By: Dr. Matt Warnock
Born into a musical family, Stephen Funk Pearson began his musical career early by taking piano lessons and turning pages at his parents’ organ and harpsichord recitals. A gifted multi-instrumentalist, Pearson also sang in church choirs and taught himself to play guitar, drums, flute, mandolin, harmonic, saxophone, cello and bass. Pearson was also influenced at a young age by popular music and cut his teeth early on playing in bluegrass, folk, jazz and rock groups, for which he also contributed as a songwriter. These diverse influences, and his ability to perform on many different instruments, have helped Pearson develop a unique voice as a composer in the realm of modern classical music.
Receiving degrees from Vassar College and Hunter College, Pearson has studied with some of the world’s foremost guitar pedagogues, including Alexander Bellow, Frederick Hand and David Russell. He has also studied composition with Robert Middleton, Lenox Berkeley and Annea Lockwood. As a student Pearson received several prestigious awards including the Dr. Benno E . Lee Award and a Maguire Fellowship, that allowed him to spend two years studying music in Europe, during which time he attended the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy.
Pearson’s compositions are currently published by Guitar Solo Publications, Theodore Presser and Doberman-Yppan. They can be heard on CD’s by artists from around the world and premieres of his music have taken place at major concert halls including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Recital Hall, and Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.
Stephen Funk Pearson recently sat down with Guitar International Magazine to discuss his latest album Artists Around the World Perform Stephen Funk Pearson, his unique approach to composition and his thoughts on surviving as a composer in the twenty-first century.
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Matt Warnock: The album Artists Around the World Perform Stephen Funk Pearson is a collection of musicians performing your works. What was the inspiration for putting together this diverse collection of artists performing your music?
Stephen Funk Pearson: I came up with the idea when a friend of mine asked if I’d googled myself, and I hadn’t. So I did, and I found a bunch of people all over the world who were performing and recording my music, which I hadn’t previously known about. I checked out the recordings, some of which I liked and some I didn’t, and I started to think that all of my pieces were scattered around these different recordings, so why not just bring them together on one CD. I picked the one’s I liked the best and took it from there.
Matt: What were some of the challenges you faced? I could see where it would be difficult to find a good mix for the album when you’re dealing with all sorts of instruments, ensembles and stylistic interpretations of your music and you have no control over how they were recorded in the first place.
Stephen: Right. There was quite a bit to be done in the mastering of the record. I had a great engineer helping me with the mastering process, who told me at one point that I had pushed him to the limit with the things that I wanted him to do. I think the results speak for themselves, but there were lots and lots of issues from a recording and mastering standpoint.
Matt: What is the chronology for the pieces on the album, how much of your career do they span?
Stephen: They’re pretty much scattered across my career with the newest one being “Copasfivah,” the marimba and guitar piece. There’s also a piece on there that I wrote a while back called “Sea Peace” that I recently rearranged for violin, mandolin and guitar trio. Both of those were recordings that I put together, one was done in France and the other in Boston. Those pieces hadn’t been recorded previously. Also, the solo piece “Jaringhe” from Australia, was one that hadn’t been recorded before.
Matt: When deciding on which of the previously recorded tracks you would use on the album did you find pieces that you had always wanted to record and never had the chance, or did you pick pieces that had the best recording quality and performances?
Stephen: I never had the intention of necessarily recording them myself. They were published and out there, and the versions I picked were just great performances. I liked the fact that other people were recording my music and so I went with that theme when selecting the pieces for the record.
Matt: There’s a quote in the liner notes that says that you usually sit in the back of the concert hall when hearing your pieces performed so you can get out of there quickly if need be. As a performer and a composer do you find it’s more nerve racking to see others perform your music because of the lack of control you have as an audience member, compared to if you were performing the music yourself?
Stephen: Yeah, I would say that’s an accurate statement. Sometimes I just don’t know where people are coming from when they play one of my pieces. My music is kind of a melding between classical and popular influences and performers have to be classical musicians because of the technical requirements, but they should also be able to play jazz and make things swing when they have to.
If they don’t have that side to their playing it can be difficult to listen to sometimes. In fact, in the first quartet on the album “Elassomorph,” there is a whole jazz section in the piece and I’ve been to concerts where that section has been completely dropped from the performance because the musicians couldn’t handle the jazz style. So I do like to sit in the back sometimes. Laughs.
Matt: “Elassomorph” has strong American folk music influences, but it was played by a Salzburg based quartet. What was it like hearing an Austrian quartet playing a piece that uses bluegrass, folk and country music in it?
Stephen: I haven’t heard it live but I thought they did a great job on the recording. The only thing they did differently from what I wrote in the score is the section where they snap their fingers. In the score I had written for the performers to say out loud “1,2,3 let’s go.” I’ve had other groups do that differently as well. Some people, especially if they’re not native English speakers might not be comfortable with the text, so they do different things there.
I just heard a Hamburg based quartet that recorded that piece and they really ham it up. They throw a kazoo in there and some other funky stuff. They just sent me a preliminary recording and they had me laughing at the stuff they were doing, in a good way. It’s all open to interpretation and so it’s great to hear an Austrian group interpret American folk music, it’s a unique perspective that comes out in the music.
Matt: How do you react when you hear a group perform one of your pieces and they’ve reinterpreted sections of the work like that? Do you prefer that performers stick to the score as closely as possibly when playing your pieces?
Stephen: It all depends on the piece and what they end up doing. A lot of my pieces are open to a great deal of interpretation by the performer, and I often say that in the score. For example, the other quartet piece on the album, “Mummychogs,” has a ton of room for interpretation. The flute piece also has sections where I let the performers just go off on their own.
Sometimes people prefer to read what I’ve written, while others prefer more freedom. As far as what people do with it, that’s always a crapshoot. Like the quartet that added the kazoo, that cracked me up. I’m not sure how I’d react if I went back and listened to it again, but it’d probably still crack me up. Laughs.
Matt: Since you write music that draws from a wide variety of stylistic backgrounds, do you find it difficult, even in America, to find musicians who can play jazz, blues, bluegrass, country and classical music at a high level?
Stephen: Yeah, definitely. That’s why I was happy when the duo in France were able to pull off “Copasfivah.” I did work with them quite a bit on it, but I could tell when they first learned it and sent me a preliminary recording that they had it down. They had the feel and just had it.
That’s also one of the reasons that I chose to use other people’s recordings on the album. I might have some people to come in and record that maybe wouldn’t get my music. Whereas with the prerecorded material I was dealing with groups that already had a strong sense of my music and had solid interpretations. That was part of my thinking when I went into this project.
Matt: That tune, “Copasfivah,” has a nice musical dichotomy happening between the chords in the guitar and the percussive lines in the marimba. How do you approach writing a piece for two distinct instruments like the guitar and marimba?
Stephen: I really like the sound of those two instruments together, and I consider the guitar to be percussive as well. The marimba also has this special sound quality to it. Those two different sounds just inspired me to do what I could to make the most of their voices. Certainly, they’re complimenting each other in different ways, but also I think the fact that we recorded it in this sixteenth century church, it has a great natural sound to it. I think that also helped in making the recording come out as well as it did.
Matt: Your piece “Mountain Morning” is written for flute and guitar and features some extended techniques from the flute. Do you often mix more modern, extended techniques in your music as a compliment to your folk-based style?
Stephen: I’ve played flute myself and I in the case of that piece it was just a matter of trying to bring the sounds of nature, wind and birds, to the piece. That was the purpose in using those extended techniques. I use the instruments in a similar way for “Sea Peace,” where I’m trying to get the sounds of the sea and the sounds of the boat out of the instruments.
I’m not only pushing the instruments to the limit, in ways they’re not used to being played, I’ve also had to develop new forms of notation in order to convey those sounds on paper. The players on “Sea Peace” just knew what to do right away. I almost didn’t have to give them any suggestions. They really understood the notation and just did a great job with the music.
Matt: There are two pieces on the album, “Mountain Morning” and “Jaringhe,” that begin with spoken poems. Do you write a lot of poetry and if so, do you often mix it with your compositions?
Stephen: I’ve written lots of songs for different bands, rock and roll and folk sorts of things. I’ve always been writing lyrics to go along with my songs in those cases. For the two pieces on the album the poems just kind of happened. Every piece is different, and I had the poems written so I thought why not include them with those pieces? They seemed to fit very well and I like how they turned out.
Matt: Since you are an accomplished guitarist yourself, do you prefer to compose on the guitar or away from the guitar?
Stephen: If I get an idea on the guitar and it starts out there I tend to keep going that route. If I get an idea from a keyboard, or just off the top of my head, I may just finish it without the guitar. It all depends how it starts to shape up and what instruments I’m writing it for. I might even pick up a different instrument and see where that takes me. It all depends on the piece, every time is kind of different.
Matt: You chose to include two different versions of “Mountain Moor” on the album, that act as quasi-bookmarks for the record. What made you decide to include two versions of this particular piece on the CD?
Stephen: I wrote the piece for violin or mandolin, and it’s been recorded also by two guitars and other instruments. It’s my most well known work, the one that’s been recorded and performed the most. I like the idea that the record is more like a program, which has a beginning and an end. I really see it as being a cohesive whole. Having “Mountain Moor” at the beginning and end, with two different recorded versions, helps to make the record feel like a unit. It’s almost like one of my compositions where there’s an introduction and a related conclusion.
Matt: It seems like a lot of composers these days are associated with a college or university. As someone who is not currently teaching do find that it’s more difficult to get your works out there, because of the lack of support from a large institution like a university, or is there more freedom because you aren’t tied down to an institution?
Stephen: I actually like it this way. I don’t like to do the same thing over and over, I like to do my music but I don’t necessarily like to do it all day long. I like to be in the country and to travel. I didn’t want to make music my whole life. I make my money doing other things so I don’t have to try and make a living off of music. It’s nice to make some money with my music and I’m happy when people buy my CD’s, but I don’t even pretend to make a living with my music.
Matt: Do you think it’s possible in today’s society to be a non-commercial composer and survive without working a day job?
Stephen: I think that’s preferable anyway. If it’s possible to make a living just composing it might become too much. I think composers need to have other things going on in their life, even if just for inspiration. There’s also the risk of burning out if someone is doing the same thing day in and day out. I prefer to make a living doing other things. That way music never seems like a burden to me, I love the time I get to spend doing it.
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Links
Artists Around the World on CD Baby
Artists Around the World on Amazon
Classical Guitar and Beyond Book and CD’s on Amazon
