarily need
01:04:50.260 --> 01:04:53.840
a program at all. hopefully to enjoy it. I think
01:04:53.840 --> 01:04:57.159
it lends itself a lot to greater enjoyment if
01:04:57.159 --> 01:05:00.219
you do have an understanding of the program and,
01:05:00.300 --> 01:05:04.940
you know, all of my sort of reasons for doing
01:05:04.940 --> 01:05:07.460
it as this piano is the sort of meta instrument
01:05:07.460 --> 01:05:10.980
as voyeur and witness to history, not just our
01:05:10.980 --> 01:05:14.199
deep, deep past, but our present and maybe our
01:05:14.199 --> 01:05:17.179
future as well, united in the sort of common
01:05:17.179 --> 01:05:22.179
cause. But ultimately, I think people can and
01:05:22.179 --> 01:05:25.059
should enjoy it without understanding or knowledge
01:05:25.059 --> 01:05:27.940
of that program. I just want to have this particular
01:05:27.940 --> 01:05:30.699
piece have a bigger and better and greater life
01:05:30.699 --> 01:05:33.099
beyond the handful of performances that it's
01:05:33.099 --> 01:05:34.679
had and beyond this recording, which I'm very
01:05:34.679 --> 01:05:37.840
happy with. So I encourage others to pick it
01:05:37.840 --> 01:05:39.960
up. I encourage others to listen. I hope people
01:05:39.960 --> 01:05:43.420
reach out to me via my website. And stay tuned
01:05:43.420 --> 01:05:59.070
for more. So now I want to change the subject.
01:06:00.110 --> 01:06:05.869
With over 20 years at Naxos and now leading Pentatone,
01:06:05.889 --> 01:06:08.590
which is an independent record label, you've
01:06:08.590 --> 01:06:11.690
seen countless records come and go, I'm sure.
01:06:12.010 --> 01:06:15.789
So in your experience, what is the secret sauce
01:06:15.789 --> 01:06:20.309
that allows a record to transcend its era and
01:06:20.309 --> 01:06:24.869
become truly timeless? Well, I would direct...
01:06:25.070 --> 01:06:26.949
your listeners attention to an article i wrote
01:06:26.949 --> 01:06:29.110
recently which you'll find on linkedin and also
01:06:29.110 --> 01:06:31.690
on the pentatone website the news section of
01:06:31.690 --> 01:06:34.309
the pentatone website and the title of the article
01:06:34.309 --> 01:06:39.750
is release rationale why and why now and um this
01:06:39.750 --> 01:06:42.469
i think relates to sapiens and there's a good
01:06:42.469 --> 01:06:46.570
segue from sapiens um the the whole point of
01:06:46.570 --> 01:06:49.070
a successful recording in this industry and you're
01:06:49.070 --> 01:06:50.929
right i've been in it for more than three decades
01:06:50.929 --> 01:06:54.630
is uh Storytelling needs to be at the heart and
01:06:54.630 --> 01:06:57.429
the center of everything a recording artist must
01:06:57.429 --> 01:07:01.650
do. A recording should never be a list. It should
01:07:01.650 --> 01:07:05.590
never be a concert program unless that concert
01:07:05.590 --> 01:07:09.329
program has storytelling at its heart. And in
01:07:09.329 --> 01:07:12.010
that particular article, I did my best to articulate.
01:07:12.150 --> 01:07:16.010
So at Pentaton, you can imagine we receive roughly
01:07:16.010 --> 01:07:20.130
a dozen or more submissions every week from unknown
01:07:20.130 --> 01:07:21.989
artists to some of the biggest artists in the
01:07:21.989 --> 01:07:24.329
world. big, big names that you and your listeners
01:07:24.329 --> 01:07:27.769
will know very, very well. And sadly, many of
01:07:27.769 --> 01:07:30.909
them don't put a whole lot of thought into, you
01:07:30.909 --> 01:07:35.730
know, what is important to them. On the piano
01:07:35.730 --> 01:07:38.409
over here, I have tacked up on the side of it
01:07:38.409 --> 01:07:41.869
something that I is there to remind myself, but
01:07:41.869 --> 01:07:43.590
it's a quote from Arnold Schoenberg, who's not
01:07:43.590 --> 01:07:46.610
a composer I feel particularly simpatico with
01:07:46.610 --> 01:07:49.719
necessarily. But he said one great thing is that
01:07:49.719 --> 01:07:51.940
one must be convinced of the infallibility of
01:07:51.940 --> 01:07:55.099
one's own fantasy, which is another way of saying
01:07:55.099 --> 01:07:59.300
be yourself, right? Be your best authentic self.
01:07:59.460 --> 01:08:02.420
And, you know, that's really the thing. A couple
01:08:02.420 --> 01:08:05.360
of calls I had before you are with a couple of
01:08:05.360 --> 01:08:07.699
rather notable artists that I had to kind of
01:08:07.699 --> 01:08:10.519
say, you know, let's flesh out your idea a little
01:08:10.519 --> 01:08:13.960
more. Let's understand a little more about what
01:08:13.960 --> 01:08:18.170
you're trying to do and trying to say. There
01:08:18.170 --> 01:08:21.489
are roughly 6 ,000 commercially available classical
01:08:21.489 --> 01:08:24.729
music recordings released annually. That's how
01:08:24.729 --> 01:08:27.630
many there were last year. I am the chair of
01:08:27.630 --> 01:08:30.689
one of the Recording Academy committees for composition.
01:08:30.970 --> 01:08:36.810
I'm the chair of that. We reviewed over 2 ,000
01:08:36.810 --> 01:08:40.829
submissions in classical, which is, I'm told,
01:08:40.970 --> 01:08:45.979
more than twice hip -hop and rock. You know,
01:08:46.020 --> 01:08:48.340
there's a huge amount of music being written.
01:08:48.699 --> 01:08:51.079
There's a huge amount of music being recorded.
01:08:51.159 --> 01:08:52.899
And there's a huge amount of music being released
01:08:52.899 --> 01:08:55.220
every year. And in order for your particular
01:08:55.220 --> 01:08:59.420
project and the infallibility of one's fantasy
01:08:59.420 --> 01:09:02.239
to stand out is to put storytelling, I think,
01:09:02.239 --> 01:09:05.560
at the heart of everything that you wish to do.
01:09:05.760 --> 01:09:08.260
And when you do that, there's a lot more interest
01:09:08.260 --> 01:09:10.140
from media. There's a lot more interest from
01:09:10.140 --> 01:09:13.039
our DSP partners, Spotify, Apple, et cetera.
01:09:13.940 --> 01:09:17.539
And it makes our job easier because we help tell
01:09:17.539 --> 01:09:20.100
the story with the artist. And at Pentatone,
01:09:20.159 --> 01:09:22.859
we have 11 -person staff. We have in -house sales,
01:09:22.979 --> 01:09:26.680
marketing, PR, communication infrastructure that
01:09:26.680 --> 01:09:30.979
routinely teases out of the artist why is it
01:09:30.979 --> 01:09:33.520
that they do what they do, what makes it important.
01:09:33.739 --> 01:09:37.720
Why is what you do unique in the world? I mean,
01:09:37.739 --> 01:09:39.840
as you know, there's surely a lot of people in
01:09:39.840 --> 01:09:41.239
the world that can play Chopin on the piano.
01:09:42.600 --> 01:09:44.600
And it takes nothing away from the talent of
01:09:44.600 --> 01:09:46.239
any one of them. It certainly takes nothing away
01:09:46.239 --> 01:09:48.819
from the brilliance of that particular composer,
01:09:48.979 --> 01:09:51.260
because in my mind, he's more brilliant the more
01:09:51.260 --> 01:09:56.899
you listen. But one must ask why, and related
01:09:56.899 --> 01:09:59.619
to that, why now? And then maybe related to that
01:09:59.619 --> 01:10:03.380
second question, why me? And if you can't fully
01:10:03.380 --> 01:10:05.319
answer that question, it's probably not time
01:10:05.319 --> 01:10:08.300
to necessarily make a recording, or maybe time
01:10:08.300 --> 01:10:10.800
to make something that... is a little different
01:10:10.800 --> 01:10:13.720
than what you had set out to do. That's a huge
01:10:13.720 --> 01:10:16.880
part of my public speaking work. And my work
01:10:16.880 --> 01:10:19.520
at Pentatone is discussing that with artists
01:10:19.520 --> 01:10:24.199
around the world. Wow, that's incredible. So
01:10:24.199 --> 01:10:28.920
you also teach entrepreneurship to fellow musicians.
01:10:29.079 --> 01:10:32.319
I've seen the video before on social media. And
01:10:32.319 --> 01:10:36.159
so what you know about with the streaming and...
01:10:36.380 --> 01:10:38.359
also we have to think about sustainability as
01:10:38.359 --> 01:10:42.439
an artist and then ai is creating also music
01:10:42.439 --> 01:10:45.899
these days i guess so from everything you've
01:10:45.899 --> 01:10:50.640
seen as a musician and also as a someone who
01:10:50.640 --> 01:10:55.399
who's a ceo of pentatone music so do you still
01:10:55.869 --> 01:10:58.909
feel hopeful about our industry music making
01:10:58.909 --> 01:11:03.210
well what do you think yeah yeah i wouldn't be
01:11:03.210 --> 01:11:04.789
in it if i wasn't hopeful because i think as
01:11:04.789 --> 01:11:06.550
i mentioned earlier i wanted to end my piece
01:11:06.550 --> 01:11:10.210
with some degree of hope uh and i definitely
01:11:10.210 --> 01:11:13.390
believe because i choose to believe that there
01:11:13.390 --> 01:11:16.630
is a lot of hope i mean uh the one thing that
01:11:16.630 --> 01:11:21.449
uh you know i did not I am not streaming native
01:11:21.449 --> 01:11:24.670
and I'm not iPhone native, but those that are
01:11:24.670 --> 01:11:28.949
20 years younger than me are. And I very distinctly
01:11:28.949 --> 01:11:31.630
remember a time as I worked in one that people
01:11:31.630 --> 01:11:34.430
discovered music in two ways, either on the radio
01:11:34.430 --> 01:11:37.930
or going to a record store. Or a third way, a
01:11:37.930 --> 01:11:40.529
friend turned you on to a particular thing. All
01:11:40.529 --> 01:11:42.229
of those things are valid now. They still very
01:11:42.229 --> 01:11:47.689
much exist. But the fact that streaming opens.
01:11:48.430 --> 01:11:51.710
you know the window to the world's music and
01:11:51.710 --> 01:11:54.470
you know with the access you know just your particular
01:11:54.470 --> 01:11:58.189
device to be able in moments notice to be listening
01:11:58.189 --> 01:12:01.050
to something that you haven't heard of or you're
01:12:01.050 --> 01:12:03.229
curious about this artist or this composer or
01:12:03.229 --> 01:12:06.170
that work and to be able to do it just at a at
01:12:06.170 --> 01:12:09.029
a touch of a button is something we take for
01:12:09.029 --> 01:12:11.310
granted but it's utterly utterly revolutionary
01:12:11.310 --> 01:12:13.609
of course same is true with video same is true
01:12:13.609 --> 01:12:16.050
with on -demand anything same is true with delivery
01:12:16.050 --> 01:12:18.989
of You know, whatever your next meal is going
01:12:18.989 --> 01:12:21.090
to be, you know, being able to dream it and envision
01:12:21.090 --> 01:12:22.510
it. And if you live in New York, it's probably
01:12:22.510 --> 01:12:26.130
at your front door in an hour. So all of these
01:12:26.130 --> 01:12:28.470
things are quite revolutionary. And someone who's
01:12:28.470 --> 01:12:31.609
my age, I don't ever want to lose the sort of
01:12:31.609 --> 01:12:37.069
sense of wonder that we have with this development
01:12:37.069 --> 01:12:41.329
of technology. There certainly are threats. I
01:12:41.329 --> 01:12:44.130
feel, and I've written about this too, there's
01:12:44.130 --> 01:12:47.350
both huge threats and huge opportunity as a result
01:12:47.350 --> 01:12:51.750
of AI. The biggest threat that I think AI poses
01:12:51.750 --> 01:12:56.289
from the issue of rights is the ability to take
01:12:56.289 --> 01:12:58.310
money out of the pockets of music rights holders,
01:12:58.489 --> 01:13:01.590
which is to say songwriters and composers and
01:13:01.590 --> 01:13:04.770
record labels. Because right now, if you're,
01:13:05.069 --> 01:13:08.109
say, a music director of a production company,
01:13:08.829 --> 01:13:10.670
and you have a particular scene in your movie
01:13:10.670 --> 01:13:15.729
that you need um whatever seven seconds of quasi
01:13:15.729 --> 01:13:19.689
eastern sounding violin music uh that starts
01:13:19.689 --> 01:13:21.710
quietly and ends loudly and maybe there's a choir
01:13:21.710 --> 01:13:25.550
in the last four seconds um that is a question
01:13:25.550 --> 01:13:28.850
that we at pentatone get almost every day and
01:13:28.850 --> 01:13:32.189
uh just as an example of one and we might have
01:13:32.189 --> 01:13:34.850
a number of hours only to respond to it with
01:13:34.850 --> 01:13:38.909
the knowledge of our catalog AI can crawl our
01:13:38.909 --> 01:13:42.329
catalog and determine what is the most suitable
01:13:42.329 --> 01:13:45.989
stuff that might fit that particular spec. But
01:13:45.989 --> 01:13:49.029
to take it further, right now, artificial intelligence
01:13:49.029 --> 01:13:52.029
can produce exactly that on spec in a matter
01:13:52.029 --> 01:13:54.409
of seconds, and there's no rights behind it at
01:13:54.409 --> 01:13:57.890
all. So there's no remuneration for a creator
01:13:57.890 --> 01:13:59.869
because there is no human creator behind that
01:13:59.869 --> 01:14:02.850
particular seven seconds of music that's used
01:14:02.850 --> 01:14:05.579
in the film. And I think that's very detrimental
01:14:05.579 --> 01:14:07.859
and damaging because it takes the human element.
01:14:08.819 --> 01:14:10.359
You know, if you have a human filmmaker, why
01:14:10.359 --> 01:14:14.560
would you not have a human composer? But all
01:14:14.560 --> 01:14:16.840
of that said, there's also a huge opportunity
01:14:16.840 --> 01:14:20.960
for AI. You know, I think there is quite a lot
01:14:20.960 --> 01:14:22.579
of opportunity and a lot of people use it as
01:14:22.579 --> 01:14:24.939
a compositional tool to organize thoughts, just
01:14:24.939 --> 01:14:29.340
like you might utilize ChatGPT to organize a
01:14:29.340 --> 01:14:33.989
framework or an outline or a bio. You know, the
01:14:33.989 --> 01:14:36.489
same is true, you know, in music. It's not necessarily
01:14:36.489 --> 01:14:39.069
something that I personally want to do, but I
01:14:39.069 --> 01:14:41.130
don't make a value judgment on those that do.
01:14:42.090 --> 01:14:46.829
And a number of other things. I mean, AI, as
01:14:46.829 --> 01:14:49.189
far as I'm concerned, if AI can do anything really
01:14:49.189 --> 01:14:53.050
good and lasting in this or any lifetime is find
01:14:53.050 --> 01:14:55.529
a cure for the diseases that ravage our world,
01:14:55.590 --> 01:14:58.569
starting with cancer. Almost everybody I know
01:14:58.569 --> 01:15:00.569
has been touched by cancer in one way or another.
01:15:00.970 --> 01:15:04.779
And if it can do that. by replicating quickly
01:15:04.779 --> 01:15:07.079
and methodically all of the things that human
01:15:07.079 --> 01:15:09.979
beings have been slow relatively to do thus far,
01:15:10.180 --> 01:15:13.380
whatever damage it might cause music and the
01:15:13.380 --> 01:15:16.840
creators might increase longevity. And is that
01:15:16.840 --> 01:15:18.800
a trade -off that we're willing to make? I would
01:15:18.800 --> 01:15:21.699
say that many people would be okay with that.
01:15:22.279 --> 01:15:25.659
But that is, you know, AI is something that we
01:15:25.659 --> 01:15:28.359
deal with and talk about all the time in the
01:15:28.359 --> 01:15:33.409
record industry. Yeah. It's a really scary thought,
01:15:33.729 --> 01:15:42.689
but I don't think AI can ever recreate us, our
01:15:42.689 --> 01:15:46.630
stories, and I don't know. I'm still hopeful.
01:15:46.810 --> 01:15:48.649
I don't know that it can recreate either, but
01:15:48.649 --> 01:15:50.850
I was at a conference two, if not three years
01:15:50.850 --> 01:15:54.130
ago, where there was a music panel on AI. I wasn't
01:15:54.130 --> 01:15:56.850
part of it, but I was in the audience, and a
01:15:56.850 --> 01:16:02.369
woman played, started her talk with a piece of
01:16:02.369 --> 01:16:04.789
music, play 30 seconds of music, and then 30
01:16:04.789 --> 01:16:07.869
seconds of another piece of music, and ask the
01:16:07.869 --> 01:16:11.329
audience to identify which one was AI -generated.
01:16:11.489 --> 01:16:14.729
And it was quasi -Baroque -sounding, maybe Italian
01:16:14.729 --> 01:16:17.130
to me. It was Vivaldi or maybe Corelli or something
01:16:17.130 --> 01:16:19.729
like that, though I couldn't recognize the piece,
01:16:19.930 --> 01:16:24.310
not that I would. And the answer in the end was
01:16:24.310 --> 01:16:28.449
both of them were. And, you know, these kind
01:16:28.449 --> 01:16:32.819
of experiments are replicated. quite a bit. We
01:16:32.819 --> 01:16:39.659
don't know what the future has in these areas.
01:16:40.600 --> 01:16:42.939
For me, the most important thing is to do all
01:16:42.939 --> 01:16:44.659
we can to protect the rights of the creators
01:16:44.659 --> 01:16:47.899
and the rights of the people that try to guide
01:16:47.899 --> 01:16:49.880
the creators, the labels, the distribution entities,
01:16:50.920 --> 01:16:54.239
everybody in the sort of music ecosystem that
01:16:54.239 --> 01:16:57.119
helps us translate our ideas into commercial
01:16:57.119 --> 01:17:03.510
realization. When humanity looks back, hopefully
01:17:03.510 --> 01:17:06.689
there's humanity still, decades or hundreds of
01:17:06.689 --> 01:17:09.890
years from now, and when your music outlives
01:17:09.890 --> 01:17:14.289
us, how would you like sapiens to be remembered?
01:17:15.850 --> 01:17:19.949
That's a good question. Well, I guess I would
01:17:19.949 --> 01:17:22.850
like to think ultimately that this is my small
01:17:22.850 --> 01:17:25.930
contribution and the overall scope of humankind
01:17:25.930 --> 01:17:29.039
to... you know presents something that i hope
01:17:29.039 --> 01:17:31.680
is hopeful and lasting and which is no different
01:17:31.680 --> 01:17:36.220
than uh the beethoven symphony or what have you
01:17:36.220 --> 01:17:38.539
not to equate myself with beethoven but i mean
01:17:38.539 --> 01:17:41.760
he and i i think have taken on some pretty ambitious
01:17:41.760 --> 01:17:46.300
and broad and universal concepts um and that
01:17:46.300 --> 01:17:48.640
i hope sapiens is you know viewed in that light
01:17:48.640 --> 01:17:50.939
but i also hope that it's uh you know that my
01:17:50.939 --> 01:17:54.140
work is um something that ultimately i mean i
01:17:54.140 --> 01:17:58.039
hate to be dispassionate about it But it's the
01:17:58.039 --> 01:18:00.140
work that I need to do. It's the work that makes
01:18:00.140 --> 01:18:02.939
me who I am. I can't imagine a life where I'm
01:18:02.939 --> 01:18:06.579
not doing it. I can't imagine living and not
01:18:06.579 --> 01:18:08.779
making music. I've been doing it since I was
01:18:08.779 --> 01:18:13.920
a child. And, you know, I just hope that others
01:18:13.920 --> 01:18:15.760
can find some sort of fulfillment, some sort
01:18:15.760 --> 01:18:17.680
of enjoyment, and maybe some recognition of themselves
01:18:17.680 --> 01:18:23.659
in it, especially as I try to tackle some particular
01:18:23.659 --> 01:18:29.479
concepts. that I think you don't necessarily
01:18:29.479 --> 01:18:32.380
need to have a whole lot of knowledge of those
01:18:32.380 --> 01:18:35.039
particular concepts, but it might help you, like
01:18:35.039 --> 01:18:37.920
the Sapiens, understand a bit more of the reasons
01:18:37.920 --> 01:18:41.720
behind everything. I think there's an issue with
01:18:41.720 --> 01:18:44.500
classical music broadly that some people feel
01:18:44.500 --> 01:18:47.779
that you have to have a huge amount of knowledge
01:18:47.779 --> 01:18:49.779
to really understand and appreciate the music,
01:18:49.819 --> 01:18:52.460
and I do not believe that to be true. I do not
01:18:52.460 --> 01:18:54.060
believe that you need to know what Brahms had
01:18:54.060 --> 01:18:56.340
for breakfast every morning in Vienna, wherever,
01:18:56.500 --> 01:18:58.899
when he was writing his piano sonata or whatever.
01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:03.119
That might provide some interesting background
01:19:03.119 --> 01:19:05.340
if you ever go to these great places where the
01:19:05.340 --> 01:19:08.119
masters lived and you experience how they might
01:19:08.119 --> 01:19:10.699
have lived a little bit. It does help understand
01:19:10.699 --> 01:19:12.659
it if you're privileged enough to do some of
01:19:12.659 --> 01:19:15.260
those things. But classical music requires one
01:19:15.260 --> 01:19:17.960
thing of you, one thing of the listener overall,
01:19:18.399 --> 01:19:22.020
in my mind, and that's time. Time is incredibly
01:19:22.020 --> 01:19:26.779
valuable, and it seems our intention spans continue
01:19:26.779 --> 01:19:31.279
to contract and get shorter, not because we want
01:19:31.279 --> 01:19:32.859
them, but because the world is saying, like,
01:19:32.859 --> 01:19:34.039
we're going to give you more and more and more
01:19:34.039 --> 01:19:37.180
and more. And music is codified into a really
01:19:37.180 --> 01:19:40.600
horrible word. I call it the C word, and that's
01:19:40.600 --> 01:19:45.640
content. And my music is not your content. My
01:19:45.640 --> 01:19:48.960
music is mine. Only I can do it, at least I believe
01:19:48.960 --> 01:19:53.189
so. And, you know, anyone's music is their art.
01:19:53.250 --> 01:19:56.029
It's no one's content. Content is a term utilized
01:19:56.029 --> 01:19:58.829
by the tech companies, by big tech to, you know,
01:19:58.829 --> 01:20:02.630
overlord all of the creative activities of a
01:20:02.630 --> 01:20:04.909
great many artists throughout human history.
01:20:05.109 --> 01:20:07.729
It's not content. It may look like content. It
01:20:07.729 --> 01:20:10.050
may feel that way. It's another video. It's another
01:20:10.050 --> 01:20:15.010
sound file. It's another stereo file uploaded
01:20:15.010 --> 01:20:18.500
onto a platform. And broadly, yeah, I understand
01:20:18.500 --> 01:20:21.619
what you mean, but that makes music and art sound
01:20:21.619 --> 01:20:23.520
like a potato chip. You know, it's just there
01:20:23.520 --> 01:20:26.359
and you can consume it to your heart's desire.
01:20:26.520 --> 01:20:29.260
And when you're done with it all, how satisfied
01:20:29.260 --> 01:20:33.520
are you? Maybe not too much. Well, thank you
01:20:33.520 --> 01:20:37.100
for answering all these questions. Some of them
01:20:37.100 --> 01:20:40.560
are tough, but I learned a lot. It's a masterclass.
01:20:40.659 --> 01:20:45.159
So tell us what you have coming up. like besides
01:20:45.159 --> 01:20:48.619
touring for the sapien but do you have any other
01:20:48.619 --> 01:20:53.000
uh exciting maybe performances or another new
01:20:53.000 --> 01:20:58.479
endeavor i do indeed yeah so um in april my guitar
01:20:58.479 --> 01:21:02.060
concerto will be premiered it's called congregate
01:21:02.060 --> 01:21:06.409
settings yep And that will be in Miami at the
01:21:06.409 --> 01:21:08.989
Frost School of Music. And it's a rather unorthodox
01:21:08.989 --> 01:21:12.170
concerto in a couple of different ways. It was
01:21:12.170 --> 01:21:14.109
conceived when I was at Interlochen. It was commissioned
01:21:14.109 --> 01:21:17.609
in conjunction with Interlochen, but we're ending
01:21:17.609 --> 01:21:22.770
up having the premiere elsewhere. And it's a
01:21:22.770 --> 01:21:27.829
two -section work, two -movement work. Two things
01:21:27.829 --> 01:21:30.189
that are different about it is that it's conceived
01:21:30.189 --> 01:21:32.409
one movement for the classical guitar and the
01:21:32.409 --> 01:21:34.470
second movement or second section for the electric
01:21:34.470 --> 01:21:38.550
guitar. And it is not a standard symphony orchestra,
01:21:38.789 --> 01:21:42.310
but a wind symphony. There's a particularly American
01:21:42.310 --> 01:21:45.270
type of ensemble, winds, brass, and percussion,
01:21:45.590 --> 01:21:48.590
and a very large one. So that will have its premiere
01:21:48.590 --> 01:21:52.149
in April in Miami at the Frost School of Music.
01:21:52.869 --> 01:21:56.890
And then I go to Tallinn, Estonia, where I'm
01:21:56.890 --> 01:22:00.609
curating the next Audio Klassik conference, which
01:22:00.609 --> 01:22:03.710
is a great gathering of labels and musicians
01:22:03.710 --> 01:22:07.409
and artists and artist managers. We're just about
01:22:07.409 --> 01:22:10.449
the most notable one in the world that I'm curating
01:22:10.449 --> 01:22:14.750
some of the discussions and panels around. So
01:22:14.750 --> 01:22:16.829
that's happening just coincidentally right around
01:22:16.829 --> 01:22:20.329
that same time. And then my next work is one
01:22:20.329 --> 01:22:23.550
that has been commissioned. by the great violinist
01:22:23.550 --> 01:22:27.170
Philippe Quint, who I've worked with in the past,
01:22:27.289 --> 01:22:29.869
who's commissioned a violin concerto from me,
01:22:29.930 --> 01:22:34.310
which is called Systems of Oppression. And we
01:22:34.310 --> 01:22:36.750
are in the fundraising stage now. We just had
01:22:36.750 --> 01:22:39.010
an appeal go out pretty widely to a group of
01:22:39.010 --> 01:22:42.569
people that we hope to raise funds to produce
01:22:42.569 --> 01:22:45.630
a recording of the work. We have commitments
01:22:45.630 --> 01:22:47.829
from three orchestras in three different countries.
01:22:48.390 --> 01:22:51.289
very excited about uh to give premieres in 27
01:22:51.289 --> 01:22:56.109
28 uh but we uh we're at the fundraising stage
01:22:56.109 --> 01:22:59.210
right now which is uh part of the sort of uh
01:22:59.210 --> 01:23:01.829
i don't know what you call it mechanics of being
01:23:01.829 --> 01:23:05.010
a composer sometimes uh dealing with a lot of
01:23:05.010 --> 01:23:08.109
this uh communication operational stuff yeah
01:23:08.109 --> 01:23:11.569
yeah yeah well that's exciting thank you yeah
01:23:11.569 --> 01:23:15.369
so for our listeners please go to seanhickey
01:23:15.369 --> 01:23:19.170
.com to learn more and also to get get the latest
01:23:19.170 --> 01:23:23.210
updates about Sean's work. Right. Thank you.
01:23:23.210 --> 01:23:26.649
Great. I appreciate it. So it's been a really,
01:23:26.710 --> 01:23:30.850
really wonderful conversation. And so but before
01:23:30.850 --> 01:23:32.810
I let you go, we have one more thing to do. It's
01:23:32.810 --> 01:23:35.829
called the piano part rapid fire questions. And
01:23:35.829 --> 01:23:38.029
I asked some questions. I wanted to answer them
01:23:38.029 --> 01:23:42.829
with the shortest response as possible. No explanation
01:23:42.829 --> 01:23:47.060
is necessary. Just a way to end our conversation
01:23:47.060 --> 01:23:50.279
on a positive note, I guess. I'll try to do short.
01:23:51.159 --> 01:23:55.359
All right. All right. Question number one. What
01:23:55.359 --> 01:24:00.659
is your comfort food? Pizza. Great. How do you
01:24:00.659 --> 01:24:04.300
like your coffee in the morning? Black. Cats
01:24:04.300 --> 01:24:09.420
or dogs? Dogs, though I have two cats. Sunrise
01:24:09.420 --> 01:24:13.720
or sunset? Sunsets. Summer or winter? Summer.
01:24:14.170 --> 01:24:16.649
Okay, level two. It's going to be a little harder.
01:24:17.449 --> 01:24:20.069
What skill have you always wanted to learn but
01:24:20.069 --> 01:24:28.550
haven't had a chance to? Skiing. What is your
01:24:28.550 --> 01:24:34.029
word or words to live by? Have a good time all
01:24:34.029 --> 01:24:41.260
the time. Nice. Favorite venue you have ever
01:24:41.260 --> 01:24:47.460
performed in or dream venue, maybe? That I've
01:24:47.460 --> 01:24:50.100
been in or had my work done in? Probably Whitmore
01:24:50.100 --> 01:24:54.119
Hall in London. What is the most important quality
01:24:54.119 --> 01:25:00.680
you look for in other people? Truth. Name a composer
01:25:00.680 --> 01:25:05.939
you wish more people knew about. Oh, boy. I could
01:25:05.939 --> 01:25:09.640
give a huge range of answers to that one. Picking
01:25:09.640 --> 01:25:12.960
just one, I would say, I don't know, since I
01:25:12.960 --> 01:25:15.420
talked about him earlier, Alberto Ginastera.
01:25:16.439 --> 01:25:19.300
Name one piece in your current playlist. I know
01:25:19.300 --> 01:25:23.140
it's hard. Ooh. Doesn't have to be classical.
01:25:24.819 --> 01:25:29.840
In my current playlist, lately the music of William
01:25:29.840 --> 01:25:36.939
Walton and also Brian Eno. Alright, so the last
01:25:36.939 --> 01:25:40.680
question. Fill in the blank. Music is blank.
01:25:41.659 --> 01:25:47.439
Salvation. Ah, beautiful. Sean, thank you so
01:25:47.439 --> 01:25:49.920
much for joining us today, for sharing your artistry,
01:25:49.920 --> 01:25:52.420
your journey, and thoughtful reflections, and
01:25:52.420 --> 01:25:55.199
congratulations once again for your magnificent
01:25:55.199 --> 01:25:58.180
Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind for the
01:25:58.180 --> 01:26:02.060
Piano Solo. They are amazing pieces and I would
01:26:02.060 --> 01:26:05.520
love for my audience to check them out on SeanHickey
01:26:05.520 --> 01:26:08.920
.com or you can listen to them on everywhere
01:26:08.920 --> 01:26:13.859
on all major streaming platforms. And to everyone
01:26:13.859 --> 01:26:15.979
listening, thank you for spending this time with
01:26:15.979 --> 01:26:18.420
us. I hope this conversation stays with you and
01:26:18.420 --> 01:26:20.819
I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode.
01:26:20.960 --> 01:26:23.539
Feel free to leave a comment or share your thoughts
01:26:23.539 --> 01:26:27.079
on your social media page and tag us at The Piano
01:26:27.079 --> 01:26:30.270
Pod. We'll see you next time on the piano pod
01:26:30.270 --> 01:26:32.770
thank you sean thank you so much i really appreciate
01:26:32.770 --> 01:26:35.710
a great conversation oh wonderful conversation
01:26:35.710 --> 01:26:36.270
thank you