"There are no two points so distant from one another that they cannot be connected by a single straight line -- and an infinite number of curves."
Composer Lawrence Dillon has produced an extensive body of work, from brief solo pieces to a full-length opera. Three disks of his music are due out in 2010 on the Bridge, Albany and Naxos labels. In the past year, he has had commissions from the Emerson String Quartet, the Cassatt String Quartet, the Mansfield Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, the Salt Lake City Symphony, the Ravinia Festival, the Daedalus String Quartet, the Kenan Institute for the Arts, the University of Utah and the Idyllwild Symphony Orchestra.
Although he lost 50% of his hearing in a childhood illness, Dillon began composing as soon as he started piano lessons at the age of seven. In 1985, he became the youngest composer to earn a doctorate at The Juilliard School, and was shortly thereafter appointed to the Juilliard faculty. Dillon is now Composer in Residence at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he has served as Music Director of the Contemporary Ensemble, Assistant Dean of Performance, and Interim Dean of the School of Music. He was the Featured American Composer in the February 2006 issue of Chamber Music magazine.
Just in time to get my new year off to a great start, I’m the featured American composer in the current issue of Chamber Music magazine. The lovely article is by Kyle Gann, and begins, “Allow me to achieve a minor milepost on Chamber Music’s behalf: for the first time here, I’m writing a column about a composer I know only over the Internet.” As much a review of this blog as of my music, the article makes insightful connections between both:
“He is both moderate and moderator, impatient with battles of musical aesthetics in which one side of the coin fights the other for dominance…He reserves his anger for the intolerant, and seeks balance…
This is just as true in his music. In general it is as finely poised between tonality and atonality as anyone’s I could name. It’s not what one would call intellectual music, but it is written with great care for detail and is often clever.”
Unfortunately, the article is not available online, so if you are dying to read the rest, order your copy soon, while supplies last. I must say, I learned quite a bit from it myself.
And if that doesn’t satisfy, Ken Keuffel wrote an extensive profile (the length and thoroughness of which are very flattering) of me in advance of the premiere of my third string quartet for today’s Winston-Salem Journal. That one you can find here. It even includes a quote from Kyle Gann's article.
All of this attention is fun, diverting, and good for the ego. Guy in the grocery store says “Hey, you’re famous, aren’t you?” which is both ludicrous and guiltily gratifying. It also provides a nice opportunity to tell a joke about fame I heard from Bobby Mann:
A distinguished professor at an established university teaches a lecture class that has a hundred students in it. At the end of the year, he gives his exam. About an hour into the exam, a young man saunters into the room and, without a word of explanation, picks up an exam booklet and takes a seat. The professor is astonished by the student’s impertinence. Angered, he thinks, “I’ll just let him take the exam, and when he’s finished, I’ll tell him he failed.”
The exam period comes to an end, and everyone comes up to the front of the room to turn in their booklets. All except for the one late student, who still sits at his desk, busily scribbling. The professor, livid at the young man's audacity, becomes even more vindictive. “I’ll just let him do all the work, then when he turns it in, I’ll tell him he failed.”
An hour goes by. Finally the student comes forward with his exam book, at which point the professor says, “Young man, I don’t even have to look at your exam – you came an hour late, so you failed.”
Quietly, the student says, “Sir, don’t you know who I am?”
The professor is taken aback. “What?”
“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”
“NO, I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE,” shouts the professor, fuming, “AND FURTHERMORE, I DON’T CARE!”
“Good,” says the student, and he slips his exam booklet into the middle of the pile.
posted by Lawrence Dillon
11:05 AM
