A Thanksgiving Message from Matt Hinsley
Something magical happens when we come together to celebrate beauty.
I felt it last night at our Youth Orchestra concert. I felt it on Friday at our "Staff Cactus" show at the Cactus Cafe, where the room was crackling with the warmth of appreciation and friendship in spite of the chilly air outside.
On one unforgettable evening last month, 80 students from Austin came together to play Vivaldi's Concerto in D Major with Pepe Romero.
A video from that special event is online here.
Watching the concentration and anticipation in each performer's face, and hearing the extraordinary music they are creating, I am transported. And I feel so incredibly grateful.
On behalf of all of us at Austin Classical Guitar, I would like to say how grateful we are to you for sharing these special moments of togetherness with us throughout the year.
Your belief in music, your belief in us, your belief in the beauty of artistic expression, make it all possible.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Matt Hinsley
The Paper Guitar
One of the things we’re most proud of here at ACG is our for-credit classical guitar program at the Travis County Juvenile Detention Center in partnership with Austin Independent School District. The program, now in its 9th year, has been featured on national television on the PBS NewsHour.
We hope you enjoy this story.
It’s a full-size guitar. It has frets, strings, a sound hole, bracing. The frets are straight, thin, it has the correct number of them. There is a decorated rosette. It even has its own display stand.
But this guitar is made of paper. Copy paper, specifically. Yarn and tape were used in the detailed, caring construction as well.
It was made by one of our students; let’s call him David. David is incarcerated at the Travis County Juvenile Justice Center where one of our staff educators, Jeremy Osborne, teaches two for-credit classes each day. David discovered the guitar, and discovered his ability to learn, practice, perform, and excel on it, in these classes. This past May he played a solo for over one hundred people in the courthouse and received a standing ovation—the first standing ovation of his life, for anything.
Like a lot of kids in detention, David has struggled with motivation, especially with the work he has to do for school and as part of the conditions of his sentence. Guitar changed all of that. Talk to any of his counselors and they’ll tell you - since he picked up the guitar, David’s attitude toward his work was transformed.
Jeremy did not visit the detention center as frequently over the summer, just once or twice a week to check in, give a lesson, make contact. When the new semester began, Jeremy was back to teaching two classes a day. During that first week one of the facility staff members pulled him aside. “You need to see something,” he said.
Jeremy was escorted to a room in another part of the secure facility, where the paper guitar was displayed on its stand. It was David’s guitar, the guitar he had spent the summer creating by carefully rolling and shaping and taping pieces of copy paper, while waiting for Jeremy to come back and for the guitar class to start up again.
We reach people through music education. Where other pursuits might fail, music can forge powerful connections that last a lifetime. Studying music can reveal a better path, and link an individual to themselves and to their community.
At Austin Classical Guitar we think about this a lot. Perhaps it is the absence of specific referential meaning in music—the inherent mystery of musical communication—that helps make a positive musical learning environment a safe, nurturing place to discover one’s identity.
As the number of students we serve grows, so does our responsibility as a teaching community to do the best job we can to discover and promote those attributes of instruction that fuel positive student experiences in arts education.
We need to do this so that the kids we serve will make the kinds of connections with music, with each other, with our community, and with themselves that high-quality arts education can deliver. We need to do this so that more kids like David, who have struggled, who have made bad decisions, who are alienated and at-risk of dropping out of school or worse, will have a safe and supportive place to make something special that they can build an identity around and be proud of.
Matt Hinsley: ABOUT THE FUTURE
Dear Friends,
This season we step forward into our second quarter-century. Our vision lives and breathes within every individual touched by ACG, and today I’d like to share a few of my own hopes as we forge our path onward.
We have learned that music is a deep and powerful connector. It flows like water into the spaces between us, creating reasons to come together, invitations to express our individuality, activities of identity uniting students and mentors and communities. At ACG we have begun to revolutionize music education in America. We have had a rare and special opportunity to add classical guitar to school curricula for tens of thousands of students. And this is significant because guitar draws new and different kids to the widely documented benefits of serious, school-based, fine arts engagement. Along this path we have discovered many new ways to focus our service for youth and adults in myriad circumstances.
At ACG we have begun to revolutionize music education in America.
Our work is just beginning. We have many miles to go in our effort to support rigorous credit-based guitar education across Texas, our nation, and beyond. But that’s not all. I believe we are in a unique position to begin studying and promoting new ways of community engagement through the arts.
Children hear a song completely differently if they are asked in advance to think of a story while they listen. Why is that? I would like to know, and I believe connected to the answer to that question is nothing less than a brighter future for the arts, and for our communities.
My focus this year, therefore, will be to advance the Austin Classical Guitar Endowment so that we may support research and development in education, in social service, in healthcare, and in performance now and for generations to come.
With deepest thanks,
Spring 2016 Education Report
I am so pleased to present ACG's Spring 2016 education progress report. While I've been preparing this we have been receiving registrations from music educators around the country for our summer teacher training sessions, which are taking place this July in Austin and St. Louis. One of the registrants, an elementary school teacher from Odessa, Texas named Tyra, included this note:
Last year I attended my first teacher training for classical guitar. What I learned helped me immensely. It restored my joy, answered questions I had about introducing elementary students to ensemble experiences…My kids loved what we did. I am coming back for more! I want to keep growing and learning and teaching.
I love what Tyra says here. I think it encapsulates both the beauty and the complexity of the leadership role we find ourselves in here at ACG Education. There is an inextricable connection between consistent, high quality measureable student performance outcomes and joy. Our goal is not only to provide the most effective classical guitar curriculum and teacher resources in the world, but also to inspire a teacher like Tyra to keep “growing, learning and teaching.” Because as long she does, her students will thrive.
Thank you for making ACG Education possible. I hope that what you find in this report will make you proud of your support.
Matt Hinsley
ACG Education Progress Report, Spring 2016
Special Needs: Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
With thousands of diverse students in our affiliated programs, our teachers are regularly called upon to address a variety of special needs. This fall we introduced Jeremy Coleman, a former ACG instructor now employed by Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, as a consultant available to instructors nationwide who seek assistance with adaptive strategies.
Our main focus in this arena continues to be the development of resources and techniques for teaching students with visual impairments. Having now developed a functioning system for teaching guitar and music literacy through a Braille adaptation of our curriculum, our next project is to publish a free online repository of graded self-study solo literature in Braille with accompanying audio guides, a resource that will empower our graduates to become lifelong learners.
https://youtu.be/P_82OrTtIog
Spotlight: Angelica and Oscar at Crockett High School
Three years ago, a music teacher named Ron Hare took over the guitar program Crockett High School, a Title I school located in south Austin. We have worked closely with Ron from the beginning, and his program at Crockett is now thriving. In an April 2016 letter Ron wrote:
Before I even taught my first class at Crockett the education staff at ACG met with me personally to discuss what to expect in the classroom, registered me for a free training, gave me access to their amazing curriculum, and provided me with a personal mentor who would work with me periodically over the course of the school year. This detailed and personal attention to the needs of my students has helped me tremendously.
This fall we learned about Angelica and Oscar, two promising seniors from Ron’s advanced class. They were both interested in pursuing music education degrees in college, but neither could afford private lessons or quality instruments in preparation for their auditions. We were able to provide both for each student, and are thrilled to report that, after months of hard work, Angelica and Oscar passed their auditions and were accepted into the highly-competitive Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. In honor of their commitment we decided they should keep the instruments we had loaned them. Angelica wrote to us:
I’d like to share my appreciation for Austin Classical Guitar, the program itself, supporters of the program, and everyone part of it. The hard work, dedication, and support put in by everyone involved has given me so many opportunities to achieve. Without this program I don't believe I'd be headed down the road I am today. I'm so excited to share that I achieved my goal of being accepted to the Butler School of Music, but I couldn't do it without the support given to me from all of you.
Lullaby Project: Shirdyn Sings to Izaeah
The Lullaby Project has become our fastest-growing area of constituent-specific service. In partnership with Carnegie Hall, our clinicians visit with new and expectant mothers in challenging circumstances, guide them through a series of introspective writing exercises, distill their writings into song lyrics, and collaborate to compose and record an original song as an expression of their hopes and dreams for themselves and their children. The following video captures the moment when Shirdyn, one of our teen moms at Annunciation Maternity Home, sang her lullaby to her son Izaeah for the first time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhI0wYH-BvI
Lullaby Project: Travis County Jail
Dr. Ted Held is Director of Reproductive Health at People’s Community Clinic (PCC). In January he asked us to offer the Lullaby Project to women incarcerated at Travis County Jail, and is supporting a further expansion this summer to include patients at PCC. In explaining his support for this program, Dr. Held wrote:
A lifetime of financial and emotion stressors is highly correlated with preterm birth, low birth weight babies, and poor maternal bonding…Through The Lullaby Project, Austin Classical Guitar provides a unique and powerful intervention for pregnant women in challenging circumstances to have positive and creative engagement creating original lullabies that express their love, hopes and dreams for their babies. These engagements can improve women’s social and emotional health which is an area of increasing concern for medical professionals…
Here's a recording of a lullaby that one of our clients at Travis County Jail wrote for her daughter Miracle, and also for her son, who passed away soon after he was born.
https://youtu.be/NkXuKCEkVlo
Local Support: Program-Building, Student Engagement, and Job Creation
ACG Education created and actively supports over 50 local school programs like the one at Crockett High School. We have been asked to help develop new programs in the coming year in Dripping Springs and Del Valle. The level of support needed by each school varies, and in 2015-16 we are particularly proud of what we helped accomplish at Bowie High School.
In August 2015 the AISD Fine Arts Department decided to launch a pilot guitar program at Bowie, but with the start of the school year fast approaching they were struggling to find a qualified and certified teacher. Two days before classes began we decided to step in and provide one of our own staff members, Toby Rodriguez, to lead the program in its pilot year.
Toby taught 57 students in two sections this past year at Bowie. More than 150 students signed up for guitar next fall, enough to fill five sections, meaning many new students participating in Fine Arts, and a new job opportunity for a qualified professional teacher.
Addressing Economic Disadvantage: Garcia YMLA & Mendez Middle School
Progress and refinement are keys to student motivation. ACG frequently offers direct support to specific programs and individuals that show promise but face economic challenges that impede their progress. Our work at Travis High School—highlighted in past reports —and Crockett High School are examples of these targeted efforts.
Earlier this spring we received a request for special assistance from Eric Walz at Garcia Young Men’s Leadership Academy in east Austin. We sent Arnold Yzaguirre, one of our teaching artists, to work with Eric and his students twice a week for the remainder of the semester. Eric recently wrote:
Arnold came to support our young men in more advanced guitar techniques and skills that I am unfamiliar with, and help guide students toward precision music-making that would not have been possible without him. Arnold continually held high standards for the sound production and musicality of each student…they are unquestionably better off with his guidance. His ability to quickly give them the tools they need was an extremely important step to the growth of their musical minds and our program’s success.
We have also invested significantly in the program at Mendez Middle School. One of our teaching artists there is Colin Fullerton, an exceptional guitarist who just received his master’s degree in performance from UT–Austin. In a recent letter, Colin shared a different perspective on the impact of ACG Education:
Teaching at Mendez Middle School, I've come to understand the true breadth of the impact of ACG's free lessons initiative. Beyond instruction on how to play the guitar, this program provides the opportunity to engage students on a level that only arts immersion can offer; they are exposed to elements of collaboration and modes of critical thinking that can influence their lives well beyond the context of school, and all through the intimate, enriching medium of music. ACG is providing a vital service to which, otherwise, students in these communities would never have access.
Juvenile Justice
On Sunday, April 22nd over 100 guests gathered in the Gardner Betts courtroom for the first public recital by our students at the Travis County Juvenile Justice Center. The students played 5 ensemble pieces and 4 solos, and received a standing ovation. After the concert, we invited guests to write a short note to the students. Here’s what one said:
Today you inspired me. You reminded me of how powerful music can be. As an ensemble, you presented a united front. As soloists, your attention to detail brought your pieces to life. Music unites us, it’s the universal language, and today that unification made me want to be a better guitarist. Thank you for that.
On the heels of a PBS NewsHour story and an appearance by our staff before the Texas State Board of Juvenile Justice, Travis County officials have requested a significant extension of our program to serve non-incarcerated court-involved youth as part of their case plans. This expansion is set to begin as soon as summer 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rt0UvAOqa8
Community Programs: Austin Classical Guitar Youth Orchestra
ACG offers a variety of other programs designed to meet the needs of people where they are. These include a workplace education initiative piloted at Silicon Labs, a program for adults living with mental health diagnoses at Austin Clubhouse, and audition-based youth and adult ensemble programs based on the civic orchestra model. Here is an excerpt from this spring’s final concert by the ACG Youth Orchestra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f3smfhytqs
Organization: Structure, System, Training and Evaluation
The highest administrative priority to emerge from our 2015 Strategic Planning process was to hire a full-time marketing staff person. We are pleased to announce that veteran communicator and social servant Carlos Femat joined the ACG team on June 1st as our first Director of Marketing and Communications.
Our online curriculum and teacher resource, GuitarCurriculum.com, has been undergoing a major overhaul for over a year. We have made significant progress in recent months, and look forward to launching the new and significantly improved site this summer.
Our national training sessions will take place in Austin and St. Louis this July. Our team led three sessions at the Texas Music Educators Association convention in February, including the first meeting of our statewide advocacy organization, Texas Guitar Directors Association. We are also presenting at this summer’s Guitar Foundation of America International Festival in Denver, CO.
As our programs expand our primary concern is quality control. We are addressing this through the creation and implementation of smart, systemic, and replicable evaluation procedures. In March, 49 guitar ensembles participated in the first official pilot for a UIL concert and sight-reading assessment event. We assisted with similar events in Houston and Brownsville, and hosted guests from El Paso who are planning a similar event for their district next school year. Our team also contributed significantly to the new revisions of the UIL statewide Prescribed Music List for solo contests, and we will launch a new statewide video and guest artist outreach initiative to promote and improve solo guitar participation in the coming year.
Special Thanks
ACG Education would not be possible without the generosity of our many individual donors, along with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, City of Austin Cultural Arts Division, Augustine Foundation, Webber Family Foundation, Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation, Sarah & Ernest Butler, Kodosky Foundation, H-E-B, Shield-Ayres Foundation, Topfer Family Foundation, Mercedes-Benz of Austin, Silicon Labs, Texas Commission on the Arts, 3M Foundation, Kendal & Ken Gladish, Oliver Custom Homes, D’Addario Foundation, Louise Epstein & John Henry McDonald, David & Sheila Lastrapes, PricewaterhouseCoopers, 3Can Events, Savarez, Ameriprise Financial, Cain Foundation, Charles Schwab, Dr. Ted Held, MFS Foundation, William Metz, Bill & Marilyn Hartman, Ted Philippus & Carol Wratten, and Calido Guitars.
Brasil Duo Returns!
We are thrilled to welcome back the Brasil Duo to Austin on Saturday, August 1st, for the final concert of our 2015 Brasil! Summer Series. Since their last visit, this dynamic duo has done many incredible things, including perform with cello icon Yo Yo Ma!
Get tickets online here, or call 512-300-2247.
We are particularly excited to hear Joao Luiz’s arrangements of Rameau and Gismonti again.
The second half begins with a magnificent large work by Leo Brouwer that the duo performed in Havana, Cuba, with the composer present, on the same concert in which they premiered a new work with Yo Yo Ma and Carlos Prieto!
The Brasil Duo with cellists Carlos Prieto & Yo Yo Ma.
The duo’s August 1st program is:
Les Cyclopes by Jean Philippe Rameau
Prelude and Fugue by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Zita by Astor Piazzolla (watch this on video!)
A Fala da Paixao by Egberto Gismonti
Sete Aneis by Gismonti (video)
Intermission
Sonata de Los Viajeros by Leo Brouwer (video)
Bate-Coxa by Marco Pereira
Concert Details
Brasil Duo
Saturday, August 1st
Austin ISD Performing Arts Center
1500 Barbara Jordan Boulevard (78723)
6:30: Boteco Brazilian Food Truck
6:45: Gabriel Santiago (Eight-string Brazilian Jazz Guitar)
7:30: Brasil Duo
Tickets online here or 512-300-2247
Boteco will serve Yuca Fries with Chimmichurri Dipping Sauce, Ground Beef or Gourmet Cheese Pastels, Pão de Queijo, Brigadeiro, and Churros de Doce de Leite.
Our deepest thanks go to our sponsors Catherine and David Wildermuth, Joseph M. Bennett Architects and Oliver Custom Homes.
A Talk with Tesoros Trading Company
Art provides communities the opportunity to come together and appreciate a new viewpoint and, hopefully, gain a new perspective.
- Jonathan Williams & Kisla Jimenez, Tesoros Trading Company
Tesoros Trading Company is one of Austin’s cultural treasures not only for the amazing arts and crafts they bring to Austin from twenty different countries, but also for their deep commitment to supporting our community.
Tesoros is a sponsor and partner for this summer’s Brasil! series. Not only are they supporting our artists, but they have also donated twelve gorgeous and evocative prints by iconic Brazilian printmaker Jose Francisco Borges that will be available in the lobby of our shows as a benefit for ACG Education.
I spoke with Jonathan Williams and Kisla Jimenez about their relationship to Brazil, to Austin Classical Guitar, and the importance of international arts in our community.
Matthew Hinsley: What is your relationship with Brazil, what do you love the most?
Jonathan Williams: I was given a grant to study Portuguese at UT in the early 1980’s. Brazil in general is fascinating mix of European-Portuguese, African, and Indigenous traditions that has shaped its visual arts and music. The Folk Art traditions also reflect this unique blend. And of course the music is among the most beautiful in the world. We appreciate it all: from forro, to choro, to samba.
MH: You have generously donated prints by J. Borges for us to display and sell as a benefit at our summer series. Tell me about his work, and your relationship with the artist?
JW: On my first trip to Brazil I was most interested in meeting Jose Francisco Borges. The curator of the San Antonio Museum of Art- Latin American collection had introduced me to his work, and I went specifically to visit him in his small town, Bezerros, about two hours outside of Recife.
Jose Francisco Borges represents a centuries-old tradition of chapbook writing, illustrating, and performance. Since medieval times in the Iberian Peninsula writers have created short folk stories that were self published in small pamphlet size booklets called “Literartura de Cordel” or "Stories on a String.” The stories were hung on small cords in the weekly markets, and sold by their authors. They are normally written as poetry using the regional dialect of the author. Frequently they were sung out loud in the market place by the author to attract attention and sales of his latest creations. The topics could be humorous political satire, children’s folk tales, or even risqué dreams of the writers. J. Borges regards himself primarily as a poet/author.
However, he became internationally know for his self-taught talent of creating woodcuts to illustrate the covers of these small stories. Originally the size of his woodcuts were very small, about 3 by 5 inches, the size of the stories on a string. He is credited with being the first artist to expand the size beyond this small limit. His international fame came from his large woodblock prints that illustrate many folk traditions, animals, and legends of Northeast Brazil. He has created thousands of different woodcut images over the last 60 years.
Tesoros has sponsored several trips for him to visit Austin and Santa Fe. Approaching 80 years of age now, he is considered a national treasure in Brazil, and is the nation’s most well known folk artist.
MH: You are long time supporters of Austin Classical Guitar, you’ve even hosted us in your home for a Salon Concert. What do you wish everyone knew about ACG?
Jonathan & Kisla: The one thing that impresses us the most about ACG is the fact that thousands of kids have been impacted by the guitar lessons offered by ACG throughout the Austin public school system. We know first hand as parents that learning music benefits children in so many ways: improved self esteem, increased academic success, genuine appreciation for the arts, just to name a few.
Offering guitar lessons to kids from all walks of life undoubtedly opens doors to kids who may have not have the opportunity otherwise. Learning an instrument like the guitar, considering it's popularity in all types of music, hopefully provides a gateway to pursuing other instruments or other art forms. We love the professional performances that ACG organizes but more importantly, we think the educational component is extraordinary.
MH: You have traveled extensively, worked with artists, and heard music form around the world. From your perspective, what is the importance of art in our communities?
J&K: For us, art is vital in helping all of us understand and interpret our own daily struggles and joys. Looking at beautiful colors in an art piece or listening to the melodic notes of an engaging musical score provides a balance to this fast-paced, information-overloaded world we live in.
Art provides communities the opportunity to come together and appreciate a new viewpoint and, hopefully, gain a new perspective.
A Conversation with Brent Baldwin
When we realized our director of Austin Classical Guitar Youth Orchestra, Joseph Williams II, would be unable to conduct them at this Saturday’s performance (on account that he also needed to perform in the concert as a member of the Texas Guitar Quartet!), our first choice to lead our elite youth guitar orchestra was conductor extraordinaire Brent Baldwin.
Brent, as you’ll find out below, is a truly astonishing talent, one of the most creative and dynamic cultural forces in Austin.
He’s done a tremendous job with the talented young players of ACGYO, and he shares conducting duties on Saturday night with Conspirare’s Nina Revering as they lead our youth orchestra, and Conspirare’s Youth Choir, in a breathtaking opening half.
Still need tickets? Information is online here.
We asked Brent a few questions about everything from working with the young talents in ACGYO to playing for tens of thousands on his recent tour in Asia with a rock band.
Matthew Hinsley: What has it been like working with ACGYO?
Brent Baldwin: It’s been an absolute treat to work with such exceptional young talent. I think it’s a testament to ACG’s impact on the arts world. Austin is truly a classical guitar hub thanks to this organization.
It’s really inspiring to see intelligent and immensely talented young people work together toward a common goal. The world needs more of this! If I had a single regret about working with ACGYO, it reminds me that I didn’t have an opportunity to play in such a group when I was younger!
MH: What is most exciting to you about this project?
BB: I can’t narrow it to just one! This project combines three specific passions of mine—guitar music, choral music, and contemporary music.
The guitar is where my journey into music began. My initial focus was punk and noise rock, and while I never lost my love for the electric guitar, I stumbled upon an excellent classical guitar teacher (Christopher Kane) while at college in New Hampshire. The result was a change of major (from visual art to music performance) and a brand new outlook on what guitar music—and music itself—could be.
Choral music was likewise something I stumbled into by chance. There’s really something about the communal sharing of sound—sans instruments—that electrifies the air. I’m not remotely religious, but there are times when the harmonics of certain sonorities lock in just so, and it really does become a spiritual kind of moment for me.
In my twenty plus years of conducting, contemporary music has been a huge focus of mine. There’s so much emphasis on the masterworks of the past, and while they’re all wonderful works, we’re doing a great disservice to future generations of listeners and musicians if we fail to also make room for contemporary composers like Nico Muhly and Graham Reynolds. If people take the time to seek out and embrace the Beethovens and Mozarts of our time (after all, these guys were the contemporary weirdo composers of their time), there’s so much richness to be discovered. How exciting is that!
MH: You’re working with friends and colleagues like Graham Reynolds and Craig Hella Johnson in this project. How significant is it to make music with friends?
BB: SO very significant. These beautiful friends contribute so much to the Austin musical world, and any arts scene is going to benefit when artists gather forces for a common cause. Graham and I witnessed this last year when we worked together with Texas Performing Arts and Fusebox Festival to create Mozart Requiem Undead, which would have been far less successful than it would have been if any of us had tried to produce it alone. Texas Choral Consort’s most recent event, Indie Orchestra Night, brought together a chorus, an orchestra, and independent rock/pop figures like Dana Falconberry, Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg, the Rocketboys and Hip-Hop artist Zeale. All this in the spirit of making something exciting happen that we couldn’t easily pull off ourselves.
In my book, artistic collaboration trumps artistic competition any day. It’s a lot more work, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun!
MH: You’re a busy guy, from leading Texas Choral Consort, one of the most critically acclaimed Austin arts organizations in 2014, to touring Taiwan and Japan in a rock band and playing for tens of thousands. What else are you up to, what do you wish everyone knew about?
BB: In the wake of a pretty big year, Texas Choral Consort is gearing up to premiere a new large-scale work by Austin composer Russell Reed alongside the Ralph Vaughan Williams masterpiece Dona Nobis Pacem (August 16th at the Austin ISD Performing Arts Center). We’ve also got a number of terrific collaborations in the works with Line Upon Line percussion ensemble, Convergence and many, many others.
I’m in final negotiations regarding some upcoming domestic and international tours… things are still being worked out, so I won’t jinx things by spilling too many beans! Traveling to other parts of the world to share music with people is one of my very favorite things.
I’m also finalizing details on a number of world-premiere works which I’ll be conducting in the coming year or two. There are a number of recording projects in the works as well, including a brand new symphony by Austin composer Nathan Felix and a number of indie band orchestral collaborations. I’m keeping pretty busy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love what I do!
A Conversation with Kathy Panoff
I am fascinated by how things get done in the arts.
How do great series develop? How do thriving service-based programs grow? How are new works imagined and created and supported?
Kathy Panoff, after 13 years running the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Virginia, became Director and Associate Dean of the University of Texas at Austin Performing Arts Center (now Texas Performing Arts) in 2009. Since her arrival, Texas Performing Arts has been an extraordinary force in the development of bold and exciting programming, collaboration and vision in the arts in our community.
Our upcoming collaboration with Texas Performing Arts and Conspirare on April 18th was her original concept. The new work our organizations will premiere was commissioned by Texas Performing Arts with the help of the Mellon Foundation.
If you want to go, information and tickets are online here!
I asked Kathy a few questions about this project and about her vision and leadership in the arts. Enjoy!
Matt Hinsley: You made this. I’ll never forget the lunch when you first pitched the idea to Craig Hella Johnson and me. Why us? What led you to this bold and unprecedented collaborative vision?
Kathy Panoff: This particular commission provided the perfect opportunity for Texas Performing Arts to demonstrate our commitment to cultural leadership, one of the three key pillars of our mission-based work on the UT campus and in the community. As the largest arts organization in the region, Texas Performing Arts has an implied responsibility to both steward and elevate our cultural resources, including classical music, so that they may continue to grow, thrive and retain relevance in today’s rapidly changing world. I wanted to do something collaborative since we are known for that kind of programming with our faculty, and ACG and Conspirare seemed ideal partners since I wanted a work for voices and guitars, and since the guitar is essentially embedded in our culture in Austin.
MH: From your perspective, presenting some of the most important performing artists in the world as you do, and commissioning new material of great significance with regularity, what does it mean to have Nico Muhly creating this work for Austin?
KP: Presenting world class performing artists is a critical component of the teaching mission of the College of Fine Arts and The University of Texas at Austin at large. The commission of new work functions as the research and development arm of the various arts disciplines. It really is not unlike other types of research which, through trial, error and discovery, researchers aspire to move a particular area of study and/or research forward. In the arts the creation of new work is one of the most important ways to help advance the art form and ensure relevance in perpetuity.
MH: Tell me about your vision of community engagement in the arts. How does this project, and your broad efforts at Texas Performing Arts, feed that vision?
KP: For me, it goes back to cultural leadership and Texas Performing Arts' belief that leadership is best demonstrated by example. Competition for the arts and entertainment dollar is incredibly challenging. I believe we can best compete by developing collaborative projects like this, that will, by design, attract a broader range of constituents than doing something on our own. Honestly, I think it's a great way for all the participants to distinguish themselves. TPA has had great success with this collaborative approach with major projects that involve the elite student ensembles from the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music performing alongside professional touring artists, like the centennial performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with the UT Symphony and the Joffrey Ballet, and projects like How Little You Are.
A Conversation with Nico Muhly
Several years ago I got the kind of invitation that people in my line of work dream about. Kathy Panoff, Director of Texas Performing Arts, asked me to join her for lunch with Conspirare’s Craig Hella Johnson to discuss the possibility of a large-scale collaboration.
What Kathy envisioned, however, was much more than I could have imagined. She was in the process of applying for a grant from the Mellon Foundation—a grant with an enormous vision for community arts engagement in Austin. Part of her vision was to bring Austin Classical Guitar and Conspirare together with the commission of a new work, the scope of which would enable us to engage nearly any composer in the world.
Nearly any composer in the world.
We chose Nico Muhly.
A stunning talent with prolific and wide-ranging creations, Nico has composed for some of the most important performing arts groups in the world including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Paris Opéra Ballet, Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall, along with several film scores including a 2008 Best Picture nominee.
The result of that vision and commission is How Little You Are for voices and guitars. The premiere of this work, commissioned by Texas Performing Arts with support from the Mellon Foundation and performed by Conspirare, the Dublin Guitar Quartet, LA Guitar Quartet, and Texas Guitar Quartet, will take place on Saturday, April 18th at 8pm in Bass Concert Hall. Tickets and information are online here.
Here’s how Nico describes the work:
“How Little You Are is a large piece, for twelve guitars and choir. I found a sequence of texts written by pioneer women in Texas and in other places in the 19th century expansion to the west. Their concerns range from the agricultural to the spiritual, and from the wonder of the open spaces to the horrors of infant mortality. The camera moves away from the woman in the final section of the piece, towards the cowboys and wranglers working in the far distance.”
Intrigued yet? I think I speak for all of us when I say I was overwhelmed with Nico’s dramatic vision for the piece, and so I asked him to share some of his thoughts on the project as a whole.
Matthew Hinsley: What excites you the most about this project?
Nico Muhly: This piece is exciting for a few really specific and nerdy reasons. First and foremost, this is my first exploration of a totally homophonic texture: twelve identical instruments creating a large blanket of sound. This allowed me to really have fun with patterns and rhythms.
MH: What led you to the subject matter of this work: texts written by pioneer women in Texas and in other places in the 19th century expansion to the west?
NM: It seemed like I needed an excuse to use the multiple guitars, and I thought about the old sense of portable instruments: fiddles, guitars, things that could be thrown into the back of a wagon and brought across the country. Also, I’ve worked with American folk music as source material for a large range of compositions, but have never worked with cowboy music, which felt like a noticeable oversight. This piece ends with two old cowboy songs sung in a highly stylized fashion.
MH: Is there anything you wish everyone listening to this piece for the first time knew, or started thinking about, in advance?
NM: I would say to listen to how the guitars interface with another—they are divided up into three equal quartets, but sometimes information bounces between the groups and between individual players. Sometimes the guitars create a romantic environment and other times an austere, shrub-dotted landscape. I would also call attention to how the choir functions—sometimes as a collection of individuals and elsewhere as a giant mass.
A Conversation with Craig Hella Johnson
Craig Hella Johnson is the Artistic Director and visionary leader of one of the greatest choral organizations in the United States. With an astounding six nominations, only a few weeks ago Conspirare won their first Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
It’s been a longtime dream of mine to collaborate with Craig and Conspirare, and that’s why it was such a thrill when Kathy Panoff, Director of Texas Performing Arts, invited us to lunch a few years ago to discuss a vision she had for an ambitious and totally unique collaborative project.
That project’s world premiere is now just a few weeks away. On April 18th at Bass Concert Hall, we bring together the Dublin Guitar Quartet, Texas Guitar Quartet and LA Guitar Quartet (also Grammy winners) to perform with Conspirare the premiere of a new work by superstar composer Nico Muhly. The work was commissioned by Texas Performing Arts for this occasion.
Tickets and information are online here.
I asked Craig a few questions about the project and wanted to share our conversation with you:
Matthew Hinsley (MH): We’ve talked about working together for a long time. What do you think is magical about Austin Classical Guitar and Conspirare coming together in this project with Texas Performing Arts?
Craig Hella Johnson (CHJ): Well, magical is indeed the right word! Wow. For so long now, I've been inspired by ACG and the incredible range of things you all do. The broad range of opportunities is extraordinary—from the amazing professional concerts with world class artists to the dynamic programs you have for beginning guitarists from all walks of life. I feel that Conspirare shares these values with you—holding really high musical expectations for everyone involved and, at the same time, wanting to make the experience available to as many people as possible. You all have such a fresh and fun perspective, and this makes it a joy to collaborate.
So to combine the talents and vision of these organizations and to have it presented and curated by the incredible Texas Performing Arts series is truly special. It really took this essential partner—Kathy Panoff and Texas Performing Arts—to make the project possible. I am so grateful for her bold vision of creating new music for a choir of guitars and a choir of voices. This had been a long-time interest of mine—to explore this kind of texture play with the sounds of multiple guitars and voices, and it is exciting to see this come to fruition through such a significant commission.
MH: What excites you about Nico Muhly as a composer? What should we all know about this magnificent talent?
CHJ: Nico is just the bomb! Such an outrageously gifted composer, incredible craftsman, so intelligent. Although his urban, modern, fresh and bold voice is what so many people are responding passionately to these days, his music, for me, also feels deeply rooted in ancient traditions and gestures in a way that is compelling and can feel delightfully modern.
MH: You’ve had a chance to study the score. What can you tell us about what we might expect? Did anything surprise you?
CHJ: I really love it—it is an amazing score. I have already told him that I think it is a masterpiece, and I am not being hyperbolic when I say that. The textures and colors he has envisioned with these twelve guitars create a truly unique sound realm—like something we have not heard before. The vocal writing is first rate and carries such emotion. I feel that this will be a lasting piece in the repertoire. Beyond the fascinating compositional elements, I was surprised by how much the piece moved me, even just seeing it on paper. It really touched me.