Metanoia : A Monologue on Life, Loss, and Rebirth

Metanoia is a transformation, a process of reforming the psyche as a form of self healing; it is also, in its religious usage, a repentance.

My Metanoia is a program of compositions and improvisations that presents a journey in which each of the pieces has a specific psycho-spiritual impact in this context. A person must live true to his or her spirit and lose all–relations, psyche, self–before real transcendence can occur. The program culminates in my work …no longer to his father…, a piece whose title comes from a passage in Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, and is based structurally on a Baroque suite. This work is an exploration of self-understanding: the realization that we must define ourselves through our own spirit and consciousness, and not through others’ definitions or expectations. It is both a statement of Rebirth, and one of Freedom.

This concert of compositions and improvisation will include works by Carol Alban, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Molly Thompson, and others by me.

This concert is presented by the Composers Collaborative, Inc. of NYC as part of their Serial Underground concert series.

http://www.composerscollab.org/events.html

http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/index_performances.asp

What If? (60x60x60) up and on-line! March 18, 2010

Greetings,

It is my pleasure to tell you that the NMNMNE’s (New Media New Music New England) project What If? (60x60x60) is now up on-line for public access.

http://www.nmnmne.org/what_if.php

For the project, there was a competition for both composers and film makers to create works of 60 seconds. The idea is that the viewer can choose (or let the website choose at random) any combination of music and video. The website will sync up the two.

My composition, The Ballad of Olga D., was chosen for this project. This was especially fun for me since this piece is the first ever stand-alone electronics-only work that I have ever composed (not counting electronics-only film scores). The one non-electronic component is me speaking the Russian word “Zdravstvuite! (Здравствуите!)”, which means “hello”…you can probably tell by the inflections in my voice what the piece is about (hint: think Russian club scene…).

There are lots of really interesting works that will give you, the viewer, endless hours of random pairing fun!

Thanks again to NMNMNE for putting together this very cool project, and for choosing my work to be a part of it!

Demetrius

Crisis of Identity; Categorization and Marketing

As most of you who are reading this blog know, I have just released a new CD, Sfumato. Also as most of you know, I decided to do this one completely myself: not only was I the performer and composer, but also the producer, the publicist, the director of marketing, the fundraiser, and had even created a record label (DSM, or dspaneasmusic–which is also the name I use for my music publishing) to release it on.

There are many reasons why I did this rather than go with traditional means of production and dissemination. The main ones being cost-efficiency and the desire to be in complete control of the finished product and its general presentation to the public–topics which I and my colleagues have had issues with.

Needless to say, this has been quite the learning experience. I would–and will, sooner rather then later–do it again. I have many possible projects that I believe would benefit from a similar production treatment. Not all, but some. I also am a little more prepared for some of the idiosyncrasies of the music industry that I didn’t take into account this first time around the block.

If you haven’t heard the CD, you most certainly should; this is not a ploy, nor am I begging for you to go out and buy it. This CD, I believe, is an interesting direction that seems to fit very well in the evolution of my artistic aesthetic. I think that it shows a unique new angle of what I have been doing all along and makes perfect sense in its place in my expanding discography…

…why then–and maybe you can tell me this–has it been so awkward to market?

The main catch-word in the music industry has always been ‘categorization’. What is it? Where does it go? Can you describe it in five words or less? I get this, mind you. In a way, it makes perfect sense, most especially in such a fast-paced consumer audience like ours. People want to find exactly what they are looking for as soon as possible; if it’s something new, it has to be similar to something they already know, something that they can relate it to. Again, makes perfect sense. The problem is when something doesn’t neatly fit into one category, but you have to put it into one to market it.

I had to decide almost right away what category Sfumato would fit into. Both the duplication house (Discmakers) and my main on-line distributor (CDBaby) made me chose at the moment I signed the contract, which was well before I even sent the disc in to be duplicated. Again, I get this (and I want to be absolutely clear here that both of these companies have been fantastic, and I will use them for my future endeavors) but it really made me think “what is this recording about…where does it fit?”.

My first CD, When Wind Comes to Sparse Bamboo, was a solo classical saxophone recording. Sure, I did things very much out of the standard pathways of such a CD, but still, it can be categorized as such. Basically, I played what I wanted to play, which was a nice mix of standard classical pieces (none written originally for saxophone) and new music by composers I liked. Easy. My second, From a Far-off World, is a little more difficult to file. Mainly, the issue of categorization is with the fact that I’m playing bass clarinet as well as saxophone. This causes more of an issue than the actual music, which falls pretty neatly into the contemporary classical realm. Honestly, the brick-and-mortar stores (they still somewhat existed at this point) didn’t know how to display it. If you play multiple instruments but one composer, it’s OK, file it under that composer; if you play one instrument and many composers, file it under that instrument (which is where no-one except for college/conservatory students of that instrument look); if you play many instruments and many composers, forget it!

Both of these recordings were released on Capstone Records, which for a couple of generations was the best independent voice for contemporary American music. People who wanted this type of music went to Capstone Records–it was easy, they had the reputation and the audience. The problem is that Capstone dissolved in 2008, which left many of us without a home…

So now I come to Sfumato…or it comes to me, however you want to look at it. Galina Parfenova–a Medieval and Byzantine style singer–and I–playing flutes in a very contemporary way–decide to create this recording. We go into the studio in Russia, magic happens, we have a disc…poof! 1-½ years later I’m still trying to figure out what to do with it. I know Capstone is gone, and I have been in contact with other companies who were all interested but presented situations (read: production packages) that I was not keen on, mostly for what I call ‘cost-benefit-analysis‘ reasons. Granted, they were industry standard and I liked what the offers were, and had this been a ‘landmark recording’ of my own music with my own ensemble that I thought was potentially major award-winning I would’ve done it. But…I had this odd little CD that even I couldn’t find a category for; how would the record labels or the Recording Academy fare…what would it be listed as and promoted as, if at all…? I know as a fact that many of these recordings are shelved and not promoted because of this very issue.

So, I do it myself. Here I am, this contemporary music specialist who records a series of improvisations on flute with a Byzantinist singer. I start to do research. It doesn’t fall into early classical, because of my Avant-garde playing; it doesn’t work in straight classical because of it’s improvisatory nature; contemporary classical is closer, but even then the meditative and accessible qualities of the recording turn off that crowd; jazz is right out, although I think free-jazz is a close hit, but again, the accessibility of the music doesn’t sit well with the Avant-hipsters; world music would be a stretch, and if it doesn’t have instant ethnic recognition, forget it. So, I keep looking. After lots of research and listening, I come to the conclusion that there is really only one category that (remember, I can only pick one) that I can get away with on all fronts…New Age…

New Age? Yeh, that’s what I thought, too. Sounds of whirling piano lines, crystal meditations, and recorded wolf howling dance in my not-so-unconscious…New Age? Me? I’m a cutting-edge, Avant-garde, experimentalist improviser…New Age? Me? Ha!
But then I thought more about it, and listened more. Actually, this category seems to be a catch-all for things that don’t fit neatly into the classical, jazz, or pop realms. I started finding some real good stuff out there. Hmm…the more I thought about it, the more I listened, the more OK I became with that label. If Sfumato had to be labeled, and it did, why not this? New Age? Me? OK.

It also started to make me think whether or not my other desired projects–projects that include an expanded ensemble playing my music which is a mix of through-composed and improvisatory music that is both experimental and accessible–would also fit here. Why not? If Sfumato gains an audience, an audience that digs–and even understands–what I do, why not go this route? It could be very interesting…

…and I may even throw in a wolf-howl for fun…maybe…

Categorization is a reality of the music business. It’s OK, it makes sense, and one has to be OK with a label to continue to produce art for public consumption. As artists, we know that we may straddle multiple categories at once, and we will most certainly evolve and change over the years of our career. To find an audience outside of your circle of acquaintances, you have to play the game, and that’s OK. It’s also good to know how to explain what you do in five words or less, even if that explanation changes over time, which we all know, it will. It’s not a sell-out, but finding a way to use the existing system to work for us. Let the history books create an ‘ism’ for you and your place in the firmament. As artists, we have to get our creations ‘out there’ by any means possible.

How else will historians know where to start looking?