Posts by Nick Norton

WasteLAnd‘s second season at ArtShare starts this Friday, September 19 (tomorrow) at 8 PM, with percussionist Justin DeHart performing John Luther Adams’ The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies in its entirety. Their first season at the venue was a blast, and drew great crowds for dense and challenging music. We managed to track down the series’ co-directors for an interview about the series and what’s coming up.

What was the impetus to start this series?

Scott: I think we had all individually dreamed of having a series that played music we wished would get played more ’round these parts. Then we realized that multiple heads can be better than one. Our programming is sort of a mash up of all of our desires. For example. I mostly just recommend pieces that are long enough to be the whole concert.

Matt: A lot of the music I really love has a tendency to fall in the cracks between different series in town, so for me, an exciting part of wasteLAnd is getting to focus upon music that I really love that is just outside of the mission of a lot of the series and groups I play with. It’s exciting to get to listen to other performers interested in this type of music and hear what they want to play, but don’t get to, and help provide a space for them.

Nick: I’ve been talking about wanting to do this for years.  I’ve never really wanted to run an ensemble, but have wanted to run either a series or a venue for quite a while.  In fact, I would love it if, at some point down the road, it became possible for wasteLAnd to have its own space.  I had discussed this off and on for some time with Scott, Brian, and Matt, but nothing ever got started until Scott finally found an opportunity through ArtShare that looked promising as a way to launch wasteLAnd.

Is there a central mission, theme, or idea you program your concerts around, or is each one a beast of its own?

Scott: We try to focus on local performers the most (their repertoire interests and, of course, performances), local composers second, and then music that doesn’t seem to show it’s face much around Los Angeles. From there we try to put together concerts that we want to go to.

Matt: Frequently a programming decision is made around the idea of “I really want to hear/perform this one piece, but it’s too much for me to throw together a concert.” With wasteLAnd that’s frequently become a central kernel for a concert. We have an idea for one or two pieces one of us really loves and that gives us a bend and ensemble to build around. Or at least that’s how I think…

Nick: Basically what Scott said…  We love LA and want to show how special the things that happen here are while also presenting music by composers around the country/world who excite us.  The five of us (Elise, Brian, Matt, Scott, myself) have pretty different aesthetic positions.  For anything to be programmed, all five of us have to be on board with it, rather than a simple majority vote.  This is something I feel strongly about because it helps to keep our overall output broad and requires that we all give serious consideration to all of the ideas that are brought to the table (or G-chat conference).

I’ve heard Barbier joke that the directors are Deyoe’s minions. How do you guys divide responsibilities?

Brian: This is a classic example of Barbier’s inability to grasp infinite recursion. As one of the directors himself, Deyoe clearly makes this so-called “joke” an ontological cow pie.

Matt: Well maybe I’m just Deyoe’s minion, or at least try to be.

Nick: the division of responsibilities is an ongoing project for us.  For season one, everyone kind of did everything. For each set of tasks that came up, we’d email around with a list of “what needs to be done” and divvy up the responsibilities.  This will always be some version of how we do it (especially during concert weeks), but we are also working on better defining our individual roles within the organization to make certain aspects more efficient.

What do we have to look forward to in the coming season?

Nick: LOTS to look forward to! We’re excited to finally be at the point of announcing things (coming out this afternoon along with our kickstarter). We’ve been thinking about the concerts (programs/personnel/logistics) since April.  We have 25-30 local performers playing and are presenting something around 30 composers.  Some highlights are The Formalist Quartet with Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick in October, Mark Menzies and Stephanie Aston with the wasteLAnd musicians performing Ferneyhough’s Terrain and Etudes Transcendantales, Italian violinist/violist Marco Fusi playing a solo program of young Italian and Angelino composers, and the world premiere the brass version of James Tenney’s Saxony….and lots of other things.  Check our website www.wastelandmusic.org for full season 2 details.

Matt: What Nick wrote. This year is exciting because it’s a wonderful mix of pieces I’ve wanted to play for a long time (Terrain, Saxony, Hölszky’s WeltenEnden, EARTH) and that I’ve always dreamed of hearing like- particularly Ferneyhough’s Etudes Transcendantales. So for me it’s very exciting and I think this year’s programs will have that for a lot of people.

Is Elise Roy having any issues with being the only beardless member?

Brian: All conditions are impermanent. My beard, for instance, has grown substantially in the last few days. Elise was brought on for her deep existential wisdom; I doubt she’d fall prey to fears of beardlessness as a permanent state of being…

Nick: I think there’s still plenty of beard to go around.  Having Elise as a part of the team has been great so far. She came in once most of the season was already planned, but will be instrumental in our planning for season 3 and has also offered a lot of very useful insight as we prepare to raise the funds for the current season.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Scott: Please be on the look out for our Kickstarter which will help prolong wasteLAnd’s life and wellbeing.

Matt: Well one can braid top-of-head hair into a beard with quite successful results.

Elise: If you find yourself at any of our concerts, please introduce yourself or say hi to us.  For the five of us, one of the joys of hosting this series is seeing the new music community of Southern California come together!