Episode 4 - Dr. Lauren Bernofsky
Episode 4 features Dr. Lauren Bernofsky, an international composer, violinist, clinician, and extraordinary person. We talk with Lauren about her upbringing into composing, her experience of new music settings vs. academic music settings, and the stories behind her upcoming projects.
To learn more about Lauren and the resources she recommended, check out the links below!
Lauren Bernofsky - Website
Violin music by Diverse Composers (compiled by Lauren and musicians on Facebook)
Violin Music by Women
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:01
Welcome to Diversify the Stand, the resource centered around listening, learnin,g and promoting diverse musical voices in music, through our podcast, website, commissioning projects, and more. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:15
And I'm Ashley Killam. Join us on our journey as we speak with composers, creators, performers, historians and music educators about the topics important to them, and music's betterment.
Today, we welcome one of our most favorite people on the planet, THE Dr. Lauren Bernofsky. Dr. Bernofsky's music has been performed across the United States as well as internationally. She has written for everything from unaccompanied solos through large ensembles, from beginning ensembles to professional groups. Bernofsky has taught at Boston University, the University of Maryland in Baltimore County, the Peabody Institute, and Interlochen. She conducts regional festivals and serves as a clinician at schools, festivals, and national conferences, and is currently based out of Bloomington, Indiana. And for any trumpet players listening, her Trumpet Concerto is possibly my favorite piece ever written and it should be a standard concerto that everyone programs on recitals. So welcome, Lauren!
Lauren Bernofsky 1:16
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Carrie Blosser 1:18
So our first question for you is, we would love for you to talk a little bit about how you got started in music as a violin player and then became a composer, and how your experiences as a performer maybe impacts the music that you have written. And as trumpet players, we definitely want to know how you write such incredible trumpet and brass music without ever playing a wind instrument.
Lauren Bernofsky 1:39
Oh, wow, thanks so much for that. I remember I was around seven years old sitting on the floor watching TV with my sister and my mom comes into the room and says, we've decided that we're going to start you on violin lessons. Okay, sure. And so I started on private violin lessons when I was about to turn eight. Suzuki methods, so that's how I got started in music. It was understood that I would practice every day, except for my birthday. So that was the one day a year that we were allowed to not practice. I was down in New Orleans, Louisiana, which was not the greatest place to be coming up in classical music, because it's not like we had a well-developed Youth Orchestra system. But we did have one wonderful resource and that was the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, or NOCCA.
[It} was a half day arts high school and I entered my junior year of high school as a violin major, I had never thought of writing music at this point. Within a month or two, I get put in a little composition class. The music theory teacher there, his name was Dr. Bert Braud, and he was a composer himself. And he took the kids who had mastered their interval recognition after the first month or so, put us in a little composition class, of maybe five or eight of us, and gave us a very simple assignment. I went home did my little assignment, he brought it back and teacher it looks at he said, "Oh, that's actually pretty good." So then he gives the next assignment, which is a little more involved, maybe we have to do a melody plus accompaniment. And I bring that one in and again, he's complimenting me on it. And so I took notice when he was, you know, saying these positive things about what I was writing, my classmates were starting to notice it was like, wow, Lauren, that's actually really good. Okay, so I kept going.
For summer, I went off to Tanglewood as a violin major, and there's sort of pecking orders or like levels of who gets the most respect for this and that, he's got like, the concert master is the coolest person, you know, and then you go down through the seating, at least violinists are always looking who's ahead of them who's behind, but even, like, higher and the prestige was the composers because usually, these mysterious people carrying around like a portfolio - "what's in that portfolio? What are they writing? Are they writing a Symphony?" It was just there was this intrigue about composers and I noticed that the next.
I had, of course, was going on writing more and more, ended up going to college doing a double major violin and composition. So violin, still very important to me. But by the end of my undergrad, I realized, okay, I need to make a decision here, which way should I go? And I felt more special, or like I had a unique... no one else can write the Bernofsky Trumpet Concerto, you know, so I felt like I had this unique voice and I was being encouraged by the other performers. I mean, I think a lot of my development in the path I take as a composer has been determined by, largely determined by the people around me. My friends, my colleagues. So if I get, you know, someone asked me to write a brass piece, that's why I write a brass piece. It's not because I just wake up one morning, sorry, brass players, You know, I don't wake up one morning wanting to write a brass piece. But if someone says, "Oh, you know, I've got this recital coming up, and could you give me some kind of showpiece?" You know, suddenly I have like this, this compelling reason to write it and, you know, it's largely based on like, my friends. I love people.
Carrie Blosser 5:02
I'd love to talk a little bit about your decision to go with a major publisher versus what I've seen a lot recently of being a self, doing a lot more self publishing.
Lauren Bernofsky 5:11
Yeah, great question. I have tried this both ways and I've noticed that my music that gets published by major publishers, it does so much better. I find that I'm not the best advocate for my own music, but if people learn of it through a publisher, then they take it so much more seriously, it's as simple as that. Even though I only get 10% royalty from the sales of my music, it's still very much worth it to me, because the publisher sells so many more copies.
Another part of this is that very often, I'll have an editor who works with me and makes my music better, and that is worth a whole lot. The most detailed editing has happened in my music with my educational publishers. So let's say FJH Music Company, and some of these, these ones that are developing the music, so it can be played by a middle school band or elementary school orchestra. And the specifications for the piece are a lot more strict and limiting in some ways, because you know, if you have an orchestra that plays on a grade three level, you don't want to have like one thing that would be harder, like grade five difficulty level. An editor's great for keeping everything to the same difficulty level. And also, the editor will apply standards that I was replied to all my music and everyone's music, which is, "how is it for the audience to take this in?" So sometimes I'll have a piece that's edited by someone, and they'll say, "You know, I think that we don't need too long introduction, I think you're gonna lose some people here. So you know, you just cut two or four bars off of that." I think that's absolutely legitimate.
I'm very interested in how my music hits the audience, you lose some control over your piece when you give it to an editor and sign it over to a publishing company. Yes, you signed over 9 cases on 10 years signing over the copyright. And if you later on want to change something about the pieces, like you know, that chord in bar 12 I don't really like that B-flat in there. I'm sorry, it's out. It's out in the world. But, um, for me, overall, it's completely worth it.
Carrie Blosser 7:19
You've sent us a clip of the Haubrich Suite. It was commissioned by the International Women's Brass Conference and performed by Monarch Braff. Just wanted to talk a little bit about the piece that we're going to hear.
Lauren Bernofsky 7:29
Sure. Okay, well, I was so happy when one day I heard from the IWBC and they said we would love to commission you for our next conference to write a piece for the Monarch Brass. And I thought all right, well, let me think. I want to be something that I'm excited about writing for I've already already written for. I have a trombone ensemble piece, my Passacaglia. I have five pieces for brass quintet, so I wasn't really thrilled about writing like something that I'd already written before. So I was thinking what would be kind of interesting, but also be useful. So it's going to be useful to the brass world with other performances, which is, of course, good for me, but also, it configures a usable piece of brass chamber music. So I came up with the idea of a brass sextet, that's a standard brass quintet with an extra horn. And then that's going to suggest some compositional ideas, because I can have two horns playing duet together with of course, perfect blend being the same instrument. So I decided on that ensemble, and I hadn't yet decided what the piece was going to be about.
I had written enough pieces that I was starting to get to a place where I don't know what else to do with form. I often resort to ABA forms or some variant of Sonata form, like in my Trumpet Concerto, for instance, the first movement is a sonata form. I mean, not strictly with the first theme in one key in the you know, but but using a lot of elements of Sonata Form. And so I was looking for some kind of extra musical inspiration, so I don't have to worry about this whole form thing. And just just something to, you know, get me going on this piece.
I visited this museum in Cologne, Germany called The Museum Ludwig. And there I saw this collection called the Haubrich Collection. And this was art that had been purchased by a wealthy lawyer named Yosef Haubrich. And he was saving this artwork from being discarded and destroyed by the Nazis. And I came up with four that I really liked. And the one that we're going to hear a recording of today is based on a painting by Paula Modersohn-Becker and this was a self portrait she did. I had a fantastic premiere by the Monarch Brass and this wonderful recording to represent it. So it was a wonderful experience all around there.
Carrie Blosser 12:23
That was the live world premiere of Portrait of a Woman, the last movement of the Haubrich Suite by Lauren Bernofsky, played by Monarch Brass at the 2019 International Women's Brass Conference. Back to more questions with Dr. Bernofsky.
Ashley Killam 12:39
Academia and music is much different from kind of the performance side of things. And so we were just wondering, what's been your experience as a composer and as a performer, just between dealing with the new music world in academia, and the new music world within the performer side?
Lauren Bernofsky 12:57
Wow, I could talk for so how long do we have to talk? I've noticed that we'll have these pieces that okay, the sound is the sound, maybe you like it, maybe you don't. But a lot of them have these complex explanations behind the music, as if we need to know what the explanation is. And that is part of how music is judged in these new music concerts. By "Oh, let's see what went into the piece." But should it matter? I tend to prefer the idea of a new music concert where there aren't program notes, because then it's really about the sound of the music. And one of the reasons I think that we might have gotten to this place with new music being so much dependent on what's behind what went into the creation is that this is what's easiest to talk about. It's easy to talk about the form, it's easy to talk about whatever technique one used to come up with the notes. And I don't think it makes necessarily for the most musical sounding piece. What's hard or maybe even impossible to talk about, is music that comes from your subconscious, from your instincts. How do you put that into words? It's my opinion that actually the most glorious and an effect musically effective music is comes from exactly that place from the subconscious. It's hard to talk about, and I guess professors need to take in their salaries, and they need to sound impressive in class. And this is what went into creating this. This tone poem by such and such a composer and everything gets put into words, but you can't really get up in front of the class and say, this came from the subconscious. It came from something we don't even understand, to talk about words. So when the value in music has to be reduced into words, I think that's where this problem has arisen as long as you apply some of your humanity to it. And do I like the sound of this does it's going to be enjoyable. I think that's wonderful. That's what makes, That's what makes music good.
Carrie Blosser 15:08
So what projects or pieces are you currently working on?
Lauren Bernofsky 15:13
I am undertaking my biggest compositional project of my life. And this is a Grand Opera. I've been writing so many chamber pieces and choral pieces and orchestra pieces over the years and, but I really love writing for voice. I love opera. Now I have written to young audience operas that were both published by Presser and I had just such a great experience doing those. I love telling stories and making them come to life through music, which is, of course, this added dimension over just the words of the story.
And so I have a story that I found that I really want to tell through music, and the story is about a man by the name of Anton Schmid, someone that Americans tend not to know about, and I myself hadn't known about him until I was one summer in Germany and my husband found this article that had been torn out of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, this Frankfurt newspaper that his father had torn up and it was about this man named Anton Schmid. He was a hero from the Holocaust that I had never heard of. He had saved between two and 300 Jews from the Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania. And all the original sources about are written in German and fortunately, since my husband is German, he can read them for me and, I read a bit of German too. So there's a lot of research involved and I want the world to know about the story. I want to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. But also, even more importantly, to me, share with the world, the story of a single man who can by himself work and make such a huge difference, such a huge impact fighting this, this terrifying, scary force of the whole Nazi regime. Yeah, I feel like this is really my passion project now. And I have set aside at least two years to work on this. And turning down other commissions as I need to, just to get this done. I feel it's a big responsibility. I feel a responsibility to tell this story correctly, historically, accurately, and do a good job of that. And for that reason, I am deliberately choosing to, to write in a style that is going to hopefully be accessible to a large number of audience members. So not just the new music set, or not just in operagoers, but hopefully, this is something that will be accessible to a lot of people, because I would like to get this story. I would like the story to be heard by as many people as as I can manage.
Ashley Killam 18:05
We'll be keeping our eyes out and as soon as that happens, and you have a deadline, you'll have to let us know. And so our last question that we're asking everyone is, how are you diversifying your stand?
Lauren Bernofsky 18:16
Sure, absolutely. What's on my music stand right now is the opera that I'm writing. But I am always thinking about, and collecting composers and works that I might use in the future. I do conduct regional youth orchestras. And I have a list of works by composers that are diverse, what I'm interested in is all the ones that you don't always hear about. So whenever someone posts a piece on Facebook, or I hear of a composer that I don't know, I always go to check out the piece and if it's something that I could possibly perform one day, I put it on this list. So I have this, this file on my computer of composers of interest and pieces. And so when I'm, when I then get invited to put together a concert, you know, I'm always going to look back to this list and see, okay, what new piece can I introduce? Because if I hear a piece that I'm fascinated by, I may not remember the name of that piece in three years, or whenever I'm looking for that kind of piece for concerts. So yeah, I'm compiling this list.
Another thing that I did recently was compile a list of Violin Music by diverse composers. Because I noticed that when I was coming up as a violinist, I was always given works by white men to to learn and there's a lot of great repertoire out there. So I put up a query on Facebook. I said, "Okay, you know, violinists what pieces do you know about by you know, by women and composers of color?" and a lot of people were writing in with these composers I'd never heard of, and there's some fantastic pieces absolutely as good as the standard pieces that are taught routinely because I I was just amazed at the quality of some of these pieces that you never hear about, and that are absolutely as good.
Carrie Blosser 20:08
Thank you so much for agreeing to be on our podcast, Lauren!
Lauren Bernofsky 20:10
Oh, absolutely, my pleasure. I love talking with you two.
Carrie Blosser 20:14
For links to find more about Lauren and her music, they're in the description of the podcasts, and they're also on our website at www.diversifythestand.com.
Ashley Killam 20:29
Thank you so much for listening to Diversify the Stand. I am Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 20:34
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, check out our Patreon www.patreon.com/diversify_the_stand. Also the link is in our podcast description.
Ashley Killam 20:50
And 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 also listed in the description.
Carrie Blosser 21:08
Until next time, what's on your stand?