Interview with award-winning Brazilian composer Rafael Nassif

On January 31, 2010, Harold Rosenbaum, conductor of the New York Virtuoso Singers (NYVS), will be conducting the US premiere of the BMI award-winning piece “os olhos são a luz do corpo,” written by Brazilian composer Rafael Nassif for three choirs and three trombones. Here’s the info:

Date: January 31st
Time: 3 PM
Where: St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church,
Address: 87th St. off West End Avenue, NYC.
Pre concert talk at 2 PM.
Tickets at $20 ($15 for seniors and students) can be purchased at the door or by calling 212 279-4200.

After having met at the BMI award ceremony, Rosenbaum conducted an interview with Mr. Nassif, which is now being published below.

Harold Rosenbaum and the Canticum Novum Singers

Here is an audio sample of “os olhos saõ a luz do corpo.”
os olhos são a luz do corpo (rafael nassif) excerpt bars 134_149 (1)

Harold Rosenbaum (www.haroldrosenbaum.com) is one of the most accomplished and critically acclaimed choral conductors of our time. He is the winner of the 2008 American Composer Alliance’s Laurel Leaf Award, given in recognition of “distinguished achievement in fostering and encouraging American music.” Among the recipients of the Laurel Leaf have been the Juilliard String Quartet, Leonard Slatkin, Leopold Stokowski, George Szell, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Also in recognition of his leadership in the interpretation and performance of contemporary music, G. Schirmer Music Inc. has established its Harold Rosenbaum Choral Series, for which he composes, edits, and gives performance suggestions for conductors.

Rosenbaum

A tireless proponent and advocate for contemporary composers and American composers in particular, he has created an annual choral composition competition, has commissioned twenty five works, has conducted over 300 world premieres (including works by Ravel [in Paris], Schoenberg, Schnittke, Carter, Henze, Berio, Perle, and Harbison), and has recorded contemporary choral music for SONY Classical, Albany, CRI, Bridge, Koch International, Capstone, and DRG.

Rafael Nassif was born in Juiz de Flora, Brazil, in 1984. He attended the Brazilian Conservatory of Music “Lorenzo Fernandez” in Cataguases from 1994 to 2001, and studied piano with André Pires (1999-2002). Nassif received a B.M. degree in music composition from the UFMG Music School (Minas Gerais Federal University) in 2007, where he also started a Post-Graduated degree in Sonology in 2008. Nassif’s composition professors include Marlos Nobre, Oiliam Lanna, Sérgio Freire, Agnaldo Ribeiro, and Fernando Burgos

Rafael Nassif

Harold Rosenbaum: How did you hear about the BMI competition?

Rafael Nassif: Since my teenage years I had my e-mail on the lists of the CDMC Newsletter (Centre of Documentation of Contemporary Music in Brazil), and I read about the BMI award in that bulletin. Also, the competition was familiar to me because one of my professors, Marlos Nobre, was the winner in 1961 with a piano piece. In 2003, I sent my first score, for solo voice, and I have applied more times after. In 2008, I sent, under the pseudonym Adrian Leverkühn, the piece “os olhos são a luz do corpo”, for three choirs and trombones – a piece I had finished as my diploma pieceafter 5 months of intense work.

The score was returned without approval, but this wasn’t a problem for me. In fact, I had worked on that piece with much imagination and care and I sincerely think this may be my best piece ever. And as the jury changes every year, I decided to submit the piece a second time; in 2009, I sent the exact same score they had returned to me the year before, and I got the principal “William Schumann” prize!

HR: Give us a little bit of your background.

RN: I grew up in Cataguases, a small town in Minas Gerais state; Cataguases is also an important place in the history of the Modernist movement in Brazil (in Literature during the twenties, and in Architecture after the forties). I have spent a significant part of the childhood there listening all cd’s of the collection of my father (from the Baroque classics until experimental Rock), and I began to compose when I start music lessons in Guitar and Piano at ten. The contact with piano grown very fast, and I start to take lessons in other cities, at the same time composing a lot of pieces for piano and chamber music. Though there was no composer in the Cataguases area, with the Internet that was no problem: I have sent pieces and get in touch with dozen of composers by the web during my teenage years, and after I made some travels to meet them personally, for example Almeida Prado, and they have helped a lot in the development of my language and technique. I moved from Cataguases to Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais state, in 2003, to follow my Bachelor in Composition, where since then I have organized a lot of concerts and worked as professor. Nowadays I organize there the festival “eu gostaria de ouvir” (www.eugostariadeouvir.com), that promotes the new production of composers of Belo Horizonte area. The abroad experience have started in 2004, in a Festival on Latvia, and was followed in Germany, France and Czech Republic, where curiously I could get in touch personally with a lot of american composers as Christian Wolff, Alvin Lucier and Phil Niblock, and I had the opportunity to listen in live music from Morton Feldman, a composer that interests me a lot nowadays.

HR: How have things been going for you since you emerged on the international scene as a composer?

RN: In Brazil I had the pleasure of work with a lot of good musicians, since the beggining of my studies, and now I am very content to extend that experience with musicians around the world. After two times in the “Ostrava days” festival in Czech Republic I could meet a lot of excellent performers, and from now I will have the opportunity to work for two years in the Stuttgart Musikhoschule in Germany, where I am going to do a post-graduate course. It is very grateful to see that my pieces are recognized in such different contexts. But in other way I see clear how my language is going far from what is done by the majority of composers in my country, and the number of performances abroad is now quasi more than in Brazil.

Q: Has the BMI award led to opportunities?

Naturally, as it is a very recognized prize and it can open doors. Our contact, of course, was through the prize ceremony!
I would like to say that I am very proud to get so important prize, as in Brazil I have applied for different less important events without success. But I must say also that I do not think that music is related to competition, thus I do not take very serious the slogan “winner”. The pieces are involved in a very complex context involving different juries, ideas and directions. Therefore, I understand the results in a very relative way. We can see also the history of a lot of nowadays recognized composers that were not very lucky with competitions (Ravel, for instance), and in the other way dozens names of winners whose music are seen completely dated for us.

HR: The piece we are performing on Jan. 31st is very complex. Is all your writing in that style?

RN: It is interesting to hear that, because during an personal interview in Berlin with the composer Daniel Ott, he said to me that he did not understand why I wrote such a simple rhythmic figuration, as I was writing “ancient” music! On the other hand, a lot of conductors who have seen the score are afraid of the difficulty level of this piece, and I am very proud that you took this challenge with your choir. The most difficult aspect of performing “os olhos são a luz do corpo” is that the piece demands the independence of all singers. As I work with the spatialization of the melodies between the choirs, some singers spend a lot of time without singing, and then they are asked to sing for very short passages!

Therefore the singers must be very precise in those entrances, and also with the timbre nuances (boca quasi chiusa, falsetti, to sing “with air”, etc) and dynamics, as each one has his own individual dynamic specified. On the other way, there is no difficult intervals to sing, and the trombones are almost all the time helping the singers to get the correct tones. In fact the piece has very dissonant chords, but in that sound mass, each trombone gives cues to the choirs. Regarding my other three choral pieces (“hip! hip! hoover!” for male choir, “ballo padano” for female choir”, and “salve regina silma in memoriam” for boys other female choir and organ), “os olhos são a luz do corpo” is my more difficult choir piece, but not as a lot of choral pieces of Luigi Nono, Shoenberg or Holliger, for example.