Composer and conductor Evan Williams writes music drawing on diverse influences and tackling important social and political issues. He is Composer-in-Residence for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. London Philharmonic Orchestra will perform his Dead White Man Music in January 2025. He’s also Assistant Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music.
In this conversation, he and I talk about program notes, his bio, and talking about music with non-specialist audiences.
Andrew Shryock: Can you say a bit about yourself and your music?
Evan Williams: I started composing when I was in middle school, writing music for my school band. It was a lot of fun. I always thought I was going to be a film composer. My family supported it, but they didn’t really know all the resources that were available. When I was a kid I thought that the only composers that existed were film composers or whoever wrote the band music we played. I didn’t know until college that you could make a career as a composer writing serious concert music. Then I decided this is what I wanted to do. I fell in love with it.
I’ve been fortunate to write more music for band, choir, and a lot of chamber music. These days I’m concentrating on orchestral music. I’m the Composer-in-Residence with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, which has been really cool because, normally, those residencies are for a season but we’re going from 2022 until 2025. I’ve gotten to know the orchestra. I’ve conducted them. Each piece I write for them is more informed by what I know they can do and what they’re good at.
I’ve also been working on opera. I just finished an opera scene for Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Project, and I’m doing a couple of things for Opera Memphis.
AS: The range, the wide variety of genres in which you compose is impressive. Can you say more about the importance of versatility, diversity of influences, and so on?
EW: That’s so important to me. It was in grad school where I was like ”Oh, actually, all music is valid, and all music is important.” I can get into EDM and let that influence my classical music. I can get into really cool things, like hip hop and gospel, things that I was raised with, and let those influence my music as well. That is when people started caring about what I do.
My first breakout piece is called Grime, and it uses a string quartet to recreate the sound of an electric guitar. It’s got this cool rock groove, but it’s also really nerdy because it uses spectral analysis. I have a concerto for harpsichord called Dead White Man Music. I’ve been exploring baroque and early music, bringing things like perpetual motion rhythms and harmonies you find in baroque music into a more modern context. That’s been a lot of fun as well.
AS: You talk about your music with such clarity. You mentioned Grime, and elsewhere, I’ve heard you talk about spectral analysis and the overtone series in that piece. It takes a lot of forethought, a lot of work behind the scenes, to find the right words to describe those concepts for a non-specialist. Why is that important for you?
EW: I think part of it is just the professor in me. My mom always said, “You were born to be a teacher.“ I love to teach people things. Also, when I first learned about these concepts, I didn’t quite understand them until someone said something that made it click for me. For anyone hearing these terms for the first time, I want it to click for you. I don’t want to give you the technical, esoteric definition. I want to give you an understanding.
AS: Do you talk about these ideas with your students, too? How they talk about the music they write?
EW: In my intro to composition class, I have a section on writing program notes. We read them and we have discussions. I give them a list of topics. Which of these program notes use jargon you don’t understand? Which of these feel too simple? Which of these feel too personal or not personal enough? We work on this. We try to find a really good balance.
In my own music, Grime is personal but not the most personal thing I’ve ever written, so the program notes are straightforward. For Dead White Man Music, I’ve written whole blogs and papers, because it comes from a very personal place. I try to teach my composition students how to talk about their music, both writing and when they’re asked to come up on stage.
AS: Writing about your own music, what do you emphasize?
EW: I want my program notes to be an abstract for my piece. I don’t want you to have a ”play by play”: you’re going to hear this theme and then you’re going to hear this thing. When I’m reading program notes, I don’t want the composer to hold my hand like that. Tell me what you were thinking about when you wrote this. So, in my program notes, I say what was I thinking about. Now enjoy the piece. I’m going to let the music do the rest of the talking. In general, this is the concept and how I’m thinking about it.
AS: I agree with you on “play by play.” In sports, it’s for the benefit of someone who’s not at the event, but when you experience the music in person, “play by play” can be a detriment.
Switching gears now, for a lot of listeners, a biography is among the first encounters they’ll have with a performer or a composer. Your bio is excellent. It’s detailed. It’s clearly and logically organized. This isn’t by chance, I’m certain.
[Read Evan’s bio here.]
EW: I always used to think my bio was formulaic and not personal. I hated reading it, but I also know it’s proving your mettle. These are the ensembles I’ve worked with. These people have performed my music. I’ve won these awards. It’s a necessary evil. Programming organizations and ensembles, especially, want to know who you’ve worked with before. Talking to a friend who runs a programming organization, she suggested more personality and description about my music. So, around 4 years ago, I added descriptions about my music and what I’m trying to do with my music. I’m always trying to update my bio and make it more personable. It’s an ongoing process.
AS: The opening of your bio makes it clear that you’re an artist who draws on a wide variety of styles and sounds, but at the same time, it’s not anything goes. This sets up the reader for an informed encounter with your music. It directs our ear when we’re listening to your music. Is this is one of your goals?
EW: Yeah, I think that’s a really good way to do it. I used the word abstract earlier with program notes, and in a way, the bio is the abstract to me as an artist. A good abstract will lay out your thesis and the things that influence your research. That’s what the bio does for me as a person. This is where I’m coming from. I literally cite evidence, quotes from reviews and things like that. It’s supposed to introduce you to me and help you think this is someone who I want to hear more from.
AS: You hinted at an ongoing process. Are there lots of revisions? Are you revising to the point where, like Beethoven, you’re making holes in the manuscript?
EW: I make revisions to my bio, adding important performances, taking away some of the things I did as a student. I have a performance with the London Philharmonic in January. That’s noteworthy, and it should go in.
I have a document with versions of the bio: the full one, 250 words, 200 words, 150 words, 100 words. On my website, word count doesn’t matter, but it does matter for a lot of organizations. And I have specific versions of my bio. The electronic music festival will get the one geared toward the things I’ve done with electronic music. An opera festival gets the one geared toward my operatic and vocal music. Sometimes I need to combine different things.
I think about this a lot, and I’m always crafting and revising my bio.
AS: Are you someone who toils over every word, searching for the perfect adjective or whatever? Are you less concerned about those specifics?
EW: I’m so concerned about that. I like to be precise in my language. As a person. As a writer. As a teacher. I like to be very clear. I often prefer writing to speaking. I’m very particular about what I say and how I say it. There’s a Gramophone quote in the bio, and as you can see, there are brackets. The author said something about my music being set “rather beautifully,” and I changed that to “beautiful.” I agonized over it. I even posted on Facebook about it: “Is it okay if I change this?” I had a big discussion with other composers about it: How should I use this pull quote?
AS: It seems to me if the sentiment is intact, some gentle massaging is acceptable.
EW: Exactly. It’s not like I took the words “good” and “composer” from two different paragraphs and put them together.
AS: What else should we talk about before we close?
EW: I think a lot of reviewers these days are avoiding writing things that composers can put in their bio as pull quotes. I’ve gotten really good reviews. They’re very nuanced, which is great, but I need that really splashy quote. I don’t need ”New York Times says, ‘Visionary’” or something like that, but it’s something I’m still hunting for. That ”white whale” of a quote. I like to think of it like it’s not me saying this stuff about my music, it’s what my peers say. These are the things critics have said about my work. I think that’s important.
AS: Right. The critic as dispassionate third party. The testimony of an expert witness.
EW: Exactly.
AS: It serves as a type of credential.
EW: Yeah, yeah.
AS: Well, thank you, Evan. This was fun. And when you find the ”white whale,“ I hope you’ll let me know.
EW: Will do, will do.
Leave a Reply