Anthony R. Green
Concert Rebels' Founder, Chelsea Hollow, interviews composer Anthony R Green about his work, "Zachte Krachten" using text from a poem by Henriëtte Roland Holst. This song was premiered at Old First Concerts on January 28th, 2022 by Chelsea Hollow and Taylor Chan in their recital, Cycles of Resistance.
Interview Transcript
CHELSEA HOLLOW:
[0:16] Hi, I'm Chelsea Hollow founder of Concert Rebels and I’m here presenting a short video series of discussions between me and some of the wonderful composers I've had the privilege of working with lately. Today I talked with Anthony R. Green, who I commissioned during my first-ever call for proposals. At the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic desperate to connect with artists once again, I created a Call for Proposals with one main criterion: to create an art song or song cycle based on an activist text or theme. [0:48] The creative output of Anthony R. Green includes musical and visual creations, interpretations of original works or works in the repertoire, collaborations, educational outreach and more. Behind all of his artistic endeavors are the ideal s of equality and freedom. As a composer, his works have been presented in over 25 countries across six continents by various internationally-acclaimed soloists and ensembles. As a performer, he has appeared in the US, Cyprus, France, The Netherlands, The UK, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, South Korea, and Ghana. Through music, text, and entrepreneurship, Green comments on many issues related to social justice including immigration, civil rights, the links between slavery and the current racial injustice in the United States, and the contributions of targeted and or minority groups to humanity. His ongoing project Alex in Transition highlights the life of Alex, a trans woman, and her journey to truth and authentic living. Other works include short cabaret operas, which are comedic-yet-piquant critiques on capitalism via corporations, His Mind & What He Heard in Central Park in the Late 90s for solo voice, concerning a gay Black man’s encounters with queer racism and toxic exotification; the sax quartet Almost Over, a musical symbol of Black history in the United States; rest - reflect - reignite, a video work exploring Black rest, inspired by the Nap Ministry; and I Returned. I wanted to., a video work examining Black joy, Black queerness, Christianity in Africa, and more. Anthony was born in The States and now resides in Europe with his occasional piano duo partner and forever husband Dr. Itamar Ronen.
[2:44] Welcome, Anthony!
ANTHONY R. GREEN: Hello, it's really wonderful to be here.
CHELSEA HOLLOW: Oh, it’s so nice to have you. I'm really excited for this conversation. Your music gracefully flows from really intimate moments to evocative and even your abstract music seems to honor the connection of the performer to their instrument in addition to the performer to the audience and the text. So I'd love to hear about your process in composing and how you approach a new work.
ANTHONY R. GREEN: [3:18] Excellent question. As a composer, my process to each piece that I compose is vastly different, but of course the commonality with all of this is myself and my own life experience. I grew up as a pianist and I loved making things when I was a child. I used to cook, knit, crochet; I was into making works with clay and bookbinding, making friendship bracelets, and so much more. When you mix someone who has a very strong fondness for music performance with someone who really loves to make things, then that formula usually leads to being a composer. Another aspect of all of my compositions is the knowledge that a human is going to be performing these works. And with that knowledge, I try as much as possible to inhabit the body of the performer and write as idiomatically as possible for the performer who will be premiering the piece. So it was very helpful listening to your recordings when I wrote the piece for you and getting an idea of what you could do, which is quite a lot. I'm just always impressed when I hear your voice and what you do with text.
CHELSEA HOLLOW: Thank you. That means so much.
[musical example of song] “Liefde is de zin van ’t leven der planeten, en mense’, en diere’. Er is niets wat kan storen ’t stijgen tot haar.” (trans: “The deep desire of celestial bodies, animals, and people, is love. Nothing can stop the thrust towards it.”)
[5:28] How do you approach instruments you don’t play?
ANTHONY R. GREEN: Most instruments I don’t play, unfortunately. I did take viola when I was in high school, so I play a little bit of viola and I studied the Koto when I was doing a degree that I didn't finish in Colorado. One of the ways to really get into learning how to write for an instrument is to study the range of the instrument, study how other composers, especially composers who played those instruments, wrote for their instruments. But the best way is to find someone who actually plays that instrument and just work with them. So I have friends who play practically all of the instruments that I've composed for, which is great because whenever I'm working with something, I can contact them on Instagram or email, give him a phone call or text and just say, “hey, is this possible? Is this way too difficult? Am I crazy?” And I also want to say that the hardest instrument that I have ever written for and will always be the most difficult instrument for me to write for is the guitar. What's cool about the guitar, well string instruments and many other instruments, that the piano can't do is that you can play the same pitch on two different strings. Organ, celesta, piano, and keyboard instruments are really just confined to playing one pitch on one note. So when you're composing for instruments that can break this limitation then you have to think differently. That's what I love about composing in general, is just being able to think differently.
CHELSEA HOLLOW: [7:28] I’d love to talk with you about Zachte Krachten. Your proposal really stood out to me because of the hope and the reality that the text suggests, that kind of work together. You have the hope that good will prevail and the reality that they're really sneaky parts in our society that are always kind of bubbling up to the surface. In this time where everything feels pretty dark lately, I'm curious what drew you to this text originally and how you brought those elements out in the music composition.
ANTHONY R. GREEN: What initially drew me to the text is this solution that is on the one hand, very simple and direct, much like the Dutch culture. If you speak to a Dutch person, they'll say, “Yes, I’m Dutch. I'm simple and direct.” These are in no way pejorative descriptions. They are very proud of these elements of Dutch culture. So when I read the text of Henriëtte Roland Holst, I was immediately drawn to this direct solution: love, it's a soft power and it's the power that will win in the end. It reminded me also of a text by Sojourner Truth, who says that everything that's good doesn't have an end; it’s only the bad things that end and that whenever the beginning of life happened, if there is such a thing, it was a good thing. So, life will always happen because it's this good thing. With these ideas spinning around, we also have to acknowledge that not everyone has the capacity or the desire to have love win, right? There are people who are actively working against equality against justice against the idea of one big human family. And so when I went to set this amazing text, this wonderful wonderful sonnet, I wanted to make sure the music encapsulated a type of innocence, but also a type of grand gesture that just slaps all of those in the face who are against love and against forward movement and against the idea of a human family. But I wanted to do it in a powerful positive way, because thinking back on the words of this sonnet–on the wonderful observation of Sojourner Truth that everything good is endless–I wanted to make sure that this song portrayed an essence of goodness.
[musical example of song] “dan kan de grote zaligheid beginnen die w’als onze harten aandachtig luistren in alle tederheden ruisen horen als in kleine schelpen de grote zee. De zachte krachten zullen zeker winnen in ’t eind -- dit hoor ik als een innig fluistren in mij.” (trans: “Then great salvation can begin; we'd hear it rustle, like the ocean in tiny seashells, if our hearts would devotedly and tenderly listen. The soft powers shall certainly win in the end - I hear this as an internal whispering in my soul.”)
CHELSEA HOLLOW: [11:30] Could you expand a little more on the musical elements?
ANTHONY R. GREEN: Definitely. Knowing your wonderful, wonderful range, and my never having written for a voice with such a large range, I first and foremost, wanted to make sure I wrote a piece that explores all of the sonic elements of your voice. I love the dark chocolaty colors of the lower range, the speech-like nonchalant, friendly colors of the middle range, and then, of course, the sparkling and the powerful, belting qualities of the higher ranges. So when I first analyzed the sonnet and picked apart which texts I wanted to set in which ranges, I also tried to match the intention of the text with the color of the vocal range.
[musical example of song] “zou alle licht verduistren alle warmte zou verstarren van binnen. De machten die de liefde nog omkluistren zal zij, allengs voortschrijdend, overwinnen.” (trans: “all light will darken all warmth will freeze from within. It shall with great effort overcome
the powers that still shackle love.”)
ANTHONY R. GREEN: And I also wanted to get out this quite sparkly element that somehow jumped out at me with this text. There's one part of the text that mentions celestial bodies; so, I was thinking: the stars, the planets, when you are going camping and you look up, and you just see a sparkly night sky. I wanted to get that feeling and evoke that sense of grandeur…
[musical example of song] “Liefde is de zin van ’t leven der planeten, en mense’, en diere’. Er is niets wat kan storen ’t stijgen tot haar.” (trans: “The deep desire of celestial bodies, animals, and people, is love. Nothing can stop the thrust towards it.”)
ANTHONY R. GREEN: …mixed with sparkling imagery in this song. So, the song begins with a quite innocent, sparkly gesture and that gesture then is developed throughout the song and ends the song altered, but still with a sparkling quality. And then the last element was, there's a wonderful word that I love in Dutch and it's “fluistren” and that means “whisper” and it’s such a sibilant and impressionistic word when you hear it.
[musical example of song] “dit hoor ik als een innig fluistren in mij. De zachte krachten zullen zeker winnen in ’t eind.” (trans: “I hear this as an internal whispering in my soul. The soft powers shall certainly win in the end.”)
ANTHONY R. GREEN: …you can almost understand what it means without actually knowing what it means. In Italian it’s “bisbigliare”, you know, these are very whispering types of words.
CHELSEA HOLLOW: Could you talk about the moments that are like the big kind of bell-like figures that come up and also the 3/8 measures, where the you have that, kind of “yum bump bump bum” figure?
ANTHONY R. GREEN: I sometimes view my pieces when I'm done with them and I look back on them and I say, does this feel too stiff, and if it feels too stiff, what can I do to unstiffen this? And usually when I insert these types of interjections, it's a way for me to not only unstiffen the piece, but also give this impression that a journey, especially a difficult life journey, is never straightforward; there's always some instability. And so I wanted to incorporate these types of interjections to capture, to encapsulate instability, but also to get across an idea that even though there is instability, it's manageable. So, if we can just acknowledge that instability, then we can prepare for it, we can get through it.
CHELSEA HOLLOW: [16:37] I'm going to pivot away from this. I loved your article “What the Optics of New Music Say to Black Composers” I wrote down a couple quotes that just really stuck out to me. So one is, “the injustice arises when absolute music or music with non-social themes by black composers is overlooked.” I feel like a lot of people are looking to the black community for all the answers and I think that's just terribly unfair. You're absolutely right; we need to get to the point where we're celebrating all music by all people and everyone feels like they can stand up for social justice and everyone feels like they can just make art and have it be beautiful for what it is. [17:20] And so you laid out this amazing map for how individuals, performers, audience members, ensembles, and presenters can actively incorporate more black artists, and I just want to amplify it here. I have zero audience, but if this gets to anyone, I just want to amplify your message. So your steps are here. Number one, “If you are an active soloist or are in or run an ensemble of any size, program music by black composers.” Number 2, “If you do not know any music by a black composer, create a playlist and have weekly listening sessions.” I just want to do this for any kind of music I don't know. That's just a great idea in general. I love it. Number three, “Share what you know and what you have learned about black composers.” and, that can be anywhere that can be like, retweeting someone, that can be sending it to, you know, a friend or someone, you know, who's in charge of programming. You can play it at your dinner party, which we don't have anymore, but soon we will. Number 4, “Demand more from your musical sources.” I love this one. “Write to your radio stations, to your favorite YouTube channels, to your favorite ensembles; ask your teachers to include more music by black composers in the theory classroom, in the history classroom, in your private lessons.” Absolutely. Number 5, “Support black composers and the soloists, organizations, and ensembles that program their music.” Absolutely. Number 6, “When a black composer is expressing a grievance, listen with all you have.” I just think, you know, it's just such a gift that you've laid it out so clearly, so simply with steps that are like exciting to just jump into; who would not want to do any of those? They're just very beautifully written. It's such a gift and I just want to thank you for taking the time to do that.
ANTHONY R. GREEN: Well, thank you. Yeah, these steps, most of them came out of what I did naturally when me and my co-founder (Ashleigh Gordon) and I created Castle of our Skins. And for those watching who aren't aware of Castle of our Skins, we are a boston-based concert in education series and we're dedicated to celebrating black artistry through music. So in 2013, when we co-founded this, between the two of us, we couldn't name more than 8, 9, 10 black composers and both of us are black and we had graduated from some extremely prestigious universities internationally. So we were embarrassed and over the years we’ve followed many of these steps. Of course, I could have added 30 more steps, but I think this is a really good foundation, just to expand your knowledge, and as you put it, you can do this with queer composers, with indigenous composers, with women composers, with disabled composers. There's just so many composers writing great music who are left out of the concert hall and it's about time, we as individuals apply this type of programming justice and awareness justice to all of those composers who weren't given a fair share to express who they are.
CHELSEA HOLLOW: Yeah, I think that's beautiful. In the article, you also mention, “if the optics of new music are sending unwelcoming messages, then the next generation of would-be black composers will most likely not pursue composition.” and I totally agree. I feel like in our industry, the more we orbit and define our industry by the same minority of old white male composers, the more we just hemorrhage talent. [21:38] I'm curious, what advice you have for young performers and composers to traverse this and to support each other?
ANTHONY R. GREEN: I would say just to always keep your ears and your eyes open. Sometimes when we are digging into the things that we have to do as musicians, as individuals, as taxpayers, as citizens, as neighbors, as parents, as family members, as house maintainers, as sanity-trying-to-maintainers, we get so focused on checking off the boxes of what we have to do on a day-to-day basis and that tends to make us so focused on the self that we forget that, there's a whole other world out there, especially within our musical world. So as musicians, if for example, you are an orchestral violinist and you play for three different community orchestras, you’re practicing music, lots of times by yourself in a room until you practice the same things in another room with a couple of people. And I've heard that in orchestras, sometimes the violinists won't even speak to the brass players because they're so far away and they're so concerned about starting and ending in a very specific time because they don't want to go over union times, stuff like that. And so there's this weird disconnect that happens even amongst musicians making music in the same room together, right? So, it's just very important to always keep in the back of our minds that we need to keep our ears open, we need to keep our eyes open, and if someone is calling our name, if you see something that's wrong, then it's your responsibility to respond to it and a response doesn't necessarily mean change the world over the next 5 years. A response can just be, “I acknowledge this and the next time I see this happen, I'm going to say something” or “I heard that this female composer was told that she'll never make it because she's a woman and I'm going to write her an email and just say, listen, this is not true. If you want me to play a short piece of yours, write me a miniature. I'll record it. Let's make a YouTube video,” right? So there's just so much we can do to support each other that doesn't involve lots of money, lots of time and convincing hundreds of thousands of people to change their attitudes, right? It could be as simple as a direct message on Twitter or Instagram, simple as sharing a video of a creator on Facebook, simple as writing a letter to a radio station to say, “I know this extremely wonderful performer, this extremely talented composer, they have this audio, I would love for you to share it,” Write a blog about it. Do something. People have done this with me on the BIBA-Blog of Castle of our Skins, and I've been more than happy to share whatever they wanted me to promote, and Castle of our Skins is actively promoting local creators, black artists across the world, and reaching out and trying to form relationships. Doing very simple things to just amp up the amount equality. So, imagine if Castle of our Skins, if our efforts were just multiplied across the numerous musicians that exist in the world, how much more of a just musical world would that be?
CHELSEA HOLLOW: That's so beautiful. What upcoming projects are you excited about?
ANTHONY R. GREEN: [25:52] Right now, I am working on three, well I’m working on many pieces. So, the piano sonata (The Baldwin Sonata) was commissioned by this extremely fantastic pianist named Jason Hardink and this particular sonata centers around James Baldwin and his life, his words, his philosophy, and of course, his incredible text.
The Pellicciotti Opera Prize is a wonderful, wonderful initiative that was created to honor the memory of Domenic Pellicciotti, who was an opera lover; he was also queer and lived with his husband until he died, unfortunately. This prize invites composers to present excerpts of a possible new opera and at the end of the workshop, one composer/librettist team will be selected to complete the opera and have it realized. I will be the librettist as well and this particular opera is called I Was Whot By a Cop and what it attempts to do is concatenate, many different stories of individuals–irrespective of race, and gender, and sexual identity–who have been shot by police officers. I try to mix elements of these stories and re-present these stories through characters whose race, gender and sexual identity etcetera, doesn't matter, and in doing so I'm trying, as much as possible, to find the humanity between all of these people who have been shot and killed. It's a huge problem in black communities of police officers shooting black people. I also just want to acknowledge in this opera that black people aren't the only ones being shot by police officers. In general, this problem is much bigger than we can control and I think the grandness of this problem is something that I really want to highlight in this opera.
And then the last opera, which is a full opera that will be staged, is for Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. And this uses the libretto by Mark Lebowski, who is a wonderful Bay Area queer writer. This opera is the story of two people, a queer man and his female best friend. They're living together during the pandemic and chatting about connecting with people in a very specific way–I also don't want to give away too much–but this is definitely a much more comedic opera dealing with adult themes and also it has quite a bit of intimacy, in every sense of that word.
CHELSEA HOLLOW: Well, that's lovely. You’re doing such cool stuff! I love it. It's so nice to talk with you. Thank you for joining me today and for writing such beautiful, powerful, personal music; that's really beautiful and profound and it's just really wonderful to share music with you and to get to know you across oceans and continents.
ANTHONY R. GREEN: Ah, thank you so, so much for everything and I really can't express the depth of gratitude that I have for all of the hard work that you not only put into my piece but into presenting this incredible concert. So I'm looking forward to hearing all of the pieces and celebrating with you from across the Atlantic Ocean.