S4E03: Setting Texts at the Intersection of Secular and Sacred: Composer Dale Trumbore
Today on In Unison we’re talking with composer and writer Dale Trumbore about choosing texts, blurring the line between the sacred and the secular, and her idea of a perfectly relaxing evening. We also discuss Choral Chameleon’s newly released recording of Dale’s secular requiem “What Are We Becoming?”
And now a word from our hosts!
Edited by Fausto Daos
Music excerpts
“After the Storm Passes,” by Dale Trumbore, performed by Choral Arts Initiative
“How to Go On: I. How,” by Dale Trumbore, performed by Choral Arts Initiative
“You Find Yourself Here,”by Dale Trumbore, performed by Lebanon Valley College Chamber Choir
“What Are We Becoming: Movement 2. The Last Good Days,” by Dale Trumbore, performed by Choral Chameleon
“Spiritus Mundi,” by Dale Trumbore, performed by Suzi Digby, OBE, and the Golden Bridge Consort
Episode references
Dale Trumbore, composer
“Staying Composed” by Dale Trumbore
Deus Ex Machina, album by Choral Chameleon
Theme Song: Mr. Puffy by Avi Bortnik, arr. by Paul Kim. Performed by Dynamic
Episode Transcript
EP403_Dale Trumbore_Transcript
Intro [00:00:07] Hello! And welcome to In Unison, the podcast about new choral music and the conductors, composers and choristers who create it. We are your hosts: I am Zane Fiala, Artistic Director of the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco, and I'm Giacomo DiGrigoli, a tenor in IOCSF, the Golden Gate Men's Chorus and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. And this is In Unison. (I like being in unison!)
Zane [00:00:36] Today on In Unison, we're talking with composer and writer Dale Trumbore about choosing texts, blurring the line between the sacred and the secular, and her idea of a perfectly relaxing evening. To get us acquainted with Dale's compositional style, here is a recording from an album of her works performed by Choral Arts Initiative. This is "After the Storm Passes", depicting, with various twists and turns, a tumultuous journey on the wind following the rain. [00:01:09] [Music excerpt: a loud declamation issues forth from a chorus, with shifting, austere chords as if a sudden gust from a storm - gradually calming to depict a scene of brilliant light and clean, washed, aquamarine skies.]
Zane [00:05:11] OK! Joining us today on In Unison is L.A. based composer and writer Dale Trumbore. Dale has served as composer in residence for Choral Chameleon and Nova Vocal Ensemble, as well as artist in residence at Copland House and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico. Her compositions have been performed widely in the U.S. and internationally by ensembles including the Aeolians, L.A. Master Chorale, Los Angeles Children's Chorus, Tonality, VocalEssence and many more. In fact, we're gonna add IOCSF to that list in December.
Zane [00:05:45] In 2016, Choral Arts Initiative premiered and recorded Dale's secular, quote unquote, requiem, "How to Go On". And the resulting album debuted at number six on Billboard's traditional classical chart. Choral Arts NW, the Esoterics, Helix Collective, New York Virtuoso Singers and soprano Gillian Hollis have also commercially recorded her works, and her choral works are available through Boosey and Hawkes, G. Schirmer And Graphite Marketplace. Dale is passionate about composing works that set poems, prose and found text by living writers. But as a writer herself, she has written extensively about working through creative blocks and establishing a career in music in both essays, as well as her first book, titled "Staying Composed: Overcoming Anxiety and Self-doubt Within a Creative Life". Dale holds a dual degree in music composition and English from the University of Maryland and a Master's of Music in composition from USC. A New Jersey native, Dale lives in L.A. with her husband and their two cats. Dale, thanks for joining us! We're really, really excited to talk to you today.
Dale [00:06:54] Thanks so much for having me here!
Giacomo [00:06:56] Dale, as a huge fan of your work, I'm excited to actually officially get to meet you today through this, through this interview. And to get our listeners to know you just a little bit better, a little more casual sense before we dive into discussing some of your works, let's start with an icebreaker! Here's one that I think is pretty fun, and one that's near and dear to my heart... How would you describe a perfectly relaxing evening?
Dale [00:07:20] So, I think for me it would depend on what I've already done that day. I think, ideally, I would have gotten a little bit of work done, either writing or composing. So, I would feel like I've gotten that out of the way and now I could be truly relaxed and I would just curl up with a book. Maybe I have something fun to drink, whether that's alcoholic or like kombucha or a cup of tea. And maybe my husband and my cats are nearby, but they're leaving me alone while I read my book and I just sit there. Maybe I'm outside, and the sun is setting. Umm... I think that would be perfectly relaxing and... yeah.
Giacomo [00:08:02] So, it would be, it would be a little bit of a "me-evening", if you will, just sort of family in the other room and just a little focus on yourself with a drink. That sounds, that sounds pretty relaxing to me, too. [laughter]
Dale [00:08:13] Yeah! I think I would like to know that if I... If I want to go watch a TV show or something and spend time with my husband and my cats or other family and friends are nearby. But I'm like the most truly relaxed when I'm just by myself, being an introvert, happy with a book... yeah.
Giacomo [00:08:35] And I love that feeling, too. Also, that relaxing evening comes as a bit of a reward of a day's worth of work and just feeling like you can set your mind at ease. I totally relate to that, too.
Zane [00:08:46] Can you guys hear my daughter in the other room right now? She was going, [imitating a dolphin] "Aaaaa!" [laughter from Dale and Giacomo]
Zane [00:08:51] Can you hear that? She's quoting...
Dale [00:08:53] It's a sheep? Or...? [laughter]
Zane [00:08:54] No, it's ahh... It's from the movie "Luca". Have you seen the movie "Luca"?
Giacomo [00:08:59] Oh J...
Dale [00:08:59] I haven't seen it yet!
Zane [00:09:00] Oh, you have to see it!
Dale [00:09:00] I need to watch it. Yeah!
Zane [00:09:01] I've seen it about 50 or 60 times because it's the only movie my daughter wants to watch, she's four and a half. But there's a moment in it where Luca's mother is imitating her neighbor, who she doesn't like very much, and how that neighbor imitates a dolphin. And so that's what that sound is. And she's been doing it nonstop for two days. Oh, my God! My wife is beside herself. She's like, "If she does that one more time, I'm gonna kill her."
Giacomo [00:09:30] I think you need to turn that into compositional gold. [laughter from Zane] I think "Dolphins Laughing" sounds like a great new piece for IOC.
Zane [00:09:37] "Dolphins Laughing"... That's a good title! "Dolphins Laughing" [laughter]
Dale [00:09:40] I'm sure someone's done that somewhere, but unfortunately, that piece is not coming to mind... [laughter from Giacomo and Zane] Laughter as compositional, extended technique.
Zane [00:09:53] [laughter] So, when I was introducing you, Dale, I mentioned your quote unquote, secular requiem. And we're going to come to that piece, "How To Go On", in a moment. But before we do that, I wanted to briefly talk about sacred and sexu... sacred and secular texts. [laughter]
Dale [00:10:11] [laughter] That's a whole different conversation!
Zane [00:10:11] It's a whole different conversation right there. You know, in the world of choral music, at least for me in my experience, I'm speaking from my own experience. You know, texts for choral music tend to be either sacred or they're written by poets and they're, you know, esoteric and they're all about nature. And they're, they're poetic and they're not sacred. They're completely the opposite of that. And often we don't see a blurring of that line between the sacred and the secular. But I feel like especially having worked now on "Spiritus Mundi" with my choir, that you are finding a way to kind of blur that line. And so, I wanted to start off by just asking you about your feelings about that line, how it divides those two things. Are they truly separate? What are your thoughts on that?
Dale [00:10:59] Yeah, so my background, I was raised... I was raised Episcopalian, Christian, and then have gotten away from religion. As the older I get, the more I consider myself agnostic. Sometimes, I say I like to think I'm in, or I like to say I'm an atheist who hopes she's wrong, which I think actually puts me back in the agnostic camp. I don't know what I don't know. Right? That's my philosophy. But in everything I do, especially in music, I'm seeking out a sense of, I think, what we traditionally expect from religion. I'm looking for a sense of community, of having faith in something bigger than myself or maybe in the goodness of people, looking for these ways to connect that I think some people get in their religious communities. But if you, if you aren't part of that, then for me, I find that in choral music, especially in the act of getting together and either listening to a concert or maybe even singing communally. That's something I'm really interested in exploring in future pieces - having the audience sing as well.
Dale [00:12:08] So, yeah, I think choral music has the power to bridge the gap between the sacred and the secular and, and really fulfill all of those needs that I know I have. But I think no matter what your religious background or upbringing is, you still are looking for a sense of community, that faith in something greater than yourself, goodness... And yeah, I just think if I choose the right texts, I guess my hope is that not only will the act of singing together, making music together, appreciating music together, will all of that create those feelings? But we can also find in the text itself... um... those elements of connection.
Giacomo [00:12:53] You mentioned this a little bit when you talked about just the form, or the idea of call and response within church or community or sort of spiritual music. And I want to talk a little bit more about the ways that the compositional form of spiritual music impacts your work, right? Like Zane mentioned, you've written a quote, requiem, and there's obviously quite a few spiritual forms of writing out there. So you've got a mass, you've got a requiem, you've got, you know, everything that we sort of know. I grew up Catholic, so I know it all in Latin and back and forth. And so like... tell us a little bit about how your study of the sort of spiritual form of composition is influencing your works now.
Dale [00:13:37] Yeah, again, I think it's maybe not even so much form as the text itself, like, when I wrote "How to Go On", I spent a lot of time with a traditional mass, requiem texts and really drew from the idea of these themes of asking for mercy, asking for different things and searching, right? Like we're asking for something that we're not seeing yet or not getting that information yet. And that's why we're pleading with a God or with nature in how to go on. And this idea of crossing over to the other side, what does it mean, the act of death itself?
Dale [00:14:17] So, I found that the texts for "How to Go On", I kept asking questions there. So we're not, we're not asking like, "Lord, grant us mercy". We're saying, "How do we go on?" We're saying, like in the face of everything complex and just things that we don't have answers for, "how do we move forward in our life?".
Dale [00:14:43] So, that really, that informs the structure of the piece as well, I think - looking for those themes, looking for the arc of moving from questioning to ultimate acceptance. And there are even lines in "How to Go On" about this crossing over to the other side, not knowing what's on the other side. But there's a line, I think, "wait, wait for us on the other side of the river." I might be misquoting that [laughter]. But one of Barbara Crooker's lyrics from "Requiescat", which is this big eight minute movement in the middle... this idea of the other side of the river, I just thought is so intriguing. Again, no matter what you're bringing to that text, I wanted anyone who's hearing the piece to be able to bring their own traditions, their own beliefs. I didn't want to write a requiem that was for people who are agnostic. That's, that was not at all my intention. I wanted the piece that's secular, but open to whatever you want to bring to it.
Zane [00:15:42] Let's take a listen to a movement of Dale's secular requiem now. This is the opening movement, "How", performed by Choral Arts Initiative. [00:15:53] [Music excerpt: a choir insistently asks "how can we go on..." by singing sinuous, multi-layered phrases - until a soloist hauntingly sings and completes the question with "knowing the end of the story?"]
Zane [00:18:27] So on your website, on the page that's about "How to Go On", there's a paragraph that mentions that the movements of the piece were designed to be programmed in a flexible order. And, you know, for a lot of composers, it's like, you know, "this is my music. I wrote it this way. And it's supposed to be performed this way." And some composers will say, "You can excerpt maybe a couple of movements, but really this is the way that it's supposed to go." Well, and you seem to feel differently that this piece should be fluid and should be up to the performers. Why is that?
Dale [00:18:58] So, for this piece in particular, I was thinking a lot about how the journey through grief is different. I know every time I've experienced loss in my life, it's looked very different, especially if it's losing someone really suddenly versus maybe you're watching a grandparent's slow decay over a period of five or 10 years. That's a much different grieving process ultimately than a sudden loss. And so I wanted the piece to have this, these elements of unpredictability in a way where I show up at a concert and I don't actually know what's going to happen. There's one movement, "Sometimes Peace Comes", where the soloist gets to choose their own path. Whenever they arrive at a cadence, they have two or three notes they can pick from. So, usually if I've been to a rehearsal, the soloists have tended to stick to one, like they find their path and then they do that every time. But theoretically, they could be choosing a different note. And I really like that feeling actually, of not knowing what's going to happen when I show up to hear my own piece. I'm looking for ways to build that into future pieces, too. I like... I like that... strangely! I like that feeling.
Giacomo [00:20:10] I have to say I may be putting you both on the spot here, too, but Fausto and I listened to the entirety of "How to Go On" yesterday. And it's interesting hearing the notes about that, because he and I were listening to it and thinking, "Oh gosh, no! You can't interrupt any of this. The performance of this is just... Everything moves so quickly." And then to go back and read and be like, no, actually, Dale kind of wants you to think about this a little bit more and put these in different orders. How much do you... And to hear you say that, you know, you want to be surprised when you come and see this, but how much... not quite manipulation, but like how much of the presentation of a piece do you think is also flexible within that? Because the two of us in just in listening to it imagined this concert, and, you know, maybe one day IOC will perform the entire piece and that would be incredible. I'm putting in my two cents for that [laughter from Zane].
Giacomo [00:20:56] But, you know, imagining people also sharing those stories, I mean, being able to see that as part of the art and presentation. You know, is there a point at which your compositions, when you see them presented, you're like, "Well, that's not quite what I had intended." Or, do you always sort of like, "Wow, that's not what I intended, but that's interesting, that's fascinating." Like, how much control do you want to exert over the final presentation of your pieces?
Dale [00:21:19] I do feel like when I write a piece, I have sort of a platonic ideal of like this is what the piece could or should be? But usually once I get that performance once, then I'm, then I'm happy to be very hands off as long as I have one recording that's close to the vision that I have in my head. And that is also including working with the group and making a lot of changes between the manuscript that I submit to a group and then the recording or performance or both that happen. I really value the input of conductors, especially in terms of timing. For some reason, I always, always get timing just a little bit off in terms of marking time tempi. And sometimes conductors want to slow things down at certain moments and take time. And I haven't written that into the score but then I go back and I end up writing it into the score because it feels like it has to be that way. Like that is the truest expression of the piece now that I've heard it out loud. I think that's a really beautiful part of the process, because without that, I'm sort of a dictator and I don't want to be a dictator [laughter]. I don't want to put everything on the score in a micromanage-y way where there's no room for that beautiful expression and interpretation.
Dale [00:22:36] So, yeah, once the premier usually... Once the premier has happened, I'm happy to let go of the reins. And if someone did want to incorporate storytelling or... We actually, for the premier of "How to Go On", had thought about doing some sort of... not choralography, you know, quote unquote, like showtunes, jazz hands... Not that! But having people move [laughter]... and having people move around the stage, especially with the soloists, to maybe have people stand in different parts, different parts of the piece surrounding the audience or not, very light movement. So something like that or again, or lighting design like I think those can definitely enhance a piece in a really beautiful way.
Zane [00:23:25] Yeah, we've talked a lot about concert design on this podcast and also internally within the leadership of IOCSF and how we'd like to see the nature of choral performances change toward what you're talking about. You know there's this idea that a choral performance, and classical music in general is a very buttoned up white tie affair that... or black tie affair that, you know, that's very rigid and it's structured. And I, personally feel that we need to get away from that to make it more accessible to a broader range of people. I'm excited to see what else comes to your mind as you're composing new pieces. Do you have any thoughts about that, like something that springs to your mind? Like, "Oh, I think it would be cool if the chorus did this in a new piece that I write." Something that hasn't been written, you know, something like a hope and a dream, something that you might have.
Dale [00:24:17] I'm writing one piece for the Esoterics in Seattle that's going to be more of that call and response, audience participation that I was talking about earlier. And I think that could be a good moment for either soloists or just members of the choir moving around. The piece takes the form of a calendar. So it's moving us through various months. And it's describing sort of like undoing the idea of undoing. So climate change, like large scale changes and then smaller personal changes. What happens when the seasons change? How does that reflect in our... again, the bigger picture and in our daily lives? So I know that's something they've done before. I think part of it, too, is not even up to me. It's just coming in to work with certain choruses. And if the chorus is willing to play with that, then I am... I'm totally down. I don't know that I need to write anything into the score or should, but just making it clear that I'm open to that, I think creates, you know... opens the door to probably even just saying it. Now, if people are listening to me say this [laughter], maybe they'll be more interested in exploring that with me... or in my music.
Zane [00:25:34] I wonder if we should ask our composers to be more explicit and say, like, "Please don't just stand on the stage and sing this song." [laughter from Giacomo] "We want to start encouraging more people to come to choral music concerts." You know, I have lots of friends that are like, "Eh, choral music's just not my thing." But they love music, you know? And it's like, "Well, choral music is great music. It's not what you think it is." Let's start to change people's opinions. Let's all let's all put that in our and our forefront of our minds. OK, guys.
Giacomo [00:26:04] Dale, I wanted to ask you a little bit about... you talk about the importance of the text for you and sort of when you start and you begin the piece, I think you sometimes think about sort of starting the text of the story you're going to tell or the textures you'll paint through the text. Can you tell us a little bit about how you choose the poets and poems you work with?
Dale [00:26:25] Yeah, at this point I've built up a roster of poets that I work with a lot, and I can just go to them and ask, "Do you have anything new? Do you have anything on a random theme like springtime or Americano?" [laughter] Whatever these themes that conductors are coming to me with a concert theme and then I'm looking for pieces to fulfill a mission. But the way that I built up that roster was by starting with, well, starting with someone who I know very well, which is my aunt who is a poet, Julie Kane, I think 2013 to '14, she was the poet laureate of Louisiana. And I like to bring her up when I talk about this, because she has been such a mentor to me in terms of leading an artistic life and showing me that that's possible... and obviously being very successful at it as well.
Dale [00:27:12] But I knew I wanted to write a song cycle of fairy tale retellings. And I had my aunt, we'd talked about this and she put out a call on a random listserv, I think this was like 12 years ago, for poets who had fairy tale retellings. And a bunch of the poems that I found for that I'm still working with those poets today. So, it started with an initial contact. And I have since done... I'll do the cold email, too. Like I'll find a poem I like online and just reach out to the poet directly to ask if I can set it. But once you have that initial conversation, collaboration, it's so easy to then just keep in touch with that person and just keep working with them over and over. So, I like to say when composers are looking for poets to set, start with the people, you know, because just like composers, just like any musicians, we all... most of us know each other or we can at least recommend four to ten other composers or musicians who play our instrument. And poets also... Poets know a lot of other poets. So, if you know just one person who writes, I guarantee they can recommend other writers.
Dale [00:28:28] And I also have been encouraging composers to write their own texts. I think that's something that some of us are very intimidated by. And there is a lot of really bad poetry in the world. But, I don't think perfect lyrics necessarily are the same as a perfect poem. And I think it's not that hard to write something that you're happy with that is enhanced by music... if you practice - just like anything, you have to, you have to be willing to suck at it for a while [laughter].
Dale [00:29:04] But I just... Because everything associated with getting rights from contemporary poets, I think composers can be so overwhelmed and intimidated by that whole process. It's so easy. It's so easy to work with yourself [laughter] and then to make adjustments to your words when you're in the process of writing a piece to go back and revise your words so that they serve the music. I just, again, would highly encourage any composer to at least try, be willing to be bad for a little bit in your draft, work through multiple drafts, don't expect to just have something like... write something down and have it be instantly ready to set to music. No, no, no. Like, work through multiple drafts and then try working with your own texts and do that multiple times and you'll get better and better at it as well.
Zane [00:29:51] Let's hear a composition of Dale's where she sets her own text. Here is "You Find Yourself Here" performed by the Lebanon Valley College Chamber Choir. It's a piece about those moments when an experience reshapes you - you visit a place, meet a new person or learn something new about yourself you'll carry with you for the rest of your life. [00:30:12] [Music excerpt: a choir sings and finds itself in an almost congratulatory contemplation about overcoming and ultimately building a life worth living through self-acceptance.]
Giacomo [00:33:41] Dale, you strike me as an incredibly generous collaborator that, you know, in how you work with poets and how you sort of bring your pieces together. And I wanted to talk about a specific collaboration that is going to be coming to life very soon on a new album that's being released right now. Our friend Vince Peterson over at Choral Chameleon, you worked together or rather, you commissioned... They commissioned a piece called "What Are We Becoming?" which is going to be on the new CD coming out from Choral Chameleon in the next couple of days called "Deus Ex Machina", which is a piece for chorus and organ. Tell us a little bit about what that process was like for you working with Vince and the artists of Choral Chameleon in creating that piece. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about what that piece is first.
Dale [00:34:27] Yeah... So, Vince had approached me with this idea of secular music for chorus and organ, which I'm so intrigued by. And of course, because again, I'm really interested in that intersection between sacred and secular, I was looking for texts that speak to that kind of spirituality. And actually, I ended up setting one of the texts, which is by Lynn Ungar, who's a Unitarian Universalist preacher or pastor, reverend, I don't... I should know what the right term is, because I've had a lot of music performed in U.U. churches and I... Like, I'm really happy about that. I feel like their mission is so similar to my mission with choral music and finding these texts that speak to our everyday lives and to what we search for in religion, but finding it in other people.
Dale [00:35:19] Anyway... I was really interested in exploring that intersection again here. And then also the theme of this concert was going to be "deus ex machina". And that idea of a God-like figure swooping in, like what we think of in literature when we hear "deus ex machina" is this, like, sort of plot twist at the end where God swoops in and fixes everything. And I know Vince was also thinking about God in the machine, about the organ being this... the machine in question, that has this religious affiliation. When we hear an organ, we think of church.
Dale [00:35:59] So all of that was spinning around in my mind. And I found these two poems, one written in the wake of a shooting, one about climate change. And both poems are about things going horribly wrong in the world and asking a lot of questions - again, a common theme in the poems I'm drawn to - asking lots of questions about what we can do and not necessarily arriving at any answers. But, I think the act of asking the questions moves us through, something helps us process what we're dealing with. And Lynn's poem, "The Last Good Days", Lynn Ungar's poem, the final lines are "the solutions, if there are any to be had, are complex, detailed, demanding. The answers are immediate and small. Wake up, give thanks, sing.".
Dale [00:36:55] And I thought that was just so beautiful in terms of capturing the feeling of overwhelmed that I know I have, and especially during the pandemic... Oh my God! Like... That's a whole different topic. We can [laughter]... we can come back to that. But just feeling, feeling overwhelmed and not knowing what to do in the face of everything and she's saying the solutions are going to be hard. But the answers, just how to get through the day, can be simple.
Dale [00:37:26] Anyway, yeah... that's a lot about the texts, but to get back to Choral Chameleon and Vince, I had a really lovely time being in New York, working with Vince and the singers and helping shape this piece to the organ, the organs that we'd be working with and to Choral Chameleon itself and the singers making those little adjustments in terms of timing and sometimes notes, too. There are a few little, tiny aleatoric bits, in the first movement especially, where people get to move at their own pace. Yeah, and I'm just I'm really excited that we're finally releasing this album of this music.
Zane [00:38:08] Yeah, it's six... six days, I think. It comes out on the 20th, if I remember correctly. So...
Dale [00:38:13] Yeah.
Giacomo [00:38:14] I think it'll probably time out... yeah, just perfectly with the launch of this episode. How funny that that just happened. [laughter from Dale]
Zane [00:38:20] That's some timing, yeah, for sure. I have a quick question about the organ. Have you written a lot of pieces for chorus and organ or organ by itself or anything?
Dale [00:38:29] I think I've written two or three - one never got performed and it was called "Running in Church" and I loved it. And it just... I... It never found the right home. And now I don't even know where the score is. It's like on my old computer, I have it on a hard drive. I can dig it up but... But yeah. So, I took organ lessons for one summer. I'm a pianist, by nature. Not very good at playing the organ, but I've had the good fortune of working with organists before a piece is performed. I'll find a friend to work with to make sure that everything is playable and then we'll tailor the piece to the organ that the piece is being premiered on specifically. Yeah, it's... it's tricky.
Giacomo [00:39:17] I feel like the levels of complexity go from like a voice and, you know, just using that instrument, to piano, to organ, to like the carillon, like we're playing these massive, like bells and some tower somewhere. So maybe that's next. Maybe we'll have to commission something for choir and carillon [laughter from Zane]. I don't know how that would work but...
Dale [00:39:33] Oh, that would be amazing though! [laughter]
Giacomo [00:39:34] ... spending a summer, like, pounding giant keys or something.
Zane [00:39:36] Yeah, yeah.
Dale [00:39:37] The cool thing about organ though is that an organist will go... like they know their instrument and so they'll make adjustments by themselves. Like, you don't need to be that detailed. You need to be a little bit specific. But I think I was so intimidated when I first started writing for organ thinking, I needed to put in exactly the sound that I wanted. But you can actually be general in a way that I'm still figuring out. And again, I still need to sit down with an organist for every piece I write. But it's really cool how, again, the piece changes depending on where it's performed. It's going to be different every time. And I think that's a really beautiful thing.
Zane [00:40:17] Let's get a little taste of Dale's newly recorded piece. This is movement two of "What Are We Becoming", entitled "The Last Good Days". [00:40:27] [Music excerpt: a sparkling and serene accompaniment from the organ underpins a choir asking what one can do to continue, in light of seemingly insurmountable problems in the world.]
Zane [00:44:01] If you want to hear the entire work...
Giacomo [00:44:02] Including the moment when we hear Dale's setting of the final lines of Lynn Ungar's poem,
Zane [00:44:07] Please head over to choral chameleon dot com and get yourself a copy of the album. It truly is fantastic.
Giacomo [00:44:13] Definitely! There's a new segment of our show that we've been doing, Dale, called Composer Heart to Heart, and so we've asked a wide array of composers and conductors what they would ask their colleagues if they had an opportunity to have a conversation like this in a regular sort of podcast environment, if you will. And here's a couple of questions for you from that group. The first one is, as conductors, how can we be good partners to composers in the process of commissioning new music that is successful and gets performed after its premiere? Is there a way of getting, quote, "what you want" as a conductor while still allowing the composer to write what they feel and know? So basically, what are some tips on how to be a good conductor who is collaborating with a composer?
Dale [00:44:57] Yeah, I think I would have been concerned or maybe I was concerned at first when I started writing pieces for conductors that were very, very tailored to that choir. I think I was concerned that those pieces wouldn't be performed as much after. You know, if a conductor comes to me and says something like, "Well, we only have five basses and they're.... they can't really... they're really baritones. But we have this one soprano, like this one mezzo, and you can just give it if you want to write a big solo! It's going to be amazing! And then also, there's someone in the choir who doubles on French horn. So, if you want to throw in a French horn, that's cool, too!".
Dale [00:45:35] Like hearing all that, you would think, "OK, I'm going to write this piece with a mezzo solo, not very low, maybe kind of easy or a bass and a French horn." But what I found is those pieces actually get performed just as... maybe the French... well, the French horn might be the limiting factor here, but especially if there's an obbligato instrument that can be adapted into or played by a number of different instruments. Those pieces do get performed. And I think there's actually something really magical that happens when a piece is written for a specific group. So, I would say don't be afraid to communicate the exact desires and needs. Don't let that be a limiting factor. Don't... don't let that limit you and don't think that it's going to limit future performances of the piece. I actually thought "How to Go On" was going to be like, "I'm writing this really hard piece with lots of divisi and all these solos" and it's getting performed a bunch. It's been performed a lot... like, I really thought maybe we'll just record it and that'll be it, maybe a few other choirs will do it, the colleges are doing it. And yeah, so maybe the other piece of advice would be... get that composer as good of a recording as you possibly can, because that's the single most helpful tool in getting teacher performances, in my opinion at least, is having a really great representation of that piece. Or again, as great as your resources allow, that will help the composer find a future home for the piece.
Zane [00:47:11] Have you written a lot of pieces for chorus that use specifically sacred texts like actual like either words from the Bible or or texts that reference God specifically? Have you written a lot of pieces in that vein?
Dale [00:47:26] I haven't. I actually will find strange ways to get around that to the point where I wrote a commissioned piece for the American Guild... what was it? For the American Guild of Organists Convention... National Convention. And I found...
Zane [00:47:47] "As it is in Heaven", is that the piece you're talking about?
Dale [00:47:48] "As it is in Heaven"... yup! And I found a text by Tolstoy that's describing how he prays the Lord's Prayer. And he intersperses different, different texts from the Bible. Like, he described... Yeah... He describes his own thoughts and then he's pulling the Lord's Prayer in and then he's pulling in other biblical references. And I just, again, so interested in the intersection between the sacred and the secular in that point where we acknowledge that as humans, we have a limited point of view here. We're looking at everything through our very human lens. I just... that humanity is really intriguing to me and how we reflect and fragment our thoughts about the greater world through that, like, through our flawed selves. And that's what that poem... That's what Tolstoy is getting at. Like, he is... In the poem itself, he is acknowledging, it's not a poem, but in the essay, he's acknowledging his own flawed humanity.
Zane [00:48:54] Yeah, I went to your website and was... I have it open right now. Obviously, we're on the computer. So, I went to "music". And then you can... There's a part of Dale's website for our audience when you navigate to "dale trumbore dot com", there's a spot under music that says "search by theme". And I was like, "Oh, interesting." So, I clicked on that just now and I started looking at all the themes and we see all kinds of things, you know, bestseller's, fast, river, birds,.
Giacomo [00:49:20] It's a tag cloud... if you're visualizing.
Zane [00:49:21] Yeah, it's this big cloud of tags. Exactly. And I'm looking for the word "sacred" as I'm looking through this. And of course, I see nothing that says that. But I did see "faith" and I thought, "Oh, maybe faith is it." So, when I clicked on "faith", that's where I got the "As it is in Heaven" link and that's what popped up there. And that's what made me think of that question.
Zane [00:49:39] And so, this is, this was the second composer heart-to-heart question. You know, a question that came up from other composers and conductors was, you know, "how do we make sacred music relevant to a largely secular society"? So, I wonder if we can maybe even twist that question a little bit more now and ask you, if you, because you're talking about writing your own text and I think that's a great thing that we should encourage composers to do more of, because I think that it's a really interesting, like holistic way of composing, like not only composing the music, but you're composing the text, which is part of the music. It's not like there are two separate things. They have to be fully integrated. So for you, let's say you were going to write a new piece of music that you wanted to have a sacred origin at least, but then to convey it onto a more largely secular audience, off the top of your head, I know I'm putting you on the spot, but... Off the top of your head, what's the way that you might think about doing that?
Dale [00:50:35] So, one... I actually had this come up almost exactly for a piece honoring Hildegard of Bingen... von Bingen. And I did a secular erasure of her text because it was a concert honoring women like celebrating certain women. And so she was describing the Virgin Mary. And I did a translation, a translation and erasure poem, which is a kind of poem where you just omit certain words. And I was thinking, like, "Can we just take the parts where she is describing... she's praising, like, what it means to be the again, like the platonic ideal of a woman? Or like what are the qualities that she sees in Mary that are very human?".
Dale [00:51:28] So, again, that's just filtering it through the lens of being a human person, knowing what you know, and not knowing what you can't know and accepting and acknowledging the two. I feel like that's the key and that's what I wish more religion would do, is just acknowledge what we can't possibly know. And that's not a flaw in the system. That is part of the system. That is part of what it means to be a human person - believing or not believing, and that doubt is OK. I don't know anyone to, even my most religious friends, that... We all have doubts. We all have moments of doubt. I think to acknowledge that doubt and to try to meet ourselves and others wherever we are in terms of that doubt and that acceptance and that belief, I think that's way healthier than forcing ourselves to, into a certain dogma or a certain belief pattern that maybe doesn't align with the doubt that we're feeling.
Giacomo [00:52:38] Yeah, it feels almost like for the secular humanist sort of thoughts, the question is the answer...
Dale [00:52:45] Yeah.
Giacomo [00:52:46] Right? That very often secular, it's like, "Well, we need to give people an answer because that's what's going to make people feel better." And I think those of us who have sort of agnostic or atheist or agnostic thoughts or feelings sort of understand that the struggle is the thing that we really want to relate to on a human level with each other, that it's OK to have those doubts and those questions and that that's what makes us human. And I see that, all throughout your works, especially in "What Are We Becoming", in the requiem... and just... It's quite beautiful. And I have to say, I deeply appreciate it as someone who has those same questions. It's nice to know that there are other people who are having the same questions and that it's OK to bring those questions and doubts out. Thank you for that. Speaking of doubts... [laughter]
Zane [00:53:29] Wow...
Giacomo [00:53:29] I think we'd be remiss...
Zane [00:53:32] We're going to put in a little bit of applause right now [sound of applause], because that was a segue worth... Wow!... celebrating. Excellent!
Giacomo [00:53:40] [laughter] Dale, you are... Thank you. You're a little bit of an expert. I feel like we'd be remiss if we didn't mention a book that you wrote called "Staying Composed: Overcoming Anxiety and Self-doubt Within a Creative Life". And basically, I think you talk a little bit about your journey of sort of how do you quell those doubts? How do you quell the anxiety and just write. You know, you talked a little bit before about sucking when you write poetry and like, "it's fine!" First question for you about this piece, and I believe it's available on Amazon and a bunch of different places will put a link to it on the show. But when did you decide to write this book and why?
Dale [00:54:16] I think I decided to write it... Let's see, it came out two years ago and I decided to write it... Well, I think I've been thinking about writing this kind of book for two or three years before that, knowing that when I first started composing and then when I was composing in college especially, I couldn't see any path forward. I just had no idea how you become a composer in the sense of the more technical things, which is not what this book is about, as much. So there's a little bit of networking, dealing with other... there's a whole chapter, a whole section on dealing with other people. But yeah, the technical money business side of things was very daunting. And then, just the idea of how do you structure your life knowing that, at least for me, it's in every piece I write, I experience a certain level of self-doubt and these negative thoughts about what I'm doing that aren't necessarily going to derail the process. And they're not even really a bad thing in the sense of wanting them to go away entirely. I don't think I will ever get rid of those thoughts. It's again, like embracing the doubt, meeting myself where I am. Really, the whole book is a message back in time to myself, just saying it's OK to have all of these thoughts and have lots of tools on how to cope with them because they're going to keep coming up. You're gonna keep, at least again, speaking from my own experience, I'm going to keep feeling jealousy. I'm gonna keep feeling anxieties about like, "Am I good enough? Is my work good enough? Am I where I should be? What is where I should be? What does it look like to be successful? What do I want to be feeling when I create my work?" There's so many questions [laughter]. The theme of this conversation is like sitting with your questions, I think, and learning to be OK with sitting in the question instead of jumping right to an answer before you're ready to arrive at that answer.
Giacomo [00:56:24] Who were, what were some of the resources that helped you in putting together this book? If it's a letter back to yourself in time, sort of to help quell some of those anxieties, what were some of the things that helped you or who were some who or what were some of the resources that helped you during that period?
Dale [00:56:40] So, I read so many books on the writing process, the process of writing words. There are tons of books for writers and they're all slightly different. There are common themes: butt in chair is the main thing [laughter] - "you have to sit down to do your work or your work doesn't get done." You can analyze yourself and your thoughts all day long, but that's not going to write anything for you, like unless you sit down and do your work.
Dale [00:57:05] So books like "Bird By Bird" or... by Anne Lamott. "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, which is more, that's more about the creative process, not just writing in particular. Though she... That author is a screenwriter and writer. And all of these books are drawing from the experience of writing words. And I just, I wanted a book so badly that talked about writing music, where the examples were all about writing music and the challenges that I was overcoming - some of them overlap of course, like there's, in the creative process, there are plenty of things that are really common. And I do think that almost anyone who's creative, or I hope that anyone who's creative, could come to this book and get something out of it, get some insight into their own process from it.
Dale [00:57:52] But again, it comes back to this idea of specificity, like the same thing I was talking about with commissioning, where I wrote this book, hoping that if it was really specific to my experience and to the... all of the many, many, many tools I've put in place that would be applicable to any one composer or not who's reading it, because I think the more we drill down - and this goes for writing, like when you're writing your own poems, too - if you write really generally about nature or beauty, it's not as powerful as if you drill down into what specifically makes that experience what it is, what's at the heart of it, and what is unique about that experience for you. I think once we find that little, like, nugget of truth and very specific truth, that's what resonates. I know that that's true of me as a reader, too. Whenever I read advice, it's so often it's a specific story from that person's life that I end up taking with me, and not just the general advice to like let it go, like acknowledge your doubts and release them. I can say that as a chapter title, but then I have to give really specific examples and advice to make it resonate.
Zane [00:59:06] Yeah. It's so much more powerful when you're... when you hear someone tell a specific story and then you're able to relate to it, it's like it makes it all the more meaningful. So, yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. Has the book been well received as... Has it been successful? I just purchased a copy by the way, just now while you were talking, I went on Amazon. I was like, "I'm buying this" Because I can't wait to get through that, you know, self-doubt. I think that's something that all of us creatives worry about because we're baring our soul. We put ourselves out there into the world when we make, when we create our art, whatever that may be.
Dale [00:59:41] I was going to say, too. I don't know a single artist, composer, artist of any kind who does not deal with self-doubt. Like, we all feel like... we all have moments, I think, of feeling like we're alone in the kinds of doubt and anxiety that we face, but we're totally not. We all, we're all deeply insecure people [laughter from Zane]. Umm yes... But yeah, the book has been doing really well. I've been really happy with the response it's gotten. I think I was imagining putting it out into the world and having it just be there as a resource, hopefully for years to come where there's just kind of a steady trickle of sales as new people discover it. And so far, two years in, that's been what happens. Like there are little spikes in sales as more people read it and talk about it with our friends and or leave reviews like on Goodreads or Amazon or whatever. And so, yeah, from a practical business side, I've been really happy with the sales of the book. And then also whenever someone takes the time to send an email or a message on Instagram or something - either like tagging the book somewhere, or just saying, "I read it and it really helped. And I was like telling a specific story like I'm writing this piece and I was having trouble with this element of it. And then I read this chapter at exactly the right time." Those just make my day. They make me so happy. And like, that's why I wrote. You are the reason why I wrote this book. Thank you for reading it. That's amazing. [laughter]
Zane [01:01:11] That's awesome. Well, we'll definitely put a link to the book in our show notes so that our audience can navigate to it easily and pick up a copy and check it out, because I think that that's wonderful. So looking forward, Dale, what upcoming performances of your works are coming up that you're excited about?
Dale [01:01:32] So I... I'm currently writing a piece for the L.A. Master Chorale, which is exciting because I love that chorus and they're my local... well, my new home [laughter]. I grew up in New Jersey, but I've been in L.A. for, I think going on 13 years now over 12 years and just adore the Master Chorale. So, any time I get to work for them, with them, that's great. And I'm finishing up a piece for mezzo soprano and guitar that was supposed to be 15 minutes, but has ballooned to like 25 plus minutes for a group called the Dream Songs Project. And it's these weird texts about - like delightfully weird. I say weird as a compliment for these - texts by Christina Murray Darling and Carol Guest about weddings and just... It's like skewering the weird aspects of getting married, but with these kinds of surreal elements, like one poem has a ball and chain shop where, like the bride picks out the right, like which color ball and chain that she wants or like [laughter from Giacomo]...
Dale [01:02:43] They're really funny! They're very, like they're silly elements are very dark elements. And they're just... Again, so weird and great. And guitar, oh... Guitar is so hard. Like, rarely am I composing and then the act of composing is physically challenging. Like, yes, I'll have maybe some shoulder tension from not sitting upright. But playing the guitar, I do not have calluses from... I'm like now, but I've been struggling to learn guitar to write this piece for the last few months and it's basically done. And I'm so happy because my hands are no longer tingling.
Zane [01:03:18] [laughter] I see that guitar on the piano behind you. Is that...?
Dale [01:03:21] Yeah.
Zane [01:03:21] That's the guitar in question?
Dale [01:03:22] That's... It's my blue, it's like a sixty dollar blue guitar because it just needs to function. I don't have to play it in public.
Giacomo [01:03:31] I'm going to put this torture device away when I'm done. Never play it again. [laughter from all]
Dale [01:03:35] Oh, it's going right back in the closet this second. This piece is officially... yeah.
Giacomo [01:03:40] [laughter] Um, Dale, where can folks find you online?
Dale [01:03:44] So, my website "dale trumbore dot com" is always the best place to reach me. And you can also use the contact form and that'll go... That goes to my assistant Melanie, who's great, but ultimately also goes to me. And then, I'm on Twitter and Instagram, I'm off of Facebook. I'm thinking about maybe leaving Twitter, although I've been on Twitter for, I think over ten years now, and it breaks my heart to think of leaving. But I'm so happy not having Facebook anywhere, I'm "@daletrumbore", one word, on Twitter and Instagram.
Zane [01:04:19] [laughter] Isn't it funny... this weird, like, dysfunctional relationships we have with social media [laughter from Giacomo] that at regular intervals we find ourselves saying, "I think I'm gonna break up with Facebook this week." [laughter from Dale]
Giacomo [01:04:30] Where can we find you dancing on Tik-Tok? What is your handle?
Dale [01:04:36] [laughter] Never!
Giacomo [01:04:37] Same! Same, same!
Zane [01:04:40] Well, this has been a really fascinating conversation, Dale. We thank you so much for taking the time and talking us through it. I can't wait to see new pieces from you performed all over the place 'cause I really, I spent a lot of time with your music, obviously, last night in preparation for this conversation, but also because we're preparing "Spiritus Mundi". And something that I feel like is at the core of your music is something that's very modern. The sound of your - I'm talking about musically - the sound of your music is very modern and challenges me from a tonal standpoint. But at the same time, there's something also at the core of it that's very familiar and reference to the history of music and to things that I recognize in music. And I think it's just this beautiful balance between those two things, between modernity and something that is more familiar. And I just think that you're so, so talented. And I'm just very excited to continue to follow your path and your journey as a composer, 'cause it's just gonna be beautiful I'm sure.
Giacomo [01:05:48] It's those killer melodic lines, Zane. It's just what you do with those melodies. It's just stunning. Oh, anyway!
Zane [01:05:56] Yeah. We're gushing a little bit.
Dale [01:05:57] Thank you [laughter from Giacomo]. Thank you for gushing. [laughter]
Zane [01:06:01] [laughter] It's been a great conversation and we just really appreciate you taking the time. And, yeah, we hope to talk to you again sometime soon.
Dale [01:06:09] Yeah. Thanks so much again for the great, great conversation!
Zane [01:06:12] Let's finish off this episode with an example of Dale's unique blending of the modern and the familiar, as well as her killer melodic lines in "Spiritus Mundi" commissioned and premiered by Suzi Digby, OBE and the Golden Bridge Consort as a contemporary reflection on the Orlando de Lassus motet, "Timor et tremor". [01:06:36] [Music excerpt: a choir placidly sings about being present in the moment by listening to the land, the rustle of grass and to place one's trust in something greater than oneself.]
Outro [01:11:51] Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the In Unison podcast. Be sure to check out episode extras and subscribe at inunison podcast dot com. You can follow us on all social media @inunisonpod. And leave us a review on Apple podcasts to let us know what you think!
Chorus Dolores [01:12:08] Organ pipes dusted and reset by Chorused Dolores, who once met Nadia Boulanger.
Credits [01:12:21] In Unison is produced and recorded by Mission: Orange Studios. Our transcripts have been diligently edited by IOCSF member and friend of the pod, Fausto Daos, and our theme music is Mr. Puffy, written by Avi Bortnick, arranged by Paul Kim and performed by the Danish vocal jazz ensemble Dynamic on their debut album, This is Dynamic. Special thanks to Paul Kim for permission. Please be sure to check them out at www.dynamicjazz.dk.