"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.
Some final, random thoughts as I prepare to head to NYC on Sunday to rehearse and perform Singing silver with ICE:
I initially had misgivings about being included in this concert, but now I'm glad I'm doing it. It's good to take myself out of my comfort zone now and then, and there are a lot of things about this program that are a bit off-road for me. However it goes, I will know a few things I didn't know before, and that makes me happy.
How will I like working with the ICE musicians? I’ve never met them, and I’m unaccustomed to performing with strangers. Here’s hoping we are able to hit it off quickly. I had initially booked them for a residency here at the NC School of the Arts, based on some recommendations from people whose opinion I respect. Then this concert came up and I thought As Long As I'm Already Negotiating With Them, Why Not Perform With Them?
I’m relying heavily on the skills of the sound technician, another collaborator I haven’t yet met – and I won’t meet him until 75 minutes before the performance. This is very amusing to me, because I’m usually pretty cautious, not to say anal, about these things. How clearly will I be able to convey to him the sound I am looking for? The risk, of course, is unintelligibility, which would be a shame. And I’ll be up on stage, not really knowing what the audience is hearing.
The piece is scored for soprano, horn, cello, guitar and narrator. Narrator! I hate calling myself that – it’s not like I’m going to tell the story of Babar the Elephant or something. But what else is there? Reciter? Reader? Lame. The way I use my voice to interact with the music is – well, I haven’t come up with a word to describe it.
How will I handle meeting all of the other Sequenza21 composers for the first time? I’m not a person who can rely on being socially graceful in unfamiliar circumstances – sometimes I’m fine, but sometimes my toes reach back to tickle my tonsils. The social aspects of this profession are tricky -- we're all very sensitive creatures.
