IDAGIO Meets ... Carlos Simon

Let's start out with the new series of recordings showcasing your work with the National Symphony Orchestra. Can you tell us a little bit about that collaboration?

Yeah, I've been in residency at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in DC and as a part of that position, I have the opportunity to work with the National Symphony, the Washington National Opera, the Washington National Ballet, as well as the Jazz and Education departments. It's really sort of a cross-blending of arts that I get to experience, but mostly it’s kind of siloed with the National Symphony. So for the last three years I have written a piece every season and they have premiered it, usually in the spring. This album is a combination of the work that we've done together in the last three years and the performances that they’ve done at the Kennedy Center. It's four symphonic works, pieces that they've either commissioned or performed throughout my residency.

Can you tell us a little more about that composer-in-residence position and what your work in that role looks like on a day-to-day basis?

It's sort of a playground. I get the opportunity to work with world-class musicians, world-class artists and they come to me and ask what I want to do, what I want to write. I use it as a challenge to just discover new sounds, to discover new concepts. There are so many different projects that I want to do of course, and everyone is willing to help make it a reality! The most rewarding thing that I've done at the Kennedy Center is what we call “The Cartography Project”. We've created a pipeline, if you will, for aspiring young Black composers, librettists and writers. It's a three-year program where I give mentorship along with my collaborator Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who also serves as Vice President of Social Impact. We go to four cities – Detroit, New Orleans, Houston and Seattle – and mentor different composers there. At the end of the program, the composers and librettists will have a performance at the Kennedy Center with musicians of either the Washington National Opera or the National Symphony.

Amazing, so it becomes a sort of map of talent?

Exactly! So that's what I do in a nutshell. I mean, I often just go to the Kennedy Center just because it's a great place to hang out—it's a monument! I go to see concerts and I get inspiration, just on a weekly basis. Currently I'm on tour with the National Symphony in Europe and we just arrived in Hamburg today.

The first work released in the album series with the NSO is Tales – A Folklore Symphony, which explores African American folklore and Afrofuturism. Can you dive a little deeper into the narratives, the tales that inspired the work?

Sure! With the first movement, it was important for me to start in the future. I was reading about this comic book writer, Black Kirby. What they do is they take these well-known comic book tales, DC Comics and Marvel, and they put a Black spin on it. The question is: “Why aren't Black people represented in comic books as heroes?” There is one character named the Motherboxx Connection and it's a female entity, a computer that knows everything about Blackness: it knows anything, everything, it's all-knowing. So the first movement starts with the idea of this computer, you hear very fast rhythms and strings throughout and a motif that continues throughout the entire work. Very colourful, very bright harmonies – so that's a lot of energy there. The second movement is called Flying Africans. It’s a folklore that, once enslaved Africans made it across the Atlantic, they lost their ability to fly. The folklore was that all Africans could fly but somehow on the journey they lost the ability, except for a few, and those kept it quiet because they didn't want people to know about it. There are many different variations on the story, but that's the idea. So I created this musical landscape of flying and you hear the strings kind of soaring very, very high, but slowly though, not very fast, and it's kind of glissing in between different notes. And I've used the spiritual Steal Away as a quote. The words are, “Steal away, steal away home. I ain't got long to stay here.” I use spirituals a lot in this piece, especially in the third movement, which quotes Go Down Moses, which is directly correlated to the biblical story of Israelites being in captivity to the Egyptians. So when the enslaved Africans heard about these stories of Israelites being in captivity and enslaved, they connected with those stories and said, “Hey, we want to be out of bondage too, just like the Israelites.” So the spiritual Go Down Moses comes out of them hearing these stories: “Go down Moses way down in Egypt land, tell old Pharaoh to let my people go!” I've quoted that along with different programmatic elements. The story basically goes that Moses tells Pharaoh to let his people go, he doesn't do it and so God sends plagues. You have the locusts, the frogs, the boils on the skin, and of course the worst, the death of the firstborn. So I've embedded all of these things into the movement along with the spiritual. The final movement is the story of John Henry. The folklore was that John Henry was one of the strongest men that ever lived. This came at the time when the Industrial Revolution started. Up until that point most of the work was done by men, particularly African American men, and they used work songs to get through the day. The story of John Henry goes that he was one of the strongest men that ever lived, he could do as much work and more than any regular man – until the machine came along and there was a bet that said, “We bet you that you can't beat the machine.” Of course he beats the machine in the competition but as a result, he dies. It’s basically a cautionary tale: don't compete with the machine, right? This Old Hammer, a work song, comes out of this and I quote that song. The words are: “This old hammer killed John Henry but it won't kill me.” So musically there is a competition, too: you'll hear the strings and the percussion representing the machine with very agitated, very motoric, constant rhythms, and then the theme is quoted in the brass throughout. So you have the battle and of course the result of that battle – which is death – and that's how the piece ends.

It's fascinating to think of this as a way of taking the genre of the symphony a step further. Would you also consider this work a Sonic Fiction of sorts? 

I suppose. I never thought of it that way, but yeah, it’s programmatic. I guess you could also think of it like a tone poem or that sort of thing.

Your second release with the NSO features the orchestral study The Block, which is inspired by the visual art of Romare Bearden. Can you tell us more about your relationship to his work and how it inspired the composition?

He is very inspiring to me. I remember seeing his work for the first time and really being just blown away by the colour and the imagery. That led me down the path of discovering who he was as a person. He was an African American artist who was born in North Carolina, spent some time in Pittsburgh, but mostly lived in New York. He went through stages, that was the first thing I really admired about him: he has periods where he's experimenting with different painting techniques. I would say the most popular stage in his life is the collage stage, where he uses different mediums and different textures to create a piece of visual art. Most of his work is a reflection of African American life, particularly in New York and Harlem. The Block is one of his most well-known works, which depicts a block in Harlem during the 60s and 70s. It's a huge mural, four panels I think. There’s the church. There's a funeral home. There's a barber shop. And of course people walking about. It's a very colourful piece. I wanted to create an orchestral study of what it would sound like if it had a soundtrack to it. Bearden was a musician too, which was interesting to know and to learn about. He loved Blues—in fact a lot of his art depicts Blues. The New York Philharmonic commissioned me to write two more movements to the piece. The Block is the first movement. The second movement is called Empress of the Blues, because he loved Bessie Smith so much he created a portrait of her indirectly. Then the last movement is City of Lights, which refers to a work that was created after he died: it's this stained glass sculpture in a train station in New York, in Queens of all places. That's not on the album though, but it will be recorded.

What does this new cycle of recordings represent to you?

It represents my residency, particularly the collaboration with the National Symphony in the three years that I've been there. The collaboration has been very fruitful and the recordings show the relationship that I have with not only the incredible musicians, but also with Maestro Noseda who has been such a champion of my work and a huge supporter!

Can you give us a little insight into your composition process? How do you usually work?

When I first start a piece, I have to do a lot of research, a lot of understanding. So it means watching videos, watching interviews, and reading books. It's a lot of different things, anything to get the juices flowing and an understanding of the concepts I want to talk about in the music. Once I have a firm understanding of what I really want to say and how to approach it, then I'll start writing the music. When I start, it's more of a stream of consciousness, just improvising at first and getting music out into the world. From there, I refine the actual notes on paper, orchestrating and whatever it calls for, depending on if it's an orchestral or a chamber work.

Is there anything that you feel is special or different about composing for orchestra, or is it the same as any other lineup?

No, it's completely different every time, even with the different orchestral pieces. The process is different and there are so many different colours that I can use in combinations. One of my favorite composers is Maurice Ravel. He was known to be an incredible orchestrator, but he said that it takes a lifetime to really understand the art of orchestration. So with every piece I'm trying to figure out and try new things: “What does it sound like to pair this French horn with the piccolo in this particular range?” or “”What if I put the harmony mutes with the flutes, what does that sound like?” It's an experiment for me, every piece and how I approach it is different.

In The Washington Post, you have said: “Music is my pulpit. That’s where I preach.” I understand that it's a very personal thing, but can you elaborate on that sentiment a little more?

My father's a pastor, a preacher, and I actually come from a long line of preachers. My great-grandfather was ordained in 1924, so it's over a hundred years of preachers, and my dad always wanted me to be a preacher. I eventually went to music, it was just that I love music and that’s what I wanted to do. But recognising my lineage and where I come from and how I feel like we’re all here for a reason – to help others – I see music as a vehicle for helping others. I saw that with my father and his father before that and his father before that, so I wanted to continue that through music.

What do you hope people will take away from these new recordings with the National Symphony Orchestra?

I'm always taken aback by that question because I don't want to limit people in this. The pieces kind of speak for themselves, but someone may say, “This reminds me of my grandmother” or something like that. You just came up with Sonic Fiction. I never thought of it that way. So I'd like for folks to listen to the pieces and come with their own expectations and leave with their own insights. That's my hope: listen intently and get something out of it for yourself.

To wrap up the interview, do you mind telling us a little bit about what you're currently working on or what's next for you?

I'm working on an opera now! It's really exciting and I can finally talk about it. It's a work that is commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. It's based in the near future in a place much like New Orleans, Louisiana. It has a little bit of magic, it has a little bit of self-sacrifice and community, but there's also some correlation to Africa. That's all I'll say. It's called The Highlands, I can give you the title.

That sounds amazing, looking forward to hearing it!