In the past couple of weeks I’ve been doing a lot of creative puttering and dreaming, thinking about my Agnes etudes premiere concert (September 13! Save the date!). This is production stuff that isn’t practicing the music. It’s asking questions like:
What kind of experience do I want the audience to have? What messages and feelings do I want them to leave with? What do I want to say? What do I want to write in the program notes? Do I even want program notes? On paper or digital? Can I make some kind of audience interaction that’s organic and fun, not onerous or cheesy? What am I going to put on the poster? What kind of lighting do I want? Do I want to project images on the screen while I play, and will that even work? What images will make sense? And what the heck am I going to wear?
I’m going to take those in order, not that I have complete answers for everything (but I did solve a couple of things today, thus the title). As you’ll see, I’m just a tiny bit ambitious, here…
What kind of experience do I want my audience to have? I want endorphins. I want them to feel excited that they’re some of the first people in the world to hear this music, and I want them to feel special for that (because they are!). I want them to leave the outside world outside and enter the world of the concert and the music and be engaged and fully present as they listen. I want them to feel like the roomful of people is a community all experiencing something together. I want them to have lots of little moments of delight at Agnes’s turns of phrase. I want them to feel like they own the music. I want them to feel gobsmacked and inspired and thrilled. I want them to feel like “I can’t believe I get to hear this.”
What messages and feelings do I want them to leave with? Definitely “hey I heard this amazing composer Agnes Tyrrell and now I am part of the movement to make her famous.” Also “the world contains more possibilities than I ever imagined—now let me go find more possibilities in my own life” And also “the world may be on fire but it is not *only* on fire.”
What do I want to say? I’m going back and forth about this. Honestly very little: speaking takes performing energy that I’d rather put towards the playing, and I want this to be a concert, not a lecture recital. I want my speaking to make the audience feel welcome and like they know me—it’s always way more fun to go to concerts when you know the performers (even if you only know them as a fan). But I don’t want my speaking to take the audience (or me) out of the world of the show.
What do I want to write in the program notes? I may crib from this blog quite a bit. I want people to understand that Agnes got the training her talent deserved, unlike almost every other woman composer of her time, and that the existence of her music proves that what’s possible has always been more than we can imagine. I also want to point out what an incredible act of courage it was for Agnes to dedicate her etudes to Liszt. I’ll probably quote the Liszt letter, and I’ll probably say I’ve held it in my hands. I haven’t figured out how much of my story with this journey I want to tell; I don’t want to write a novella for the program notes, and I also want to make sure the main takeaway is more “Agnes is amazing” than “Jocelyn is amazing.” But it’s true that part of what’s special about this concert is that it’s me playing, the one who’s publishing and recording this music. I need to figure out how to tell my story and Agnes’s story together, briefly and compellingly. I’m still working on that.
Do I even want program notes? Well, yes. I have too much to say to make people listen to me yammer all night.
On paper or digital? Maybe both? I think it makes sense to make a digital version that can include some colored pictures. I’m not sure we need a program, but it can be a nice souvenir. I’m thinking about maybe messing with the form of the paper program; there was a cute DIY ‘zine project (link: https://www.mirkwork.com/buy-my-stuff/how-to-make-a-zine-pdf at the Musselman Library this summer, and I’ve been thinking about the idea of making a tiny little cool folded thing for the program. That may be silly. But it’s an example of the kind of thing I’m woolgathering about.
Can I make some kind of audience interaction that’s organic and fun, not onerous or cheesy? I’ve been thinking about this so much…I went to see Weird Al Yankovic at Wolf Trap last weekend (actually that experience has been informing a lot of my thinking). I loved the singalongs; it was unironically moving to sing “Yoda,Yo-yo-yo-yo-Yoda.” There won’t be a singalong in this concert! But there was also a moment where he had everyone wave their phones back and forth, and that was really moving too. There might (or might not, I know I know) be a way I can make something like that happen, but I’ll have to figure it out. Years ago I did an interactive concert at a music educators conference (so the most game audience ever) where I had them throw red balls of yarn around the room and then negotiate the resulting web while I played Chopin’s Opus 10 etudes, and that was one of the best performance experiences I’ve ever had. It was partly about effort, which that project was in a way that this one isn’t, I don’t think, so I don’t quite think I could do exactly that again. And most audiences might not go for it. But I’m definitely going to have some way that audiences can give nicknames to the etudes that need them, and I might have a vote for the favorite etude. I keep thinking about, and haven’t completely given up on (even though this is ridiculous) having everyone wear birthday party hats (because Agnes’s birthday is a few days later—oh gods, I could make everyone sing Happy Birthday). Then, in a reference to Robert Schumann’s famous “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius” quote about Chopin, everyone could take off their hats and throw them in the air. But what an audience “could” and “would” do may be very different…
What am I going to put on the poster? I want it to look colorful and fabulous but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.
What kind of lighting do I want? House black, curtains closed, and beyond that I need to go into the hall and play with the lighting.
Do I want to project images on the screen while I play, and will that even work? I definitely want to, and it will work in my home recital hall. There’s been some googling of portable projectors and stands for when I go on the road.
What images will make sense? Definitely some of the manuscript pages—they’re so beautiful. And YOU GUYS. I found out today that it’s now really easy to insert live video into a PowerPoint (after many many years of frustrating tech meetings where people told me “nope, can’t really do that). So I’m going to show parts of the manuscript pages with a live feed of my hands on the keyboard, and that will be fantastic. There are still a few wrinkles to iron out and long cables to buy and such things, but this will work. I need to ask a friend to be my tech person so I don’t stress about it, but I can do that.
And what the heck am I going to wear? I have spent waaaaaaay more time than I’m proud of googling about this. I like the idea of wearing a pantsuit or jumpsuit, because feminism, but I have not found my perfect outfit amid all the terrifyingly boring mother-of-the-bride chiffon things. I also really like the idea of being colorful, because Agnes’s music is so colorful. I bought a really fun colorful jumpsuit (that was a very fun local shopping experience at https://freshboutiquei.com ) but it’s very modern, and isn’t quite right; I’m just going to wear it to teach in instead. And I ordered a promising jumpsuit online, but when I put it on I looked like a tablecloth, or like one of the Von Trapp children wearing curtains. So back it went. I also like the idea of a dress with flowers, since Agnes was Moravian in the Victorian era, so fabrics included lots of floral patterns. I went so far as to buy a bunch of silk flowers to sew on a navy blue dress I have, but that was going to be a lot of work when I should be practicing, and maybe wasn’t going to look very good. What I’ve really wanted is something beautiful, maybe a little shiny, visually interesting for the audience, with a comfortable fabric that I can throw in a suitcase and never iron. And I found it! At the Goodwill store for ten bucks. It’s handmade, but very well-made: the seamstress matched the patterns at the seams beautifully. It’s definitely a Moravian-looking pattern with lots of flowers on it, and it’s colorful and interesting and comfy and not too serious and just perfect.
So I didn’t practice piano today, but I figured out the dress and how I can project video of my hands. I’m calling that a win.
Unrelated but very cool: I dreamt I was talking with Agnes, which hasn’t happened before. She was a modern very cool Berlin chick, maybe in her twenties, with bobbed hair and black leather and lots of eyeliner, and she said “seriously, you’ve got to check out the opera.” I will, Agnes, I will!
