Q&A: Nico Muhly
Friday August 28 2009
You're only 27, isn't that a bit young to be an acclaimed classical composer?
Being a young composer is such a rare thing. There are only a couple of hundred of us in any generation. For me, it's been a thrill.
But you've also worked with hip rock bands including Grizzly Bear and Antony and the Johnsons. Ever encounter any snobbery by fuddy-duddy classical types?
I have been lucky, I haven't come across that. But I know that there is a problem. Whenever I encounter even a vague sniff of that, [I become] very joyful and happy and really just ignore it.
Given that you spend much of your day labouring over sheet music, it must have been a blast working with Antony on his last LP.
I have a hard time saying 'no' to interesting collaborations. I also did arrangements for his touring show. He's a wonderful person to work with. I just love his music. Certain things don't ever feel like work -- it just feels like fun.
Your big break, if we can call it that, came when Bjork invited you to help out on 'Medulla', her moderately bonkers album consisting only of vocal samples.
It's funny, because I actually didn't do a whole amount on it. Just a little tinkling here and there. Obviously, it helped me enormously -- people become more aware of what classical musicians could become involved in.
Back in the day, classical music was in one corner, indie pop in the other. You must feel blessed to be working in an era when the two are allowed mingle.
I was born in 1981 and a lot of the big style battles of the '60s in classic music had ended. I think the borders are more permeable now. There's always been this thing where you had The Beatles for instance working with [sitar maestro] Ravi Shankar. The difference now, I think, is that with iTunes you can navigate horizontally across albums. You know, this same young composer working on a solo project has this other thing you might like. Ten years ago you'd never have been able to do that...
...because classic music was walled off in a separate part of the record store?
Exactly, with Beethoven playing. You had this whole other section. Now the access is so much more lateral.
Do you even feel comfortable being described as a classical musician anymore?
I feel like my home base is always classical music. I'm always comfortable saying I'm a classical person. I always think about genre in the way people think about being from a place. If you move from one country to another, you always retain the original.
You were mentored by Philip Glass, one of the few modern composers us barbarians beyond the gates have actually heard of.
The thing I like about him is that he teaches by example. He has built his community around his music. He has his own publishing company and his own ensemble. It's not as if he goes into the woods and has a mystical vision. He has created this network who rely on him and on whom he relies.
You've been profiled at length in the New Yorker on several occasions That must have made your head swell.
You know, it probably felt stranger for my mom than it did for me. Something like that was so crazy. When it came out, I read it really quickly to make sure I hadn't libelled anyone. Reading something like that is kind of hearing your voice in an answering machine.
You live in New York's Chinatown. But spend part of the year in Iceland. Why would anyone wish to swap the most exciting city on the planet for a damp island in the middle of the Atlantic?
I love that insane, manic Manhattan energy, with everything happening all of the time. Iceland is a great contrast and a great place to write.
Nico Muhly performs at the Dublin Fringe Festival Spiegeltent, September 6, fringefest.com
- Ed Power
