Interview with Katherine Hoover
By Catherine Parsons Smith – IAWM Journal (2006)
Katherine Hoover graciously consented to answer my questions, first online on December 15, 2005 and then in several follow-up email exchanges and a phone conversation. She is very well known as a composer, for her chamber music and orchestral works are widely performed. No fewer than 24 CDs of her music are commercially available. Hoover, who is based in New York, holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School; she is a flutist as well as a composer. She is listed in The New Grove, and her Web site, PapagenaPress.com, is welcoming and informative. Here is a selection from her answers and comments.
Catherine Parsons Smith: I have been impressed over the years with your command of style and technique. Can you explain how you see this as having developed over a period of time, and where you want it to go in the future?
Katherine Hoover: As you know, I come to composing from a performing and theory background—lots of playing and listening and analyzing. I also spent time learning how people actually perceive sounds, as a teacher of Music Theory and Ear Training at the Manhattan School of Music. (I have pitch recognition, so I had to learn this from my students. This was extremely valuable when I started composing.) Since then I’ve followed my own sense of what draws me and others to music, and I’ve investigated several different systems of organizing sounds—the latest being Arabic music, which I studied before writing El Andalus for cellist Sharon Robinson. I have no idea where this curiosity about sound will take me next!
CPS: What project(s) are you working on, or planning to work on in the next year or so?
KH: I often have commissions for work for flutes and this year is no exception. Besides that, I am planning to finish the last movement of a work for orchestra—three-fourths of it is done. Having written for cello and viola in the last few years, I’m beginning to think about the violin. There are always other projects over the horizon.
CPS: Although your work-list includes several important orchestral works, for example the Clarinet Concerto (recorded on Summit with Robert Spring as soloist) and Night Skies (recorded on Parnassus), I notice that more recently you have concentrated on chamber music, such as a second string quartet (to be premiered by the Colorado Quartet in Spring 2006) and several works involving flutes. (A wonderful sample is the group of works on CD “Flutes and Company,” recorded by Wendell Dobbs on Leonarda; also the Oboe Concerto on Boston Records, recorded by Rebecca Henderson.) Is there a reason for that?
KH: It’s increasingly difficult for composers to get new works programmed by orchestras. Fran Richards, director of the Classical Division at ASCAP, pointed this out to me a few years ago. The growing tendency of conductors to have several orchestras means that they increasingly leave programming to their boards and to committees. They don’t have time to study new scores or listen to new works (one conductor told me he only listens on airplanes), and the committees don’t have the inclination. On the other hand, many chamber groups are eager to try out new works. So it was a pragmatic, not an artistic decision. However, I’m enjoying working on a piece for orchestra now.
CS: Please tell us something about the process of working with Miriam Conti, the performer on your gorgeous set of Six Preludes for piano I heard in Merkin Hall about a month ago, and what kind of feedback has followed. Are you contemplating changes based on that performance? Will the piece be available soon?
KH: Miriam Conti was wonderful to work with—such a fine pianist and an aware musician. We only met once because she was fighting a cold while preparing in the last couple of weeks. Feedback was fabulous. I’m actually adding back an earlier movement, and doing an otherwise miniscule bit of editing. The piece, now Seven Preludes, should be out in January 2006, published by Papagena Press.
CPS: Some years ago, I had the privilege of premiering the orchestral version of your Medieval Suite with the Reno Philharmonic. That was several years after the flute and piano version had appeared. I remember your commenting in the course of the rehearsals that it would have been easier to write a new piece than to create this new version using the orchestra instead of piano. Would you comment further on that? Have you attempted a similar project since then, i.e. going back to an older work and re-casting it?
KH: I tend to hone in on the actual instruments I’m using; consequently, it feel like I’m stretching things in an uncomfortable way when I change instrumentation. Sometimes it works well, particularly when one is going from a smaller to a larger, richer group of instruments. Still, I prefer to start fresh for each “adventure into sound,” as I think of it.
CPS: What would you advise composers starting out about getting their works performed?
KH: It’s a matter of finding your own community and building from there. Start from what you know and care about as a performer or listener, and what you want to perform or listen to yourself. If your work succeeds, this will expand naturally as more musicians become aware of your work.
CPS: Do you still perform in public? It seems clear to me, maybe because I first became aware of your work as a composer for the flute, that your understanding of that instrument has become a basis for your artistic growth as a composer for other instruments and voices. How do you think of the relationship between your understanding as a performer and your musical speech as a composer?
KH: I perform a bit—not a lot these days. It takes time to stay in shape, and my time is somewhat limited. It is a great advantage to be good at an instrument, to understand in depth what making music on a high level is about. It encourages respect for your performers and their needs, and from them as well, and an understanding of their needs. My pieces will always have a sense of breath as a result of my flute playing—and I’m hyper-aware of balance issues!
CPS: Would you like to say something about Papagena Press? I’m assuming it’s one of the more successful self-publishing ventures.
KH: Papagena Press has been a truly successful undertaking for me. It has provided me with enough earnings to carry on with my composing, issuing all of my work. The flute community is quite wonderful to me. They buy and perform my work in sufficient quantity to underwrite larger chamber works and works for groups such as piano trios and string quartets, who generally play great works from the past. Since established publishers have suffered so much from performers’ use of copy machines and the decreases in school, church, and amateur demands, they are unable to be as helpful to composers as they once were. I would encourage young composers to learn to publish on their own. And bless the Internet!
CPS: Do you see a possibility for using music, specifically your music, to make the world a better place? Is there any hope on that front at all?
KH: To make the world a better place? Tall order! Two things come to mind: first, I have certainly written works about peace, tolerance, and so forth. There is El Andalus, for cello and piano written for Sharon Robinson, my Central American Songs with poetry by Central American women struggling to bring peace to their countries, some choral pieces, and in particular, my Da Pacem piano quintet, one of my major works. My heart and mind and desires for peace and justice are thoroughly engaged in these works. Beyond that, I know from personal experience, both as performer and composer, that music can move people and foster feelings of community and love. I’ve seen it happen. I can only hope that my music will do this, somehow.
CPS: Many thanks, Katherine.
Catherine Parsons Smith, a longtime member of IAWM, retired a few years ago as Professor of Music at the University of Nevada Reno and as Principal Flute of the Reno Philharmonic. She is the author of several feminist articles, and of William Grant Still: A Study in Contradictions (2000). She is presently completing Transforming the Popular: Music Making, Concert Life, and Opera in Los Angeles, 1887-1941.
"Katherine Hoover is an extraordinary composer. She has a wide and fascinating vocabulary which she uses with enormous skill. Her music is fresh and individual. It is dazzlingly crafted, and will reach an audience as it provides interest to the professional musician. I do not know why her works are not yet being played by the major institutions of this country, but I am sure that she will attain the status she deserves in time. She is just too good not to be recognized, and I predict that her time will come soon."
- John Corigliano
Katherine Hoover is a leading contemporary composer by anyone's definition, and her Lyric Trio is a particularly attractive example of her work. This well-crafted trio, apparently inspired by the neo-classical tradition, is as remarkable for its accessibility as for its gracious solo writing."
Michael Redmond
The Star Ledger (Newark)
Link
http://www.papagenapress.com/
By Catherine Parsons Smith – IAWM Journal (2006)
Katherine Hoover graciously consented to answer my questions, first online on December 15, 2005 and then in several follow-up email exchanges and a phone conversation. She is very well known as a composer, for her chamber music and orchestral works are widely performed. No fewer than 24 CDs of her music are commercially available. Hoover, who is based in New York, holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School; she is a flutist as well as a composer. She is listed in The New Grove, and her Web site, PapagenaPress.com, is welcoming and informative. Here is a selection from her answers and comments.
Catherine Parsons Smith: I have been impressed over the years with your command of style and technique. Can you explain how you see this as having developed over a period of time, and where you want it to go in the future?
Katherine Hoover: As you know, I come to composing from a performing and theory background—lots of playing and listening and analyzing. I also spent time learning how people actually perceive sounds, as a teacher of Music Theory and Ear Training at the Manhattan School of Music. (I have pitch recognition, so I had to learn this from my students. This was extremely valuable when I started composing.) Since then I’ve followed my own sense of what draws me and others to music, and I’ve investigated several different systems of organizing sounds—the latest being Arabic music, which I studied before writing El Andalus for cellist Sharon Robinson. I have no idea where this curiosity about sound will take me next!
CPS: What project(s) are you working on, or planning to work on in the next year or so?
KH: I often have commissions for work for flutes and this year is no exception. Besides that, I am planning to finish the last movement of a work for orchestra—three-fourths of it is done. Having written for cello and viola in the last few years, I’m beginning to think about the violin. There are always other projects over the horizon.
CPS: Although your work-list includes several important orchestral works, for example the Clarinet Concerto (recorded on Summit with Robert Spring as soloist) and Night Skies (recorded on Parnassus), I notice that more recently you have concentrated on chamber music, such as a second string quartet (to be premiered by the Colorado Quartet in Spring 2006) and several works involving flutes. (A wonderful sample is the group of works on CD “Flutes and Company,” recorded by Wendell Dobbs on Leonarda; also the Oboe Concerto on Boston Records, recorded by Rebecca Henderson.) Is there a reason for that?
KH: It’s increasingly difficult for composers to get new works programmed by orchestras. Fran Richards, director of the Classical Division at ASCAP, pointed this out to me a few years ago. The growing tendency of conductors to have several orchestras means that they increasingly leave programming to their boards and to committees. They don’t have time to study new scores or listen to new works (one conductor told me he only listens on airplanes), and the committees don’t have the inclination. On the other hand, many chamber groups are eager to try out new works. So it was a pragmatic, not an artistic decision. However, I’m enjoying working on a piece for orchestra now.
CS: Please tell us something about the process of working with Miriam Conti, the performer on your gorgeous set of Six Preludes for piano I heard in Merkin Hall about a month ago, and what kind of feedback has followed. Are you contemplating changes based on that performance? Will the piece be available soon?
KH: Miriam Conti was wonderful to work with—such a fine pianist and an aware musician. We only met once because she was fighting a cold while preparing in the last couple of weeks. Feedback was fabulous. I’m actually adding back an earlier movement, and doing an otherwise miniscule bit of editing. The piece, now Seven Preludes, should be out in January 2006, published by Papagena Press.
CPS: Some years ago, I had the privilege of premiering the orchestral version of your Medieval Suite with the Reno Philharmonic. That was several years after the flute and piano version had appeared. I remember your commenting in the course of the rehearsals that it would have been easier to write a new piece than to create this new version using the orchestra instead of piano. Would you comment further on that? Have you attempted a similar project since then, i.e. going back to an older work and re-casting it?
KH: I tend to hone in on the actual instruments I’m using; consequently, it feel like I’m stretching things in an uncomfortable way when I change instrumentation. Sometimes it works well, particularly when one is going from a smaller to a larger, richer group of instruments. Still, I prefer to start fresh for each “adventure into sound,” as I think of it.
CPS: What would you advise composers starting out about getting their works performed?
KH: It’s a matter of finding your own community and building from there. Start from what you know and care about as a performer or listener, and what you want to perform or listen to yourself. If your work succeeds, this will expand naturally as more musicians become aware of your work.
CPS: Do you still perform in public? It seems clear to me, maybe because I first became aware of your work as a composer for the flute, that your understanding of that instrument has become a basis for your artistic growth as a composer for other instruments and voices. How do you think of the relationship between your understanding as a performer and your musical speech as a composer?
KH: I perform a bit—not a lot these days. It takes time to stay in shape, and my time is somewhat limited. It is a great advantage to be good at an instrument, to understand in depth what making music on a high level is about. It encourages respect for your performers and their needs, and from them as well, and an understanding of their needs. My pieces will always have a sense of breath as a result of my flute playing—and I’m hyper-aware of balance issues!
CPS: Would you like to say something about Papagena Press? I’m assuming it’s one of the more successful self-publishing ventures.
KH: Papagena Press has been a truly successful undertaking for me. It has provided me with enough earnings to carry on with my composing, issuing all of my work. The flute community is quite wonderful to me. They buy and perform my work in sufficient quantity to underwrite larger chamber works and works for groups such as piano trios and string quartets, who generally play great works from the past. Since established publishers have suffered so much from performers’ use of copy machines and the decreases in school, church, and amateur demands, they are unable to be as helpful to composers as they once were. I would encourage young composers to learn to publish on their own. And bless the Internet!
CPS: Do you see a possibility for using music, specifically your music, to make the world a better place? Is there any hope on that front at all?
KH: To make the world a better place? Tall order! Two things come to mind: first, I have certainly written works about peace, tolerance, and so forth. There is El Andalus, for cello and piano written for Sharon Robinson, my Central American Songs with poetry by Central American women struggling to bring peace to their countries, some choral pieces, and in particular, my Da Pacem piano quintet, one of my major works. My heart and mind and desires for peace and justice are thoroughly engaged in these works. Beyond that, I know from personal experience, both as performer and composer, that music can move people and foster feelings of community and love. I’ve seen it happen. I can only hope that my music will do this, somehow.
CPS: Many thanks, Katherine.
Catherine Parsons Smith, a longtime member of IAWM, retired a few years ago as Professor of Music at the University of Nevada Reno and as Principal Flute of the Reno Philharmonic. She is the author of several feminist articles, and of William Grant Still: A Study in Contradictions (2000). She is presently completing Transforming the Popular: Music Making, Concert Life, and Opera in Los Angeles, 1887-1941.
"Katherine Hoover is an extraordinary composer. She has a wide and fascinating vocabulary which she uses with enormous skill. Her music is fresh and individual. It is dazzlingly crafted, and will reach an audience as it provides interest to the professional musician. I do not know why her works are not yet being played by the major institutions of this country, but I am sure that she will attain the status she deserves in time. She is just too good not to be recognized, and I predict that her time will come soon."
- John Corigliano
Katherine Hoover is a leading contemporary composer by anyone's definition, and her Lyric Trio is a particularly attractive example of her work. This well-crafted trio, apparently inspired by the neo-classical tradition, is as remarkable for its accessibility as for its gracious solo writing."
Michael Redmond
The Star Ledger (Newark)
Link
http://www.papagenapress.com/
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- Cecile Chaminade
- Chen Yi
- Luise Farrenc
- Elisenda Fabregas
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- Katherine Hoover
- (de) Manziarly Marcelle
- Chiara Maresca
- Fanny Mendelsshon
- Clara Wieck Schumann
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