Reaching For The Mystical Center

By Jarrett Moran /// published in the December 2008 issue

WHEN CONFRONTED WITH TWO OPTIONS, CHOOSE BOTH

In the eyes of previous generations of classical musicians, David T. Little has never had to grow up. Little certainly has the traditional classical credentials: a Master of Music degree in Composition from the University of Michigan, a Master of Fine Arts degree from Princeton, and upcoming works for Carnegie Hall and many prominent New York classical ensembles. But, unlike previous generations of aspiring composers, Little can also be found playing clubs as a rock drummer for a band he describes as “a blend of guitar freakouts, ethereal female vocals, stompin’ garage and dreamy shoe gazing.” Like many young classically trained musicians in New York, Little has never given up playing rock, even as he has made a successful classical career.

Another young New York composer, Caleb Burhans, might start his day singing in the Trinity Choir and end it at a club with his rock band itsnotyouitsme or his techno group Bleknlok or, if he’s lucky, finding time to compose for one of the new-music ensembles he performs with. Burhans came to New York in 2001 as a 21-year-old graduate of the Eastman School of Music, willing to embrace whichever musical niche would take him — in addition to singing, he plays violin, viola, guitar, bass, keyboard, and percussion. He’s since found himself in demand from classical ensembles, chamber choirs, and The Hold Steady, and shows no intention of allowing himself to settle into a single category. He considers himself part of the second generation of musicians who grew up on rock music — the first generation for which rock was just another part of musical culture. “I never really differentiated,” he says.

Classically trained musicians with a penchant for popular idioms used to have no choice but to defect to the other side: a promising Julliard graduate abandoned her nascent career as a classical performer to wear dominatrix outfits and play thrash metal transcriptions of Beethoven under the alias of The Great Kat. Ted Atkatz left the coveted spot of principal percussionist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to form an alternative rock band called NYCO. And Andrew Bird used his training in classical violin to establish a successful alternative rock career. As Little tells it, in the previous generation of New York musicians, “there were rock drummers who became composers, but they had to choose a side. There is not a need to do that anymore.”

BARBARIANS AT THE GATE

The relationship between classical and popular music is full of nervous complexes. Rock musicians have spent the last forty years shuffling sheepishly into the concert hall. Rock stars like Paul McCartney, Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, Stuart Copeland from The Police, have all composed for orchestra in a style that at best more or less parodies nineteenth-century romanticism and at worst, resembles outtakes from the score for Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum. This style resembles the average rock fan’s stereotype of classical music, the obverse of the classical music fan’s stereotype of hackneyed “music these days.” The classical world imagines itself besieged by barbarians, the rock musician in a concert hall imagines himself a barbarian sneaking into the classical citadel.

Attempts at crossing the barrier rely on the same gimmick: the quick jolt of novelty that might lure an unsuspecting Beatles fan into the record store long enough to purchase a classical album. The album itself functions primarily as a talisman: to reassure Beatles fans that The Beatles really were “serious” musicians. For some, McCartney defends rock musicians from the snobbery of the classical music world. The same logic applies to classical musicians venturing out of the citadel, playing amplified violins in rock clubs to an audience attracted to the novelty promised by a New York Times profile about “a string quartet that calls itself a band.” A defense of classical music’s relevance is being mounted, and like the rock musician in the concert hall, the classical musician in the rock club relies on an absurd stereotype; in this case, that the essential character of rock music is its volume.

WHEN CONFRONTED WITH TWO OPTIONS, CHOOSE NEITHER

New York musicians straddling rock clubs and concert halls confront this history of mutual misunderstanding. For Little, the breakthrough came when he took the leap of adding a rock drum part to a composition for his Newspeak ensemble. Little explains, “A big process that I’ve gone through in the last ten years is learning to do what I want. People will try to tell you what you can’t do, but I can have a polka with a metal band and put an MC on top, and maybe it’ll be amazing.”