At one point in the new Broadway play 33 Variations (starring Jane Fonda!), a character says, “I don’t know what I’m listening to, but it sure sounds like classical music.” That’s the feeling I have too whenever I hear Mozart, or Debussy, or anything on WNYC. The haze of notes is always compelling, but I have no idea what they mean.
Fortunately Nico Muhly isn’t all haughty like most classical-music types. The tall 27-year-old composer is unfailingly charming, and when I interviewed him at his New York Chinatown pad on Valentine’s Day, several floors above a sweatshop and a mahjong parlor, we talked at length about the way he’s made his genre more accessible. (A Metropolitan Opera commission about an online teenage homerotic love triangle? Whaaaat?) He was preparing for performances of his work later that week at Lincoln Center and at Los Angeles’s Disney Hall (the same day as the Oscars, actually, where the film he scored, The Reader, was up for several awards); he was also finishing the arrangements for his friend Ed Droste’s band Grizzly Bear, who were to play with the Brooklyn Philharmonic a few weeks later. Muhly’s sexy red lips, only slightly color-corrected, adorned the cover of his last album, Mothertongue, and it got me thinking. Guys of a certain sensibility (like me) have always wanted to get with rocker guys. But now I’m starting to think that composer guys are more to my liking… Alas, this one’s taken.
Sean Kennedy: How did you end up in Chinatown?
Nico Muhly: I’ve always loved loved loved Chinatown. It’s so crazy. I had this illegal sublet on 116th Street with this roommate and two years ago, we got evicted basically. I was away, in Iceland or something like that, and I was like, “Just go down to Chinatown and see what you find.” So she came down here and saw a bunch of places and they were all kind of hideous shitholes, and then she found this place and sent me a cell-phone picture. We ended up here really by accident, but I’ve never been happier. It’s so good.
SK: It’s so crazy down here - does that influence your work at all?
NM: It does play off of it more. You can have a chaotic day naturally: If you want to go buy three things, it’s like an adventure. When I was living on the Upper West Side, you could have this very bougie morning and here, no. There’s an elementary school right there [pointing out the window] and you hear their morning announcements at eight o’ clock over this megaphone, like “Britney Fong, you left your backpack in the nurse’s office!” You see those handprints on the window? [Points to the window behind his workspace.] Chinese children play there! That’s their day care! It’s a big pain in the ass actually. For two years I’m like, I’m going to buy a fucking curtain! Or a storm door! Obviously you can see I have expensive gear, and all that it would take to take it is just opening the window from the outside. I’m actually amazed that people haven’t come in here and taken my shit.
SK: It reminds me of that new Microsoft ad, with the four-year-old Chinese-American girl Photoshopping a picture!
NM: They should not advertise that! It’s a dumb thing because it’s like two degrees away from “hey little girl, send me pictures of yourself.” I miss seeing ads - that’s the one cultural thing I miss not having a TV. I saw one for toilet paper that was the most outrageous thing. This advertisement was making really explicit reference to poo, and shitting.
SK: On that note, let’s move on! When I was talking to the EVB boys about interviewing you, they were like, “Do you know anything about classical music?” And I said, “Not really.” And they were like, “Ok, you’re perfect!”
NM: [Laughs.]
SK: So I wanted to start there. How would you describe classical music to a lay person?
NM: Music that’s been around since the beginning of time, and then certain people wrote it down. That was classical music, from 1200 until today. It’s notated music, it’s - I don’t know, it’s hard to define. It has to do with the environment in which you see it, number one. None of these things are actual rules. In general, if you’ve paid for a seat and you go and sit down and there’s quietness between movements of things, you’re probably witnessing classical music. [Laughs.] Then again, you can say a string quartet playing at Le Poisson Rouge is classical music.
SK: Is that one of the places you like to hang out?
NM: Yeah, I do. I’m still a little mystified by it.
SK: Why? I haven’t been yet.
NM: Go, it’s fun. The only thing that’s confusing about it is the wine: a couple of cheap things and then a lot of really expensive bottles of red. Who would buy a $300 bottle? It’s in a basement, there’s not even a view! [Laughs.]
SK: It’s a recession, everybody’s trying to make a buck.
NM: I know, you can totally get tables now in places downtown, it’s so good.
SK: How would you describe what you’re doing in the vernacular of classical music?
NM: Well, the bread and butter of what I do in terms of how I make money is commissions. A really straight up one-to-one ratio between someone paying me x amount of money to write x number of minutes for x number of instruments. It’s very simple actually. On the other hand I have a real interest in working in the studio, just to see what happens in it. Classical music is put together through an elaborate series of financial pathways involving many, many people, and the way that it’s performed - it’s very complicated. Whereas working in the studio, you can keep it kind of among friends. It’s an easier way to work. And in that department, I have many projects, in which I use everything I know from the classical tradition, but it’s being applied in a not necessarily traditionally structured way. I can get away with doing that because I spend so much of my time writing the movement I’m told to write.
SK: Yeah, you’re very prolific. Are you a workaholic?
NM: I am, yes.
SK: How many things are you working on right now, in various stages of development?
NM: Uncountable. Various stages of development - that’s exactly the way. There’s a thing I have to go through and edit where the dynamic markings are. Then I’m making revisions to the Grizzly Bear arrangements - I’m thinking of things I’m going to do after you leave - and then I’m writing a two-minute revision to an older piece that a friend’s trying to play in this other concert. And if I have time I’ll write a scene of this opera that I’m writing for a million years.
SK: And then you have performances of your work, like your show at Lincoln Center this week.
NM: I have rehearsals for that tomorrow. And that’s fun because that’s older stuff and some new things.
SK: And then you’re in LA this weekend, right?
NM: The Los Angeles Master Chorale is doing a piece of mine from 2003 at Disney Hall on Sunday. And the movie I scored is up for Best Picture at the Oscars, so I have to deal with that. When they announce the movie, the orchestra has to play the thing - oh [looks at new text message]. Ed, jesus...
SK: Is that Ed Droste?
NM: Yeah, he wants his arrangements. But he gonna have to wait! Anyway, they have to play a scene from the thing and so I have to choose what that is and arrange it for them.
SK: All these simultaneous projects would make me anxious, but they seem to be integrated seamlessly into your life.
NM: Yeah, it’s pretty integrated. I mean, it’s funny, people ask me, like my boyfriend, “What are you doing today?” I dunno, I’m sititing in front of my work and shaking my body at until it’s done, until dinner time. [Laughs.] There’s no real plan.
SK: You may quibble with the phrase “it boy,” but that’s what you’ve become, in New York especially, as a classical-music composer. It’s like you’re popularizing classical music for a generation that would otherwise be listening to indie rock or hip hop.
NM: I try to be as good an ambassador for the stuff that I like. I’m sort of aware of it on a very interpersonal level with my friends. Like, I know I have friends that I’ll lure into coming to these concerts and then they’ll develop their own relationship with the music that continues outside of my curation.
SK: But the notion of being an ambassador...
NM: Doing classical music is weird enough that people always have questions about it. And outside of the world of classical music, one tends not to know too many classical musicians. Anyway, because I’m involved in so many things I meet a lot of people who don’t necessarily have access to classical music and I guess I’m enthusiastic about it and it’s infectious. I guess?
SK: On your website you blog about music you’re listening to and that you think other people should be listening to too.
NM: Well, I think it should be the same thing as if you go over to someone’s house and they have interesting music on.
SK: Speaking of which, friends of mine or guys that I’m dating have had on your music.
NM: No shit! That’s awesome. That always makes me really happy to know that strangers can get it. I’ve had the weirdest experiences. I was in 88 Orchard, that coffee shop, like two months ago, and some scruffy indie kid comes up to me and he’s like, “Hey, I got your music in my iPod right now!” [Laughs.] It’s amazing when that happens. I’ve been trying, through the website, to make music not necessarily available to listen to, but just available to be talked about the way we talk about stuff. Not so you have to talk about it in this elevated discourse of reviews - not taking it too seriously almost.
SK: Are you on Twitter?
NM: I just started Twittering last week. I was scared of it for awhile. Now I’m okay.
SK: Why were you scared?
NM: For me the point of Twitter is the language has to be funny. I don’t think you’re actually meant to say what you’re doing, like I’m at the store, I’m at the this.
SK: I think it’s a little bit of both. You obviously want to entertain.
NM: It wants to entertain and it wants to almost be like the most genius thing you can think of about your situation right now. And when I go on and see the aggregate of everyone’s, that to me is overwhelming. The person I think who’s best at it is the boy who designed my website, Nick. His Twitter is hysterical because all he does is write down really funny sentences. No matter what he’s saying, the sentence itelf is really well-crafted.
SK: What’s yours?
NM: Just @nicomuhly. I had a really good moment recently. I was in the DMV and a million Chinese people were there, all the employees were black, and there was a CD player that had “Kung Fu Fighting” on repeat. Literally, it was on for the first 20 minutes I was there. If I blogged it then what I would have to do is - there’s this crazy dissertation on the origins of the Asian riff. So you have to go there, cite examples, and just talk about the nature of race baiting. On Twitter you’re just like, “I was at the DMV and there were mad Chinese people there and they were playing “Kung Fu Fighting”! Thank you. [Laughs.]
SK: As much as you’re widely acclaimed, one of the knocks against you, as it were, is that your work often has a surfeit of prettiness to it. And you’ve responded that beauty is something you think about it all the time!
NM: [Laughs.]
SK: So I wanted to ask you: What’s the most beautiful experience you’ve ever had?
NM: Um, there’s a class of experience: If you’re having a dinner party, a bunch of people you know are all together, if everyone’s outside. My birthday in Vermont a couple years ago this happened in the most genius way. Everyone was outside and talking and it was just the right temperature, a little chill in the air but still summer, and I just walked away, up a hill. If you look down you see this cluster of people, and you’re alone. You can kind of make out words that people are saying and you can see stars and - I think that’s what it probably feels like to be dead. That, to me, is the best thing.
SK: Incredible answer. I have no idea what I would’ve come up with so quickly.
NM: There’s a specific class of experience like that.
We asked Nico to give us a peek at his current high-rotation playlist...
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The Butcher - Final Fantasy / Turn Me On (Kevin Lyttle cover) - CocoRosie / Mit Fried Und Freud Ich Fahr Dahin - Collegium Vocale/Orchestra Anima Eterna and The Royal Consort, dir. Jos van Immerseel (that just rolls off the tongue) / My Name is Daiel Pearl (I'm a Jewish-American from Encino California) - Steve Reich / Hungarian Rock - György Ligeti / Coloana - György Ligeti / The Singer - Teitur / Eyes of a Cloud Catcher - Agent Fresco
SK: So what’s the status of the opera you’re doing for the Met?
NM: The status is they’re over there [points to work area]. I have some scenes written.
SK: When will people be able to see it?
NM: 2012.
SK: From what I’ve read it’s about a true-crime story in which a 14-year-old British boy uses chat rooms to lure another boy to meet him, only to kill him.
NM: He doesn’t actually die.
SK: Well that’s good! How did you arrive at this subject matter?
NM: I read some articles about it and filed it away. There was a big thing in Vanity Fair, a bunch of stuff on the BBC. It was really interesting, and it was a contemporary story to my own life. Those people were my age basically - they’re a little bit younger. They got the internet in their houses the same time I did, when I was 15, and it was like, woah, what’s this? Mischief is to be had on this! Are you like 20?
SK: I’m 31.
NM: You would’ve been out of high school by the time it got into your house, right?
SK: Nooooo. We were an early-adopter family. I had internet when I was 14. And I remember very specifically going online and chatting. It was like my sexual awakening.
NM: Yeah, exactly. People of this generation started having relationships with people online, even non-sexual ones. Like my roommate who moved out, she and I were really good friends online, as a separate entity from the fact that we were also friends in real life. It was the ’90s, and a lot of people at high school were using instant messenger, where you sorta talked to people you wouldn’t normally talk to - and then you’d see them in the hall and you wouldn’t. I thought that was really interesting as a thing. And then this story is the most amazing example of that being taken to extreme.
SK: So you were interested in the online-culture piece.
NM: Yeah, and also it’s so operatic. An opera loves disguise, deceit, mistaken identity. If you think about the classic operas, like Mozart operas, there’s always that: the countess is actually the shepherdess in disguise.
SK: So it had built-in requirements.
NM: Plus it’s a love story, crime story, crime of passion - it’s totally an opera.
SK: And did these guys even have sex?
NM: Just a little bit. [Laughs.] What happened was, the younger one invented this girl, Rachel, and Rachel was online girlfriends with the older boy - they had cybersex or whatever. The younger boy then becomes jealous of the relationship of the older boy and the person he invented, a.k.a. him, so he kills her off. He invents a whole other set of characters who break into her house and rape her and kill her. This violent, violent rape. And then when the older boy asks why he didn’t read about it in the papers, he invents a police woman who tells the older boy that it was kept hush hush. So the older boy is devastated that his girlfriend is dead. And then the younger boy goes over to the older boy’s house pretending to be the dead girl’s brother and offers him solace and possibly something more, but it’s unclear. I can’t wait to write it.
SK: It seems edgy for the opera world, but I guess it’s a sign of the times.
NM: For me it doesn't seem edgy. It’s less edgy than SVU.
SK: But when you look at the whole narrative...
NM: No, it’s crazy. But Don Giovanni’s pretty crazy too: it starts out with him being like, “I’ve got all these bitches!” Opera has enough incest and rape and murder. The reason people are titillated by this is because it takes place online. And for me the challenge, of course, is to not make That Gay Online Opera. So the way I’m avoiding that is by not using any electronic instruments - it’s never going to be the sound of Tron when they go online [he simulates cliché high-pitched computer noises]. I’m keeping it very acoustic, and it’s going to be very sensual. The way I’m conceiving of it is that the internet is going to be a masked ball almost, with a glamour and a formality to it, rather than it being beeps and blips.
SK: It must feel amazing to work on it.
NM: Yeah, I guess. It just feels like a lot of work at this point. The thing about cool commissions is that it’s cool for about two seconds and then you have to write the fucking thing. [Laughs.]
SK: I have to ask you about some of the major talents you’ve collaborated with over the years, starting with Philip Glass, for whom you worked for years. What’s he like? He’s an icon of modern music!
NM: He is so not iconic in person. He’s completely down to earth, a chilled-out old Buddhist. He’s completely zen: He’s really hard to get worked-up. He and I worked on a lot of films, and films are very high stress, and he’s a machine. He gets up a zero in the morning and just turns it out. It’s really admirable. It’s a job for him. He doesn’t talk about it.
SK: And Antony, of course, who’s so of-the-moment right now with his new album. How’d you guys meet?
NM: Through Philip, actually. Philip and Laurie Anderson had to do some show together in 2002 and they were each asked to play 20 minutes, So they each asked a younger person of their acquaintance to do ten minutes, to share it with them. She asked him and he asked me.
SK: And you’ve been friends ever since. What’s he like?
NM: He’s great. I don’t know how to put it into words. He’s a very sensitive musician. He comes out of that downtown performance scene, so he’s kind of outrageous. He’s fun to work with.
SK: You did some of the arrangements on The Crying Light.
NM: Yeah, his songs, on the last album and the album before that, are very simple, in terms of just chord progressions and the like, where the new one exists in this more landscape-y thing. It’s very odd and very brave, especially because his voice does the thing that it does very well when it’s super simple. I love seeing these complexities just to see how it’ll fall. I’m spoiled because I worked on it,
SK: And what about Ed?
NM: We met through a friend of a friend, who said, “You’d love this guy Ed.” So we had a drink and were like, yeah, this is really fun! [Laughs.] It’s good to have someone in your life that you can call up at 4:30 and say, “Wanna go get some oysters?” And he to I and I to him fall under that. One of the things I have huge anxiety about is that I don’t have a nine-to-five job, so I’m like really motivated about when I work and structuring the day so that I don’t feel like this scroll of misery. Even having one appointment in a day is really useful. For instance, you were coming over today, and then this and that and that. So what’s great about someone like Ed is that he also has all the time in the world and little appointments scattered around the week, and we can sort of take advantage of each other’s schedule’s in that way and, impromptu, go eat fish. [Laughs.]
SK: And then there’s Björk! You have a long association with her and you’ve spent so much time in Iceland that you’re practically an honorary citizen.
NM: I’ve actually never worked with her there. Every time I’ve worked with her it’s been here.
SK: How did you get connected?
NM: Through a friend of hers. She needed something real specific for Medulla, this one song. She was like, I need someone who can play really fast and also do this exploding thing. There were probably like two people who had that exact expertise and were available that afternoon.
SK: Aside from the great thermal baths, what is it that appeals to you about Iceland?
NM: The community is organized in such a way that, to me, is really satisfying. It’s a bunch of things kind of together. I love what they do with children: Everyone has a lot of kids and you bring them places - there’s no preciousness about it. It just seems like how you want your community to function.
SK: Like a utopia?
NM: I hate to use that word because it romanticizes it - it’s not perfect, obviously, but it’s incredibly conducive to being an artist. You can count on people to care about what you’re trying to do, to not give you a hard time. There’s not a sense of “what’s your real job?” if you’re a musician. And even if you do have a real job, there’s not that shame. It’s just structured very differently. It’s a total pleasure to work there.
SK: I heard you can speak Icelandic.
NM: I’m okay.
SK: Can you say something now?
NM: No, I’m not going to. [Laughs.]
SK: Come on, say something!
NM: [Something Icelandic-sounding.] It’s too hard, I’m too awful.
SK: Did you just say something?
NM: Yeah.
SK: What?
NM: “What do you want me to say?” [Laughs.]
SK: [Laughs.] Okay, I think we’re done here. What are you and the boyfriend doing for Valentine’s Day?
NM: We’re going to get troutlings at the Harrison! They have these possibly illegal baby trout that they just deep-fat fry whole. I’m really into them.
Photographs of Nico (relaxing in LA) shot for EVB by Christopher Dibble
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