Episode 2.11 - Dr. Angela Elizabeth Slater
Episode 11 features Dr. Angela Elizabeth Slater, a UK-based freelance composer. We talk with Angela about how she found composition, her work amplifying women composers, and her numerous exciting projects. Transcripts to all podcast episodes are created by Hollyn Slykhuis and are listed below!
To learn more about Angela and all recommended groups and resources, check out the links below!
Full performance of Enclosing Skies for solo accordion
Music Theory Examples by Women Composers
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:03
Welcome to Diversify the Stand. Together we build a community to listen and learn from the stories and experiences of passionate musicians. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:12
And I'm Ashley Killam. In our second season, we talk with musicians, performers, educators, historians, and entrepreneurs to expand how we think of the music we perform and follow non-traditional career paths. Episode 11 is a chat with Angela Elizabeth Slater, UK-based freelance composer. Angela has done a lot of collaborations with groups, individuals, festivals, and more in Europe and in the United States and has some really incredible and exciting projects that she's going to share today.
Carrie Blosser 0:43
Angela, thank you so much for joining us today.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 0:45
Thank you so much for having me.
Carrie Blosser 0:48
We wanted to get started and ask you how you got started in music.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 0:52
Yeah, so, well, from an early age, as I'm sure, you know, most of us who have got into the business have done, so it was mainly through my mom, who's a keen amateur musician. I grew up in a small village called Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire in the UK, and in the house that we lived in, we had a piano and I always remember that my mom had, like, posters of all sorts of musical things on the walls all the time. So there was all things to help you remember the lines of staves, “every good point says football,” “face in the space.” And, well, for me, as a British musician, “crotchets and quavers,” and idioms and so on. So I can't really remember a time when I didn't sort of know those things, I think, you know, as learning them along this at the same time as sort of the alphabet and everything else. And my older brother was learning the piano and then the clarinet. And so when he was practicing, I would sort of be watching. And then I think afterwards, as like a three or four year old, I would go and bash on the piano, or something. I was always really fascinated by sounds, my mom had a drawer of all these kind of toy percussion instruments and things. So music was there, like right at the beginning for me. When I got the opportunity, when I was a bit older, you know, like, about seven years old, I started playing the piano properly. And then a year later, I started the flute. And I was just sort of working through my grades, ABRSM grades in the UK. But I think I kind of always knew that I was probably never destined to be a professional performer because I'm terrible at practicing, because I always get so distracted with my mistakes. I’d be practicing the piano, and then I would come across a cool chord that had gone wrong. And then I would be distracted for like, a good hour, then I could hear my mom calling, “You need to play your scales, you've got your grade six tomorrow,” or something. You know, so, yeah, I was, you know, fascinated by sounds but terrible at practice, discipline, and everything. And yeah, the composition, sort of, I actually went home the other weekend, and my mom had found a short piano piece that I wrote back in 2003. I played it through, and it wasn't half bad, you know, some kind of aspects of Lord of the Rings in there and things like that. So I thought, hey, this would maybe be passible as an undergraduate composition thing. So I was doing things from, you know, really quite early on. And then these competitions sort of manifest themselves into sort of more pop songs in my teenage years. And I sort of hadn't realized that you could be a composer. You know, it was obvious to me that people became performers. And people in the sort of pop industry became songwriters. But I didn't realize that you could be a composer. So when I was doing my A levels, which is what you take when you're 16 in the UK, and you only choose four subjects, I chose biology, chemistry, physics, and music. Because I was good at science, and I was good at music. My dad's a scientist, and my mom's the key musician of the family. So sort of reflecting my parents, absolutely. And then, you know, you get to the point where you're thinking, Well, I'm going to do university, and I was sort of just thinking, what's the sensible thing to do? What's the financially secure thing to do? And, you know, probably with parental influence and other factors, too, so I actually wasn't going to follow a music track at all. I actually went to university and started studying pharmacy at the University of Nottingham. And I was about two thirds through the way the first term and I went home one weekend, and I was sort of playing on the piano. And it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually had time to sort of engage with music for the whole term. And suddenly it sort of occurred to me sort of how unhappy I was about that. My mom said something like, “Oh, that sounds really good. “—whatever I was making up, I can't remember, it probably wasn't, it was probably rubbish. But it just, it made me burst into tears. And I just said to my mom, I said, “Mom, I need to do music, because I need to do composition.” So it was always about composition. So we managed to sort of swap internally for me to do music at the University of Nottingham. And so I started the—I had sort of a semi-gap year off and then started the next year. And I'm probably much poorer for it financially. But I like to think I'm much richer and much happier for it. So yeah, and then I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Nottingham, met my husband, Adam Whittaker, who's who's a musicologist. And then did my PhD at the University of Nottingham, as well, which I was awarded in 2017. And then, since I've just been freelancing as a composer, so that's, sorry, a really, really long, convoluted answer to your question. But there we are.
Carrie Blosser 6:19
I had no idea. That's such an amazing story. It's, like, really powerful. I feel like so many of us are like, should we do the practical thing and go through it? So I think it's awesome. Maybe not the first semester where you have to burst into tears to realize like, composition was the meaning.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 6:37
Yeah, though I think it gave me a conviction to sort of feel like, no, this is really what I've got to do. And I've got to go for it.
Ashley Killam 6:44
When we were looking through your website, you have a whole project section with really amazing, different collaborations and different projects you've done with groups and people. We would just love to hear if you wanted to kind of talk about any of the things you've done in the past few years, because all of them are super interesting.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 7:03
Is there any particular one that you're intrigued by?
Ashley Killam 7:06
I personally would really love to hear about your solo series challenge.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 7:10
The Connected Skies project?
Ashley Killam 7:11
Yeah.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 7:13
That's actually only sort of recently finished for me because it was such a long project. And a project that really only could exist because of the pandemic in many ways. Because, you know, I'm sure it's like this in the US, when you're applying for funding, it's always with the kind of rationale that you're going to actually meet up with the person, you know, in person, and you’re gonna have to have all the the travel. And so I wanted to be working with certain players, two in the US and two in Europe, and in normal times, I think that would be just completely impractical for, like, an individual funding bid, but arts counseling, and also sort of opened up their funds to not need any match funding. So I have this idea that it would be great to sort of challenge myself to write six ten minute solo pieces between October 2020 and May 2021, this year. And I was very fortunate that I got the funding for it. So I’ve written a piece for solo double bass called The Aching Space Between, and I worked with US-based double bassist Maggie Cox for that. I met Maggie at virtual Tanglewood as things are at the moment. So I've not actually met her in person, but I wrote a piece for sort of part of the project at Tanglewood and then I thought I've not had enough writing for solo double bass this year, I'll do some more. So I wrote that piece and that was called The Aching Space Between, and then I had a solo cello piece which is called Woven Half Dreams, which was written for a UK-based cellist called Sarah Gait. And then—what else did I do— then it was the accordion piece, I'm sort of remapping myself through my autumn and winter. So yes, solo accordion piece, which was called Enclosing Skies, which I wrote for Kamila Olas, who's based in Denmark. And yeah, the the accordion was just something else to get my head around. You know, I'm very comfortable writing for cello. I've written you know, string quartets and solo, you know, string works and various kinds previously, and when I was writing for the double bass, it was similar, obviously different, I had to get my head round the slightly different tunings. But yeah, the leap to accordion was just something else. So that took me the longest but it was extremely rewarding and I'm actually going to be writing Kamila an accordion concerto this autumn. So that's—I'm gonna have to get my head back into the accordion. But I'm very, very excited for that. And then the next piece that was in this challenge was a piece for solo flute, but with a twist, the flute had a glissando head joint. And the person I was writing for is called Emma Coulthard. And, I mean, she's a professional flautist first and foremost, but she also is willing to sing. And she's got a fantastic sort of soprano voice. So I made this piece echoed, which sort of is about the myth of an echo and Narcissus, but also, I'll explain afterwards how all of these are linked through a poem that I wrote. So yeah, there's that piece, I allowed myself to be really sort of manic and let all the kind of angst and sort of cabin-fever-ish emotions of this year sort of manifest themselves in that piece. And then I wrote a piece for solo percussion which was called Shut Out The Noise. Again, it was sort of similar to that one, in that I was sort of allowing myself to express the kind of feeling of being overwhelmed, the sort of saturation of the media and the news and just the situation. And I wrote that for a percussionist called Iris van den Bos, who's usually based in the Netherlands, but she was sort of in between places when we were sort of choosing what instrumentation because she lives in the Netherlands, but she also studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, but everything being digital, she's gone home, I think, to stay with her parents. I mean, with that particular piece, I deliberately said to myself, you've got to write a piece that has no pitches, because I've never done that before. And see if you could sustain, you know, interest for 10 minutes. So if anyone listens, I hope you think I have. The last piece, which was really sort of the culmination of the project, and I felt, you know, as I've been going through, I've been sort of pulling tissues from each of the pieces through each other, and almost a bit like a song cycle, but for instruments, but this final piece was for mezzo-soprano. And for Kameryn Leung, and it set the text of this poem that I'd written that connected all of them. And that piece is called Never to Leave. “When the sky enclosed around me, shrinking ever smaller, I found woven half dreams fractured in spaces in between, which ache and scream. I tried to shut the noise out. But it's echoed right back at me, never to leave, or fully be.” Yeah, so that's Connected Skies, and they were all digitally premiered like once a month from the first one was on January the 21st. Obviously, I'd have a run in of me writing the piece. And then each performer learning the piece, recording the piece, of course, rather than just performing it, and then we'd have time editing it all together. Because what was sort of—these things are all on YouTube, but they're not just, of the pieces, there's a little insight into the collaboration process between me and each of the performers, we had lots of different zoom meetings. And I think it was just, I think it's brave of me and each of the performers, but I think it's really interesting for an audience to sort of get an insight into what musicians actually talk about behind the scenes that actually, you know, creates great music in the end.
Carrie Blosser 13:59
I think that's super neat. And I think a lot of performers kind of, “Oh, the composers,” we don't want to, like bother you. But really, like, I think that, like, the dialogue is really important, especially when you're commissioning new works and performing them. And during the last year and a half, when we haven't been able to, like, meet together in person.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 14:17
Oh, yeah, I think it's hugely important. And, I mean, when I'm writing, particularly when it's for, you know, someone specific, I think it's really good to get an idea of who they are as a person. And I mean, with various performers through this project, some of them I've known for years, and some I just met and like I said with Maggie, I've never actually seen her in person. I love making friends with musicians as well. So it's been such a sort of pleasure to connect with these different musicians and sort of creatively and collaboratively grow together. And just to sort of really get a deep understanding of each instrument. And I felt that, well, since then, when writing other pieces that, you know, haven't been solo pieces, but I've got these instruments in it I feel like, so I just have a deeper level of understanding them. So that's been great fun and, you know, a huge benefit from doing that project.
Ashley Killam 15:19
The clip that you're gonna hear is from Enclosing Skies, the accordion solo that Angela just talked about.
Carrie Blosser 20:10
You've done a bunch of different, like, fellowship programs and where you've kind of been a part of some different groups. I would love for you to talk about how that impacts you as a composer, and then the performers that you're working with.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 20:21
Yes, I mean, the Tanglewood one was quite weird, because it was virtual and I've never been there in person, but I'm hoping to be there in 2022. I find with, you know, these kind of residencies, the best thing about them is getting to sort of meet the performers and get to know the performers and work with them. And so the main thrust of the project at Tanglewood was to work with Maggie and that was the first time I was writing for double bass as a solo instrument. I'd always written for it, you know, in an orchestral context, and I sort of look back at old pieces and think, I was never very daring for the double bass, but it can do so much. And Maggie was so open to trying things that she'd never even realized were possible on her instrument either. So yeah, I found that to be amazing. A few years ago, I went to Britten-Pears advanced composition course. And it was sort of around across two years. So it was in 2017, the initial course. And then there was, like, we were invited back the next year for, like, a week of rehearsals and our final performance. And that was back when Oliver Knussen was still with us. And my cohort of composers were essentially the last cohort of composers to have his tuition. So, yeah, at Britten-Pears, you have sort of mentorship from Oliver Knussen, and Colin Matthews, and in my year, also, the US composer, Michael Gandolfi. And you essentially write for a chamber orchestra. And that was one of the most intense but creatively satisfying courses I’ve ever been on. Because essentially, every day, you'd have a workshop at 4 with the ensemble, about an hour with drafts of your pieces. And then that night, you would essentially revise your piece, wake up in the morning, get it printed, rinse repeat, for like 10 days. Each year, I'm always aware of all these various residencies and competitions that come up. And so I found the Mendelssohn Scholarship Award. And I applied to it hoping that I could go and study with Michael Gandolfi for three months. And amazingly, I did get it. So in 2019, between February and May, I went out and lived in Boston, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And, yeah, I had loads and loads of lessons with him, and got myself feeling so comfortable and confident and creatively in control with harmony. I honestly can say he's changed the way I compose for the better. That was such an amazing opportunity. And it just happened that while I was out there, I had a number of things that just happened to fall into place. So I had the New England Philharmonic premiere my orchestral piece called Rolling Stones. And I had a piano trio, Prism piano trio, they premiered my piece called Shades of Rain. And that was part of my Illuminate Women's Music project as well, which I perhaps will talk about in a moment. And then I also had a piece called Of Spheres performed by the Semiosis Quartet when I was out there. So there was a number of various things. So it was sort of wonderful to sort of throw myself into the US contemporary classical music scene in Boston and get all of that tuition as well. Yeah, so maybe this is a good point for me to talk about Illuminate Women's Music. So Illuminate Women's Music came about because when I was doing my PhD in composition, I sort of realized that—I don't know why I hadn't realized before this point, which is also a horrifying thing—that I didn't seem to know about any women composers. And I'd only began to realize about a few sort of names for me were like Helen Grime, and Arlene Sierra and I found their music because, particularly with Arlene Sierra, her music’s sort of inspired, or some of her music is inspired by the natural world. And that was something that really interested me, and in the way she was doing it using sort of concepts from the natural world to inform different parameters within the compositions. So because, you know, obviously, there's loads of composers over the years that you could argue were inspired by the natural world, but in this specific way. And you know, as I was sort of realizing this and doing my research, I sort of came across a few historical women composers. Oh, gosh, how did I not know about all of this? And so I began thinking, perhaps I should, you know, put some concepts together. And I mean, all of this was sort of also, I was becoming aware that whenever I was at a composers course, I was the token woman there. Once in a while, there’d be one other. So I was sort of beginning to sort of gather all these women composers, slowly, surely. And then I just sort of said to a couple of them, how would you feel about if we did a couple of concerts where, you know, you've wrote piece and programmed it? And I sort of got in touch with some performers and saying, how would you feel about doing a concert for, you know, all women composers. And before I knew it, sort of ended up booking about seven concerts, and then I'd come up with this idea of Illuminate Women's Music and the idea of celebrating and highlighting the creativity of women, both as composers and performers, and sort of demonstrating that there is a historical, rich legacy of women composers. And I think it's really important that women actually realize that and that we're not doing this for the first time. When you actually dive into these composers’ stories, they often were very successful, and they are in time, and often actually very respected by all their male colleagues and counterparts. But yeah, history doesn't remember them or didn't think they were important enough. And so it's like, as they get erased, and that each generation of women aren't aware of their existence. So it feels like you're sort of starting the battle from zero again. The format of Illuminate Women's Music now, at least in normal times, anyway, is that we have sort of different performers and residents each season. And we commission about five or six living female composers, broadly speaking, in the early, in your early career, and then we program them alongside historical women composers as well. And then we tour them around the UK, mainly, it is sort of lots of different venues, sort of UK universities, sort of free coffee concerts, at churches, all sorts of things, because, you know, it's very important, of course, to go around universities and educated people and students and so on, and get them to realize all of this stuff as well. But I think also just normal people who are interested in classical music, sometimes I had the most amazing and enthusiastic responses from that, from people coming up afterwards to me, being like, wow, I didn't, I just didn't know that women composers existed. So you know, that's what I wanted, sort of, to try and change little by little. And I guess I was also thinking about the concept of the “canon” in a funny sort of way, that is, like, I guess a sort of massive works, that have sort of been approved. And, you know, I think each of us have our own personal canon. That's what I sort of believe. And so surely, slowly, but surely, I'm thinking I need to sort of infiltrate all these people's personal canons, people sort of have more of a collective awareness. And hopefully, it will just sort of build up a kind of cultural shift. And with having different performers in residence as well, I was hoping to sort of take those performers in a way educate them in a way and send them out into the world but with all this new repertoire, and hopefully many gain interest in it, and thinking that maybe they will commission new works, or maybe they'll go digging for other historical works and put them, you know, not necessarily in a program of all women's works, but just in a program. So that's what I've been trying to do with Illuminate Women's Music over the last few years.
Ashley Killam 29:24
It's just really astounding when you start doing the research into it, into finding composers and finding these pieces, how much is out there, and how much really great music is out there. But it's really great to see organizations and concert series and individuals doing all of this work to try and make small change. I'd like to think that that makes larger change later on.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 29:46
I hope so. I mean, I feel like there's been a cultural shift in the UK, as I'm sure there has in the US as well. And I like to think that maybe I was part of that in some form.
Carrie Blosser 29:57
So as we're recording now in July, we to you to talk to us a little bit about the future projects that you have coming out, especially ones that will be maybe premiering, as this episode airs in early October.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 30:10
Okay, yeah. So I've got quite a busy time of it at the moment, because I'm actually over the next few weeks even at three different sort of music festivals and courses, which excitedly are overlapping in just brief moments in different time zones. So it's just going to be confusing and fun for me. So the thing that I'm actually at currently, and will actually be partaking in a session later tonight, is the Fresh Squeezed Opera, which is a New York based opera company. And I've been writing a piece for baritone and piano for baritone Daniel Klein. And through that my piece, which is called Tucked Beneath, will be sort of recorded and digitally premiered later in August. So by the time you're listening to this in October, you can find that and it will be there for you to listen to. So then this is sort of over to like pockets of weekends. And then I will, at the same time, be virtually in Sweden for a little bit on a festival, which is called shorthand SCBA, which I think is hilarious. But it is the Stockholm Chamber Brass Academy, which you guys might be interested about, actually. So there, through that I've been writing a brass quintet. And I wrote that piece straight after your trumpet piece, actually. And it was great to be in a brass mode, and to feel like as though I've got my head into that sound world and also, but just all the techniques of the trumpet as well. So that sort of 10 days, where I should have been in a place called Leksands. But I guess virtually from here, this is everywhere. And then that overlaps with the Impulse Music Festival in Los Angeles. And through that I'm having my solo cello piece Woven half dreams, technically have a US premiere, that will start that festival, I'll be in the first concert of that festival. But I'm also writing a new work, which I have decided the title of, as of a few days ago. And this piece is going to be for the Brightwork Ensemble. And it's called To know the dark, which is based on a poem of Wendell Berry. So yeah, they're main things I'm doing this summer. But I also have another digital premiere in August—they’re all coming at once, it seems, like buses, which is this very strange project that I actually wrote the piece for back in January this year. And the group who have organized it are called the Ark Project, and the piece commission sort of requests with, we'd like you to write a piece for piano with three pianists and one piano. So that was an interesting challenge, and it was kind of great fun to think, how can I utilize the piano? Only one piano, but with, you know, six hands as such. So yeah, they're all my current projects and upcoming performances, all in August. But that means as you're in October, you get to listen to them all straightaway.
Carrie Blosser 33:37
For your last question—we ask everyone this—we would love to know what is on your music stand this week? And how are you diversifying your stand?
Angela Elizabeth Slater 33:45
Yeah, so this is kind of a funny question as a composer, because, and as I expressed earlier, I'm terrible at practicing ever. So there's, my music stand usually, like, doesn't have anything on or just has all my sketches on. So I suppose it has me on it. Yeah, I have sort of, I guess, you know, I'm diversifying my stand in different areas, as we were mentioning before, you know, through Illuminate Women’s Music and through my various teaching settings, you know, when I'm doing one to ones with composers, students, I'm always conscious—and it's actually just very natural, because they're part of my personal canon, I'll bring up women composers, as examples. And I'm always really keen to actually those kind of contexts of teaching, as you know, as opposed to when I'm doing Illuminate Women's Music stuff, is just to be like, yeah, there’s this really great, you know, string quartet by Ruth Crawford Seeger. And I don't go, “Oh, and she's a woman composer.” You know, I just say, you know, she's a composer and this is a fantastic piece and this is why, so yeah, there's just, I guess diversity as a whole on my metaphorical music stand and a lot of self-obsession, because I'm just composing all the time at the moment. I've had, like, a crazy amount of projects that have just been back to back. Yeah, it's a bit intense. I hope to have a week off at some point. But yeah, not anytime soon.
Carrie Blosser 35:19
That's awesome. Thank you again for joining us and being a part of our project. And we're just so grateful to meet you and to hear about all of the awesome things that you are doing, and can't wait to play your trumpet piece across the United States.
Angela Elizabeth Slater 35:34
Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and listening to mutter on for ages about various things. In fact, you've enjoyed it. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to having my piece performed so many times by you guys and all the keen trumpeters that you mentioned as well.
Carrie Blosser 35:51
Links to Angela’s website and all resources and organizations recommended are in the podcast description.
Ashley Killam 35:57
Thank you for listening to Diversify the Stand. I'm Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 36:00
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, find us on social media and visit our website. We now have a store where you can pick up some Diversify the Stand gear.
Ashley Killam 36:10
And as always, a huge thank you to Trevor Weston and Whitney George for allowing us to use their compositions in our podcast. The musical introduction is Trevor's trumpet duet Fanfare for Changes, and the ending music is Whitney's Incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composers’ websites are listed in the podcast description.
Carrie Blosser 36:28
Until next week, what's on your stand?