At the beginning of “In Tandem”, my focus was on ten wonderful duos from ten unique and amazing composers whose voices intrigued me in different ways. But as I embarked on this project, I could never fathom the richness of the journey.
A part of this project is to bring to the forefront some of the social issues that each composer wants to reflect in their composition. My initial conversations with each composer fired my brain cells, forcing me to ask questions and observe the world from different perspectives. We covered a wide range of topics, including climate change, identity, language, human rights, border issues, racism, Eastern philosophies, animal extinction. These conversations have continued as some of the composers have changed the direction of their composition multiple times.
It has been brought to my attention that there might be observers, students, educators, artists who are curious about the process of a project like this one. My plan is to tape conversations with each composer to go along the final performances of their pieces, but I am discovering that there are a lot of hoops to go through before getting to that stage. Therefore, through this blog, I am inviting those who are involved with “In Tandem” to share their own creative process.
I enjoy taking a peek into an artist’s studio, the diary of an author, the scribbles of a musical manuscript, hoping to gain some insight into the artistic process. It is important to remember that there can often be struggle in composing, performing or bringing an idea into reality. There is rarely a direct route going from point A to point B, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have to back track in order to move forward. I hope you enjoy these blogs and will join us on the “In Tandem” journey.
Lucia Lin 