Remaining Disarmed
Thoughts on the importance of the creative act in the post 9/11 world
This article was written at the request of the MacDowell Colony for their quarterly newsletter.
The first time my music was performed in public I was sixteen. Lacking the skill to do anything else, I had looked into my gut, reported musically on what I found, and received an audience’s gratitude. It was a galvanizing moment. But almost from that moment forward, its influence faded.
Recent music history has been troubled. When I was in college in the 1970s, the legacy of the great “avant garde” still hung over our heads, and we struggled to keep our music as difficult and complicated as possible. Then, beginning in the 1980s, the charge was on to write brief, “accessible” works, with tonal harmonies and slick, Hollywood-style orchestration. This generated applause, but audiences knew they were being coddled.
Most composers have never subscribed to either school of thought, of course, but there is nowhere to hide when these kinds of movements prevail. Both philosophies were obsessed with The Audience, one embarrassed by it, the other presenting it with candy and flowers. It’s no wonder that our most important collaborators – those who receive our works and so complete the creative cycle – are angered and confused. But they’re not alone. A lot of composers are asking, what next?
It’s in the nature of galvanizing moments that they are rare, and we all hope September 11th remains the rarest kind of all. In their symbolism and overwhelming destructiveness, the events of 9/11 left many artists utterly disarmed, while at the same time the creative act became more of an imperative than ever. But this may not be the dilemma that it seems.
I had the opportunity to compose a memorial work for the victims of 9/11 in the days following the attack and hear the work premiered just three weeks later [the Elegy click here to listen to an MP3]. Awestruck by the scale of the destruction I witnessed from my home across the river from lower Manhattan, I had nowhere to turn but my gut. What came out of this intensely personal effort was an intensely public work, and audience response has been powerful. I connected with my listeners in a way I had forgotten was possible. But my experience wasn’t unique: artists in New York City and beyond, responding to 9/11 in their work, have been rediscovering their audience in unexpected ways.
People have never wanted to connect to an artwork. They want to connect to the artist, and the artwork is merely the means to that end. I do not need war and terror to inspire me, thank you, but as galvanizing moments go, this is one I would like to hang on to. My goal is to remain disarmed and turn to my gut more often. I can imagine a new aesthetic of style (of whatever kind) and substance, where the creative act is a joyous imperative and its own reward. Our audiences, seeing that weÂ’ve reestablished eye contact with them, will trust us once again, and respond with gratitude.