In part 1 of this couplet of posts, I explored the very immediate emotional reality of the space of time in which I composed the piece. In this second part, I am going to talk about Indianapolis, why this all feels worth it, and how this effort was an outpouring of love and faith in the community of people I’ve found myself surrounded by in my time here.
I met Corey Denham shortly after I moved to Indianapolis while playing Terry Riley’s In C at the HiFi in Fountain Square with a rag-tag group of musicians of all stripes, most of whom would become my friends as time went on. Corey and I hit it off because of a shared love of percussion chamber music and the desire to see more of it happen in the city. One of the first times we hung out that summer, we ended up making a set of tuned pipes for his trio, 10-Can Percussion. Over the course of the years, Corey has become one of my closest friends, surviving my own intermittently chaotic way of working several times over, and forgiving a long period at the beginning of things where I failed to catch about 500 jokes thrown my way.
About a year later, I believe while in my second year of grad school, Eric Salazar arrived in Indianapolis with a monumental work ethic and, not only a desire to make more classical music happen in the city, but plans to make it happen. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, we were all seeing each other on a regular basis, starting to put on more regular events, and Eric and Corey were forming the ensemble that would become Forward Motion. From the beginning, the ensemble was hugely exciting to me, as it represented a step forward for independent classical music in Indianapolis.
I think we all had plans to work together from the beginning, but I will never forget when it started to come together. We had a plan, I had a commission I didn’t need to travel for, and we were forming what would become in many ways our small community’s first at-bat making a professional piece intended to have a long life. Don’t get me wrong, we’re nowhere near the only game in town as far as experimental or new classical music goes, but for us everything seemed to be coalescing at the right time. In the two years since I initially finished Reflect and Release, that coalescence has continued and blossomed into a functioning community of musicians that are bringing music to the city in unexpected places and times. I’ve had the honor of writing for Fort Harrison State Park, consulting on a new classical magazine in the city, and have continued to work with a deeply talented and passionate base of talent here.
This impending video/ep release feels like tying a bow on what has been one of the most rewarding creative streams that has developed while in Indianapolis. It also makes me feel a little less weird for advocating for this kind of music in a city that doesn’t have it as part of its inherent identity.
In another sense, the release of this project is coming during one of the most creatively productive periods of my recent life, and almost feels par for the course. Not that I’m taking it for granted, but there is a certain feeling of cruise control that comes with having a lot of projects at various stages of completion, and some confidence that something is always coming down the pipe. It is really because of the period in which Reflect and Release was written, that I can even feel this way about my output. Growing with the other artists involved in the project and the community we’ve formed together has been a literal dream come true, and is one of the main launching points for getting to the version of my life that I want to build long term.
The music that follows could have only been written here in Indianapolis, with the original performers in mind, and with the love and understanding that comes not only in working with people I respect as artists, but that I have come to love as people in their own right. To Corey, Eric, and the rest of Forward Motion, Thank You. To everyone else, we are here, and we are building something that we hope will enrich the cultural and musical landscape of Indianapolis.
You can find more about Classical Music Indy, and organization that has been pivotal in helping the recent surge of projects and performances of classical music outside of traditional venues here.
*Author’s note: I originally drafted this post before the current situation surrounding the COVID-19 started to show how it would affect musical performances for the near future around the country. In a certain sense, it is nice to be able to show this work in a time where people will be unable to attend as many live performances as they would like. I hope that this small offering of music will offer a bit of solace in these trying times.