Quilting as a model of new operatic compositional practice.

This blog provides a short overview of the research I did for my practice-based PhD as a composer at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire 2016 to 2020 and the further developments born from that research. 

 

My research was entitled Quilt Song: Quilting as a model of new operatic compositional practice. Through it, I investigated via the composition of Quilt Song how to open up opera to new practices in the 21st century. 

 

Quilting has proved itself to be a flexible model of practice on many levels which allows for experimentation via organic processes. Compositionally this means that music does not necessarily have to be created in the order of a dramatic narrative, which in turnenables thematic material to be cross-fertilised and developed in unexpected ways. This process of compositional quilting as amethodology is not easy to explain via a neat table of rules, rather it involves submitting to an intuitive process.

 

“All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I am working, it is quite clear that Iknow nothing.”

John Cage (Larson, 2012: 239)

 

Ten-minute introduction to Quilt Song

https://youtu.be/Yu2LeU87oHw

Marina Sossi at the opening of Quilt Song, 2018.

I have now been a full time composer for 12 years, following on from a career as an opera singer. I composed throughout my operatic career and as an undergraduate, I was a joint first study voice and composition at The Royal College of Music. 

 

I have sung solo roles in many of the opera Houses of Europe, however one of my frustrations was in the area of the creation of new opera which seemed to follow old-fashioned principles, particularly in the areas of plot development and production. Many facets of new opera promote outmoded stereotypes.

 

Creating opera for broader audiences focusses on developing an approach to composition that will provide the tools to produce an opera that promotes inclusivity. To some extent I am subversively led by the views of non-opera goers to choose approaches that do not conform to current trends in contemporary opera.

 

As my research at Birmingham developed, I became more and more excited about the possibility of using interdisciplinary techniques and modes of collaboration. In Quilt Song I incorporate a lot of technology particularly in the area of creating abstract soundscapes and video.

 

To create Quilt Song, I intentionally surrendered my compositional output to embrace eclecticism. From quilting flowed many compositional possibilities which I have continued developing since I completed Quilt Song, in particular, the way in which materials can be organically developed, cross-related, juxtaposed and transformed. Resonances with this approach can be seen via the iconic artist Robert Rauschenberg’s imaginative practice in which he observes 

 

“the objects not only suggest new possibilities, things I would have never thought of if I’d stayed in the studio - they also set up resistances that I find very useful.” Rauschenberg, 2017: 235 

 

1. Embodied in quilting practice is the potential to develop artistic and compositional process in concert with sociological issues.

2. Diverse materials, musical themes and peoples can co-exist within the framework of a pattern, a score or a social structure.

3. By developing a structured notated score alongside improvised-sound technology, contrasting textures can be simultaneously woven to establish an architecture which is underpinned in a similar way to a quilt’s template. 

4. The psychological substructure of a libretto’s plot can be subliminally embedded into the quilting musical grid to convey themes, dramaturgy and individual characterisation.  

5. By placing quilting’s methodology within the field of minimalist and post-minimalist techniques incorporated by composers like SteveReich, Philip Glass, John Adams, Louis Andriessen and Max Richter, its innovation is supported by a significant body of compositional practice.

6. By applying collage techniques as used by György Ligeti and Charles Ives, atonality and polytonality can simultaneously exist to express differing time frames, cultures and narratives. Ives ‘layered up’ music by juxtaposing polytonality against well-known tunes, while Ligeti’s eclectic approach resonates with quilting in that, according to Searby, ‘the music in Le Grande Macabre is unusually varied in style and compositional process, and tends to be built from short, fragmentary sections.’ (2010: 29)

7. By allowing paradoxes of compositional style to rub up against each other, welcoming access points for the listener are opened up such as positioning familiar consonance beside abstraction.

I am interested in promoting diversity and involving audiences. Traditional opera house-based companies can feel hemmed in by the criteria of size, cost of the administration, orchestra and the chorus. All this means that opera often equals a narrower artistic presentation than is desirable. Through research I discovered many different expressions outside opera houses. For example, I composed Freedom Bridge for Birmingham Opera Company, which was performed in the Central station and in a shopping mall. This reached out to normal people who wouldn't ever go near opera. I love this kind of approach.

Alison Rose in Freedom Bridge: Self, Birmingham Opera Company, 2017. 

https://youtu.be/RjOWeXBKbIU  

I am fascinated to use technology. I currently use Logic Pro, Ableton Live, and make my own videos. I regard all these activities as part of the composition. It is also part of my interdisciplinary to work with people who aren't opera singers.

 

Opera might enhance its accessibility to a broader spectrum of audience if it included singers of different genres. The field of alternative approaches to voice in new opera reveals exciting departures from traditional opera singing such as in Andriessen’s Writing to Vermeer (2004) which features a high vibrato-less soprano. This further demonstrates that ‘for many years now microphones easily allow a singer with a pure non-vibrato voice to be heard over an ensemble’ (Reich, 2002: 173). Technology leads on to a wealth of possibilities which could incorporate singers from other traditions and allow them to be heard over a large orchestra, such as the jazz singer in Goebbels’s Surrogate Cities in ‘Where the dogs dwell’ (2000). Integrating other approaches to voice has been extensively taken up in the field of contemporary music such as Meredith Monk’s Gotham Lullaby (Monk: 1981) sung by Björk, who demonstrates extended vocal technique unwrapped in the throat of an expert pop singer. Monk herself also sings with amplified extended voice.  

 

For my latest opera Corset Story, I have been working and collaborating with the performance artist, Marina Sossi. I love it that she is also singing part of the opera even though she's not a trained opera singer. We would never say that modern dance could only be danced by classically trained ballet dancers. I see the potential to use a vast range of vocal performers from all walks of life, disciplines and cultures in new opera. 

SELF & SOSSI rehearsing Corset Story 2024

Particularly, I want to compose music that will appeal to a broader audience but still use abstract ideas. I also want to compose music that will be enjoyable for the players and singers to perform: Since I finished my PhD three years ago I have composed four operas, three of which were commissioned by Tête a Tête:

HER BODY: 2021

https://vimeo.com/615142400

 

I am currently working on my third large choral work in three years, Magnificat.

 

Sea Requiem was a substantial score, yet the material flowed naturally… the extended silence which followed this conclusion…. was a tribute to the audience’s rapt concentration and the cumulative effect of Susannah Self’s fervent, directly expressive music.  Paul Conway, Musical Opinion 2023

 

STABAT MATER 2023 in Ely Cathedral

https://youtu.be/YZwU3PJYTic?si=C9B3xjz_vPq3E2oP

I am also lucky to be teaching young composers at Guildhall Young Artists on Saturdays. I have learnt from them about audio, virtual reality, AI etc, an area that I want to explore more myself. Another aspect of my work at Guildhall Young Artists is to run improvisation / composition workshops. Here I have been developing a methodology of curating their musical ideas to create a collective piece. This is a fascinating area to develop further with audiences so that they could have more ownership of creative material. 

Earlier this year I created a new opera about the artist Artemisia Gentileschi from the Renaissance. I worked with amateur singers in North Norfolk to put on three performances. I collaborated with the singers so that we put the production together as an ensemble rather than having a director. This created a great atmosphere in rehearsals and performances. This exemplifies my principles of compositional quilting technique, in other words I am working at every level of a work right down to the politics! 

 Ultimately I seek to demystifying the role of composer as heroic creator, by instead reframing the role as a collaborator. 

 

 

 

Composing in childhood: A short photo essay

With my grandmother, the concert violinist `Daisy Kennedy

When I was born I was separated from my mother from day 4 because she had a catastrophic post puerperal depression. This was very sad for her, me and my dad and had far reaching implications on my development. However I believe, it was the very lack of initial connection to my mother that led me early on to develop neuro pathways which made me into a composer. This is because composing music is all about creating connection between notes and sounds so what I lacked on a human level I compensated for with composition. 

From age 3, I was composing. My grandmother gave me a key coloured glockenspiel which may have led to my my synaesthesia, seeing colours in notes. This is why I also find connection between composing and painting. In addition I may have developed my intuitive musicality due to my genetic inheritance. My cousin is Nigel Kennedy and my grandmother was the concert violinist, Daisy Kennedy. 

 

With Nigel Kennnedy, my cousin

The gene AVPR1A on chromosome 12q has been implicated in music perception, music memory, and music listening, whereas SLC6A4 on chromosome 17q has been associated with music memory and choir participation. Both nature (a predisposition for music) and nurture (musical training) are believed to “establish a neural foundation for musicality,”. Researchers have observed structures in the infant brain that may serve as a scaffold upon which ongoing musical experience can build.

With my Dad

Becoming a composer was also due to the empowerment that my Dad gave me. He had a sense of play and fun that brought me into the presence of a life in which I was allowed to develop traditionally male traits such as being a tomboy, playing football, fishing and going on adventures. However in many respects I was made by my parents to play out my childish life as a very conventional girl. I am grateful for the ballet! Today, I could have easily been a candidate for gender re-assignment. But the truth is that I was just a girl who wanted to be doing exciting things that men did, like compose!

With my Dad

When my mum died I found that she had copied out a rather amazing report from my first composition professor at The Royal College of Music, Alan Ridout.  

Listen to my work Synapse on you tube

https://youtu.be/FqpA104rEQY

The function of synapses in the brain provides a platform on which to compositionally further engage with my fascination with the nature of random systems. Synapses simultaneously demonstrate a state of chaos that interface with their own unique sense of formality. This process connects with my eclectic methodology of compositional quilting in which abstract shapes can be contained and even made sense of within a grid. I find it extraordinary that this tangle of synapses is the epicentre of human thought and memory! The Psychologist Anthony Storr contextualises their paradox in the following way:

Music plays a special role in aiding the scanning and sorting process which goes on when we are asleep or simply day dreaming.

Anthony Storr: Music and The Mind. p. 107

Dog = God with interactive performance piece

Tristan

When I visited my cousin Will Self's writing den, the walls were surrounded with stick-it notes. 

One stuck out for personal reasons 

Opera = Orgasm. 

But I have an even better one, which you may have heard before. 

Dog = God 

And yes God is Dog spelled backwards! 

When I made my career shift from opera singer to composer ten years ago, our prize cat Leo was approaching his life's conclusion. It felt impossible to replace him so I suggested a dog to keep me company as I composed. Rachmaninoff had a dog called Racky. I know this because my maternal grandmother's first husband was the pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch and he premièred the second piano concerto which was forged under the guidance of Racky.

The animal spirit of a dog is unchallengeably the most glorious colleague in life. He will love and nurture you whatever the circumstances. He will lay his head on your feet or snuggle up to you head in the middle of the night. He is your best buddy come what may. When my arms are around him I am safe from difficult thoughts and the terrors of the World. His healing comes at no cost, his love is sublime.

Susie and Tristan on the water

Our Tristan is a performer, a swimmer, a singer, a showman, a dog outraged at CATs.

 

He is unanimously friendly to everyone.

Relax now and perform with him in

 

TRISTAN SINGS

https://youtu.be/HJaKxyHTlbE

For performer(s) and Soundscape

Composed by Susannah Self

Commissioned by Andy Ingamells

Purpose of The Piece:

 

The act of howling provides a cathartic release through long doleful cries which facilitate a disintegration of pent up feelings. Tristan Sings is a response to anxious emotions. Outcomes could include a calmer mind. 

Tristan Magnus Christie is a 9-year-old border terrier. His research involves sniffing out prey, eating, running with horses on the beach and howling. Tristan is sustained by a raw food diet proved by

 https://honeysrealdogfood.com 

His daily practice of interactive howling with Dr Self was initiated from an early age. Tristan Sings is inspired by John Cage with whom Dr Self worked in the Rocky Mountains in Canada.

Creating Opera for a Community of Singers

When the pandemic arrived my amateur/semi-pro opera company in Coastal Norfolk, North Sea Opera, was about to perform the tour of the première of my opera ARTEMISIA. Three years later, I overcame the ramifications of many of the cast moving away and re-presented it last week with three performances, two in village halls and one in the local arts centre's theatre. My aim with North Sea Opera, the community arm of my professional company Selfmade Music, is to challenge the way opera is conceived, composed and created. At the core of the company's value is the empowerment of performers in concert with discerning what will work for amateur/semi-pro singers. The focus is on building community and how they will enjoy doing it.  

"Imagine living in a tiny town in North Norfolk and being able to wander out and and see a newly composed opera about the 17th Century artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Bravi tutti North Sea Opera, what an amazing piece. Thank you Susie Self, it was exquisite." 

Joss Bundy, audience member at Wells Maltings

Susannah and The Elders, Artemisia Gentileschi

Developing New Opera 

Ever since I undertook my academic research, I have made it my business to investigate and invent new opera practice. For Artemisia in particular, I wanted to find methods whereby amateur/semi-pro singers could shine at their best. It would be fair to observe that singing standard operatic repertoire is often disappointing for them as the vocal expertise is not always within their grasp. It must be  acknowledged that it is highly competitive to get into a conservatoire to train and then make it in the profession, this fact needs to be taken into account when discerning levels of vocality. When I conducted a local amateur opera company for 7 years I found the repertoire that suited their voices best, despite the complexity of the music, was Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten. Moving on, for my own company, North Sea Opera, I want to contradict prejudice and clichés in traditional opera and instead create opera that is appealing to the singers and audiences of today.To do this I need to develop my powers of freeness and spontaneity. As the leader of the company I need to be reliable (people singing for love do not always turn up whereas I always do) and I also need to be responsive to their needs. For example learning off the book is a big issue, so for this production I suggested we didn't need to learn the music. This took the pressure off and all the singers learnt their music beautifully. Reverse psychology works! I also played piano with some playback so that I could follow the singers if needs be. To include an ensemble of instrumental players would have been impractical with the dimensions of the venues, it would be much more costly and most importantly make a lot more stress for the singers. Only conservative trained singers have the ability to securely count, therefore accompanying the singers on piano gives them full reign to enjoy and express themselves with allowances. Especially as the composer playing, I can do this. As a consequence of such low stress they sang mostly in good time. I also suggested to the ensemble that we create the stage action together which leads to the term SINGER LED OPERA, a phrase which will come as sweet music to many singers' ears.

Serving The Community

To serve my community of singers in North Norfolk in particular, where the gender make-up of singers is 80% women to 20% men, I reflected this in the roles. In ARTEMISIA there are six equally weighted roles, one is for a man, 5 for women. The cast can expand to 7 women and 2 men bringing it up to 9. This makes the opera very usable by small low-funded touring companies and conservatoires. The roles are crafted to be singable with good tunes to enjoy. This opera is also very suited to underdeveloped voices.

A ten minute taster of the performance from The Wells Maltings, Norfolk June 2024

https://vimeo.com/963649124?share=copy

Changing Female Stereotypes in Opera

Artemisia’s inspiring story is of becoming a successful painter in the face of adversity after a #MeToo situation she encountered when she was 16. Artemisia’s character reflects my commitment as a composer to move away from presenting female stereotypes that Catherine Clément refers to in Opera, or, The Undoing of Women as ‘the role of jewel, a decorative object... on the opera stage women perpetually sing their eternal undoing.’ Surprisingly the majority of female characters in new operas rarely pass the Bechdel test as established by Alison Bechdel in Dykes to Watch Out For (1986). To comply, two women must talk about something other than a love interest. I believe that the 21st Century needs an alternative operatic paradigm in which female characters are defined by their actions rather than their gendered identity. This shift will in turn help contribute to developing the dramatic scope of male and non-binary roles. However, my chosen focus is to address the way in which 50% of the earth’s population is under-represented. I seek to transform Christopher Small’s observation in Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening that ‘it is rare on the opera stage to meet a heroine who is permitted to be strong and independent, which means not depending on male support, and get away with it’ (Small, 1998). 

The Background to Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1652) was one of the foremost painters of the early 1600s. She created intensely powerful interpretations of biblical stories such as Susannah and the Elders. Artemisia moved in the courts of Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. The opera takes a fictional perspective informed by historical research. In particular Artemisia’s residence in Venice coincides with the rise of convents as documented in Jonathan Glixon in Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters? Venetian Nunneries and their Music (2018). Even though Artemisia was subsequently forgotten by art history she was admired in her time and her gender was no bar to her acceptance as an artist. This may have been aided by the situation in which many cultured women in Venice were forced by circumstances to become nuns. Convents re-invented themselves as refuges from the patriarchy so that women embraced an unprecedented freedom. They dressed in their own clothes, commissioned artists and created operas which were accompanied by lavish feasts. In Artemisia the artist receives a commission from St. Catherine’s Convent to create a portrait. The National Gallery has just purchased Artemisia’s painting of St. Catherine as a Self-portrait. 

Making a story and libretto for the opera

As the opera develops the nuns devise an opera within an opera based on the historically documented rape trial heard by the Pope in which Tassi, Artemisia’s fiancé, was convicted of rape. History shows that Artemisia’s response to this attack was to literally roll up her sleeves and become the artist that she was destined to be. Running parallel to Artemisia’s story is that of Artless, a modern painter. Artless struggles with her practice that seeks to convey art with no meaning. She falters in confidence until she discovers Artemisia’s work. Courageously she re-names herself from Alice to Artless by re-ordering the syllables of Artemisia Gentileschi, which reflect ‘less gentle art’, as in Artemisia’s Judith Decapitating Holofernes which was painted in three versions after the trial. 

There is a Conversation 

Opera director Phyllida Lloyd says there is a conversation ‘that is being had amongst women in the theatre, about the dearth of great roles for women over a certain age, and also [how] job opportunities are much narrower for women who are of unconventional size, shape, accent, ethnic origin, whatever.’ (Saner, 2016: The Guardian). Artemisia directly addresses this issue. 

ARTEMISIA promotes 4 dynamic contemporary issues in a way that traditional opera does not. 

They are: 

1. A female character can fashion her own destiny towards a positive outcome despite a traumatic event.
2. Women artists deserve parity of representation.
3. Art does not always need to convey a meaning. 

4. Ethically, new operas need to feature a higher percentage of female parts so as to reflect the current proportionality of singers available.  

To conclude, many elements of story-telling embodied in Artemisia reflect recent shifts in some opera companies especially in Scandinavia, North Germany and the Americas. At Creation: Opera Europa’s 2019 conference in Antwerp I could see that the tide is turning towards areas in which my research has led me. In particular, creating new work that relates to contemporary issues and that features empowered women. However, in discussion with some of the main publishers and opera house intendants at Creation, I discovered that they remain invested in promoting new operas which often feature a proliferation of male protagonists such as in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur (2008), George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (2012), Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), Hector Parra’s Les Bienveillantes (2019) and Wolfgang Rihm’s Jacob Lenz (2015). Even if a new opera features a lead woman such as in Mark Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole (2010) she is defined by her ability to ensnare a rich man with her sexuality which again references the traditional model. While I personally enjoy these operas for their astounding compositional dexterity, my response as a composer is to suggest that there is also room for women of action to take centre stage. 

The composer of Artemisia