The temperatures have soared to a sultry 30 degrees as the audience gathers outside the Bessungen Knabenschule in Darmstadt. Trams come and go, carrying perspiring passengers, filled with anticipation for the performance in store. This has been a Darmstadt Summer Course like none other.
Legendary saxophonist, composer and pedagogue Anthony Braxton, at the age of 78, and with almost six decades of ‘creative music’ in the rear-view mirror, has, for the first time, been invited to the festival.
The Darmstadt Festival fortnight pre-opened with a performance of Braxton’s Language Music, his nuanced 12-part system for directed improvisation. That pre-opening concert featured the Prague Music Performance Orchestra, in existence since 2021, conducted by Roland Dahinden. The world premier performance of Thunder Music followed, led by the composer on saxophone, launching a two-day conference on Braxton the composer, musician and thinker.
Today’s concert is something different, however. This is Braxton the pedagogue, working with the very first Darmstadt Creative Orchestra. The orchestra’s members are drawn from the 400 participants at this year’s Darmstadt Summer Course. They come from all over the globe.
My own work as a conductor of contemporary music in Ireland took me to Darmstadt 2023, where I was a participant in the fantastic Words on Music Course with Kate Molleson and Peter Meanwell. Curious to discover more about the music of Anthony Braxton, I took the opportunity to sit in on rehearsals with the Creative Orchestra, intrigued by the idea of the conductor actively shaping the musical elements and form, in partnership with the musicians. Little did I realise the journey into Braxton’s musical universe that was ahead.
But who is Anthony Braxton, and why has he reached his 79th year before being invited to Darmstadt?
Born in 1945 in Chicago, Braxton is an experimental composer, educator, music theorist and multi-instrumentalist. His prolific output includes hundreds of recordings and compositions. Formative experiences in the United States Fifth and Eighth Army Bands were followed by early membership of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and numerous small ensemble projects. A teaching position at Mills College (1985 -1990) and a professorship at Wesleyan University (1990 – 2013) proved the ideal testing and development grounds for his trans-idiomatic compositions, which incorporate improvised and notated material. Compositional series’ include Ghost Trance Music (c. 150 pieces), Falling River Musics and the massive Trillium Opera Complex (12 operas comprising 36 interchangeable one-act works). Braxton’s extensive writings include the Tri-Axium Writings (3 volumes) and Composition Notes (5 volumes).
Elemental in his compositions is Braxton’s Language Music, featured in the opening concert, which can be used to build improvisations. Example parameters include long notes (I), trills (III), staccato (IV) and others. Language type 12 signals a move to another composition – which can be drawn from any pre-existing material regardless of genre. Language Music is particularly effective in an ensemble context, where the different possibilities are indicated by a conductor, or autonomously decided among ensemble members. The parameters can be combined, and depths of nuance added through Braxton’s Geometric Schemes and Identity States.
Alongside Braxton, Belgian guitarist and conductor Kobe Van Cauwenberghe, will direct the Darmstadt Creative Orchestra. Kobe’s deeper explorations into the music of Anthony Braxton were sparked by a chapter in the book Audio Culture, Readings in Modern Music. He is currently undertaking a PhD focussing on the music of Braxton and helped co-curate the two-day Darmstadt Braxton conference. Kobe has been key in bringing the Creative Orchestra to this year’s summer course.
The Darmstadt Creative Orchestra will play several of Braxton’s compositions, including No. 151, No. 100, No. 63 and No. 59. The pieces are designed to interlock, like a giant musical Lego set, inspired by the Erector sets of the composer’s childhood. At certain points during the performance, three conductors will conduct simultaneously, an idea designed to challenge the traditional orchestra-conductor hierarchy by allowing the musicians to choose which conductor to follow! Bassoonist, composer and improvisor Katherine Young has been invited to complete the conducting trio.
Sitting in on the rehearsals, I am struck by how open these young musicians are to the new musical world revealed by Braxton during rehearsals. A sizeable amount of alternative terminology is used, and the students are hungry for information, asking plenty of questions in between playing.
On the podium Braxton is relaxed, collegial, and clearly relishing the chance to work with such a talented, and musically advanced group of students. When a query arises, he is quick to go to the back of the orchestra, explaining the answer. At one point, a student apologises for getting the wrong end of the stick about a notation question. Braxton’s response comes without hesitation.
“No, that’s alright, we are working together.”
Conducting tag-team partner Kobe is always on hand to quietly resolve any logistical and musical queries. Interlocking pieces of music bring their own set of issues when it comes to the individual instrumental parts, and it makes for smoother progress if everyone has the relevant pieces of paper on their stands when needed!
Rehearsals are scheduled for the four days preceding the performance on Tuesday 15th August. Sessions of three hours are planned, although Braxton much prefers to minimise rehearsal time, maximising the possibility of spontaneity and nervous energy in the performance!
Braxton’s works combine complex notated music, with departure points for directed and free improvisations. Musicians can navigate between the larger forms using the Language Music improvisations, and ‘Surprises’ are positively encouraged! Indeed, Braxton is very insistent that “If you don’t make mistakes, that is the biggest mistake of all”.
It is interesting to see the musicians embrace this newfound freedom, a change from the levels of perfection usually demanded in standard orchestral rehearsals. Chatting to soprano and composer Elizabeth Gartman after one of the rehearsals, she shared that the ethos of the rehearsal process has helped her rediscover her joy in singing.
As the rehearsals progress, I sense a growing confidence within the orchestra. Improvisations are more daring; body language is relaxed and ‘mistakes’ are welcomed with open grins. This is creative music making, Braxton style!
The day before the performance, the conductor trio is finally completed, with the arrival of Katherine Young. Katie worked as Braxton’s ensemble class teaching assistant at Wesleyan ‘a few years ago’, so she is happy to have the opportunity to work with her former mentor as part of the project. Katie’s arrival seems to signal a shift in Braxton’s approach. He obviously trusts the young musicians of the Creative Orchestra. The trust is mutual.
As a result, he wants to give them even more freedom, allowing subsets of musicians within the orchestra to make contact, and embark on their own musical forays, as the more planned elements continue around them. In his words: “Let’s kick it about and see what happens”.
Braxton also makes some structural musical changes, repositioning Composition 59, originally slated to end the performance, within the ‘composite universe’ to have stable elements, changeable elements and surprises. The Darmstadt Creative Orchestra has proven their musical navigation skills to Braxton, so, after just four days, he is moving the goalposts just slightly out of their collective comfort zone.
As he finishes the final rehearsal early, Braxton tells the orchestra:
“This will be interesting tomorrow, because I want that unknown, known and intuition…The intuition should be jumping all over the place!”
And so, the stage is set, the day has arrived, and we take our seats. In Braxton’s musical world, we are the ‘friendly experiencers’, open to enjoying the music on its own terms, and free to wander the sonic landscape as it unfolds. The applause dies down, and we embark on a mutual musical adventure in the company of Braxton, Kobe, Katie and the musicians of the Creative Orchestra.
The performance holds plenty of surprises. Unexpected combinations of timbres and textures emerge, the unified ensemble moments are thrilling, and we get a palpable sense of curious discovery, tinged with an edge-of-the-seat alertness, from the young musicians of the Darmstadt Creative Orchestra.
Braxton eventually signals the end of the sonic adventure. It comes almost too soon.
The applause grows and grows as I look around the room. Together with Braxton’s esteemed colleagues, current and former students and new friends, we have witnessed something extraordinary!
As the friendly experiencers drift out into the August afternoon, it is very special to see Braxton surrounded by generations of composers. Alvin Singleton, sprightly at 82, dashed to the concert from another rehearsal, while composer George Lewis is full of praise for his son Tadashi, who ‘performed brilliantly’ on clarinet as part of the orchestra. Lewis played some of these pieces with Braxton in the 70s- the torch has been passed.
Composer and percussionist Tyshawn Sorey, a former student of Braxton’s, was delighted to see the three conductors working together, although he would have loved to be up there in the orchestra himself, reliving his formative years in Braxton’s Creative Orchestra! Alvin Singleton’s hope that the students would recreate their Creative Orchestra experience wherever they live will undoubtedly come true, if the post-concert reactions of the young musicians are any guide.
“Fantastic”, “Amazing”, “Inspiring”…the superlatives pile high, matching the emotion in the room as young musicians and fellow composers alike queue for photos with Braxton! These musicians will take this musical experience with them in the years to come. As for Braxton, he is delighted with the performance, marvelling at how much complexity the young musicians absorbed in such a short time.
I ask him what he wishes for these young people. His answer?
“Keep hope alive, we will get through this tunnel”.
Words On Music 