Josh Hernandez-Camen's Quest for Authenticity in Composition

A Google search of Ángel Jochi Hernandez-Camen (or Josh, as he prefers to be called) pulls up a small handful of sites. You’ll find a video of his masterful “Ancient Ruins,” a short bio from your esteemed Forum, and some scattered notes and performances. Go deeper down the rabbit hole, and you’ll end up learning about Mesoamerican cultures, Aztec gods, complex polyrhythm, and a litany of other musical and non-musical topics. Most artists with thrice the portfolio don’t provide so much backstory.

I’m lucky enough to have taken the next step into the wormhole of information surrounding Josh: I got to speak with him. Shortly into our conversation, I’d learned the names of not only composers, but of historians, academics, native languages, and of cultural censorship. You see, Josh’s music is about so much more than his roots. It’s about authenticity and voice. It’s about presenting a picture that’s not merely idiosyncratic, but massively dense. Sure, there are enough musical elements in a Bela Bartok piece to discuss for years, but how many of them detail such rich histories?

Josh and I speak briefly about what got him to this point. He’s now 17, and has been composing on a grand scale for over five years. He’s classically trained, like so many other prodigies. But his interests are directed toward postmodernism more thoroughly than most composers entering their thirties. When I said how his pieces, most notably “Dreams of Coatlicue,” reminded me distinctly of twentieth century composers, he expanded: “A lot of my stuff is very Debussy and Ravel, but in the last couple of years, I’ve gone more experimental. I enjoy New Complexity, which is basically a style where the composers are experimenting with complexity in every layer of music.” I had planned to ask him to elaborate on how his music isn’t preoccupied with time or key signature later in the conversation, but he ended up answering my question before I even got to it. Even in conversation, Josh’s mind extends itself far beyond the present talking point.

Anyway, “Coatlicue” and the newer “Nawi Ollin” (loosely translated to “structure of learning”) both deal heavily in New Complexity, showing signs of atonality, arrhythmia, polyrhythm, and advanced technique. During string quartet performances of Josh’s pieces, the players will often utilize spiccato, where the bow is bounced off the string instead of traditional bowing or plucking (pizzicato). This is highly impressionistic, visceral music. As I watch the conductor and musicians attempt to piece together the pulse, I get even more lost in the transitive nature of the pieces. Naturally, many of the moments on “Nawi Ollin” are meant to represent the changing of seasons.

And here’s a crucial element of Josh’s pieces: they rely more on a surreal, fluid timing than a rigid, Western one. Where exactly do the embedded rhythms come from? Mostly from his time taking lessons on Aztec percussion. These are beats that are handed down in a cultural way, not a scientific one. Usually considered an Eastern style of learning, Josh utilizes these techniques early in the composition process. “There’s no written notation for it,” he says. “It is in a time signature, but it’s not conceptualized that way. To be honest, I had trouble notating them.” Coming from such an enormous and encyclopedic mind, I almost forgot about the difficulty and patience it must take to bring these pieces to life. His speaking voice is rapid, and I imagine his process shares this quality.

Many of these ideas are already behind Josh. His rough plans for future compositions are so conceptual and deep, he’s keeping them nameless at this juncture. Though his work has borrowed many elements from his mother and Mexican heritage, he’d like to take things a bit further. When asked about this, he started going on a tangent about the legitimacy of the accepted facts and history surrounding Mesoamerican culture and history. I sneak in a question about how his interest in music relates to his interest in social history and politics, but he’s already way ahead of me. For Josh, these are natural extensions of his work as a Mexican composer.

In essence, the research involved for composing is tenfold as dense as the music itself. In recent months, Josh has done considerable independent research on academics like James Maffie, who questions whether or not the Aztecs were the polytheistic people that the history books so often peg them as. “When the Spanish came to Mesoamerica, they didn’t come to learn the culture. A lot of what was written about it is Spanish, not native,” explains Josh. “They burned [many of] the actual Mesoamerican books. But it turns out that people still remembered the things in these books. There are still people today who practice it and know a lot about it.”

Josh plans to get to the frontlines of these cultures and peoples before composing his next pieces. “I don’t want an outsider’s perspective. I want to be there. I want to participate in the ceremonies. It’s less about the music and more about the people who do it.” He remains open-minded about the process right down to where exactly he might travel. He mentions some cultures that have been relatively well-preserved because of their geography. Islands off the Pacific coast of Mexico or communities at high altitudes are good candidates. His plan for the summer is to learn Nahuatl before making any big moves. Apart from that, Josh will continue to research at his usual breakneck pace.

To begin such a conquest for authenticity seems like overkill on the surface, but ask yourself instead where else a 17 year-old composer of Josh’s knowledge would be taking his next steps in music. With a classical background so firmly rooted in academic understanding, it’s natural for someone to want to subvert the textbooks and focus instead on the humanistic understanding of things. “I’m going from the ground up,” he explains. “I don’t want to say abandon, but it is kind of an abandonment of classical music and classical instruments. I’m probably going to have to spend a few years immersed totally.”

Before I spoke with Josh, I wanted to ask him how he juggled his school life, his social media presence, and other errata of teenage living. After speaking with him, I realized that such subjects are beyond the point. Josh is the very definition of method-oriented composition. Very little in his world exists outside of his music. It’s true that he has some strides to make in terms of condensing his ideas into palatable language. However, this shortcoming remains in line with his general ethos. It’s a humbling and lovely experience to follow the logic he presents.

Josh’s methods and ideas behind those methods have a global feeling to them. Beneath the cracks of general, philharmonic composition lies an ocean of musical theory and academic explanation. Beneath the cracks of “Nawi Ollin” lies something deeper that not only connects the listener with Josh’s upbringing and philosophical interests, but with a broader sense of emotional affect that only the finest musical works conjure. If I can see falling leaves in my mind’s eye by just listening to the themes of nature in “Nawi Ollin,” I can’t imagine what I’ll be able to see when he begins putting his newer ideas to print. In Josh’s compositions, there’s a wormhole of emotions and wisdom that’s richer than looking up a dozen Wikipedia articles. There’s a connection to real people.

In Service of Classical Music: Brandon Ridenour's Noble Contributions to the Trumpet

There’s a high degree of bias that comes to mind when people think of the trumpet. From that overly macho guy you knew who played it in high school to players of distinction, it’s generally received as an instrument that will not only play the melody, but will physically shove it down your ear drum. Just think for a second of all the dynamic trumpeters you know who aren’t Miles Davis. Do many others come to mind?

If you’re a bit lost on the question, it’s time you tuned your ears to the talents of Brandon Ridenour. At the age of 20, he joined The Canadian Brass, a hallmark group of modern players with exceptional abilities. With them, he tackled another unfortunate trope of the trumpet the idea that one can only be a great trumpeter if they can play “Flight of the Bumble Bee” at the proper tempo. Speaking with Ridenour last month, I asked him if he had any other benchmarks for quality trumpet playing besides “Bumble Bee.” “What would really impress me is if a trumpeter could play it in any key,” he says after a laugh. Although hearing the piece in a major key would be exceptional, Ridenour has aspirations beyond subduing outdated standards.

This brings us to another essential function of the wonderful work that Ridenour does for the classical genre. He wants to show audiences that the high brass sound can be more transitory than the blinding scales of “Bumble Bee.” “It’s gotten a bad rap,” explains Ridenour. “People are never expecting what I’d like them to receive. They always think they’re going to be getting a loud performance with the trumpet.” Take one listen to Ridenour’s game-changing album Fantasies and Fairy Tales, and you’ll see how he battles the stigma. The record is a calming conversation between trumpet and piano. Throughout, Ridenour and pianist Naomi Kudo engage in a musical dialogue well worth its title. “I wanted to do something big and daring like Robert Schumann’s Fairy Tale Pictures for violin and piano. I thought, ‘Why can’t trumpet players do it?’”

I felt a little bad fixating on an album that had been released in 2014, but it’s too beautiful a work for me to not want to discuss with its composer. Not only is the music affecting, but it has a boundlessness to it as the songs blend seamlessly into one another, which Ridenour and I both agree is a phenomenal way to perform given that life itself acts in this way. In the dreamlike state that Fantasies conjures, the thoughts and melodies of dreams stretch out to near infinity.

Such is a concept that drove our conversation: the through-composition that Ridenour fell for in the jazz and rock world and his goal to apply the same principles to classical. I tell him that I find comfort in old sets from The Grateful Dead or even modern acts like Animal Collective where there is a sonic bridge between songs and sections much like the ones found on Kind of Blue or Pharaoh Sanders’ Karma. Ridenour takes his time expanding on this style: “I used to be a big Radiohead fan, and Kid A is such a through-composed, complete work,” says Brandon. I ask where else he found inspiration. “[The HBO series] Mr. Show does that, too. Before you knew it, you were going through the whole show seamlessly. Sometimes this one character would be the transition into each new sketch.” Ridenour is among the few musicians who are able to replicate these transitions with sound alone. Fantasies clocks a whopping 28 tracks, but you can hear a consistent call-and-response between the piano and trumpet, as if one is literally saying to the other, “Would you like to expand on the melody I just performed?”

More recently, Ridenour has focused on his project Useful Chamber. I ask him if he took the name from the 2009 Dirty Projectors song of the same name. “Yeah, very good. I was listening to [their album Bitte Orca] a lot at the time the group was conceived. To me the band was very focused on collaborating in a cross-genre way, just making each instrument useful.”

Ridenour expanded upon how Useful Chamber works considering how many instruments and talents appear on a single song. You’ll find full string sections, multiple drummers, and a cabal of background singers and classically trained performers, all performing pop songs as arranged by Ridenour. “On paper, it might sound totally weird and self-absorbed, working with these composers that have nothing to do with one another. It shouldn’t work. In all honesty, it’s a terrible idea!” His humble laughter is one of his best qualities, but the project puts out material that is definitely worth bragging about.

For example, A Dream Within A Dream is the most fully-realized work the project has produced. Ridenour and some two dozen other players put pop songs through a filter of noble, acoustic instruments. “The pop world is getting more electronic-based, and we’re losing the sound of natural instruments.” Here, Ridenour is giving back to classical music, whose modern appeal might lie in the glamorous Mozart in the Jungle instead of Mozart the original. “It’s more about the drama than the actual music,” laments Ridenour.

That all being said, Ridenour is far from the kind of person who’s resolved to complain. Through projects like Useful Chamber, he strives to reconcile the antiquated notion that an opera or recital is going to be too boring to stay awake for. He takes from the jazz and pop world only the elements that are needed to place orchestral music on a higher plane: “Whether you’re conscious of it or not, things just flow from one thing to the next. You’re never really in one place then just immediately in another… Life has more connecting flow from one event to another.” With such a worldview, it’s easy to see how his compositions are so good.

To bring up Miles again, who seamlessly dovetailed modal jazz and blues, Ridenour is taking a dialogue about classical music and moving it into a room where Sketches of Spain and Yes’ Close to the Edge are playing simultaneously. It seems an awkward transition at first, but looking through the cracks provides a lot of creative common ground for any arrangement. “There are people that ask me ‘Do you really go to classical music concerts?’ They’re worried they’re going to get bored.” With the creative juxtapositions Ridenour has spent the better part of a decade constructing, both musically and affectionately, it becomes easy to see more of classical music’s lasting power than your perfunctory holiday pops concert. His compositions prove that the trumpet, and classical music at large, have a greater place outside their stereotypes. These are instruments of nobility. They make contributions solely in service of artistic expression, no matter what genre is at play.

Arcomusical's Reimagining of Capoeira and Brazilian Classical Music

The results of a teacher and student coming together have no constant. There may be anything from an exchange of words to complete silence for a sixty-minute lesson. There may be an endless dialogue about what notes go where, how to play this section without screwing up the next, or simply an explanation of what G# major feels like for the player. Eastern traditions stick mainly to imitation, a “do as I do, not as I say” idea rather than spoken lessons. In the Western exchange, learning often comes by solitary repetition as opposed to dialogue; sometimes creating a space where improvisation is never an option.

Such rigidity is hardly the case when teacher Greg Beyer and student (now full-blown working artist) Alexis C. Lamb get together. “I feel like there’s a real disconnect in our education system in learning music by rote,” says Lamb about the process. At the end of an Arcomusical performance, the audience is encouraged to come up and play the berimbau, the instrument of focus and inspiration on last year’s wonderfully ornate MeiaMeia: New Music for Berimbau. With this free associated educational component involved, there’s seemingly no limit to what the bowed instrument can accomplish.

It’s a playful exchange that Beyer and Lamb have. Even the physical build of the berimbau has been reformed. Luthier David White custom-made the instruments heard on the record, allowing simple transformations that make a huge difference. Where once the gourd of the berimbau was held strictly towards the bottom of its one string, the ones heard on MeiaMeia can be moved up and down the neck; thus creating a wellspring of alternate uses.

All that can be compared to the fluidity granted to the berimbau is its deeply rooted history. Traditionally, the tones it creates are the musical accompaniment to capoeira, a traditional Brazilian dance. Representing everything from 19th century Brazilian slavery to modern art, capoeira is a sport, a musical tradition, and a martial art wrapped into a neat package. The movements of the game come largely from the berimbau, operating in common time signature.

That being said, even the traditional pulse of the berimbau is eschewed from the very first moment on MeiaMeia. Composed by Beyer and nicely titled “Home-ing”, the piece introduces the sound of the record in triplets that sound like more of a folk music tradition than a nod to Latin American rhythms. Both of these elements are fair game for Arcomusical, and the opening track is hardly the only moment where multiple traditions are employed. In Beyer’s own words: “Nothing on the album is directly from the tradition, but everything we do is informed by the tradition.”

Most compelling on MeiaMeia is the simultaneous embrace of melody and percussion. Beyer and Lamb traded composing on every other track. Beyer’s pieces are traditionally labeled as solo through sextet, while Lamb’s focus on jazzy, almost pop-like passages. Hearing the back and forth between them keeps the record at an engaging pulse. Fans of the complex polyrhythm of Dawn of Midi or the layering of Steve Reich, be not afraid.

Incidentally, Reich was influential to Beyer’s compositions from day one. “When I heard ‘Electric Counterpoint’, I was like ‘I can so hear the berimbau in this.’” Indeed, the way that Beyer plays counterpoint melodies across the staff bears a resemblance to Bach, however reinvented to fulfill a more modern set of tools and recording techniques. As Reich has done for the guitar, so has Beyer for the berimbau. What was once considered as a fairly conservative style of playing has had its lid popped, thus allowing the berimbau’s full potential to escape. “It’s really not a berimbau anymore, is it?” conjectures Beyer. The album title includes the word “new,” which is an important element to keep in mind for Arcomusical. “No one else is really setting out to create a contemporary music repertoire for Berimbau.” The project looks forward and backward in a way that’s not only heard, but felt as its songs unfold.

Occasionally, it can be difficult to discern which moments on MeiaMeia were meant to be meditative and which were meant to be more conservative. Posing this question adds quite a bit of depth to analysis of the record. This is an inexhaustible element of the songs, so let’s instead rely on what Beyer has to say: “We’ve definitely had some improv moments that have turned into compositions. But I say most of the composing comes from just us coming together.” The “us” refers to the Beyer/Lamb team, who performed a litany of external commissions for the berimbau, some quality and some disappointing, in some of Lamb’s undergraduate study at Northern Illinois University. Eventually, they decided that they may as well be composing for themselves, the process of which varies in exciting ways: sometimes they preemptively notate the music in the western tradition, sometimes they play a lot and say a little, and sometimes they just jam. Who’s to say which of these composition styles were employed for something as engrossing as Lamb’s “Mundança de onda” where berimbau voices both impressionistic and well-rehearsed play off each other? By the time its five and a half minutes have rolled by, you’ll be left gleefully scratching your head about what you’ve just experienced.

“We set ourselves up for a challenge… The sextet became the goal, and we worked up to it,” says Beyer of finishing the project. From the Indian sounds on the quintet “Solkattu” to the beautiful album cap of “Um só,” there’s a force at play both educational and engrossing. Not even the peaceful images of the Kishwaukee River (as seen on the album’s cover) were a pre-requisite for MeiaMeia. Though the river houses a spot where Beyer would sometimes bring his trusty musical bow, the core of the group, whether it takes you on a meditative journey or simply teaches you a little more about Brazilian music, is rooted in collaboration: “I will say that the energy of the band is really exciting right now. Because we play everything together, our chamber music skills have really come together. We’ve already got easily enough material for another record.” Indeed, such propulsion in creative output is hard to find in Beyer’s sector of experimental music. Fortunately for each of the genres and locales at play on MeiaMeia, we’ve got a wonderful artifact of the staying power of modern composition.

Composing Through Collaboration: Clarice Assad’s Comprehensive Approach to Teaching Music

The best pieces of art have a three-dimensional feel to them. Whether you’re looking at it ten years after inception, as a companion piece to a film, or simply an album’s artwork, the total picture of the music is essential. Such is the case with the seminal bossa/samba album, 1965’s Getz/Gilberto. Now, not much can be said of this record that hasn’t been said already. However, it’s the ideal example of three-dimensional art. Just looking at the original artwork on the cover, an expressionist painting by Olga Albizu, you’re thrown into the world of the impeccable tunes that introduced Brazilian music to an entire continent.

Such are elements that composer/singer/pianist Clarice Assad understands well. Although her talents are numerous enough to stretch an album length, she has turned her focus to workshops emphasizing education and the utilization of multiple art forms to bring a piece together. “The whole concept is that there’s not a concept, because you never know who you’re going to be working with”, says Assad of the workshops, aptly titled Voxploration: An Outreach Program for Spontaneous Music Creation. Though Assad’s main form of expression is her voice, she doesn’t limit herself or her students to one particular art form. Whether collaborating with percussionist Keita Ogawa or choreographer Andrea Santiago, the workshops pull together elements of musical theater, dance, jazz improvisation, and a litany of other styles.

Whether young or old, the people involved in Assad’s workshops go through a transition. They begin having no idea where their form of expression is going, and end with owning the unique sounds they’ve created through collaboration. It can be seen on their faces. I asked Assad what it was like to work with the shyer participants in the bunch: “You have to be so sensitive to that! I have a gift of being sensitive, but I’m so happy when they come out of their shell!” In working with youth, the stakes are even higher. But Assad has a patience and grace with the teenage participants she’s worked with. “It’s personal work that we have to do. It’s easy to get caught up with bullying in school… even if a person is not able to sing, we find what that person is good at.”

Brazilian-born and raised by musical parents, Assad stretches her talents beyond her main instrument. Her piano compositions are so dense, it becomes easy to forget that she’s primarily a singer. Despite the success of ballad ”The Last Song,” she remains humble: “I wouldn’t say I’m a fantastic piano player. I really struggled with it for many years.” We talk on about how some instruments remain complex to the performer while others come more naturally. We agree that the guitar is something so mathematical and complex, it’s hard to wrap your head around it while playing. She says the same of the piano: “I feel like [the piano] is not organic at all!”

This is strange to consider while listening to “The Last Song.” It’s been covered by many other musicians, and played the encore spotlight for her 2012 performance with Symphony Parnassus. There’s even an arrangement for big band. She jokes about how far the piece went after its simple beginnings: “I wrote that in 2010 and recorded it in one clear take!” In a way, it’s not up to the composer how their music is going to be received. Composers must let go of their ego, and let the music speak for itself. Indeed, few artists understand this balance as well as Assad, who translates this idea to Voxploration, where the express plan is to let improvisation lead the way. “We don’t always have an end goal,” she says. The proof of her words is in her work, so it’s easy to take whatever she has to say to heart.

Still, you don’t have to take it from her. In 2015, Assad brought her workshop to new heights with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra for “Cirandadas.” An effort to introduce broader audiences to classical music, people aged 9 to 40 fused a litany of talents and backgrounds together to create a symphonic piece. “What she’s doing is listening closely to what people are doing and organizing it… how do we assemble the pieces?” says the orchestra’s director Christopher Wilkins. I asked Assad if that was an accurate depiction: “He got it. He nailed it. It’s about listening and seeing what everyone has to offer. I want everybody to shine, and to find their moments of shining.” Her selflessness translates not only to the success of her own music, but also to the success of others. Even those with a hip hop background made connections with the music, claiming that the rhythmic backbone of “Cirandadas” was ubiquitous enough to break dance to.

Though a backseat to Voxploration, Assad’s studio work is equally impeccable. 2012’s Home was recorded in a mere two days, but has a laundry list of compositional ideas. She sings in multiple languages, performs on piano, and draws on different traditions over the course of eleven tracks. “The Last Song” is track five, and it’s a well-deserved instrumental break for Assad. “[Home] was like this horse that just went wild,” she says. That said, only a well-trained horse could pace itself as well as this record. Even straight jazz is covered on last year’s Live at the Deer Head Inn. “The performing part is where I get to play – like a kid.” On this record, her voice is on full effect, and it’s boggling to remember just how many other endeavors she’s got her hands on. Many of the songs on Deer Head are representative of her Brazilian roots, and it’s exciting to hear Assad’s vocals spread out in a flashier way than the unselfish version we see in the Voxploration videos.

After having lived in New York for a few years, Assad is happy to be back in Chicago where her parents live. Her mother the singer and her father the guitarist: it’s no wonder her range of musical skill is so diverse. “I had an apartment in New York, which was great, but it was getting too small for my things. I love to collect instruments, and I just remember thinking, ‘Where am I going to sleep?’ It made sense to come back to Chicago.” Indeed, creation requires space as well as inspiration. If switching cities is what it takes for Assad to continue composing and performing, so be it. Chicago just may be the visual component of the art she’s yet to release into the world. Though Assad is a musical person, the visual may just compose the last few degrees before we reach 360.