>> Claudia Morales: Concerts
from the Library of Congress in its 96th season
has a robust offering. So I would like to invite all
of you to join us and also to make some comments
on our Facebook page. Hi, I'm Claudia Morales, one
of the producers, and I'm here with my colleague, Anne McLean. We are super excited to have
violinist Jennifer Koh joining us to discuss her program
including her virtual performance that will premier
this Thursday, November 19th at 8 p.m. In addition
to the concert, Jennifer will also offer
us a digital residency so please follow us. A violin prodigy making
her symphony debut with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra at age 11, Jennifer Koh has somehow
exceeded expectations that follow the title. As a champion of
classical and new music, Koh bridges the divide between
traditional performance practice and radical innovation with diverse projects
including her non-profit Arco Collaborative. Welcome, Jennifer. We are delighted to have
you join us this afternoon. >> Jennifer Koh: Hi. Thanks for having me. >> Claudia Morales:
Jennifer, going to the program that you have prepared for
us, you have multiple pieces that were commissioned by young
composers for this project that you have, Together Alone. Can you talk a little
bit about your project and what was your thinking
behind the selection for this program? >> Jennifer Koh: So for
Alone Together, I remembered that first week of March
that there was one day where every half an hour,
every single concert canceled. And so of course my first
reaction was that I was panicked because I'm a freelance
performer, right? I'm a freelance artist so I of
course panicked the first day and then I remembered I
woke up on Saturday morning and I realized actually
that I was incredibly lucky because I knew that most of
my concerts were postponed and they weren't
actually canceled so there was another
side, right? There would be an
endpoint for me. But then I realized, oh
this is so much worse for the younger generation
of freelancers, right? It might be their first
premier in an important venue that was canceled or the first
time they were commissioned by an orchestra or the first
performance of any piece that they might have
had and so I -- and the experience of working with other musicians I think
is also kind of crucial for composers kind of
refining their craft. So I was immediately really
worried about them and I know that in my community of musicians we really
care about each other. I think people in the arts,
we're not in it for the money because if we were in it for
the money we would definitely be in a different field. So it's I think there's so
much kind of love and care in the community and I knew and
I know that my friends we care about each other and we
take care of each other and so I reached out
to my colleagues. They were composers that I
knew had salaried positions and or else institutional
support and I asked them if they could recommend a
young freelance composer for Arco Collaborative, my
nonprofit, to commission, and of course there were
no live performances so all of the premiers would be
done in my living room, because at that point I think
the shelter in place order for New York City happened
on Friday and then I woke up on Saturday with
this idea and then on Sunday I started raising
money for it and yeah. Because usually I spend
a lot of time kind of doing research
for new composers. I think a lot of times
for composers of color and also women composers, they don't have the same they
aren't given the same space and the same opportunities
that others are given so I actually have to work
harder to find them, right? And so usually that
process takes a lot of time, so the first process is
kind of going all the way through the internet,
going through Soundcloud and just digging up different
people, different people's music and then from there I try to
sometimes I reach out to them on Twitter or Instagram
or sometimes there's like an email on their website. So I kind of cold
call them in a way and I ask them to send scores. After I see scores I ask
for usually to finally go to a live performance and
oftentimes I'll fly or I used to before the pandemic. I would fly to different cities
to hear a premier of their work because I want to hear and experience what their
music feels like within a space because the kind of
energy is different when it's a live
performance than a recording. So and then I'll ask to actually
meet them in person to see if you know, if you can
work together or not. So in other words, usually this
process takes a really long time so -- >> Claudia Morales: Oh, I bet. >> Jennifer Koh: -- but
for Alone Together I went with recommendations
with my colleagues which was how we were
able to move so quickly and then this was a micro
commissioning project of 30 seconds and so I
also asked my friends with their tenured positions
and institutional support that they donate their
work in order to kind of -- because they are more
established within the field so they could bring more
attention to their mentee and I was able to also
do these interviews in which they introduced
these new composers. So that they could explain to everybody why they
believed in their music. What aspects in their
artistry they found important for everyone to listen
to and to be aware of. This is a really
long answer to -- now I feel like I
forgot your question. >> Claudia Morales:
No, it's great. It's great, and just a follow
up comment, I watched all of the programs and I was
really impressed by the depth of diversity, not just in the
music, but in the performers and the composers and the
method that you explain about your colleagues
recommending other composers and that was something that
I was very impressed about, and you can see by watching
those commissions what you are explaining how you are trying to
overcome the barriers that exist about finding compos -- artists
of colors and women composer that you want to know about and
so that was very interesting. And the second part of my
question was, how do you decide on the pieces that you
selected for this program that we are premiering
in November? >> Jennifer Koh: So for the
original project it was really just going week by week. It was who was completing
which week? When did the mentor
composer complete and when did the younger
freelance composer complete? So I wasn't able to format
the program per se musically, if that makes sense. It was really going it was in a
certain order in a certain form. So for Library of Congress
I was able to curate which pieces would go next to
which pieces and what would kind of create a nice balance and
you know for me commissioning and I'm always because people -- it's a mission in
my life, right? It's a mission in my life
because I'm also a woman of color so it comes from
my experiences as well but it I believe it's vital
and crucial and important to hear the stories of people
that aren't like us and I as a woman of color have done
that all my life in terms of classical music I, you know,
it's Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. They're all European men
that were alive hundreds of years ago and are now dead. So it's not you know I don't, I'm not familiar hopefully
I will never be familiar with like no plumbing and things
like that they had to experience but yeah but I mean
in general I just feel like other people's
stories are more inter -- like I already know what's
happening in my own head. I already know what I think so
it's way more interesting to me to hear what other
people's experiences are. And but then at the same time,
you know, when I was growing up my par -- both my parents
were refugees in the Korean War and my mother's family
she literally they walked down the entire peninsula. She was from North Korea. They walked down the
entire peninsula of Korea over the course of the war. And eventually that
the only area that wasn't completely invaded
was around the city of Busan in the southeast corner of the
Korean Peninsula so she ended up in a refugee camp there but
really they lost everything. Nothing, you know. She lost over the course of the war she lost three
years of education, right? Because you can't go to school
when you're running away from machine guns and so I think when she came here she gave me
everything that she didn't have. And that included music, right? But when I was growing
up there was nobody. I couldn't find anything that
would tell me about her story. I would only have little
snippets of it from her, right? So I had no place to
kind of find guidance so where I found it was actually
holocaust survivor literature and second generation
holocaust survivor literature because of -- there's qualities
of that kind of survivor, people that survive
things like true hunger. I mean, I like, if I'm like,
oh my god I'm starving, it's like total first
world hunger. I'm like, that's not
real hunger, right? So you know, I see and they
still have those qualities. They still you know. So I wanted to bring
their stories forward too, because I wanted to know
more about their experiences. Someti -- I think in a lot of
ways it was too painful for them to talk about when
I was really young but I'd see the effects
of those experiences. So I think I realized that it's
really important to people, to all people, to be able to
come to a better understanding of the world, a better
understanding of themselves, a better understanding of their
parents, of their friends, their neighbors, family,
through art, right? So I kind of understood
this relationship to hunger through things like
holocaust literature. I kind of began to
understand the kind of violence that my mother witnessed
as a child through things like holocaust literature. So finally now I was, I'm lucky
enough to be creating this work that celebrates her life and we
use her testimonial and it's an, I would recommend
to anyone actually. I've never actually interviewed
my mom for 20 hours, right? -- where it's not
a conversation. Like I know right now
it's totally not a normal conversation. I'm just talking, talking, talking because it's
an interview, right? So but I had never, I had always
had conversations with my mom but I'd never heard her
just speak about her life for 20 hours and I recorded
it and her experiences. And it gave me a great deal
of insight not only into her and not only in myself because
I think we carry our family's history and sometimes
that involves trauma. We carry that with us. So this is a long way
of saying that I believe in bringing forward the
stories and voices of people who have not been heard and one
of the things I really admire so much about both Julia Wolfe
as well as George Lewis is that they have you know I think
our jobs or our responsibilities as artists and being in the arts
world is to imagine the world that we want to live in and
to make that world, right? So the reason I started a
nonprofit, Arco Collaborative, was because I wanted to
actually create that world and give artists the agency
to do things like we did in Alone Together to actually
even show that love and care that we feel for our
community of musicians. So I guess in the long run
it's about always giving voice to people that don't
have that voice. So I think everybody kind of
at least in my field and knows that this is an important
mission in my life and so I was proud about
I was proud of the fact that every single one of our
composers were people of color, or female, both, or non-binary,
so I'm well sometimes when people ask, oh, but how
do you find I don't know any I don't know person
of color composer, I'm just like, we're all here. We're all right here. We're actually here. You just have to listen and
you just have to make clear that this is important to you. Because we're actually
we're all here. We're present. We're not invisible and I mean
one of the interesting things about being Asian
American specifically because the reason my
parents could come to the U.S. and the reason I could be
born here was the change in immigration policy
in the United States which was racist prior because
it put a quota on any people that were not of
western European descent. And then after 1965
it changed slightly. I mean, the whole
myth of the minority, what is it, the model minority? That comes from the fact
that we were highly curated, or my parents were
highly curated, right? They were college graduates
that were allowed to come. And so the interesting
thing that I have found, the kind of paradox of
being an Asian American is that we are not recognized
as people of color, right? We're recognized
only as Asian so in that sense we're always treated
as foreign instead of Americans that aren't white
and I think that kind of creates an invisibility. It makes us invisible
in terms of our stories because we're always
adjacent to people of color but we're not part
of that dialogue. And it's not it's
not an assignation that we've made necessarily
for ourselves. I think it's been given
to us as because we're put in as a wedge race against Black
and Brown people But I feel like we've been kind of not
acknowledged as people of color because we've been pushed
in a certain stereotype. So I think out of these
experiences that I've had and when I speak to other
Asian Americans as well, that's been their experience. We've all had this a lot of
racial taunts while we grew up, a lot of go back
to your country, go back to where you belong, constantly since we
were little kids. And so I think also bringing
forward those stories is important so you know when
I include people of color, I also acknowledge that
Asian Americans are people of color as well. So. >> Anne McLean: You know one of
the things that people have said about Alone Together is that it's one violinist
rebuilding her musical community a minute at a time. You're really not only
rebuilding your musical community but our
experiences as listeners. Your creating community is a
paramount responsibility now for all artists and
for listeners too. And your passion for
diversity and your great joy in commissioning was one of
the things that led us to want to have a virtual residency with
you and the range of composers as Claudia was saying
is wonderful. It's dazzling in this ten person
group it's exciting to hear and in that group composers
like Lester St. Louis, and others are very
much representative of what you're talking about. I was watching an interview with
George Lewis mentioning Lester and saying that Lester's
performance of a work at Darmstadt was a
remarkable step forward for young African American
composers for to be represented at a new music conference
which had never really seen and supported this and
each one of the composers on your list is a remarkable
person for us to encounter. And I wanted to ask you about
the techniques and the -- expanding the horizon
for the violin too. This is a wonderful vision of
what violin playing is today. >> Jennifer Koh: Yes. So I mean it's so I
really did choose pieces that would also reflect this
time period because I feel like it's important
to remember, right? These are painful days. This is painful times. At this point over 200,000 of
our fellow citizens have died from the pandemic much less you
know the severe economic loss for a lot of our fellow
citizens and just not -- so many people even in my
neighborhood have not worked for seven months and but so
I did want to in the pieces that I chose for this program
I wanted to I wanted it to be about memory and to
really remember and to hold onto the experience of
this time and I also wanted to show what America is,
who we are as a country. So for example, I'll use
this just one example. Nina Shekhar is a -- her piece
is called Warm in My Veins, and she's Indian American so
when she speaks about her piece, the title, Warm in My Veins,
comes from a quote from, who's the nurse, Claire Barton? Is it Claire Barton? From the nurse who is
American nurse, right? And from the West. So her quote comes from
there and yet a lot of the music has Hindustani
kind of scaling systems and in the end what Warm
in My Veins means to her and what it meant to her was
having her familial experiences and lineage running warm
in her veins, right? So you can see this
kind of juxtaposition of who we are as Americans. We have reference as Westerners
because we are born here and we are of the West and
yet we have a familial history that travels throughout
our music. Another piece of note was
kind of was "Hover and Recede" by Wang Lu and it's basically
ambulance sirens running and it has a doppler effect because that's what we were
living through at that time and Qasim Naqvi wrote HAL and he
really, I had worked with him. I had commissioned him before for this project
called Limitless, but one of the reasons
that he -- first of all the reason
he wrote this piece and it's entitled HAL was
that this was a musician who had inspired him --
he had never met him -- to go into music, right? And he died of the coronavirus
I think at the end of March, mid-March, and so it was
written in memoriam to him and he actually speaks about
the fact that he decided to recommend another composer because he's also
freelance actually. He decided to recommend another
composer to be commissioned for this project because I
think what he said he wanted to celebrate the fact that this
was not this project was not about nepotism and that it
really truly was inclusive so the person he chose was
also somebody he had never met but he had listened
to her record and really liked her music and then somehow I
tracked down her email. So it was really so
the pieces that are in this this set is
really special to me because it's really tells me the
story of who we are as Americans and what we were experiencing
collectively I think. There's a work called "Quiet
City" by Inti Figgis-Vizueta and that was about the first so
"Hover and Recede" by Wang Lu and Inti's piece were
written very early. So I think Inti wanted to
kind of capture the shock of quietness in New York City
and the only thing that runs that you hear in the
beginning and the end, again, ambulance sirens, right? So it's really capturing
this moment in time. And Anthony Chung's work "Springs Eternal" really
captures this the juxtaposition between what should be a time
of life, which is spring, and time of birth but
instead because of COVID was in stark relief with
what was happening. So I guess I'm, all of the pieces have a great
deal of meaning, right? With Lester's piece,
Lester St. Louis, it's really about
the kind of stoppage of being able to
say what we need. Tonya Koh writes a piece
that's all pizzicato. Lester uses all of this
extended technique which is back and forth with the bow but
not what as string players -- he's a cellist so he definitely
knows what he's talking about and doing so our definition
kind of in is a kind of uniform sound, right? -- with a beau -- we always
talk, string players talk about having a beautiful
sound so that we're able to create long lines, but
he actually his piece is all about not having sound and
the extended technique is about going back and forth on
the bow against the strings. And then Tonya Koh's piece is
all, no relationship to me, is all about pizzicato because
you can't express yourself in the way you used to. You can't connect
with other people in the way that you used to. You can't spend time people
in the way you used to. So we're all kind of trying
to adjust to this new world and how do we function in it
and how do we still make music in a world where all the
parameters have changed, where there's no
live performances, being in groups is actually
dangerous, you know, making music with other
people is actually dangerous. So I think long story
short, every single work from Alone Together that's in this recital is not
only expressing who we are as a global whole world but also
how we engage with this time. Oh my god, I'm talking so long. I'm so sorry. >> Anne McLean: No, no. This is exactly -- this is
what we wanted to work with you as a virtual resident. This is why. Because of your eloquence as
a player and as an artist. I was thinking about a
comment that I saw you made with in an interview where you
say music is about communicating where you can't find the words. It's about spirituality
in a sense. It's about the human
soul, you've mentioned. This is what we're talking
about in the context of the pandemic so thank you. >> Claudia Morales: And Jennifer
and what I, one comment. I think also this program
really reflects your values about embracing who we are
and not covering what it is but embracing it and I feel that
in all aspects that is very, goes along with your
career, with Jennifer Koh with who you are and as you
mentioned before the mission that you recognize
within your profession and that you are willing
to take it to the extent and I think I really
respect that and really admire that in you. >> Jennifer Koh: Thank you. >> Anne McLean: You know, your work in our
residency is very much in -- your work in the
residency relates so much to the McKim Fund and I wanted
to say a word about the woman who gave this fund who
was a famous musician, a famous violinist and many
people watching this won't know her name necessarily but she
was the first woman violinist, American woman violinist
to really make a name for herself outside the U.S. and in New York she was really
well known and admired by people like Johannes Brahms
and Joachim and so on. She too played a Strad like you. And we had a concert
recently with her Strad. But what's fascinating
about the way that you have planned
your program and the residency project
that we'll be talking about throughout the year, is
that her fund has enabled us to do just this kind of
thing, to document many, many styles of performance for
the violin over many years. We had 80 commissions under
her auspices, the auspices of her endowment now, and
Julia Wolfe's piece which is on our program was one of
those about 25 years ago, so it's really an
exciting venture and this particular
program you put together, as Claudia's saying, brings us
much further forward along this path in my opinion,
bringing together so many styles, so many people. You've said you love working
with composers because they have such fascinating personalities
that you've used so much and that was obvious in your
conversation with Julia. So you have this
tremendous energy and tremendous passion
for commissioning. We were wondering,
what's your next thought? What are you thinking in
the future for a new project and how do you see the next
six months for artists? >> Jennifer Koh: Well I
think you know, 90 per -- I'd say 99 percent of the work of a performing musician
is not done on stage. That's like the one, the last
one percent of what we do. And I do have this mission of
equity and I believe in equity. And I know I mean every
single one would be surprised of like very probably well known
female composers maybe more well known composers of color. They have all been actively
discouraged to enter the field. They have all been actively
encouraged to leave the field. So for me, the reason equity is
important to me, so for example with some of the works from Alone Together I
worked probably five hours with the composers for one
minute of music, right? And so it was going
back and forth with different editing you
know, because I believe in their voices but how do we
communicate that on a page? What are they really looking
for in this particular phrase? What are they saying? How can we make that clearer? So I think experience and I know
this from myself, experience and opportunity make us better. They teach us a lot. And so I do spend a lot of
time and a lot more time with composers because
I -- it's important. They need that opportunity. They need that experience. And it's I'm dedicated to
that mission in my life. And I'm really grateful
to the Library of Congress and to you Anne for
thinking of this program or to do this virtual
artist in residency because it's really
an opportunity I hope to bring forward a lot of the
composers in this recital. Of course, George, not only
George Lewis and Julia Wolfe but also a lot of these
composers from Alone Together because I really do think I mean
it was extraordinary in a time of contraction, right? Usually we'd be having
this interview maybe on stage together,
maybe in person with some other people
in the room. So our lives are kind
of contracting, right? But the I think Julia
mentioned it's extraordinary that we can do things
like video conferencing and because it's a way to expand
our world so I was so grateful to all of those composers because they really expanded my
world when everything else was about contraction, right? So it was it's really been a
lovely it was it meant a lot for me to be able to bring these
composers and their works also to your audience at Library
of Congress and I know that they're really excited about it too so I'm
really happy. >> Anne McLean: We're
grateful to you. >> Claudia Morales: Jennifer, before we wrap this conversation
I have a question for you. I saw one of your videos which I
found fascinating that you talk about the artist
and the performer, in behind the instrument and
one video in particular you talk about your body and how much
work your body does for you as a musician and how
mindful you are of this and all these different
exercises and the care that you do take to your body. Can you talk about your
that part as a musician and you even mentioned
that musicians are athletes because of the routine that
you have to be under to perform and to travel and to do
all those kind of things. And how you like to fit exercise
and just care for your body. Can you talk about
that for a little bit? >> Jennifer Koh: Well,
right now it kind of you know I love swimming
and of course I can't go. I don't own a swimming pool and so it's really
a bummer right now because I can't go swimming. Also I really like I go to a
public swimming pool in New York and it's really nice
because the community that goes swimming
is so different. I would like probably never meet
have met them had we not all been swimmers in the pool,
but anyhow, so I guess it's, when we talk about the body
it's kind of a vessel, right? It's kind of it's
several things. So first of all, I
think when I make music, for me it's almost like alchemy. So I want the composer's voice
to become almost part of my DNA and to become almost a
part, you know, that yeah, they become it's a kind of
alchemy in which they flow within me as a performer, right? So then if we if I continue
to think about flow, what that means is that
there also has to be a kind of physical flow, a physical
freedom to be able to express and communicate what the meaning
and the music the musical, what the music asks for I guess. So it takes a lot of care. I mean I'm not swimming
right now. I was a competitive
swimmer when I was younger. And then I do do yoga but
then when the swimming dropped out because all the pools
closed, I started and also because I was too terrified to
go into a subway so a friend of mine got me a gave me a
bike and I started biking but I've never been like a
I've never really been a biker. I mean I knew how to ride a
bike, kind of, from before I was like this is so weird, like, the weirdest muscles are
popping up on my thighs. Like parts of my
body are growing that I'd never known
existed before. Yes but in terms of
keeping in shape for playing that doesn't involve
like bicycling but yeah. It's an important
thing to be able to integrate I think both kind
of the mind and the imagination and the body, if
that makes sense. Maybe that's too
esoteric but I tried. >> Claudia Morales: No. That's good. That's good. And Anne before we
wrap up would you like to add any other questions or Jennifer would you
like to add anything? >> Anne McLean: No. I think I'm just so excited
to have had this conversation and it is it's so deeply poetic
the things that you've said. One fun thing which we may or
may not include in our video, is it true that you've been I've
been worried a little bit how you relax, if you do relax and
obviously yoga's one thing, but is it true that
you're a serious baker? >> Jennifer Koh: Oh,
I stress bake a lot. >> Anne McLean: Claudia is too. >> Jennifer Koh: Oh wow. Excellent. I'm not so much a breads person. I'm much more a cakes and
cookies and quick breads like zucchini bread and
carrot cake and banana bread and definitely a lot of cookies. And cakes actually. What about you? Are you a bread baker
or a sweets baker? >> Claudia Morales: Everything. It depends on the mood. And I have two little ones so we
do a lot of stuff in the kitchen and during this quarantine
I learned how to do bread. I have my sourdough
now and I we name it. We call it doughy. So we have little
doughy in the kitchen now and we do breads every now
and then, and cookies and I like to try different
things in the kitchen too. So kitchen is one of my tools to
relax and to share love and joy. >> Jennifer Koh:
It's interesting. So Nina Young, I'm
playing her piece "There Must Have Been Signs
Surely" in this program and we actually live
in the same building so and we're five floors
apart so actually in the manuscript
it actually says "In solidarity, five
floors apart." And so I stress bake, right? And it was really
stressful when the shelter in place first happened
and like just the numbers in New York were just it was
I've never experienced anything like that where like there
were just I remember there was like a three-day period where
there was not a millisecond without multiple
ambulance sirens running. I mean, just the amount of the
kind of horror and the kind of tragedy and then also fear
by extension fear, right? So even Nina and I did not
physically see each other for six and a half
weeks because at that time we nobody you
couldn't even get masks. You couldn't get any kind of PPE
equipment and just it was awful. So many people were dying. I mean, I remembered, you know
and the state was relieved when we finally got to
like 250 deaths a day, because that had gone down. I mean, that was, it
was a terrible time. But I stress baked a lot and so I was basically making
a cake every single day. And I would give like
half of the cake to Nina and at a certain point
she was like, Jenny, I cannot eat all of this. I was like what are
you talking about? I've been like eating a
cake every single day. She's like why aren't you
weighing like 500 pounds? I was like no well I've
definitely gained weight but you know it's
really comforting. So I was probably baking a
lot too much, really too much. But it's also nice because you
can share it with people, right? >> Claudia Morales: That's true. You can share the love. Well Jenny thank you so much for
talking to us this afternoon. I really enjoyed learning
so much from your journey and the pieces behind the scene,
the quarantine and all this and we appreciated you
being here with us today and well good luck in the next
few months and we'll be talking to you more during
the residency. >> Jennifer Koh:
Thank you so much. I'm so excited about
doing this residency. Thank you for this interview
and this opportunity. And I know all the
composers are so excited that they can be a
part of the Library of Congress so thank you. >> Anne McLean: You're welcome. >> Claudia Morales: For
those who are watching from home don't forget to
follow us and to watch all of our content and our multiple
platforms on social media and of course on Library
of Congress website. Thank you so much and
see you next time.
