We Sent Our Classical KING Host Fellow to a New Music Festival

This article was written by our host fellow, Leona Oliveros.

As the Classical KING host fellow through the Seattle Arts Fellowship, I have spent the past year exploring the ins and outs of classical radio. This includes hours upon hours of researching composers and musicians, writing and recording stories, and listening back to my own voice in my coaching sessions. While I have grown tremendously thanks to my work here, I wanted to push my storytelling even further, which is how I stumbled upon the new music festival, Bang on a Can. 

Bang on a Can is a music collective that started out in 1987 by co-founders Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, and David Lang, who wanted to create an environment that uplifts contemporary musicians. Their three week summer festival fulfills that mission, fostering new generations of innovative musical excellence in a few different ways. There are composer fellows, who work with the founders to write new works that get debuted during LOUD Weekend. Then there are musician fellows, who are placed in a variety of ensembles that perform these new works during LOUD weekend. And then there is the media workshop, which I participated in. Media participants join in the last week of the festival, attending rehearsals, media seminars, and performances. Media fellows’ then publish feature stories about the festival for New Sounds.

As a host fellow, the media workshop appealed to my inner storyteller, with one of the greatest appeals being the ability to work with modern, living composers and musicians. It was also a comfort to know that Classical KING and Second Inversion host, Maggie Molloy, attended the media workshop years prior, giving a rave review of her experience.

Media fellows and their mentors with their laptops open during a media seminar. Courtesy of Lora Kmieliauskaite

New music and classical music may seem like opposite ends of a spectrum, but in reality, they are not too far apart. The foundation for musical excellence exists in both spaces. Musicians and music-lovers who prefer the classical tradition are familiar with the deep history behind the works of Bach, Mozart, and other classical greats. In the Classical KING host fellowship, I’ve poured hours of research into the backgrounds of composers, and the extensive training of performers. But Bang on a Can understands that the generational love and knowledge of new music is still growing, so the world needs journalists who can bring out the untold stories of contemporary music. 

My media cohort included other young journalists, composers, and teachers, and all of us were or are musicians in some capacity. Our mentors were from New York public radio – John Schaefer of New Sounds through WNYC, and Terrence McKnight from WQXR, New York’s own classical public radio station. Together we pitched story ideas, discussed interviewing skills, endured group feedback sessions on our drafts. But one unique difference in this setting was the absence of competition. We were all driven to produce interesting, heartfelt stories, but without the pressure of next-day deadlines or the fear of a story getting cut in favor of another. This environment opened me to receive feedback and make revisions without those added pressures.

Media workshop mentors, Terrence McKnight and John Schaefer, during their LOUD weekend talk: Media’s Place In the New Music Ecosystem. Courtesy of Leona Oliveros

While my host fellowship gave me time to hone in on the storytelling style of Classical KING, this media workshop challenged me to play around with a few different narrative styles. Between my first story and last stories published through New Sounds, I played around with subtle narrative differences. 

For instance, in my first story where I report ahead on composer Annika Socolofsky’s LOUD weekend performance, I took on a neutral tone, letting interview snippets of the composer really shine while she talks about her changing relationship with her composition, Don’t Say a Word. In my second story, I focused on a single lunchtime recital where an Australian violist performs a Tasmanian composition. This was the very first performance from the week that truly took my breath away, so I allowed more of my own reaction to the music bleed into the final story. My final feature was an 8-minute audio story focusing on the spirit of creativity that Bang on a Can fosters. A through-line in all my interactions with both faculty and fellows was the tensions many musicians face in their careers between following the traditional classical path or exploring a new world of artistry. For this larger piece I made the effort to incorporate as many recordings and sound bites from my week there in order to showcase the level and variety of innovative music performance happening  at Bang on a Can.

A performance from LOUD Weekend of Julius Eastman’s piece, Guerilla Gay. Courtesy of Leona Oliveros

As a media fellow, the spirit of creativity was also present for me. I exercised my interviewing skills without the pressure of a live broadcast, and since all the fellows are also early in their careers, there was a mutual respect in our interactions. It may all sound like serious work, but there were plenty of moments where work and play blended together, like with my participation in the Orchestra of Original Instruments led by Mark Stewart. PVC pipes, whirly tubes, and balloons became instruments, as we were encouraged to let go of perfection and lean into the larger experiment of it all. As composers, musicians, and journalists, we were all learning together in this loving environment.

The Bang on a Can media workshop helped me grow as a storyteller and music-lover. It was an environment where music and creativity were encouraged and where challenges were embraced. Since my return from the festival, I have been looking at local musical programming, both in and outside of Classical KING, with a new lens. There will always be comfort in concerts with familiar repertoire and popular performers, but now I am excited to see music I do not recognize, with ensembles I have not heard of before, as a reminder of the ever-growing nature of contemporary music.