When Do We Clap?
In an endlessly chaotic world, most people used to prefer and hope for silence in any way they can get it. A busy day at work, a dreaded commute, a long day of schools packed with people; we used to hope for calming silence in anyway we could get it. By March of 2020, the world finally fell silent. An international pandemic swept the globe and whether officials under or overreacted, the world stood still. There was no work or anywhere to commute, no school, and no sound of bustling bodies anywhere public. The world was quiet, and music was held hostage.
We live in the information age, where the entire world is quite literally at our fingertips, but in all of the streaming we lost what music really is; music is the living, breathing embodiment of human interaction. Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music went from daily privileges to absolute necessities in the silence and isolation of quarantine for Americans and citizens in countries around the world. This sufficed for some months and we made do; we were resilient in the face of uncertainty. Eventually, however, we began to crave the “in the moment” experience of live performance; we have missed live music. While some people missed what the world was and missed the opportunity to enjoy something live, others forged on and saw only a light at the end of the tunnel. Men like Edwin Guevara Gutierrez, and Dr. Matthew Mugmon saw only opportunity to return to normalcy rather than longing for what once was.
Dr. Mugmon is a professor with the University of Arizona and renowned for his knowledge of classical music and it’s masters such as Gustav Mahler, Hector Berlioz, Igor Stravinsky, and anyone else who has made a tremendous impact in the history of Western Music. For his Intro to Music Literature class, he programed the series, “premieres across history,” in which students such as myself studied pivotal premieres in the history of performed music. For this very series, he was able to commission a piece, Ibero-American Landscapes, by the composer Edwin Guevara Gutierrez during the pandemic. Despite the uncertainty of the times the performance was scheduled, and then presented live. After over a year of silence, a live piece of music was not only performed, but actually premiered to the entire world. Being in the audience was a fantastic experience, but my fellow colleagues and I were almost unsure of the atmosphere we were in. We began to question our concert etiquette and our demeanor in every way as most of us had not seen live music in over a year. The entire premiere was as mesmerizing as it was shocking to everyone in attendance.
The piece was written for a quartet featuring Diana Schaible(Flute), Cecilia Palma(Cello), Misael Barraza Diaz(Guitar), and the composer of the piece Edwin Guevara Gutierrez(Guitar). Gutierrez wanted to capture the essence of music from across the globe in Ibero-American Landscapes while stamping his own signature on the piece. He did this by employing a unique system of creating a scale from each performer’s name, and then going as far as dictating the origins of each rhythm to be played in the piece not only by name, but by county it is common to (see figures A&B). The way Gutierrez created scales specific to each person’s name is also interesting. He numbered each letter of their name, summed the numbers, assigned each note in the chromatic scale a number, and used whatever notes coincided with the numbers assigned to each name. This technique is reminiscent of serialism techniques employed by the greats such as Stravinsky, but Gutierrez was able to keep tonality in mind by using the scales truly as scales and harmonizing melodies using them. Gutierrez was truly ingenious in his crafting of this masterpiece, but the premiere itself is where the music was created.
The first portion of the premiere was a live rehearsal for the quartet, opened and followed by some words from Dr. Mugmon. As we filed in, the aura was stagnant. The piece was premiered on April 29,2021, by the Tucson lbero-American Quartet in Crowder Hall at the Fred Fox School of Music in Tucson, AZ. The world still felt quiet as we signed into the performance and made masked smiles at our colleagues who we had rarely had the chance to meet and interact with. Even through the rehearsal time, the performance felt quiet, as if everyone was shocked that we had the opportunity to experience a premiere from a well-known composer in person. We had studied whether or not there was a brawl at Stravinsky’s premiere of Rite of Spring, and the criticisms of pieces such as Orfeo during the premiere, but we were about to see one in person; we were about to witness what was possibly the first world premiere of music in months. The real test of whether or not our concert etiquette was impacted by the pandemic or not was on full display immediately after Dr. Mugmon spoke to introduce the piece and the quartet. Following his words of gratitude to the school for putting on the performance and his thanks to the performers, no one clapped. I questioned myself thoroughly as to whether or not to clap. I was inspired by Dr. Mugmon’s words and excited for the premiere, but I was unsure of what used to be so natural. I looked around the audience only to see a handful of students raise their hands to clap and question themselves too. As the curtains opened and the performers filed out, claps slowly rattles in one at a time. I would like to think that the claps were for the performers, but it felt as if we were giving a round of applause to the resilience of these performers for having their careers halted, only to premiere a new piece of music a year later. The piece began and the musicians were nothing but accurate. Time, timbre, and tone lined up across the board as if these musicians had played the piece in every concert hall in America before performing for us. It only took a moment for them to perform the piece. Before we knew it they were standing and bowing to the audience, and the applause were flooding in without so much as a second thought. The performance was executed to perfection.
Following the performance, the world seemed to come back to life. I spoke to my colleagues and Dr. Mugmon for the first time, but as if we were long time acquaintances. I walked to my car and felt like the world was alive again; I felt like music was back in our lives. For this premiere of Iber-American Landscapes and the perseverance of Dr. Matthew Mugmon, I will forever give my applause.
