THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH vs. Annie Garlid

THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH, VOL.3, ISSUE#16,JUNE-AUG/2023

Annie Garlid is a musician, composer and singer who works at an intersection of early, experimental and contemporary classical music.  Garlid studied English at Smith College, viola performance at New England Conservatory, early music at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, ensemble singing at the Schola Cantorum in Basel and is currently working on her PhD in music at New York University, where she researches materiality in recent experimental music.

Brotherwise Dispatch – Based on your artistic engagement as a composer, viola player and singer, what does it mean to work “at the intersection of early music, experimental music and contemporary classical music”?

Annie Garlid – Both in the USA and in Europe, there are social and infrastructural divides between music scenes based on when the music being played was composed (i.e., in the medieval / Baroque / classical / romantic / modernist / contemporary periods) and, especially if the music is contemporary, whether it is notated or improvised, danceable or contemplative. Even with what is broadly known as classical music, there’s now a divide between big-hall symphony orchestra music (which might be called “mainstream” classical music and applies a similar vibrato-heavy playing style to everything from Bach to Shostakovich) and the historical performance practice scene, which focuses on a notion of authenticity vis a vis technical and stylistic approaches to playing old music. The “early” music scene, which might perform anything from Renaissance polyphony to Baroque music to Romantic music, mostly revolves around historical or period ensembles that use bows and strings as they might have been crafted and used “back in the day.” This is all the fruit of an immense amount of musicological research and archival digging, much of which has only elucidated that there were never any standards for tuning, vibrato, strings, ornaments, etc. I was first trained as a viola player in “mainstream” classical music and had my sights set on a job as a section player in a big orchestra. While in conservatory, they had me play in a baroque opera and I fell in love with the style. I’ve also always especially loved Bach and wanted to be able to play his music as often as possible. There was also a period in which I was playing a lot of contemporary or “new” music on the viola, starting while I was at New England Conservatory in Boston and then continuing with an orchestral program in Lucerne, Switzerland with Pierre Boulez. And then there’s experimental music, which has a lot of overlap with contemporary/new music in aesthetics but tends not to be notated, and more often incorporates electronics. I became involved in this scene when I started living in Berlin, where it’s truly alive and well. In many ways I think it’s more porous and hospitable than contemporary or “new” classical music, so I feel more comfortable there. All of these terms are insufficient and confusing containers for so much variety in musical style.

I don’t have a choice but to bring together these three generalized aesthetics, simply by virtue of the fact that they’re all in my blood after years of playing and singing. But my project stages deliberate conversations between them; for example, the second track off of my debut album takes a movement of a Bach sonata for viola da gamba, played by me on viola and accompanied by a harpsichordist, and puts it through effects that, for me, seemed to make the Bach more contemporary. That was an experimental music tactic laid on top of raw early music content. “Sumite karissimi” off of the same album is similar; at its core it is an Ars Subtilior song (Renaissance song style) recorded by me on voice and by my friends Rebecca and Callum on flute and trumpet, respectively. I “treated” the recording with effects and layered field recordings and synth lines on top.

 

 

BD – In what sense is your PHD in Music an assistance or a hindrance to your artistic endeavors as a musician and composer?

AG – My dissertation deals with recent experimental music that evokes a sense of place or represents what we think of as “nature.” It’s closely linked to my own interests as a composer. Although I won’t write about my own music in the dissertation, maybe the origins of the dissertation were in wanting to explain certain instincts I had in my own music—the use of field recordings, spoken vocals, tactile sounds of wood on wood or gut on horse hair made with the viola. The relationship is maybe a bit like that between a kite and the person on the ground flying it—my creative side does its own thing on the wind of instinct/inspiration, but stays tautly connected to theoretical explorations of nature and place on the ground of the academy. All that being said, my PhD-related daily activities (writing the dissertation, applying for grants for the future, teaching(!) really fills up the bulk of my time, and the UCC Harlo project gets the short end of the stick, the scraps of my energy.

BD – What drives and defines your research on materiality in relation to “recent experimental music”?

AG – “Materiality” is a very heady term but it’s been useful to me. I wanted to write about representations of nature in recent experimental music, but I also wanted to write about sonic tactility as practiced in ASMR, say. I wanted to bring an obsession with ASMR together with an obsession with nature in the age of climate change. For me, the easiest way to do this is with the term “materiality” because it helps connote the physical, tactile world beyond a classic sense of nature as landscape or animals or plants. It was also helpful to think: what if we were to think of tables, hairbrushes, church organs, etc. as nature, too? Here I contrast the physical world with the digital world in which there really aren’t surfaces, textures, edges, frictions—everything moves and shifts very smoothly and interchangeably. I’m interested in sound artists and experimental musicians who celebrate the friction and physicality of place.

BD – What do you feel aesthetically distinguishes “classical” music from other musical orientations often designated as “popular”?

AG – That's a good question. I was going to write that a lot of older music now deemed "classical" was actually popular in its day, but I think that's not necessarily true. A lot of it was written for courts or church and not for "the masses." I think what distinguishes classical music (whether historical or contemporary) from popular music is maybe exactly that—a vision that it will reach the ears of particular people rather than as many people as possible. Today classical music is written for concert hall performances and all of the performance and listening practices (and clientele) with which concert halls are associated. This of course has to do with accessibility and breeding and education and social milieu. For classical music there is a bit of a steep learning curve or elevated access point above eye level. Aesthetically speaking, I suppose that classical music these days is less rhythmic/beat-oriented, and involves scores (and extended techniques) that are more challenging for instrumentalists and singers to learn.

I don’t think that classical music is more artfully or elaborately crafted than pop music. If you think of the work behind the scenes that goes into a Rihanna album and then the work that goes into a Caroline Shaw piece, for example, the former is probably even much more involved—and has more money behind it!

BD – When I think of the sound of a viola, I think of a contribution in aesthetic transcendence and singularity of sound towards the harmony of the whole, be it as part of a large symphony or small-scale quartet or trio.  And yet, with your UCC Harlo project, you seem to be grappling with a different movement of aesthetic resistance that seeks to attract dissonance from within established expectations of harmony itself.  So just what is UCC Harlo, and what’s it all about in relation to your artistic trajectory and academic endeavors?      

AG – UCC Harlo presents the viola as an instrument of contemplation and mood and tactility and history. The project, if “experimental” in comparison to mainstream pop music, is still very tonal and melodic—it’s neo-baroque or neo-romantic in that way. It’s a reaction to dry, sterile, and macho aesthetics within electronic music. It’s very maximalist and gushing. I add layer after layer and have trouble stopping.

UCC Harlo is a kind of musical playground for me. I’ve spent so many years striving for athleticism and virtuosity in the performance of other composers’ music. This project takes the spotlight off of virtuosity and finesse and puts it on the whimsy and oddness of intuition and play. Though some of my tracks are refined over years, many others are “first-thought, best thought.” It’s an emotional and creative resource for me, and it’s irreplaceable in that way—neither academic work nor classical music performance offer the same feeling of “I built this fairy house all on my own.”

BD – This has been another one of our BROTHERWISE FIVE interview series, during which THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH interrogates intellectuals, artists and activists with five probing questions to the delight of our readers.

On behalf of Annie Garlid and THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH,

Peace.

-A. Shahid Stover

(this interview of Annie Garlid for THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH was conducted by A. Shahid Stover through email correspondence from September 12th – November 21^st 2022.)