Stanley Grill Composer: An Unexpected Life

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When it first happened to me, I was pretty depressed,
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actually, going, what happened to my music dreams?
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But over the years, I realized that was a happenstance
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of life that turned out to be really positive
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and for the best for me. Because when I was just
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teaching, like I taught at the Manhattan School
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of Music in the prep division for half a dozen
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years. And everybody would sit at lunch and go,
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yep, yep, yep, music, music, music, music, music.
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And I remember sitting there going, life isn't
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just about music. There's got to be something
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else. So I wound up having a whole life of something
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else. It was fascinating and difficult and challenging
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and fun. And it never stymied my music at all
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because afterwards, in a way, it was a benefit.
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Friends I knew who were doing music all day long
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wanted nothing to do with it at the end of the
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day. And me, I was like a pent up tiger wanting
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to burst out of my cage and write music. Hi,
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Stanley. Thanks so much for joining me here today.
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It's a great pleasure to finally get to talk.
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Yes. Well, we've been in touch for a while and
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I've been listening to all your many. albums
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the last couple of years that have come out.
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I know that you wrote a lot during COVID, and
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my listeners know I don't ever like to start
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at the beginning with people. I often like to
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start with something more current. So if we could
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do that, I thought we could start with The Mystic
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Trumpeter. Sure. So inspired by this Walt Whitman
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poem you found, and each part is based on part
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of the poem? So it's a little more complicated
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than that, actually. We're living in a peculiar
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time in America. And I began leafing through
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leaves of grass, looking for something relevant
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to the state of democracy. Because after all,
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he famously lived through the Civil War and accompanied
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Union armies and assisted soldiers who were dying
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in hospital tents. So I was looking for something
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relevant and instead ran across the Mystic Trumpeter,
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which has nothing to do with American democracy.
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It's a much broader subject about just your whole
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relationship to life. And I said, hmm, I'm going
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to do this instead. And I thought about setting
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the words and then ultimately decided not to
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do that. But rather, the trumpeter is such a
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character in that poem. From the first one where
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he talks about a distant trumpeter playing wildly
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somewhere unseen until the end that I decided
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just to write it for trumpet and string orchestra
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instead. That's basically how I accidentally
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came across that poem and decided to do it. And
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it was only afterwards that I started looking
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around and finding out that other composers,
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unsurprisingly, have done things with that same
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poem, including Gustav Holst, who set it for
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soprano and orchestra. And it's a beautiful setting.
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Anyway, it's always good to discover those things
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after you write. Yeah, that's right. Rather than
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before. Yeah. Leaves of Grass was one of his
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prized books. It was one of the first books he
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ever bought, and I have that copy on my bookshelf,
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but I admit I've never read it. Do you have a
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starting place? Should I just start at the beginning?
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Do you love the whole book, or have you just
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sort of delved in? Well, I've read much of it,
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but books like that, my own personal way of reading
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is I take out the volume. And I open it. And
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I start with whatever fell open on that page.
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And I leave through it. It's not meant to be
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read in order. It's not like a prose book or
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a novel. So whatever you find in there, it's
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just one gem after another. The guy is America's
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great ecstatic poet of life. And it's just amazing
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poems. So in terms of the Mystic Trumpeter, there
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are these eight short movements and it features
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Joe Hofbauer. Actually, I was kind of curious.
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So this is the Zagreb Sinfonietta and this received
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a gold medal for composition from the Global
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Music Awards. Congratulations. How did that recording
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project get organized? So I self -fund my recordings.
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And I've been looking for years for people to
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collaborate with. They're affordable for me.
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And the conductor, Miran Valpatic, with Zagreb,
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is a recording orchestra that's set up to do
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remote recording. And I reached out to him, got
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in touch, and I did one previous recording with
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him. Mr. Trumpeter is my second. I did a fantasy
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for piano and string orchestra with him last
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year. And I did it where I'm sitting right at
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this moment with you. I was in communication
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via WhatsApp with his assistant while listening
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with these headphones to his recording session
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and typing comments to his assistant. Or I would
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then hear, speaking in Croatian, saying something.
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And then they would do another take and we'd
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go, oh, that does it, thanks. So I'll probably
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do more with them. I'm planning one for February
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of next year of several string orchestra pieces.
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How wonderful is that? You know, how the internet
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can be a force for good, right? Funny you should
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say that because that's a frequent thought I
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have. The internet, like other technology, is
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90 % awful stuff because people do awful things.
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And then there's that other side of it that is
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miraculous that allows people of like minds to
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communicate from around the world. And whatever
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problems there used to be with latency, seem
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to be resolved because I don't experience that
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at all when I'm doing these remote recordings.
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So architecture and music, something you're very
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interested in. And I understand as a young man,
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you were really influenced by Schenker and his
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follower. What's his name? Felix Salzer. Yes,
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exactly. So that interest started when I went
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to the Manhattan School of Music. I started out
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as a pianist. and switched after a year and a
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half, I think, to music theory, largely because
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I had a teacher who marked up my scores so ferociously
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you could barely read the notes under his pencil
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markings. And I kept thinking, how does he know
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how to do all of that? And how am I ever going
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to learn it? And I'm not going to learn it this
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way. And decided theory would reveal the mysteries.
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of music to me and I never looked back and they
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did and but while studying piano I was studying
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with Abbey Whiteside disciples and the way they
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taught piano was totally different from anything
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I'd learned before it was looking at long long
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phrases and how to use your body to get from
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here to something that was happening a long way
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off in one fluid gesture without worrying about
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all the scatter of notes in between. And that
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got me interested when I discovered Salz's book
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and Schenker, because they were talking about
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the thing on even longer scales in how music
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was constructed. And from then on, I began to
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look at all music that way. And to listen to
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music performances in that way. Was the player
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caught up in the minutia? Or were they hearing
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and seeing their way to the long goals where
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the music was headed? And of course, when I write,
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whether I'm successful or not is another story.
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But I really keep that in mind as I write, that
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everything has to tell a musical story and go
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someplace. Another great book is Charles Rosen's
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book about the classical sonata. Why did so many
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composers write that way? They weren't going,
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oh, there's this form and I have to follow it.
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It's a rule. They weren't doing that. They were
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feeling their way through form as a way of carrying
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music forward and giving it an arc that tells
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a story. So you always have a sense of I'm going
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somewhere or I'm stating something. Or, oh, yeah,
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wow, I just arrived at a destination that's been
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in preparation for minutes and minutes and minutes.
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And here I am. Or now I'm in a closing section.
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It's obviously coming to an end. And boom, here
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I am. So how do you get that feel for where it's
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going? That's musical architecture. And it doesn't
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have to be a sonata form. It can be a form you
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make up. It can be an ABA -type form, like so
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many trios, scherzo trios are, or minuet forms,
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or rondo forms. Like, why do rondos come at the
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end and not at the beginning? Because after 40
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minutes of listening, people's attention spans
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are lapsing. So you have to repeat things more
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than you did. when you started. So there's reasons
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for all these architectures in music to help
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carry the listener through an entire experience.
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And to me, if music isn't aware of that, and
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unfortunately I feel a lot of contemporary music
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lacks that sense. It just sort of drifts somewhere,
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but without any clear destination in mind. It's
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missing a key element of... what makes music
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so powerful and makes you come back to a piece
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over and over again and discover new things about
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it because it's just emotionally carrying you
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from place to place to place and that's architecture
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it's not just it's not harmony it's not just
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melody it's architecture It brings up a couple
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thoughts in my mind. I was thinking about, you
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know, when I was an undergraduate at McGill,
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I remember a lecture on Shankarian analysis,
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and I think I read that other book you're referring
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to. But at that point, I was so concerned with
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just learning the violin. And as a performance
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major, it was just something I had to get through,
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these theory courses. I didn't appreciate them.
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Now that I've played in orchestras for over 30
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years and played all these great symphonic repertoire,
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I have a much better appreciation. for form and
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such. It's also interesting to me now that I
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improvise, when I get together with my improvising
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group, Collected Strands, we do have an instinct
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towards form, like I find, and we do have a high
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point in the resolution without planning it.
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It's just something intuitive that happens through
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lifetimes of music, I guess. Right. Yeah. And
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great improvisers, I think, do that. instinctively,
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if not consciously. One way or the other. I enjoy
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improvisation and I enjoy jazz, for example.
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But the thing that always brings me back to classical
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music is that when I'm listening to it, I always
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go, you know, if somebody really worked at this
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idea a little more, it would be better. And when
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you look at classical music, particularly certain
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composers, would immediately spring to any classical
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musician's mind. They reach a height of perfection
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where there's like no note that isn't the perfect
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note for that exact place. And again, that's
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architecture. Yeah. Well, let's move on to your
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Two Symphonies album. Let's talk about your Symphony
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of Peace. Sure. I've been writing music, a music
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for peace project for a very long time with a
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lot of music in it. And for some reason, I don't
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know why, I'm not done. So since I won't ever
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be done, it means a lot of future projects, but
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I keep hammering away at it. And Symphony for
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Peace, I'm trying to remember the word for it.
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just slipped my mind but it goes back a very
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long time in music where you take somebody else's
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melody and incorporate it into a piece sometimes
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disguised or not there's a word for that but
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it's been 50 years since i was a music theory
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major and i've forgotten it but anyway i love
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doing that and i do it in a lot of music um for
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example in the mystic trumpeter in the fourth
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movement, which is about chivalrous knights in
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armor. The main melody I stole from Richard the
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Lionheart. It's a melody he wrote when he was
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imprisoned, captured on his way back from the
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Holy Land on the Crusade. He wrote this tune,
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and it's just a gorgeous melody. So it's in that.
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And I do that all the time. So in Symphony for
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Peace, given the subject matter, I went back
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and researched the Dona Nobis Pacem, grant us
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peace, from Renaissance all the way through to
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this century, and picked out melodies that composers
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had used to set those words. And they are sprinkled
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throughout the symphony in every movement. And
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my idea was, I don't want to use a chorus. I
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don't want to have people just say the words.
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But I wanted musicians, when they're playing
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it, to be able to, in their own minds, think
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the words while they're playing the melodies.
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How that changes a performance, I have no idea.
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But anyway, that was my concept. when writing
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the piece. We'd feature maybe a bit of the fourth
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movement. And I was curious about writing for
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brass. You know, it's all this beautiful brass
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writing. Right. Let me start off by saying I'm
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a big Bruckner fan. And I love the way he orchestrates.
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And that's been a big influence on me. He orchestrates
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like an organist, which he was. And so an organist,
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the way they can just... press a button and switch
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a whole bank from woodwinds to brass to whatever
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and alter the sound. He does that when he orchestrates.
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He'll have juxtaposed next to one another brass
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choirs and then strings and then woodwinds. So
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when I am writing for symphony, my main concept
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is the strings of the core ensemble and then
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you balance those or contrast with those using
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other groups and brass of course can have such
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a range of sound from the most delicate pianissimos
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that's so warm and luscious to pounding you know
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sounds that it's just a great group to work with.
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And between trumpets and tubas, you have quite
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a range to fill in. It's great. And the other
00:21:36.329 --> 00:21:39.549
symphony on this album, Two Symphonies, which
00:21:39.549 --> 00:21:44.109
is a recent release, is Summer. Right. And I
00:21:44.109 --> 00:21:46.670
thought we could include some of the third movement,
00:21:46.910 --> 00:21:50.089
the Summer Walk. It's kind of lively. Right.
00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:46.319
You have this love of counterpoint and people
00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:49.440
who didn't know your music before this episode
00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:53.019
will be wondering, well, 2026, Stanley's writing
00:22:53.019 --> 00:22:56.559
in a different kind of style than a lot of composers.
00:22:58.210 --> 00:23:01.450
I had a conversation with another composer once.
00:23:01.609 --> 00:23:05.190
We met for the first time. And the first question
00:23:05.190 --> 00:23:09.039
out of his mouth to me was, for how long did
00:23:09.039 --> 00:23:13.680
you study counterpoint? And I said, I don't remember
00:23:13.680 --> 00:23:18.789
exactly. but at least three intensive years with
00:23:18.789 --> 00:23:24.480
somebody. And he said, good answer. Because if
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:29.049
you don't know counterpoint, you're not really
00:23:29.049 --> 00:23:35.039
a composer. Because the study of counterpoint
00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:41.569
is what enables you to gain control of the most
00:23:41.569 --> 00:23:46.630
subtle nuances of tension and release between
00:23:47.019 --> 00:23:54.430
intervals. And that's what gives music its feeling
00:23:54.430 --> 00:23:57.769
and its passion. It's a moment of tension followed
00:23:57.769 --> 00:24:02.730
by release. That's why certain harmonic progressions
00:24:02.730 --> 00:24:05.930
work and sound beautiful and others sound meh.
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:13.180
So to me, that's a core skill. And I always love
00:24:13.180 --> 00:24:17.180
writing in a contrapuntal style. When I think,
00:24:17.299 --> 00:24:24.910
I think about... voices moving juxtaposed to
00:24:24.910 --> 00:24:30.109
one another and the period of music which is
00:24:30.109 --> 00:24:37.349
my go -to favorite is Renaissance contrapuntal
00:24:37.349 --> 00:24:44.819
vocal music which I never tire of and the great
00:24:44.819 --> 00:24:49.420
masters are always models to follow which doesn't
00:24:49.420 --> 00:24:53.769
mean I write like them juxtaposition and interrelationship
00:24:53.769 --> 00:24:57.710
of moving voices influences all my writing, which
00:24:57.710 --> 00:25:00.369
is why I like writing for strings a lot. I've
00:25:00.369 --> 00:25:03.210
written, I can't remember how many string quartets
00:25:03.210 --> 00:25:08.279
because, and you would think as I started out
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:11.640
as a pianist, I'd be writing more for piano,
00:25:11.680 --> 00:25:16.480
but I don't. I just wanted to say, I think many
00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:18.099
people listening will know what counterpoint
00:25:18.099 --> 00:25:20.440
is, but maybe not everybody. So if you were,
00:25:20.930 --> 00:25:22.809
Speaking to someone who had never heard the word
00:25:22.809 --> 00:25:28.440
before, how would you define it? It's the relationship
00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:37.609
of two or more simultaneous melodies. And while
00:25:38.339 --> 00:25:42.250
they're all moving along like this, at every
00:25:42.250 --> 00:25:47.980
moment in time, they're creating intervals that
00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:53.269
may be consonant or dissonant. And the motion
00:25:53.269 --> 00:25:56.869
of that consonance and dissonance as it moves
00:25:56.869 --> 00:26:00.970
through time, that tension and release creates
00:26:00.970 --> 00:26:06.569
emotion in music. Okay, that's good. I sometimes
00:26:06.569 --> 00:26:09.930
have to explain it to my students and say it's
00:26:09.930 --> 00:26:11.630
sort of like a grid because we have the vertical
00:26:11.630 --> 00:26:14.369
and the horizontal in a different way than chords
00:26:14.369 --> 00:26:18.920
accompanying a melody. So your scores, your PDFs
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:20.599
are available on your website. You want to make
00:26:20.599 --> 00:26:23.460
your... And people don't have to pay you. You
00:26:23.460 --> 00:26:28.740
make things quite accessible. Right. I'm thinking
00:26:28.809 --> 00:26:35.019
about beginning to sell some of them. You should.
00:26:35.259 --> 00:26:44.119
But that's something for the future. Fortunately,
00:26:44.259 --> 00:26:47.859
I'm in a position in life where I'm not earning
00:26:47.859 --> 00:26:53.740
a living anymore. I'm retired. I'm okay. And
00:26:53.740 --> 00:26:58.299
I'm not worried about my future. And music is
00:26:58.299 --> 00:27:02.950
something that I'm obsessed with. And so it's
00:27:02.950 --> 00:27:06.390
something I like to, you know, whether other
00:27:06.390 --> 00:27:09.049
people appreciate or don't appreciate what I
00:27:09.049 --> 00:27:14.009
write, I don't actually really care. This is
00:27:14.009 --> 00:27:20.369
what is meaningful in life for me. And so I do
00:27:20.369 --> 00:27:27.529
it and I share it. Never happier than, well,
00:27:27.650 --> 00:27:30.230
I was going to say I was never happier than when
00:27:30.230 --> 00:27:33.069
I'm sitting and the music is flowing out. I'm
00:27:33.069 --> 00:27:34.869
never happier than when I'm hanging out with
00:27:34.869 --> 00:27:40.259
my granddaughter, actually. But second to that
00:27:40.259 --> 00:27:45.269
is when I'm in a flow and writing music. Would
00:27:45.269 --> 00:27:47.130
a close third be when you hear it performed,
00:27:47.390 --> 00:27:54.470
your music? It depends. I used to expend a great
00:27:54.470 --> 00:27:58.130
deal of effort trying to get performances. I
00:27:58.130 --> 00:28:01.470
don't anymore. Because usually, especially with
00:28:01.470 --> 00:28:05.200
contemporary music, you get one piece on a program
00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:10.130
that's full of the old warhorses. They under
00:28:10.130 --> 00:28:13.029
-rehearse your piece. And then when I go to that
00:28:13.029 --> 00:28:15.630
performance, I'm cringing through most of it.
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:23.490
So, no, I don't enjoy it. Instead... I prefer
00:28:23.490 --> 00:28:27.180
doing recordings because then you can really
00:28:27.180 --> 00:28:33.029
the recordings represent my idea of the music
00:28:33.029 --> 00:28:37.309
because I'm there I'm commenting while it's being
00:28:37.309 --> 00:28:40.970
recorded and in the end I get the recording that
00:28:40.970 --> 00:28:45.150
I want and sounds like what I had in mind and
00:28:45.150 --> 00:28:48.869
so as an expression that I want to leave behind
00:28:48.869 --> 00:28:53.049
of what i was intending when i wrote the music
00:28:53.049 --> 00:28:57.430
i can only get through recordings i want to point
00:28:57.430 --> 00:28:59.250
out to people that you've of course you've written
00:28:59.250 --> 00:29:01.670
all these string quartets but also string trios
00:29:01.670 --> 00:29:04.529
and there's a need for this configuration and
00:29:04.529 --> 00:29:08.269
in fact i'm coaching a string trio of uh young
00:29:08.269 --> 00:29:11.289
people in my city soon and i mentioned to them
00:29:11.289 --> 00:29:13.269
maybe we could play some of your music because
00:29:13.269 --> 00:29:15.710
it's a wonderful option so i'll let you know
00:29:15.710 --> 00:29:20.170
great that would be delightful yeah and So you
00:29:20.170 --> 00:29:23.529
have this album out of these symphonias with
00:29:23.529 --> 00:29:25.730
the ensemble Rock, Paper, Scissors, and what
00:29:25.730 --> 00:29:28.730
a great name for an ensemble. Yeah, I think so
00:29:28.730 --> 00:29:32.569
too. So I'm going to play a clip of Symphonia
00:29:32.569 --> 00:30:24.359
4. So that, of course, is an homage to Bach,
00:30:25.589 --> 00:30:30.950
because Bach wrote inventions and symphonias.
00:30:33.500 --> 00:30:36.180
That book is probably sitting out on my piano
00:30:36.180 --> 00:30:40.480
more frequently than any other. Just to sit down
00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:43.180
when I walk past the piano and play one and then
00:30:43.180 --> 00:30:46.380
walk away. So go on to whatever I was doing.
00:30:48.470 --> 00:30:53.170
And at some point I just said, yeah, I can do
00:30:53.170 --> 00:31:00.279
those. So I wrote a set of nine inventions, which
00:31:00.279 --> 00:31:03.940
I'm going to record with two of the players from.
00:31:04.339 --> 00:31:07.759
rock, paper, scissors on this coming October
00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:12.410
1st. And I already recorded this, obviously,
00:31:12.529 --> 00:31:16.910
the Sinfonias with them, the three part. And
00:31:16.910 --> 00:31:21.920
again, it's an homage to Bach. So are the inventions
00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:26.480
for violin and cello? For violin and viola. Perfect.
00:31:26.839 --> 00:31:31.630
That's great. Let's go back to your earlier history.
00:31:32.190 --> 00:31:34.589
So you loved music as a child, but you didn't
00:31:34.589 --> 00:31:38.380
take piano lessons till you were older? No, I
00:31:38.380 --> 00:31:40.960
started taking piano lessons when I was six.
00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:45.859
Around, yeah, I was six, my mother took me to
00:31:45.859 --> 00:31:53.289
Carnegie Hall, where we sat in seventh heaven.
00:31:53.630 --> 00:31:56.589
It was only later that I realized, well, we didn't
00:31:56.589 --> 00:31:59.190
have any money. And that was what my mother could
00:31:59.190 --> 00:32:02.269
probably afford. So that's the seats we got.
00:32:03.930 --> 00:32:11.950
And the one piece that was on the program that
00:32:11.950 --> 00:32:20.160
actually bloom right through me was La Mer. And
00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:22.480
there I was, this little kid, looking down, all
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:26.519
these little tiny people on stage, feeling as
00:32:26.519 --> 00:32:29.200
if the sea was washing over me like you could
00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:32.980
get wet. It was amazing. And I walked out of
00:32:32.980 --> 00:32:36.789
that concert going, Ma, I want to know how to
00:32:36.789 --> 00:32:39.809
do that. I want music lessons. You're too young.
00:32:40.049 --> 00:32:43.450
Ma, I'm not too young. I want music lessons.
00:32:43.710 --> 00:32:46.809
You're too young. And I finally wore her down.
00:32:47.829 --> 00:32:51.450
So she started me on piano lessons with the piano
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:53.500
teacher who lived around the corner from her
00:32:53.500 --> 00:33:04.180
house. And when I was in high school, I applied
00:33:04.180 --> 00:33:09.039
for music and art and got in. I also got into
00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:13.380
the Bronx High School of Science, opted for the
00:33:13.380 --> 00:33:16.029
latter. Because I didn't know that I was going
00:33:16.029 --> 00:33:19.130
to be a musician, and I thought I also had a
00:33:19.130 --> 00:33:23.630
big interest in science. And then met a very
00:33:23.630 --> 00:33:28.339
dynamic piano teacher who got me so revved up
00:33:28.339 --> 00:33:32.329
that I spent most of my years at science high
00:33:32.329 --> 00:33:35.730
school cutting classes and running off to the
00:33:35.730 --> 00:33:41.369
one practice room they had and playing as much
00:33:41.400 --> 00:33:44.220
as I could while still getting away with it.
00:33:45.420 --> 00:33:50.640
flunking out altogether. And after that, I had,
00:33:50.799 --> 00:33:53.599
again, a big argument with my mother because
00:33:53.599 --> 00:33:56.019
I only applied to the Manhattan School of Music
00:33:56.019 --> 00:34:00.279
and no other colleges. She said, you have to
00:34:00.279 --> 00:34:03.420
have a backup plan. No, I don't. My backup plan
00:34:03.420 --> 00:34:06.480
is if I don't get in, I'll practice 10 hours
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:10.579
a day until I do. So that's how I wound up in
00:34:10.579 --> 00:34:13.880
Manhattan. I guess when I thought that you had
00:34:13.880 --> 00:34:15.900
started later is because you got serious in high
00:34:15.900 --> 00:34:20.190
school. So that was like a big change. And you
00:34:20.190 --> 00:34:22.429
had mentioned Abby Whiteside earlier. I was really
00:34:22.429 --> 00:34:24.409
interested to read about her when I was researching
00:34:24.409 --> 00:34:28.670
you. And she has her idea of outlining is what
00:34:28.670 --> 00:34:31.829
I call with my students pairing away. It's kind
00:34:31.829 --> 00:34:36.210
of interesting. Can you describe that? So at
00:34:36.210 --> 00:34:43.099
some point, I got severe tendinitis and was desperate
00:34:43.099 --> 00:34:46.559
to find a way out. And somebody pointed me out
00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:51.139
to. and Abby Whiteside's students. Hi, just a
00:34:51.139 --> 00:34:53.380
quick break to let you know which episodes I've
00:34:53.380 --> 00:34:55.900
linked in the show notes for you with Nimrod
00:34:55.900 --> 00:35:00.019
Borenstein, Frank Horvat, Gary Muszynski, Margaret
00:35:00.019 --> 00:35:03.639
Maria, Sandro Morales Santoro, and Jerry Bryant.
00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:07.119
These episodes are linked along with my catalogue
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:12.380
of over 250 episodes since 2021. Sign up for
00:35:12.380 --> 00:35:14.860
my newsletter where you'll get exclusive information
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about upcoming guests, Consider buying me a coffee
00:35:17.820 --> 00:35:20.539
on my Ko -fi page or buying some unique podcast
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merch. You can also review this podcast, share
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it with your friends and follow on your podcast
00:35:26.139 --> 00:35:29.579
app, YouTube and social media. All this helps
00:35:29.579 --> 00:35:32.920
spread the word. Thanks. Now back to my conversation
00:35:32.920 --> 00:35:37.739
with Stanley. I was desperate to find a way out
00:35:37.739 --> 00:35:42.019
and somebody pointed me out to an Abbey Whiteside
00:35:42.019 --> 00:35:46.460
student. It was then. Of course, a lot older
00:35:46.460 --> 00:35:53.070
than I was, but nevertheless. And that cured
00:35:53.070 --> 00:35:59.429
my tendonitis and changed the entire way that
00:35:59.429 --> 00:36:06.059
I used my hands and arms and whole torso at the
00:36:06.059 --> 00:36:11.050
piano with the basic idea being, if you hammer
00:36:11.050 --> 00:36:13.550
away at these tiny little muscles hour after
00:36:13.550 --> 00:36:17.199
hour, yeah, you'll destroy them. But if you don't
00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:21.840
use these at all to put down a key, but use big
00:36:21.840 --> 00:36:26.250
muscles like this, you'll never have an injury.
00:36:27.539 --> 00:36:33.559
The other theory was that practicing slowly and
00:36:33.590 --> 00:36:41.360
gradually increasing to speed only builds in
00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:46.860
bad physical habits because your physical motions
00:36:46.860 --> 00:36:51.159
playing slowly are not the same you need. to
00:36:51.159 --> 00:36:57.170
get through a passage at a very fast clip. You
00:36:57.170 --> 00:37:00.250
have to do entirely different things. So the
00:37:00.250 --> 00:37:06.800
way I learned music after that was not by reading
00:37:06.800 --> 00:37:11.780
all the notes at all, but by playing the first
00:37:11.780 --> 00:37:16.159
notes on the first measure, and then the first
00:37:16.159 --> 00:37:18.760
note of the second measure, and then the first
00:37:18.760 --> 00:37:22.420
note of the third measure. And then I would go...
00:37:22.860 --> 00:37:26.739
If I'm in fourth time, first beat, third beat,
00:37:26.820 --> 00:37:30.079
first beat, third beat, first. And little by
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:33.500
little, fill in everything that happened in between
00:37:33.500 --> 00:37:37.400
until all the notes were there. But always playing
00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:45.289
at tempo. That was a mind -blower. Yeah, it's
00:37:45.289 --> 00:37:46.989
really different from the way a lot of people
00:37:46.989 --> 00:37:50.110
teach and practice. And it's something... I do
00:37:50.110 --> 00:37:52.730
a version of that that I find extremely useful.
00:37:52.929 --> 00:37:54.849
As an orchestral musician, I have to process
00:37:54.849 --> 00:37:58.929
a lot of music very quickly. So techniques like
00:37:58.929 --> 00:38:01.469
this are very useful. The only thing is sometimes
00:38:01.469 --> 00:38:03.690
it's like how you get from this note to that
00:38:03.690 --> 00:38:05.829
note. So as a violinist or pianist, it's still
00:38:05.829 --> 00:38:08.690
like the transition. You know what I mean? In
00:38:08.690 --> 00:38:10.869
terms of your fingering or the leap or whatever
00:38:10.869 --> 00:38:14.849
it is. Yeah, I don't know how applicable it is
00:38:14.849 --> 00:38:19.030
because I'm not a string player. Yeah. I write
00:38:19.030 --> 00:38:23.389
a lot for strings. And I try to imagine what...
00:38:23.449 --> 00:38:27.960
I'm not getting it right, I'm sure. But for keyboard,
00:38:28.059 --> 00:38:34.949
these motions, like to play five notes quickly,
00:38:35.130 --> 00:38:45.039
you can't do that. You have to rip. And to get
00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:50.300
from here to there, when music leaps, for the
00:38:50.300 --> 00:38:55.170
hand, that's two feet. For the elbow, It's a
00:38:55.170 --> 00:39:00.000
quarter of an inch. So where your motion is coming
00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:05.760
from completely changes how you play things.
00:39:06.460 --> 00:39:12.480
And that's what Abby Whiteside had just analyzed
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:15.500
in the most remarkable way, different from any
00:39:15.500 --> 00:39:18.789
other pedagogue that I can think of. So she was
00:39:18.789 --> 00:39:21.170
still alive at the time you were young? Like,
00:39:21.210 --> 00:39:24.650
did you meet her or hear her? Oh, no. No. And
00:39:24.650 --> 00:39:28.800
whether she was alive or not then, I... I would
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:34.130
have to look it up. I don't know. But I had the
00:39:34.130 --> 00:39:36.150
good fortune to study with some teachers who
00:39:36.150 --> 00:39:40.489
would study directly with her. And it really
00:39:40.489 --> 00:39:47.829
saved my hands and changed more than just my
00:39:47.829 --> 00:39:52.849
piano playing. But it impacted my approach to
00:39:52.849 --> 00:39:56.170
thinking about music altogether and including
00:39:56.170 --> 00:40:00.380
composition, of course. Because of the structure
00:40:00.380 --> 00:40:05.679
and the longer line. Correct. So you got your
00:40:05.679 --> 00:40:07.820
master's degree at Manhattan School. In fact,
00:40:07.820 --> 00:40:10.099
you did a thesis analyzing the songs of composer
00:40:10.099 --> 00:40:14.159
Charles Ives. Yeah, I did. Did someone pick that
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:22.139
topic for you? No, not at all. Ives is known
00:40:22.139 --> 00:40:31.010
for the remarkable disparity of styles from crashing
00:40:31.010 --> 00:40:39.559
cluster chords to simple church harmonies. And
00:40:39.559 --> 00:40:45.460
in his pieces without words, you can hear those
00:40:45.460 --> 00:40:48.179
stark contrasts throughout it, like in his Concord
00:40:48.179 --> 00:40:54.570
Sonata or other pieces. And I had, for a long
00:40:54.570 --> 00:40:59.510
time, had a deep interest in how does music convey
00:40:59.510 --> 00:41:07.239
emotions? looking at texts to see how musicians
00:41:07.239 --> 00:41:16.730
word paint and set expressive words. So years
00:41:18.619 --> 00:41:22.219
before, while I was still an undergraduate, I
00:41:22.219 --> 00:41:27.949
had written a paper on an early Mahler piece.
00:41:28.170 --> 00:41:30.530
I don't know if you're familiar with Das Klug
00:41:30.530 --> 00:41:34.710
and the Lied. It's one of his earliest pieces.
00:41:34.849 --> 00:41:39.610
It's amazing. You would think it's a mature mala.
00:41:39.889 --> 00:41:43.550
It's for a huge orchestra, a huge chorus, soloists.
00:41:43.869 --> 00:41:52.090
And it tells this tale of a love affair and a
00:41:52.090 --> 00:41:57.449
lover is murdered and the bone of his forearm
00:41:57.449 --> 00:42:00.389
is found in the forest and somebody fashions
00:42:00.389 --> 00:42:02.989
a flute out of it. And when they play the melody,
00:42:03.070 --> 00:42:05.510
it accuses the murderer. I mean, it's a great.
00:42:06.670 --> 00:42:10.210
Awesome tale. And what Mahler did with the text
00:42:10.210 --> 00:42:12.750
is just awesome. So I did a whole paper on that.
00:42:12.909 --> 00:42:16.940
How does he set those words to get the meaning
00:42:16.940 --> 00:42:22.059
across, but musically? So my thesis with Ives
00:42:22.059 --> 00:42:28.940
was similar. It was, he wrote 112 songs. Why
00:42:28.940 --> 00:42:31.380
in some songs is he using the most incredible
00:42:31.380 --> 00:42:36.400
dissonance, in other songs not? And I began to
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:39.699
see patterns as I looked at the text that when
00:42:39.699 --> 00:42:43.139
he was talking about certain subjects, he used
00:42:43.139 --> 00:42:47.079
a certain style of music. So it just, it was,
00:42:47.119 --> 00:42:50.960
the thesis was my attempt to prove that he had
00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:56.690
in his mind extra musical ideas that informed
00:42:56.690 --> 00:43:00.849
what choices he made as a composer when picking
00:43:00.849 --> 00:43:07.739
notes. As an example of that, whenever he has
00:43:07.739 --> 00:43:12.000
songs about nature, he would do things like,
00:43:12.079 --> 00:43:16.039
there's one song where he starts with a unison,
00:43:16.199 --> 00:43:20.599
seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths,
00:43:20.599 --> 00:43:25.090
octaves, and then works his way back. So it's
00:43:25.090 --> 00:43:28.590
a very almost mathematical progression that's
00:43:29.130 --> 00:43:34.760
very dissonant, mostly. Why? Because his idea
00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:38.550
of nature was... Pythagorean, you might say,
00:43:38.670 --> 00:43:43.130
that nature is a very mathematically organized
00:43:43.130 --> 00:43:47.210
construct. When he had another subject, he never
00:43:47.210 --> 00:43:51.449
does that elsewhere. So that was what the thesis
00:43:51.449 --> 00:43:57.000
was about. Okay. Yeah. And I'm curious, you didn't
00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:00.280
consider then doing a degree in composition at
00:44:00.280 --> 00:44:04.800
this point? I wasn't. I was only composing here
00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:10.699
and there. And then... I was teaching theory.
00:44:11.219 --> 00:44:18.309
Then my son was born in 1981, and I realized
00:44:18.309 --> 00:44:22.429
what was good for two of us wasn't going to be
00:44:22.429 --> 00:44:26.309
good for three of us. And I went out job hunting
00:44:26.309 --> 00:44:31.329
and wound up with an entirely accidental career
00:44:31.329 --> 00:44:40.309
outside of music. Don't ask me how, but I've
00:44:40.309 --> 00:44:44.719
had some fascinating... crazy jobs over the course
00:44:44.719 --> 00:44:51.050
of my life outside of music. And so I never had
00:44:51.050 --> 00:44:54.010
occasional time to go back to study composition.
00:44:54.489 --> 00:44:59.500
But I had studied it on the side while I was
00:44:59.500 --> 00:45:02.219
majoring in theory. I studied with a number of
00:45:02.219 --> 00:45:07.260
composers and was doing the usual writing exercises.
00:45:08.019 --> 00:45:12.139
A lot of counterpoint, as I mentioned earlier.
00:45:13.320 --> 00:45:17.559
But also the exercises of, you know, write me
00:45:17.559 --> 00:45:20.719
a fugue in the style of Bach. Write me a prelude
00:45:20.719 --> 00:45:24.079
in the style of Debussy. Write me a little piece
00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:27.340
in the style of Schumann. So I could master what
00:45:27.340 --> 00:45:30.380
it is about every composer's style that makes
00:45:30.380 --> 00:45:36.219
them sound like they sound. None of them were
00:45:36.219 --> 00:45:38.599
really interested in what I had to say for myself,
00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:42.969
which I always thought was, yeah, I understand
00:45:42.969 --> 00:45:48.989
that. really good. And in the meantime, I would
00:45:48.989 --> 00:45:52.210
just start writing music that pleased me and
00:45:52.210 --> 00:45:56.530
found my way to a style that I was happy with
00:45:56.530 --> 00:46:02.329
that I think sounds like me. You said none of
00:46:02.329 --> 00:46:03.909
them were interested. You mean they didn't want
00:46:03.909 --> 00:46:05.769
to hear your music, that it was just the exercises
00:46:05.769 --> 00:46:08.690
that they wanted you to do? Right. They would
00:46:08.690 --> 00:46:13.380
set me challenges and I had to show that I could
00:46:13.380 --> 00:46:17.900
master that skill set. So I thought you worked
00:46:17.900 --> 00:46:20.559
for the New York Transit Authority mostly. I
00:46:20.559 --> 00:46:27.230
did for 25 years. So wound up for the last 15.
00:46:27.449 --> 00:46:31.210
I was vice president for their contracts department.
00:46:31.769 --> 00:46:35.329
So I had hundreds of people working for me, spending
00:46:35.329 --> 00:46:42.130
billions of dollars of other people's money every
00:46:42.130 --> 00:46:46.179
year. It was a very fascinating job. And then
00:46:46.179 --> 00:46:48.260
I'd come home at the end of the day and I'd write
00:46:48.260 --> 00:46:54.510
music and write music on weekends. And I retired
00:46:54.510 --> 00:47:00.750
from there in 2010. And then for quite a while,
00:47:00.889 --> 00:47:04.210
I was doing similar work also in contracts and
00:47:04.210 --> 00:47:09.989
contract administration for a worldwide engineering
00:47:09.989 --> 00:47:13.650
company. Okay. And got sent all over the place.
00:47:14.170 --> 00:47:19.070
So I would wind up. They would have some problem
00:47:19.070 --> 00:47:23.510
project that had procurement teams that were
00:47:23.510 --> 00:47:25.809
running into trouble. And they'd go, can you
00:47:25.809 --> 00:47:30.820
go figure out what, and help them out. So I wound
00:47:30.820 --> 00:47:34.340
up all over the place. And then writing music
00:47:34.340 --> 00:47:38.019
on my laptop, thank God for Finale at the time,
00:47:38.179 --> 00:47:44.420
in hotel rooms at night. So in terms of... your
00:47:44.420 --> 00:47:46.920
skill set to be able to help them with this problem
00:47:46.920 --> 00:47:48.579
solving was it because of the experience you
00:47:48.579 --> 00:47:50.239
have with the transit authorities particularly
00:47:50.239 --> 00:47:53.480
or just the way your mind could work to solve
00:47:53.480 --> 00:47:55.500
these problems for these engineering companies
00:47:55.500 --> 00:47:59.559
well my years at the transit authority gave me
00:47:59.559 --> 00:48:04.920
an expertise in contracting and procurement and
00:48:05.079 --> 00:48:10.670
contract management which i could then apply
00:48:10.760 --> 00:48:17.980
and not Too many people ask me about, what's
00:48:17.980 --> 00:48:24.539
this with your music degree? But it may be a
00:48:24.539 --> 00:48:29.619
stretch, but I do see a commonality in trying
00:48:30.449 --> 00:48:35.630
to see the big picture and get to not get caught
00:48:35.630 --> 00:48:38.550
up in the details of some very complex problem
00:48:39.349 --> 00:48:46.150
or project, but grasping what is the goal here?
00:48:46.570 --> 00:48:49.630
What are we trying to achieve? What's the core
00:48:49.630 --> 00:48:52.010
obstacle that's keeping us from getting there?
00:48:52.170 --> 00:48:55.230
How do we break that down? What are the steps
00:48:55.230 --> 00:48:59.010
we need to do to get from here to there in order
00:48:59.010 --> 00:49:02.969
to solve that problem? Is how you have to think
00:49:02.969 --> 00:49:06.989
as a composer and how you have to think as a
00:49:06.989 --> 00:49:15.989
manager. So to me, it wasn't this great. difference
00:49:15.989 --> 00:49:19.989
in these bifurcated worlds of mine, as one would
00:49:19.989 --> 00:49:23.460
just assume. And in terms of you getting that
00:49:23.460 --> 00:49:27.039
initial job, I mean, why do you think they offered
00:49:27.170 --> 00:49:31.070
you the job with a music background? At least
00:49:31.070 --> 00:49:36.079
in the 70s and 80s, people weren't looking first
00:49:36.079 --> 00:49:39.900
at your resume. They were looking at your experience.
00:49:40.619 --> 00:49:44.860
And I got there through a progression of just
00:49:45.150 --> 00:49:48.650
It was an accidental career. I found a job in
00:49:48.650 --> 00:49:52.090
one place. Somebody said, oh, I heard there's
00:49:52.090 --> 00:49:55.150
a job opening over here and said, go talk to
00:49:55.150 --> 00:49:57.469
that person. So I went and talked to that person.
00:49:57.650 --> 00:50:00.909
And then I got a job there. And that person recommended
00:50:00.909 --> 00:50:05.030
me to somebody else. And I wound up at the Transit
00:50:05.030 --> 00:50:10.590
Authority via another job because somebody I
00:50:10.590 --> 00:50:13.230
worked for went to the Transit Authority and
00:50:13.230 --> 00:50:19.079
said, come work for me. So I said, sure. And
00:50:19.079 --> 00:50:24.179
one job led to another. And I only got into procurement
00:50:24.179 --> 00:50:27.920
because somebody said, the procurement department's
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:31.340
like a black hole. Everybody hates it. Requests
00:50:31.340 --> 00:50:35.030
go in and nothing ever comes out. Do you think
00:50:35.030 --> 00:50:39.030
you could fix that? And I said, probably. And
00:50:39.030 --> 00:50:44.530
so I took the job. Okay. You strike me as a very
00:50:44.530 --> 00:50:49.440
calm person. I'm just curious, like, do you think
00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:51.039
in terms of managing people, because you had
00:50:51.039 --> 00:50:53.059
a lot of people working for you, that do you
00:50:53.059 --> 00:50:55.519
have any, is it a personality thing or just a
00:50:55.519 --> 00:50:59.349
way of approaching that that worked well? So
00:50:59.349 --> 00:51:02.250
it's funny you should say that, because people
00:51:02.250 --> 00:51:05.469
do say that about me. And when I communicate
00:51:05.469 --> 00:51:10.050
that and share it with my wife, she cracks up
00:51:10.050 --> 00:51:15.699
and says, oh, you just fooled another one. Because
00:51:15.699 --> 00:51:20.130
I'm really not a calm person at all. I am by
00:51:20.130 --> 00:51:27.179
nature very nervous and excitable. But I, over
00:51:27.469 --> 00:51:34.159
the years, have worked hard at shoving that down
00:51:34.159 --> 00:51:40.199
when it's not going to help me. And if I'm working
00:51:40.199 --> 00:51:44.559
in an area where you have to be calm and considered
00:51:44.559 --> 00:51:48.820
and motivate people and not get them all crazed,
00:51:48.920 --> 00:51:53.380
I can't let that part out of me. So I don't.
00:51:54.840 --> 00:51:56.800
Yeah, it's an interesting answer because maybe
00:51:56.800 --> 00:52:00.679
because you're having to be conscious about it,
00:52:00.739 --> 00:52:02.900
it's more effective than if you were just kind
00:52:02.900 --> 00:52:05.639
of flying by the seat of your pants. That's interesting.
00:52:06.340 --> 00:52:08.500
Okay, and just one more. I'm just curious because
00:52:08.500 --> 00:52:10.840
you worked in this area for so long. So did the
00:52:10.840 --> 00:52:13.539
transit authority, was it just public transportation?
00:52:13.599 --> 00:52:15.900
Was it also like bike lanes and parking and stuff?
00:52:15.980 --> 00:52:19.500
Or was it just like the subway and buses? It's
00:52:19.500 --> 00:52:23.239
the subway and buses. City's Department of Transportation
00:52:23.239 --> 00:52:30.900
does the bike lanes, but the MTA does subways,
00:52:31.179 --> 00:52:37.269
the Metro North and Long Island Railroad, the
00:52:37.269 --> 00:52:43.300
buses in New York City. So I got to oversee the
00:52:43.300 --> 00:52:47.019
procurement of buses and subway cars and go to
00:52:47.019 --> 00:52:53.869
subway manufacturing plants. fascinating and
00:52:53.869 --> 00:53:00.230
it turned out when it first happened to me I
00:53:00.230 --> 00:53:03.389
was pretty depressed actually going what happened
00:53:03.389 --> 00:53:07.630
to my music dreams but over the years I realized
00:53:07.630 --> 00:53:11.730
that was a happenstance of life that turned out
00:53:11.730 --> 00:53:15.650
to be really positive and for the best for me
00:53:15.650 --> 00:53:19.789
because when I was just teaching like I taught
00:53:20.269 --> 00:53:22.269
the Manhattan School of Music in the prep division
00:53:22.269 --> 00:53:25.110
for, I don't remember how long, half a dozen
00:53:25.110 --> 00:53:28.929
years. And everybody would sit at lunch and go,
00:53:29.010 --> 00:53:31.710
yep, yep, yep, music, music, music, music, music.
00:53:32.050 --> 00:53:34.510
And I remember sitting there going, life isn't
00:53:34.510 --> 00:53:36.750
just about music. There's got to be something
00:53:36.750 --> 00:53:40.369
else. So I wound up having a whole life of something
00:53:40.369 --> 00:53:46.690
else. It was fascinating and difficult and challenging
00:53:46.690 --> 00:53:52.800
and fun. It never stymied my music at all because
00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:56.739
afterwards, in a way, it was a benefit. Friends
00:53:56.739 --> 00:53:58.960
I knew who were doing music all day long wanted
00:53:58.960 --> 00:54:01.940
nothing to do with it at the end of the day.
00:54:02.239 --> 00:54:08.059
And me, I was like a pent -up tiger wanting to
00:54:08.059 --> 00:54:12.699
burst out of my cage and write music. So it turned
00:54:12.699 --> 00:54:17.260
out to be good. Wonderful. Yeah. Let's talk about
00:54:17.260 --> 00:54:19.679
the Symphony of Sighs, part of your Music for
00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:23.460
Ukraine series. Looking at my various series,
00:54:23.679 --> 00:54:27.599
you can see that a lot of the music I write is
00:54:27.599 --> 00:54:33.739
in response to our world today. And there's a
00:54:33.739 --> 00:54:39.329
lot to respond to. As an individual, you feel
00:54:39.329 --> 00:54:43.139
completely helpless. As a musician, I feel somewhat
00:54:43.139 --> 00:54:46.619
like the old adage of... fiddling while Rome
00:54:46.619 --> 00:54:52.199
burns. You know, what voice or meaning could
00:54:52.199 --> 00:54:56.539
it have? But to me, that's what I can do. I can
00:54:56.539 --> 00:55:00.980
write music. And I want to express myself. And,
00:55:01.099 --> 00:55:04.320
you know, I'll leave writing words about all
00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:07.820
these things to the gazillion people on social
00:55:07.820 --> 00:55:11.519
media who write about it endlessly to no avail.
00:55:14.519 --> 00:55:16.719
And I'll just write my music and express myself.
00:55:18.760 --> 00:55:23.420
So when the Ukraine war started, I wanted to
00:55:23.420 --> 00:55:28.380
write music in support. I wrote a string quartet
00:55:28.380 --> 00:55:34.119
based on Ukrainian folk songs. I set a poem by
00:55:34.119 --> 00:55:38.039
Ukraine's national poet in Ukrainian, by the
00:55:38.039 --> 00:55:41.800
way. That was an interesting exercise for baritone
00:55:41.800 --> 00:55:46.829
and orchestra. And then I wrote this piece with
00:55:47.570 --> 00:55:55.690
just a series of falling, sighing gestures. And
00:55:55.690 --> 00:56:03.079
then developing those as a one movement symphony.
00:56:03.239 --> 00:56:08.489
I also wrote a symphony for string orchestra
00:56:08.489 --> 00:56:12.530
called When the War Ends, We Will Dance Again,
00:56:12.730 --> 00:56:16.769
loosely based on Ukrainian folk dance rhythms.
00:56:18.760 --> 00:56:22.980
And so, yeah, now I'm in the middle of a series
00:56:22.980 --> 00:56:29.800
of music for Israel. So onwards and forwards
00:56:29.800 --> 00:56:33.480
to the next unsolvable problem that I write music
00:56:33.480 --> 00:56:38.530
about. And this album, the Symphony of Sighs,
00:56:38.690 --> 00:56:42.750
it got the World Classical Music Awards Platinum
00:56:42.750 --> 00:56:47.090
Prize. Yeah, I was very pleased about that. Yeah.
00:56:47.210 --> 00:58:17.179
Yeah. I was kind of curious about your last name
00:58:17.179 --> 00:58:19.440
because you're Jewish, but Grill, was that changed
00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:23.059
by some immigration authority? No, actually it
00:58:23.059 --> 00:58:30.070
was not. So on my father's side, they're from
00:58:30.070 --> 00:58:35.130
the Bavarian region. So North Austria, I mean,
00:58:35.250 --> 00:58:38.730
yeah, North and Austria, Southern Germany. My
00:58:38.730 --> 00:58:42.530
family was from somewhere, and I'm not sure where,
00:58:42.730 --> 00:58:47.760
a small town in Northern Austria. Northern Central
00:58:47.760 --> 00:58:53.469
Austria. That particular area of the world has
00:58:53.789 --> 00:59:00.119
a lot of grills. And there are some Jewish grills.
00:59:00.519 --> 00:59:07.539
And I'm not the only one. So, if you have time,
00:59:07.639 --> 00:59:11.260
a quick interesting story. My wife and I went
00:59:11.260 --> 00:59:14.429
to visit Stockholm. And we were in the National
00:59:14.429 --> 00:59:19.900
Museum there when my wife runs after me. drags
00:59:19.900 --> 00:59:23.059
me back to an exhibit showing a beautiful suit
00:59:23.059 --> 00:59:27.820
of clothes from the 1700s that belonged to a
00:59:27.820 --> 00:59:36.429
Swedish man named Abraham Grill. Wow. So I said,
00:59:36.489 --> 00:59:41.380
wow, and did some research and discovered that
00:59:41.380 --> 00:59:48.440
a Antoni Grill emigrated from Bavaria via the
00:59:48.440 --> 00:59:53.349
Netherlands. to Sweden, where he became the king's
00:59:53.349 --> 00:59:57.510
head of his treasury, because he was a metallurgist.
00:59:57.570 --> 01:00:01.510
Yeah. This was in the late 1600s, and that there's
01:00:01.510 --> 01:00:07.150
a whole family of grills who wound up, we became
01:00:07.150 --> 01:00:10.929
sort of acquainted with one another, and they
01:00:10.929 --> 01:00:13.610
realized I was a composer. They said, oh, we
01:00:13.610 --> 01:00:16.489
have composers in our family too, and started,
01:00:16.530 --> 01:00:21.300
so who knows if... Back, you know, nine generations
01:00:21.300 --> 01:00:26.389
were related. I have no clue. But yes, there
01:00:26.389 --> 01:00:30.780
were grills around more frequently than one might
01:00:30.780 --> 01:00:33.539
think. Yeah, curious, you know, because I'm Jewish
01:00:33.539 --> 01:00:35.900
and in terms of the immigration history, I'm
01:00:35.900 --> 01:00:37.960
always, when people have a name I'm not familiar
01:00:37.960 --> 01:00:39.760
with, I'm like kind of curious, did someone change
01:00:39.760 --> 01:00:45.000
it at Ellis Island, for example? Yeah, not the
01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:48.949
grills. My mother's side. There was a bizarre
01:00:48.949 --> 01:00:51.409
name change from one thing to another that makes
01:00:51.409 --> 01:00:55.530
no sense, but whatever. Who knows? On that side
01:00:55.530 --> 01:00:59.650
of the family, I'm from Poland, outside of Warsaw.
01:01:00.829 --> 01:01:05.059
And I don't know about your family history. I'd
01:01:05.059 --> 01:01:08.480
be, you know, if not on this call, I'm happy
01:01:08.480 --> 01:01:10.460
to talk to you some other time because I'm always
01:01:10.460 --> 01:01:15.059
curious to know. But on both sides, my grandparents
01:01:15.059 --> 01:01:22.170
came here. in around 1905 and raised families.
01:01:22.530 --> 01:01:26.909
And everybody in their families who didn't come
01:01:27.420 --> 01:01:33.940
to America is no longer with us. So I'm here
01:01:33.940 --> 01:01:38.559
because they had either the courage or the need
01:01:38.559 --> 01:01:43.179
to come to America because they wanted to escape
01:01:43.179 --> 01:01:47.400
the nonstop pogroms that were happening where
01:01:47.400 --> 01:01:51.429
they lived. Well, let's talk about exploring
01:01:51.429 --> 01:01:53.829
forgotten composers. Who have you discovered
01:01:53.829 --> 01:01:58.489
we should be listening to? Oh, that is a very
01:01:58.489 --> 01:02:01.429
long list. I'll have to share my list because
01:02:01.429 --> 01:02:04.889
I jot them down on the phone, my phone, whenever
01:02:04.889 --> 01:02:08.570
I come across somebody new. But people that are
01:02:08.570 --> 01:02:18.179
favorites of mine are Gershom. I don't know if
01:02:18.179 --> 01:02:20.960
you know his music. He was a contemporary of
01:02:20.960 --> 01:02:27.199
Brahms. somewhat younger. When you listen to
01:02:27.199 --> 01:02:30.059
his music, you go, is that a Brahms piece that
01:02:30.059 --> 01:02:34.980
I don't know? Because his music is very Brahmsian.
01:02:35.510 --> 01:02:39.800
But when I began to look into him more, I discovered
01:02:39.800 --> 01:02:43.199
that he wrote his first symphony before Brahms
01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:46.510
wrote his. Then he wrote a second symphony before
01:02:46.510 --> 01:02:50.110
Brahms wrote his, and so on and so forth through
01:02:50.110 --> 01:02:55.929
his fourth symphony. So I began to wonder, since
01:02:55.929 --> 01:02:59.010
they were familiar with each other's music, whether
01:02:59.010 --> 01:03:05.170
Brahms's symphonies or Gernsheimian, rather than
01:03:05.170 --> 01:03:10.969
the other way around. But if you want to hear
01:03:10.969 --> 01:03:15.889
four symphonies that sound like Brahms, sort
01:03:15.889 --> 01:03:18.840
of, listen to those four symphonies. They're
01:03:18.840 --> 01:03:22.710
all gorgeous. And if I had to comment on their
01:03:22.710 --> 01:03:28.070
relative skills, I would say Brahms. is the greater
01:03:28.070 --> 01:03:33.880
natural melodist, just writing just gorgeous
01:03:33.880 --> 01:03:38.719
melodies that go right to your heart. But Germsheim
01:03:38.719 --> 01:03:46.789
was the better orchestrator and general architect.
01:03:49.159 --> 01:03:54.000
But worth listening to. And there's also a ton
01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:58.150
of chamber music and trios and string quartets
01:03:58.150 --> 01:04:05.179
and a composer worth exploring. Now I've been
01:04:05.179 --> 01:04:09.940
most recently working my way through the 27 symphonies
01:04:09.940 --> 01:04:14.239
of Nikolai Mayaskovsky, who was known as the
01:04:14.239 --> 01:04:17.340
father of the Russian symphony, and nobody plays
01:04:17.340 --> 01:04:24.559
his music anymore. It's a shame. They are uneven,
01:04:24.860 --> 01:04:30.099
I will say. Some are, well, so -so, not very
01:04:30.099 --> 01:04:34.880
interesting. He's not on the level of, let's
01:04:34.880 --> 01:04:40.409
say, Shostakovich. But out of Shostakovich's
01:04:40.409 --> 01:04:44.769
14 symphonies, they're not all on the level of
01:04:44.769 --> 01:04:49.579
Shostakovich either. So they're worth listening
01:04:49.579 --> 01:04:55.510
to. And my next project will be to work my way
01:04:55.510 --> 01:04:59.429
through his 13 string quartets and see how those
01:04:59.429 --> 01:05:02.699
are. I haven't listened yet. And I believe on
01:05:02.699 --> 01:05:07.690
Sundays you have dedicated listening time? Not
01:05:08.750 --> 01:05:14.210
really. Because I listen to music almost all
01:05:14.809 --> 01:05:20.429
the time. And I usually have music on little
01:05:20.780 --> 01:05:24.039
side sleeping earphones all through the night
01:05:24.039 --> 01:05:31.969
too when I fall asleep. But I started recently
01:05:31.969 --> 01:05:36.210
just on Sunday mornings putting out a piece and
01:05:36.210 --> 01:05:39.539
saying here's some Sunday listening music. Okay.
01:05:40.460 --> 01:05:41.960
Yeah, because I was reading your blog. That's
01:05:41.960 --> 01:05:48.309
where I got that idea. And something you posted
01:05:48.309 --> 01:05:50.670
on your blog I thought was interesting. You said,
01:05:51.070 --> 01:05:54.710
in Atlantic Magazine's AI Watchdog, I did a search
01:05:54.710 --> 01:05:57.409
for my name and found a number of my music compositions
01:05:57.409 --> 01:06:00.130
in the AI training dataset. And then you explained
01:06:00.130 --> 01:06:02.550
what you did. Do you want to say if that worked?
01:06:04.130 --> 01:06:10.159
Well, I thought it did. I wrote a letter, a legal
01:06:10.159 --> 01:06:13.280
type letter that I used. My one and only time
01:06:13.280 --> 01:06:17.320
using AI to do anything, I used AI to generate
01:06:17.320 --> 01:06:20.920
a legal notice, and I sent it to them. And then
01:06:20.920 --> 01:06:25.400
a month later, I looked on the AI watchdog, and
01:06:25.460 --> 01:06:28.869
my name didn't come up. So I thought, well, I
01:06:28.869 --> 01:06:32.659
didn't get a response from them, so maybe the
01:06:32.659 --> 01:06:37.000
letter worked. And then a week or so ago, I looked
01:06:37.000 --> 01:06:42.369
again, and my name was there again. I think I'm
01:06:42.369 --> 01:06:47.329
going to have to do some further action that
01:06:47.329 --> 01:06:49.710
I haven't figured out what it's going to be yet.
01:06:50.030 --> 01:06:54.070
Okay. And I was just curious in terms of your
01:06:54.070 --> 01:06:57.269
habits, like do you have set aside time to compose
01:06:57.269 --> 01:06:59.630
on certain days of the week? Is it that structured?
01:07:02.349 --> 01:07:06.349
No, I have to say I'm fairly unstructured about
01:07:06.349 --> 01:07:11.210
it. If I will just sit down and write, and if
01:07:11.210 --> 01:07:16.320
I hit a wall, I'll... stop and just go out and
01:07:16.320 --> 01:07:24.190
take a walk and come back later. But on the other
01:07:24.190 --> 01:07:28.949
hand, if the music is just popping out, like
01:07:28.949 --> 01:07:32.090
for example, we're talking about the Mystical
01:07:32.090 --> 01:07:35.570
Trumpeter and its eight movements, which reflect
01:07:35.570 --> 01:07:39.230
the eight parts of his poem. I wrote that in
01:07:39.230 --> 01:07:44.320
a week. So pretty much I was writing for hours
01:07:44.320 --> 01:07:47.010
and hours every day. because i had an idea and
01:07:47.010 --> 01:07:48.710
they were just popping out and everything was
01:07:48.710 --> 01:07:51.409
going click click click yeah i know where i want
01:07:51.409 --> 01:07:55.500
to go here and so i just kept writing and other
01:07:55.500 --> 01:08:00.599
times it's just like i'm using the delete key
01:08:00.599 --> 01:08:04.400
more than i'm using any enter keys so i could
01:08:04.400 --> 01:08:08.610
go out and do something else it must have been
01:08:08.610 --> 01:08:11.690
such a transformation when the technology came
01:08:11.690 --> 01:08:14.050
along you mentioned finale as opposed to writing
01:08:14.050 --> 01:08:22.369
by hand oh so I used to write in notebooks on
01:08:22.850 --> 01:08:26.890
the bus on the way into work when I was working
01:08:26.890 --> 01:08:30.739
at the transit authority and then come home and
01:08:30.739 --> 01:08:33.779
copy things out or test them out on the piano.
01:08:34.439 --> 01:08:39.369
And then if I was trying to get a performance,
01:08:39.529 --> 01:08:43.250
I would write out the parts by hand, but after
01:08:43.250 --> 01:08:46.149
full work days and then get into a rehearsal
01:08:46.149 --> 01:08:49.020
and find out I'd left out a line. Because I just
01:08:49.020 --> 01:08:51.420
dropped a whole staff because my eye went from
01:08:51.420 --> 01:08:54.500
here to there because I was tired. It was horrifying.
01:08:55.590 --> 01:08:58.869
And then finale came and it was like an angel
01:08:58.869 --> 01:09:02.119
to the rescue. I never had to do that again.
01:09:02.260 --> 01:09:04.560
I just put it in. It was all right. I'd spit
01:09:04.560 --> 01:09:06.899
out parts, hand them to people and they would
01:09:06.899 --> 01:09:12.470
be fine. It was a real blessing. I've never gone
01:09:12.470 --> 01:09:16.100
back to writing anything by hand. So thanks so
01:09:16.100 --> 01:09:19.779
much for this today. Really appreciated it. And
01:09:19.779 --> 01:09:22.039
it's really been my pleasure to chat with you
01:09:22.039 --> 01:09:25.239
and to get to know you a little bit. I look forward
01:09:25.239 --> 01:09:29.739
to getting to know you more outside of your podcasts.
01:09:30.729 --> 01:09:48.279
Thank you. If you could buy me a coffee to support
01:09:48.279 --> 01:09:50.739
this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an
01:09:50.739 --> 01:09:53.239
independent podcaster and I really do need the
01:09:53.239 --> 01:09:55.720
help of my listeners. All the links are in the
01:09:55.720 --> 01:09:58.210
show notes. The podcast theme music was written
01:09:58.210 --> 01:10:00.310
by Nick Cold. Have a wonderful week.