S4E09: Freshly Squeezed: Jake Heggie, Dr. Zanaida Robles, and Mari Esabel Valverde

Written By Giacomo DiGrigoli

This week’s episode of In Unison is the second installment in our mini-series all about the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco’s return to live performance with our “Freshly Squeezed” program. Originally slated for the Spring 2020 concert series, this program exclusively features the premieres of new works for our Bay Area audience, and over the next several weeks we’ll be chatting with all of the composers featured on the program. Earlier this year, we recorded interviews with composers Mari Esabel Valverde, Jake Heggie, and Dr. Zanaida Robles, and today’s episode features excerpts from those three conversations discussing each of their compositions to be performed by IOCSF in December.


And now a word from our hosts!

Episode Transcript

Intro 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 Hey everyone, as we mentioned on the last episode of In Unison, we’re going to finish off season four of the podcast with a series of episodes focused on the composers that will be featured on IOCSF’s upcoming December concert program, entitled Freshly Squeezed. For many of those composers, we will be conducting (see what I did there…?) first-time interviews with them over the coming weeks. But we’ve actually had some really engaging conversations with three of the composers already: Mari Esabel Valverde, Jake Heggie, and Dr. Zanaida Robles. 


Zane We’ve gone through and selected segments of those interviews and compiled them here, so what you’re about to hear are discussions specifically about those composers’ compositions that will be premiered by IOCSF in December. If, after listening to this episode, you would like to hear the entire conversations with these three composers, please check out episode 203 for Mari, episode 205 for Jake, and episode 307 for Zanaida. And if you want to know more about the Freshly Squeezed program and the International Orange Chorale, check out episode 408, which came out just last week!


Zane Before we get rolling, we also want to take a moment and say a big thank you to the folks who are helping support the creation of this podcast. We couldn’t have made it this far without our generous donors. So today, we’re giving a shoutout to two members of my family! My mother, Mary, and my aunt and uncle, Anne and Lee Collins. Thanks so much! ! If you would like to help support In Unison, please visit inunisonpodcast.com/donate.


Zane Now, let’s jump into our chat with Mari Esabel Valverde about her piece, “I Flow… I Am.”


Giacomo I wanted to shift gears a little bit. IOC has actually been working on a recording of an upcoming project of a piece of yours. "I Flow... I Am," which is from Bohemian Poet Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus number 29. Is that, is it actually fair to say that he is Bohemian? He's Austro-Hungarian, so I don't know what does that period of time, like, that place, or space... Borders are silly, you know, anyway, but. 


Zane Well, technically, Bohemia was a place.Now it's just part of the Czech Republic, but there was a place called Bohemia. I know, because that's where my family is from. I'm a real Bohemian... 


Mari Oh, you better check yourself. 


All [Laughing]. 


Zane Come on, Giacomo. 


Giacomo Well, exactly, I ought to be careful. But that piece there's a little bit about, I'll give the audience a little piece for those who don't know it, but "I Flow... I Am" from your your notes is a setting of Anita Barrows and Joanna Macey's translation of Rilke's 29th and ultimate sonnet to Orpheus. It's a spiritual commentary on the courage it takes to be present in darkness, breathing, speaking, living and loving through pain and uncertainty. As Macy suggests, we may only survive on this planet by flowing with the turbulence of the earth, taking refuge in its beautiful chaos. 


Giacomo Before we talk specifically about this piece, for those who don't know who are listening, Mari is a bit of a polyglot herself. Would you use the term? I feel like I would... 


Mari Don't test me. 


Giacomo You're well, you're proficient in quite a few languages, as Zane mentioned, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, of course, IPA. And lately, in addition to being called upon for your extraordinary composition skills, you're also more and more offering translations of untranslated texts as well. Before we jump into that piece specifically, where did your fascination with language come from? Like what was it that drove you to want to think about learning multiple languages? 


Mari Um. Well, I'm Mexican-American and I wanted to take French and my parents said no, that I had to take Spanish and then when I was in high school, I think my language study kind of coincides with my music study because I certainly got introduced to singing in different languages when I was in high school, I had started studying German lieder and French melodie. You know, just continued studying choral music and, you know, I just I, I was always fascinated by not just the musical aspect, but like the poetry. I just wanted to understand. And whenever I went to college, I started listening to Brazilian folk and pop music. And I just loved it so much and I wished I could understand some of it because I had studied Spanish, but I wanted to be able to understand, like sing along. So I taught myself using books and podcasts. And I also participated in a little student group that we built to do Portuguese. And yeah, it's there when I need it. [laughs]


Giacomo You mentioned, you know, getting it right as a singer, or wanting to understand that. How important is I mean, this is sort of silly for those of us who are a bit naive in the translation arts. How important is getting it right? I mean, are there examples that you can think of off the top of your head where you're like, oh, my God, let me tell you this bit that's constantly mistranslated or what do you lose when you you get a translation that's a little off? 


Mari Oh, that's a good question, I think about "a boy and a girl," by Eric Whitacre, because I feel like it doesn't hover, it doesn't try to soothe or... It sounds very abstract, but it's an abstract topic, like the way the words sound and the meaning of what they're saying is so much more sensual and unapologetic. And I feel like the translation from Spanish to English that he set is very Anglican, it's very apologetic and there's a lot of dairy, it's too much dairy...in the music. It's just like soft around the edges the whole time. And like, when I think Octavio Paz, I think like, ou know, like cactus and thunderstorms and you know, long strips of land where it's just sand and, you know, creatures under the ground and like flores, then, you know, sex and all of that, you know, and I just I don't, I just feel like it's a little whitewashed. 


Giacomo It's like the... I forget who set the maybe it's the Lauridsen piece of the Neruda, but he talks about "la suavidad de sus manos," and it's like it's not quite the softness. I think I feel what you're saying, which is like there are words like that, like suavidad, which are not just a physical thing, but an emotional. 


Mari "It's cool." 


Giacomo Yeah. 


Mari So like when you say "suave,' I think it's "cool.". 


Giacomo Yeah. 


Mari It almost has a healing connotation. 


Giacomo Yeah. 


Mari And when you say, what was it, smooth? 


Giacomo Softness or smoothness. 


Mari Yeah, soft don't necessarily have that content. So there are limitations with the translations. And it's interesting because we're talking about "I Flow... I Am," which was originally in German. 


Giacomo Yes. 


Mari And you know, I'm pretty confident in some other languages, but I can pronounce German. I'll sing in German, but don't ask me to translate it. And we're also talking about, well, another one with the "Oracle of Spring." It was also originally in German. It's Goethe, so, that's why I guess they just did them in English, so maybe some German scholar somewhere is throwing shade at my settings of English versions of German texts, which is fine. 


Giacomo What do you look for then when you look for a translator or translations? I mean, how do you know when you feel like you've got it right? 


Mari Usually it's because I've encountered the poem in English. I wasn't even aware that it was German first, which was the case in both circumstances but I think it's important to note Anita Burrows and Joanna Macy, because those are their words. 


Mari It's their interpretation of them and their lens. And, you know, on the inside cover, I give a little bit of a background on, you know, who these women have been for their lives. And I think that's an important consideration because those poems could be translated probably in a number of different ways. And when I've translated things, it's sometimes really hard to, like at some point you just kind of have to settle to where it's like you're never going to get quite the flavor, quite the texture of the original language. 


Giacomo Talking a little bit more about "I Flow... I Am," which, by the way, it's very interesting for me being a part of IOC, which we began rehearsing this piece actually in person and and then moved it to a virtual choir project once we realized we sort of couldn't get back together. And it's interesting because I remember standing with Fausto at rehearsal because we stand next to each other in the back row and we just, I mean, the text alone and you're setting of the text just shook us. I mean, when you read the text of this piece, of "I Flow... I Am" and Fausto is lucky because he actually can read German. So he gets the extra flavor in the actual text of it. It just was so incredibly moving. And it was interesting to be part of both of these worlds, like to rehearse it in person with others, with people physically around you, almost reverberating with each other, very much like the text and then trying to do it as a virtual choir setting. Does it surprise you at all that we're using it as a virtual choir setting? I mean, what are your thoughts about also the timeliness of this piece, it just feels like it's... Talk about a time to be singing about it. 


Mari I mean, I really think about the work of the English translators and how focused they've been on environmental justice type things. I mean, that's at least the impression I got when I read into who they are and, you know, the wisdom that they've gotten from their years. And they're not young, but, that's really what I think about. I also think about I don't know if there are many fans in IOCSF of Avatar The Last Airbender series, but if you've seen it, it's like, I don't know, four or five episodes from the end of the series where there's a character named Guru Pathic and he goes to to meet him to learn how to get in Avatar state. And there's all of these really little... They're like a vignette... [inaudible] individually unlock every single chakra and yeah, that scene is my favorite scene from the whole series. It's really good just to go watch it if you have it. But that's kind of how I that was, kind of what it made me think of whenever I read this text, because there's a message saying that you kind of, at the end of the day, have no choice but to be one with nature in order to weather the storm. And I think that that is such a profound metaphor for all the kinds of bullshit that we have to go through in life, you know? And I think that given a lot of different things, but, the poetry lends particular images, like water, you know and, yeah, that's basically it's like they tell you in your martial arts, you have to be like water, you know, in order to flow and be able to keep on fighting, you know? Sometimes... 


Giacomo A lot of your pieces, actually, do you have this beautiful sort of natural theme or this inspiration that comes from nature in addition to, like your incredible work that you're doing now on social justice and all these pieces. When I look at some of your pieces that we've done with IOC between this piece and "Oracle of Spring" as well, has that same appreciation for the beauty of nature and in that same weird duality. It's interesting because IOC s new album just came out and it features your piece, "Oracle of Spring," which we're really excited about. And it's sort of a little bit weird to be in our second covid spring. Like it's just odd to think about the fact that we have all these songs and these musics that exhort spring and yet are we fully able to enjoy them? How do you feel about those pieces now? I mean, when you think about them in the context of what's going on, could you imagine them being programed now? Could you relate to those same feelings? 


Mari Definitely. It definitely benefits if people are performing my music. 


Giacomo Sure. 


Mari But I just you know, it's like when people ask me about what style my compositions are and I have a lot of trouble with that. I've started to realize some things that I keep on doing and that I like to do. And I won't tell you what that is, because I don't want you to be like, aha, you did it again, you know? But I guess to me, each piece is its own universe and yeah, they're just... Honestly your I'm handing you like, you know, a score of music and you're reading it and making it into air. And it's like your casting spells or summoning creatures, right? Basically I'm over here doing recipes for y'all. That's kind of how I see. It depends what kind of monster you want to summon.


Zane If you want to listen to the entire interview with Mari, please check out episode 203. Now, we’re not going to play “I Flow… I Am” on this episode because we want you to attend the IOCSF concert in December... But, let’s go ahead and listen to the other piece we were just talking about, “Oracle of Spring,” which is from IOCSF’s live album, Hope in Times of Disquiet, released last fall and available streaming on Apple Music and Spotify.


Zane Next up let’s tune in to the conversation we had with Jake Heggie about his piece to be premiered by IOCSF in December, “Stop this day and night with me.”


Zane I wanted to ask about, you mentioned chorus movements and choruses within operas and that some of the most moving operas for you are ones where the chorus has a really central role. Can you talk a little bit more about the role of the chorus and chorus movements or parts of an opera and maybe what the commonalities and differences are between that and stand alone choral works. 


Jake Mm hmm. Well, you know, in an opera, a chorus is in character. They are part of the story and the storytelling in the action. So they are, you know, either, you know, peasants or slaves or, you know, Romans or, you know, or villagers or, you know, the police force or, you know, they're they have a role. They have their characters. And so that's where their music springs from, what that population is missing or what they want and that's key to theater is what do these characters want? Why are they on the stage? What happened just before they went on the stage and what is keeping them there? And so that's where the music springs from, it's part of the storytelling, it's part of the action. And I think, you know, successful choral writing in opera doesn't always translate to successful a cappella choral writing, you know, because the stage, that dramatic lyric stage is very different from stand alone a cappella work, like Randall Thompson's "Alleluia," is, you know, glorious and beautiful. But it really won't work on an opera stage. You know, it's just a very, very different kind of writing. And, you know, and what is the delineation is what the composer's intention was, you know? Did the composer intend for this to be a serene moment or a big moment with an a cappella choir on their own? That's a very different task than writing for characters in an opera or a stage work. 


Zane Yeah. 


Jake And that's where it's been tricky for me because I am primarily a theater composer, which is why telling a story of some kind with the choir is very important to me and it's what helps me write effectively. But also if there's a great text or a great poem that I'm setting, it can be an internal transformative journey that I think can be illuminated by many voices like "Stop this day and night with me," the Walt Whitman poem, is one of those. It was written for the King's Singers on a commission.At first I didn't know what I wanted to write. I had just recently finished Moby Dick and so I thought I would write something by an Illuminist poet from that period. And I went to a scholar, a friend who knows all of that literature and poetry, and said it's for the King's Singers, it's got this many voices, this is the kind of feel that I'm looking for. And he sent me this Whitman text and it was exactly what I needed. And it was just really inspiring and it really is about an illuminating moment within yourself. 


Zane Yeah, you've mentioned to me previously about some feelings you have about setting Whitman's poetry. Would you like to expand on that? 


Jake Yeah, I had never set Whittman previously. I feel a little bit about setting Whittman like I do about setting Shakespeare. You know, it doesn't... Does it need music? It's so musical all on its own. And so I've often been at a loss for setting Whitman or Shakespeare. Have I ever set Shakespeare? I don't think I ever have because there is so much music innate in the language that sometimes when you set it to music, it actually doesn't add anything. It limits it versus the music that's built into the language. That's why, you know, looking for the right text at the right moment in your creative life, it's kind of everything, you know, finding the thing that invites music, you know, words and experiences that invite music in rather than stand on their own, where the music is just like an extra layer that doesn't add anything. Yeah, I just had the joy of working with Margaret Atwood, the great Canadian writer, and she wrote some poems that I set for a baritone named Josh Hopkins called "Songs for Murdered Sisters." She's a novelist and so used to telling the story all on her own, you know, with a novel, but she's also a brilliant poet. She wrote these really spare, beautiful poems with language that can be sung. And also that leaves a lot of room for music to give us information that words alone cannot. Those are the kind of texts that you have to find. 


Giacomo We had an interesting conversation a couple of weeks ago with Joel Chapman of Volti, and he wrote a piece called Interdependence, which was very much written for this moment, and he felt compelled to compliment his piece with a visual component because of where we are right now. And he wanted it to be like that. And not not only because I think for the sighted, but because he also wanted to create these access points for a larger audience as a non hearing audience as well. What are your thoughts about in terms of the same way that like adding music to Margaret Atwood's poetry sort of augmented it. What are your thoughts about the relationship between choral music specifically and both this moment right now in terms of like trying to make the most of these like Zoom and streaming things and then in general, this new movement that seems to be happening where you'll go to a live performance and you'll see visuals or things that are   thrown up on the wall. Do you feel like those are augmentations to the music? I mean, when you see them, if they're not something that you as the composer intended, do you feel like, what is happening? 


Jake Well, you know, the thing is, as a composer, all you could do is write it and put it out there, you know? What we do creatively, what you guys do, what a choir does is you work really hard to put something out there so that you can give it away? Right? And ultimately, we have to give it away. And it's the same thing with one of my scores. I give it away and then someone has a vision or an idea and they present it that way. And it doesn't matter if I like it or not. It was meaningful to that creative person in that moment and it maybe touches someone. You know, I've been to the productions of my operas, oof, and one of them was The Waiting for Guffman production of Dead Man Walking. 


Giacomo [laughs] Were there cinders coming out of the...? It would burn the place down... 


Jake No, it was so bad. And I was in the audience like dying, sinking into my seat. And then this audience went bonkers and stood and cheered and screamed. And there were people crying. And I thought, well, what the heck do I know? You know, you just never know how something is going to reach people or touch them. And so that's why we let it go. We give it away. We put it out there. And you have to trust and, you know, there's going to be things that work and things that don't work. That's how I feel about this time. We have to try all these things. People want to stay connected. People use the tools that they have accessible to be creative and to reach people and to express themselves, to use their voice. Everyone has a voice, you know, we want to use it in whatever way we can that will be helpful to others and connect us and do what the performing arts do, which is gather us, open up a dialog, open up a bridge or a door to a different perspective. So I think it's all valid. Do I like it all? No. Am I kind of over the online stuff? Yes. I think we all are. But it's where we are right now. So we just have to keep exploring and learning and we will be back in the room together before you know it and having other experiences and other, you know, conversations. But, you know, first of all. Yes, there will be things that I disagree with when I see them, but what an honor that my work inspired these people to come up with an idea that is extraordinary. I always go back to gratitude that I was lucky enough to be the person to put that on the page and that it inspired someone else. It's just kind of miraculous. And so really, I just have nothing but gratitude about the whole thing. 


Zane How do you, this is maybe a kind of a question out of left field, but that's OK. How do you avoid predictability within your compositions? 


Jake You know, I just try to let myself be surprised, but I do want to avoid predictability. But what I don't want to avoid is inevitability, because what we're looking for, at least what I'm looking for creatively, is something that feels inevitable, like it had to go that way. And yet it was surprising so that, you know, like one of the big compliments I ever had was I spent five years writing the opera Moby Dick. It was really, really, really challenging. And at the premiere, which went amazingly well against all odds and was hugely successful, this woman came up to me and she says, "well, I don't know why no one's thought of doing Moby Dick as an opera before. I mean, it's so obvious how you do it." You know? And at first I kind of wanted to poke her in the eye, but then I thought, you know, that's actually a huge compliment. It means it felt inevitable. It had to be that way. I remember thinking that about, like early on when I was a student and listening to pieces by Ravel and they are so surprising and yet, of course, they have to go that way. You know, it's inevitable. And that's what we're looking for. At least I am as a composer. It's something that feels surprising and inevitable, at the same time. Predictable? I hope not. You know? But, you know, other people can say that all I can do is write, you know, and write what feels inevitable and surprising to me. 


Zane For the full interview with Jake, please check out episode 205. Now, here’s a little taste of an inevitable yet surprising choral composition from Jake. Off of IOCSF’s live album, Hope in Times of Disquiet, this is movement two of Jake’s piece Faith Disquiet, entitled “What if I do I shall not wait,” a poem by Emily Dickinson.


Zane For our final interview snippet of this episode, here’s a segment of the chat we had with Dr. Zanaida Robles about her piece, “Can You See?” which IOCSF will be performing as a Bay Area premiere in December.


Zane Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, since that gave us a little bit of a taste of who you are, why don't we move into who you are as a musician and maybe you can start off by telling us, why are you a composer? 


Zanaida Uhh... I don't know! I just was made this way, I think. And I say that because I think I have sort of... I'm one of these folks that kind of just always knew I was a musician and was, you know, trying to write songs and, you know, from a very young age. And, you know, and I just, I just kind of always... I can't... I think... I mean, the earliest, like, age I remember being - you have, you have like the earliest age you remember being or earliest age you remember your parents. So I remember being five years old and knowing that I was a musician and deciding I was going to start making up songs. Like that's... The word composer wasn't in my vocabulary, but I made up songs. And so I would make up songs, and, you know, it was very awkward because... You know, I listen to the radio a lot. And so I heard a lot of love songs, you know. I was listening to like kind of 80s back then. I was listening to, like, a lot of 80s R&B, and sort of early hip hop type stuff, you know, and stuff. So a lot of love songs, a lot of love themes. And so when I'm writing songs with lyrics about making love and stuff and I'm six years old, like, that's not really the best thing. But I was definitely creative, you know. So that was, that was a sign that, you know, I was maybe [chuckle] pretentious or precocious or whatever. But I just never had a question about what, who I was. Like, that's just a gift. And umm... but I didn't...


Zanaida I think when I got into academia, I didn't see myself as a composer in an academic or serious way, which I sort of regret, because I think that I could have... I don't know that I would have necessarily wanted to do anything different. I don't regret my path. I regret the way I saw myself or the way I didn't see myself as someone who could really seriously pursue music composition. I knew I wrote things and I kind of knew that I was, you know, I could be kind of a composer. But it wasn't until recently that I really started to come into my own and understand that I had a significant voice to contribute to the world of composition - and particularly choral music composition. And so maybe in a way, I've come full circle. I feel compelled to write about things, you know, that are not maybe what we usually hear choir singing about. And so... Yeah! I feel like, you know, it's just been an evolution. 


Zane What is it that's happened recently that has pushed you into being more of a full blown composer, as you would say? 


Zanaida I think it was in 2018 when Alex Blake of Tonality commissioned me to write "Can You See?" And "Can You See?" was a piece that was based, is based on protest signs that were kind of popular at the time with statements like "Love is Love", "Black Lives Matter", "No Human is Illegal", "Science is Real", "Water is Life". And he didn't ask me about those signs. I don't... For some reason, that sign just jumped out at me as musical. And the piece came to me really quickly. And it was the first time I felt like I sat down with sort of a composer's mindset - like a toolbox. Not just a songwriter or a poet, but like, "I'm gonna construct this piece with these themes and these motives and layers and, you know, melodic content and harmonic structure.". 


Zanaida Like, I really felt like that was the first time I really had an opportunity to use tools that I had been amassing over the years. And once Tonality gave me an opportunity to do that, it really opened my eyes like, "I actually have a skill that I haven't been... Why haven't I been using the skill? That was, that was cool." It wasn't easy, but it was definitely fulfilling. And that's when I kind of started. That piece got some attention. And then I got requests to do other things and I started doing other things. And so now I've got several pieces out - some of them self published, a few that are published with other companies. 


Zanaida And I've got, I've got like four commissions right now, which is something I never imagined I would have. Which is why I say all of a sudden now I feel a little bit like a baby composer because I feel like - I just never imagined that I would be... Sounds terrible! I never imagined I would be legit! You know, like I feel, I feel like my music has a reason to be out where before I didn't feel like my music was for anybody but me. And that's really gratifying. 


Giacomo I want to ask a little bit about that and combine that a little bit with what you had mentioned about academia, too, that you sort of felt like it wasn't for you or something, you know - that you didn't sort of feel like you were putting out there. Why do you suppose you felt that way? 


Zanaida I just didn't think my music... I wasn't trying to create cerebral music. I wasn't trying to use... I really was kind of turned off. I was pretty good at music theory throughout school, but I was really not very good at umm... materials of modern music and post-tonal analysis and all of the more modern trends in music. That really turned me off! And I was sort of like, "If that's what I have to do to be a modern composer, like, screw that! I don't wanna, I don't wanna make music like that!" That music doesn't speak to me... That music is... I understand its place. And I definitely appreciate being an artist, you know, as a singer who has enough skills to sort of execute music like that. Like I can appreciate it from an academic standpoint. But I don't want to hear that, you know? [laughter] Like I don't wanna... I'm not going to sit down and want to listen to it. I mean, I get... Unless, you know, I'm trying to challenge myself, you know, from a musical academic standpoint. 


Zanaida But I guess you have, I mean, every art you have to push the envelope. But I wasn't trying to push anything. I'm not trying to push anything in terms of technique or, you know, compositional vocabulary. I just have emotions that I wanna explore or I wanna... or I have subjects that I want to explore using a musical vernacular that I was familiar with or that was intriguing or sonically exciting to me! Like, I love exploring. You know, I like the sounds of the whole tone scale. I love extended harmonies and jazz chords. I like ninth's, you know? I like your ear candy, you know? I like the stuff that just, that sounds pretty. And I also like exploring, you know, the divisions of the octatonic scale. I got into that little while... And I love how there's different chords that you can pick out of that and move around, you know, tertiary harmonies and stuff like... So I could get kind of nerdy about it, but was never far enough to be what I thought would be serious music. So that's why I didn't really think of my music or my compositional voice as being one that needed to be out. 


Zane That's such an interesting thing to bring up. You know, we've had a conversation with a lot of our guests about uhh [sighs]... academia and it's the way that music that is academic is exclusionary, you know. In that "if you don't understand it, then you can't appreciate it" - that kind of thing. And, and I think that your music, and you mentioned your piece "Can You See?", which of course, is really easy to get attached to. I personally am very attached to that composition. 


Giacomo Same. 


Zane I think it's just a really moving piece of music and... 


Zanaida Thank you. 


Zane And the thing about it, and we talked to Alex a little bit about this as well, is that it's... it's inclusive. It's the kind of music that you don't have to know music theory; you don't have to know what octatonicism means or any of the things that you just referenced. You don't have to know any of that stuff to be able to appreciate it and for it to move you. 


Giacomo And yet! It is chock full of those things... 


Zane That's true. 


Giacomo Like the last minute - all the contrapuntal things that you have done, where you've set the melody of the national anthem and there is just a car wreck going on behind you emotionally. [laughter from Zanaida] I mean, it is just extraordinary! 


Zanaida Yeah. 


Giacomo But like... I mean, are there other, like, little hidden nerdy details you might be able to tell us about? 


Zanaida [laughter] Umm... ahh... I don't know! You know, it's hard to say because I think with a piece like that... I think that well, for one thing, I don't throw too many nerdy details into this like maybe there's like one nerdy detail, you know. [laughter from Zane]. 


Zanaida So, the detail about "Can You See?" is the, the motives, you know. Each line from the protest sign has its own motive and its own treatment. And so, you know, that's borrowed from - I don't know who did motives and things - bunch of opera composers did motifs, you know. Or like, you know, film score people do motifs and stuff like that, you know. 


Zane Right. Yeah, yeah. All the Star Wars movies. 


Zanaida You can take a single motive and develop... Start. Yeah. Every Star Wars character has its own theme, right? 


Zane Mmhmm... 


Zanaida So it's similar, sort of in a way, like in a much, much smaller scale "Can You See?" each line has its own kind of thing, you know. So... Or yeah... I mean that's, that's basically it, you know. And then there is this, this idea - maybe you could think of this, the middle section, the motif that I created for the "Science is Real" section, which I think Alex says is like one of his favorite parts. The science section is kind of a canon. And then it's a canon... 


Giacomo [sings] "Science is real. Ta da, ta dum..."


Zanaida Sort of with... yeah. Exactly! And so I've just kind of layered that at different levels. And then, each voice part comes in, you know, kind of staggered entrances and then the last voice parts to come in are the sopranos and just kind of ramp it up a little bit with their entrances is actually aleatoric. So, they don't even have a metrical moment to come in. They just... Once they start, they just kind of sing at their own, you know, speed and tempo to kind of give it this kind of weird kind of out of time, you know, sort of... "Infinity sound" is what I think I was thinking of in terms of... When I think of science, I was... I think I really was thinking about the infinite awesomeness of space. And so that's what I was trying to create by layering this canon, the order of the canon and then the infinite possibility of the aleatoric motion of the sopranos. 


Zane Brilliant. 


Zanaida That's nerdy! Oh, my God! That's so nerdy.


Giacomo Oh, God! All of that in like five, six minutes. Good lord! 


Zane That was good. That was good. 


Giacomo How do you catch on...? And it's amazing to hear you talk about these meters and be like, "Ehh...I don't know. I'm not really..." And then just be like, "But actually, I'm a master." [laughter from Zane] It's kind of amazing! I love that. It's awesome. 


Zanaida [laughter] Thank you! 


Zane If you would like to hear more about Zanaida and her works, please check out In Unison episode 307. But we definitely want to leave you with one final piece of music. So, here is “Lady in Blue,” written by Dr. Zanaida Robles and performed by Tonality on their 2019 album Sing About It.


Zane We really hope to see you at IOCSF’s performances of our Freshly Squeezed program this year. They will take place on Saturday, December 4th at Christ Church Berkeley, as well as on Saturday, December 18th at St. Mark’s Lutheran in San Francisco. Both concerts start at 7:30pm, and admission—as always—is free! We will, of course, gladly accept your generous donations, and the San Francisco concert will be streamed live in case you are not in the area. All of this information can also be found in our show notes, and online at iocsf.org.


Outro Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the In Unison podcast. Be sure to check out episode extras and subscribe at in unison 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 Concert footwear checked by Chorus Dolores, who, much like the key of C-minor, only has a few sensible flats. 


Credits 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 Bortnik, 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. 



Giacomo DiGrigoli
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