Repetition and timelessness: a conversation with composer JONATHAN BEARD

Feature Article by Robert Schulslapert

In addition to writing original scores for the concert stage, opera, theater, film, television, multi-media, and video games, Jonathan Beard enjoys a flourishing career as an orchestrator: to date he’s collaborated on more than 140 film and TV projects—“hundreds” more if the tally extends to individual episodes. But while he loves all things orchestral, he’s also entranced by electronic music’s infinite timbral possibilities, whether alone or in combination with acoustic instruments. While a number of his film scores have been transferred to disc and previous individual pieces have been released, Ritual, which we discussed at length in our conversation, is his first full-length non-media-related recording. I found his limitless enthusiasm for every aspect of his métier irresistible, as I hope you will as well…. 

Were you surrounded by music during your childhood? 

I grew up in a musical household: my mother is a music teacher and my father is a prolific amateur trumpeter. In addition, both of my older brothers played instruments growing up, so there was indeed always music around! 

You play the cello on Ritual: was that your first instrument? 

Cello is indeed my first instrument; I started playing at age six. I was pretty certain early on that I wanted to move towards a life in music, without knowing exactly what that would look like. By high school, I had started composing and arranging, and the path towards majoring in music composition—with a double emphasis in cello—became more clear. 

You’ve belonged to a number of orchestras: Have those experiences given you valuable insights that were later helpful in your composing/orchestration careers? 

Certainly. I joined a youth orchestra at age nine, and played actively in orchestras through graduate school. There is no question that my early and sustained exposure to the orchestra has influenced my love of timbral color, and my love and study of orchestration. This love has served me well in both sides of my professional life. 

Do you play more than one instrument? 

In addition to cello, I got interested in pop piano pretty early on, and eventually played keyboards in a couple of bands. My pop piano skills are pretty rusty these days, but piano led to keyboards, which led to synthesizers, which at this point would be the other instrumental world I’d say I’m most comfortable in outside of cello. 

Any interest in improvisation? I’m guessing yes… 

Yes, for sure. Every piece in the Ritual suite grew out of initial improvisatory ideas, before I began building and finalizing the musical structures. 

You’ve said you began composing and arranging in high school. What nudged you in that direction? 

I first became aware of the concept of living present-day composers via John Williams and his film scores when I was in grade school. I also became aware—probably more in middle school—of who was orchestrating and arranging music that I liked as well, and it’s around that age that I also remember paying attention to what I’d later learn was called timbre, both in acoustic and electronic sounds. Finally, I also grew up being fascinated by the production techniques of pop that was on the radio, though I didn’t know how to define any of those techniques at the time. I decided somewhere in early high school that I wanted to create music for a living, and while I really had no realistic idea of how to do that, I dove in! My fascination with production eventually benefitted me in creating electroacoustic music down the road. 

Would you like to tell us about some of your teachers? 

I’m grateful for the ways in which so many of the composers I’ve either studied with, or collaborated with, have touched my own work. I’ll mention three individuals here as well, as they particularly pertain to my process on Ritual. My earliest formal electroacoustic composition education came from Mark Applebaum at Stanford University, and his sense of discovery was infectious, which stays with me to this day. I also was one of the few undergraduate composers to study with Brian Ferneyhough at Stanford, and while my music sounds absolutely nothing like his, perhaps no one taught me more in such a short time how to think about my music than he did. On the electronic and synthesizer front, I’m grateful for discussions and debates over the years with Tom Holkenborg, one of the most virtuosic synthesists and musical sound designers on the planet (and a fine orchestral composer as well). 

When did you realize that timbre per se was calling to you? 

I have been fascinated by timbre since I was very young, even before I knew what timbre was. This awareness of “sound color,” or however you want to call it, led in time to my interests not just in composition, but in orchestration, arranging, and electronic musical sound design. While on the surface those may seem like different arenas, below the surface they’re all very connected by timbral means. 

So can we say that timbre is at the heart of your attraction to electroacoustic music? 

To me, “electroacoustic” primarily signifies a giant sonic sandbox of nearly unlimited timbral exploration. I obviously love the timbres one can draw out of acoustic instruments and ensembles—I’m a professional orchestrator after all!—and I’m also fascinated by the places sound can go beyond the fully acoustic. Both halves of the word “electroacoustic” feed my creativity, and the sonic possibilities are vast. 

The 4Tay Records insert that came with Ritual mentions “boutique electronics.” Are these instruments or sounds that have been developed specifically for, or by, you? 

I designed most of the electronic sound-textures you hear in Ritual from scratch, using a combination of hardware and software tools. For example, I love both the vintage limitations and the amazing timbral capabilities of my Minimoog synthesizer, and it makes numerous appearances on Ritual, along with a handful of other hardware synthesizers. There are a number of software synthesizers that allow me larger flexibility as well, particularly for building sounds from scratch. Software tools that were in the mix for Ritual included Omnisphere, Max, Zebra, and the digital audio workstations Ableton Live and Logic Pro, all of which have inspiring creative capabilities for sonic creativity from the ground up. 

What sort of recordings were you producing for Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics? 

I majored in “standard” music composition as a student at Stanford, so I wasn’t involved with CCRMA as much as some of the major tech-heads. However, as the head of one of Stanford’s two student-run record labels at the time, I was a fixture in CCRMA’s recording studios as a producer for other artists, and certainly did my early electroacoustic composition in its facilities. What was really gratifying for me recently was a return residency to CCRMA a few years ago, jointly supported by Stanford and UCLA—where I’ve taught since 2011—to do initial sound design for my upcoming electroacoustic opera, Cesare, Child of Night. It was wonderful to see faculty members such as Chris Chafe and Mark Applebaum again, as well as visit with the current graduate students to hear their latest works, and provide insights where I could. 

From what you’ve said, it seems you were bitten early on by the film music bug. 

As a young musician, film music was my first love of anything orchestral. As I got a little older, I really gravitated toward Stravinsky, Debussy, and Ravel. I recognized their DNA in the film music I loved, which opened the doors of my awareness to so much fantastic 20th-century music. As a teenager, I also started to recognize that the hybrid textures coming into the world of film music in the 1990s created an arena in which my passion for both orchestral and electronic musical elements could flourish. My familiarity with the electronic side of film music production has only helped my acoustic orchestration side, which ties back into those earliest musical loves of my youth. 

You strike me as a very versatile composer, able to write convincing, genre-specific music for films across a wide range—heroic, dramatic music for films like Heavenquest, sentimentally melodic, lighthearted, or jazzy music for Manny in Real Life, the original theater score for Driving Miss Daisy—while at the same time writing “serious” music like Ritual. 

For me, all composing comes down to communication of feelings. That doesn’t mean that all of my music must be narratively or dramatically driven—feelings may include intellectual delight from a puzzle piece or chance-music for example—but I’m always seeking that connection both for myself and others. When composing music for media, the music serves a higher power. It has a job to do, namely, supporting the director’s or producer’s artistic vision, and helping to deepen the experience of the story and/or visuals. The primary difference when I’m writing “concert” or small-c “classical” or “serious” music (though I find all of those terms to be less-than-perfect) is that I’m serving my own vision and reporting to myself, rather than someone else. But the goal of communication and connection is always there. 

What some might consider the rift between commercial and artistic expression doesn’t seem to have affected you: I’m reminded of Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, who supposedly was frustrated at neglecting his serious side while writing his operettas. With you, on the other hand, I get the feeling that you’re very happy in your multiple roles. 

I love that you’ve picked up on this, and you are absolutely right. I am really lucky to have found a balance in my career that sustains my creative soul, in multiple simultaneous and symbiotic ways. Most of my work in bigger films is as an orchestrator, and the greater balance also suits my personality: I’m collaborative by nature, and love the process of helping other composers realize their creative visions. Whether I’m the composer or an orchestrator on a film, orchestration is always my favorite part of the film music process. And I love that process. It’s all serving something greater than ourselves: does this musical choice help the score? Does it help the film? Will it contribute to people’s connection with the story? And all of that feels really good. 

At the same time, there are other types of creative expression inside that find their way out. Composing concert music—and, as we’re talking about, in particular here, electroacoustic concert music—allows me avenues of expression where I actually don’t need to worry about whether it’s working for other people. I don’t need to concern myself with how many people will like it. It’s not that I don’t want to connect with listeners of course—again the goal of communication is always there—just that I’m free to trust that the people who are meant to hear it and enjoy it will find it. It will make its way to the people it’s meant to make its way to, whether that’s ten listeners or ten thousand. And I love that balance. Creatively speaking, I’m right where I’m supposed to be. 

Can you tell us about some of your other electroacoustic work? You mentioned your opera, and I know you’ve also done other projects in this field before. 

While I happily compose for purely acoustic ensembles as well, my electroacoustic music is always close to my heart. I’ll give three recent examples. A few years back, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the Pacific Symphony of Orange County invited me to musically spearhead their fascinating interdisciplinary ReRite of Spring project. As an interactive supplement to their series of performances at Segerstrom Hall, they provided me with numerous live-recording resources from which I created a library of tempo-synced loops and snippets of Rite that the general public could use to create their own remixes, both at home and at special workstations in an installation outside the concert hall. Finally, they commissioned a flagship recomposition from me, using that same library I created, to kick off the larger project. That piece became Chaos in the Garden: a ReRite of Spring, which I’m immensely proud of. 

More recently, I collaborated with iconic feminist artist Suzanne Lacy to complete the exhibit/installation version of one of her previous live works called De tu puño y letra, which grappled with issues of domestic violence in Ecuador. For the live version, she had worked with composer Bruno Louchouarn, who sadly passed away in 2018. I had collaborated with Bruno’s brilliant wife Corey Madden a number of years earlier, and was honored when Suzanne asked me to compose the music for the exhibit/installation version. I was able to incorporate numerous elements of Bruno’s original field recordings and sound design into the score, in tribute to him, and portions of his compositions for the original live version remain in the overall piece as well. It was exhibited for much of 2019 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and in late 2020 (after COVID delays) finally opened for its European premiere on exhibit in Seville, Spain. 

And finally, I have recently completed my one-act electroacoustic chamber opera Cesare, Child of Night, based on the Expressionist horror silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I began sound design for the project nearly five years ago during my CCRMA residency at Stanford, and have continued to return to it whenever I’ve had time. It’s less than 40 minutes long, but that’s a testament to how my schedule has been the last few years! A number of my UCLA colleagues have joined the project, providing valuable input and support. Since live opera as we traditionally know it is dramatically curtailed for now due to COVID, we’re looking into alternative possibilities for premiering the work, and I’m looking forward to it making its way into the world soon. 

I’m curious about your compositional method: do you write using keyboards, music notation software, and orchestral libraries to produce scores which are later printed to be read by “real” orchestras, or have the synthesized versions become indistinguishable substitutes for purely acoustic instruments? 

I love to tell my composition students at UCLA that the number one job of any tool actively at a composer’s disposal is to help you get your ideas out with as little friction as possible. If a tool is making it harder for you to express and capture your ideas, then it’s not helping you in that instance, and you might want to consider a different tool. The answer to the first part of your question is that I use all of the tools you mention, using whichever one is most appropriate and inspiring for a given circumstance. I’m reminded of an artist residency I did a few years ago in Connecticut, again for my opera Cesare, Child of Night, which pretty much encapsulates my favorite setup. I was out in the woods in a small writing studio, with essentially three “stations” at which I could compose. First, a piano in one corner with high quality staff-paper; second, a computer workstation in the center of the room with Sibelius [notation software], Logic Pro [recording software and sequencer], sample libraries, and a couple of synthesizers, all hooked up and ready to go; and third, my cello in another corner with a spot mike set up, ready to record an improvised idea at a moment’s notice, along with more staff paper on the music stand. This is a similar setup to what I have in my home writing studio, which allows me to gravitate to whichever tool I need at a given moment to best capture a compositional idea. 

As to the second part of your question: sample libraries and software modeling have gotten very good by this point at being able to emulate physical instruments. That said, while I certainly use those tools at times for one reason or another, overall I am largely drawn to electronic sound design for the possibilities of creating sounds that aren’t possible by other means. One of the mistakes, I think, of the analog synthesizer industry of the 1970s was the degree of emphasis manufacturers placed on their instruments being able to substitute for, or replace, other instruments. When in fact, those synthesizers were just fantastic tools on their own standing, not as a stand-in for something else. (I explore some of this historical anchoring musically in Ritual, in the interplay between my synthesized textures and the acoustic ensemble.) As I also love to tell my students: it’s difficult to make a Minimoog sound like a clarinet. But it’s nearly impossible to make a clarinet sound like a Minimoog. Rather, both are fantastic musical tools to be celebrated for what they are. 

What inspired you to compose Ritual? 

Ritual, as a suite, grew organically out of my interest in concepts of devotional repetition, and secondarily—as I mentioned before—what we might call elements of “historical anchoring,” particularly in electroacoustic music. The first part is relatively straightforward: I’m thinking about, and musically engaging with, concepts of contemplative repetition found in both sacred and secular traditions, while also exploring some of the unsettling inner states that contemplative repetition can help alleviate. 

The second part—historical anchoring—lies just below the surface and has to do with my instrumentation choices: a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments that were once closely associated with a particular time and place, but have since transformed into being perceived in a more timeless way. Never being particularly in-fashion, never particularly out-of-fashion, just being the sonic tools that they are. These include the recorder, the cello, and on the electronic side, instruments such as the Minimoog—a synthesizer that has taken on a certain timeless connotation at this point. 

The suite, while not being program music, does follow a bit of a dramatic arc. To me, the calmest piece is the second, itself titled Ritual, while Thanatosis—the fourth piece—is filled with the most anxiety and tension. The suite culminates in the explosive and relentless fifth and final piece—called Battalion—that both pushes the elements of aggressive tension to a precipice, and provides catharsis as well. 

Elsewhere you’ve prefaced “devotional repetition” with “agnostic.” Why? 

I like the term “agnostic devotional repetition” primarily for its inclusiveness, to be as inviting as possible. My life’s journey has brought me into contact with people of many faiths, as well as people who describe themselves as agnostic or atheist, who all practice devotional repetition of some form or another. This could include praying the rosary, yoga, mindfulness and breathing exercises, or even long-distance athletic activity that can border on a spiritual experience. Many of these traditions share the common ingredient of repetition, among their other individual traits. 

I wasn’t always sure which sounds in Ritual were electronically generated. For example, what sounded like a deep drum at the beginning of the Suite seemed acoustic but somehow modified. Another example that comes to mind is the tuned percussion at the beginning of the third track. 

I certainly blur the lines sometimes. A bit of electronic processing on an acoustic sound can render it slightly otherworldly but still recognizable. It’s also possible to play electronic timbres off of similar acoustic timbres within the same piece, in a connective way. The opening electronic texture of that third piece, Midwinter, for example, gives way later to the acoustic vibraphone—it’s possible to hear some connective DNA in the two timbres, but they also get to exist as separate sounds. A different example of the connectivity between acoustic and electronic can be found in the cello solo in Thanatosis—it’s primarily an acoustic part, but there are two notable moments where the electronics “grab” the acoustic cello line for a few bars of processing, pulling it into another sonic world. I love exploring these connections. 

When recording Ritual, did you and the other musicians play to a recording of the electronics or were those added later? Did mixing play a part in balancing the two elements? 

Mixing played a big role, as numerous parts were recorded in different environments. That said, every one of these five pieces began with electronic sounds, though not necessarily from the computer. I love hardware synthesizers, and find them conducive to timbral exploration and improvisation. Not always, but oftentimes the first textures I’d settle on using would be sculpted on a hardware synthesizer, and then I might add acoustic instruments, software, and processing from there. 

What’s next? 

On the collaborative front, I’m thrilled with the interdisciplinary video collaborations that grew out of Ritual: other artists creating works within their given disciplines, each inspired by one of the five Ritual pieces. Those videos continue to make their way into the world, and will also have a permanent archival home on my YouTube channel. Twenty twenty-one will see the release of a couple of smaller films featuring my music, perhaps a Cesare, Child of Night release in some form, with numerous orchestration collaborations on the horizon as well. And who knows what new collaborations lie just around the corner! Whatever the possibilities may be, I look forward to the journey.