Speak For Change With Thomas Sage Pedersen
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Speak For Change With Thomas Sage Pedersen
Ep.152 Exploring the Intersection of Sound and Imagination: The Creative World of Bora Yoon
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Can sound transform your everyday life into a symphony? Join us on Speak for Change as we explore the extraordinary creative world of Bora Yoon, an interdisciplinary artist and musician.
From her early days with classical instruments to her passion for choral and experimental music, discover how influential artists like Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, and Björk shaped her journey.
Bora opens up about her unique approach to music, the significance of archetypal personas, and how dream language deeply influences her performances.
Dive into the captivating interplay between sound, noise, and music as Bora elucidates the concept of perfect pitch and its magical ability to turn mundane sounds into compelling musical compositions.
We discuss the fusion of sound design and music composition, drawing parallels to surrealist films and the evocative power of sound memories. This episode brings to light the challenges creative individuals face, from economic hurdles to personal limitations, and how these obstacles can sometimes fuel innovative artistry.
Experience the eclectic world of orchestral percussion and experimental notation through Bora's lens, highlighting her piece "Parhelion" created for the Cabrillo Festival. The conversation touches on the intricate process of integrating diverse musical elements, the influence of astrology, and the spiritual impact of natural phenomena on her work. We reflect on the evolving arts landscape, the importance of diverse musical identities, and the need for an inclusive music theory curriculum.
This episode is a treasure trove for anyone passionate about the boundless possibilities of creative expression in music.
Exploring Creativity Through Music
Speaker 1Hi, I'm your host, thomas Sage Pedersen, and welcome to Speak for Change podcast, where we explore positive and lasting change in all areas of life. Our next guest is interdisciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and Korean American composer, bora Yoon Bora. Welcome to Speak for Change.
Speaker 2Hello, nice to be here. Thank you for having me, yeah.
Speaker 1It's an honor to have you on. I saw your piece last year and my ex-wife actually asked. When we were together she saw you at the coffee shop shop and she noticed your tattoos and when I got your CD she looked at the scene. She's like those are the exact same thing of this person who came in to the coffee shop. You know, it was like an awesome connection there.
Speaker 2Oh, that was the surf shop coffee shop.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm in love with her now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm doing it for her now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So I was like, oh, man, there's like all these fun little connections here and there, but I just wanted to dive in and just be. You know what got you into music, Like how long have you been into music? Like what's?
Speaker 2going on. Well, music has been like my best friend since being a kid yeah, Probably my oldest friend, or you know, I remember so I've been probably since I was five. I started piano.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And that was like my first love and I remember literally coming back from family vacations missing the piano and being very excited to see her again, just because that's where I felt the most at home. I guess, or the most centered or the most myself. So, no matter where I am, yeah, I actually usually always gravitate towards the piano. So, yeah, I grew up first playing classical piano and then classical violin and orchestra around seven, like Suzuki training and all the normal Asian upbringing stuff and then started singing in grade school, which was actually like my that was then.
Speaker 2another great love of mine was actually choral music, discovering kind of just this beautiful canon and also the sounds that you can make and how dynamic a choir can be. So yeah, I would say choral and orchestral and classical piano was kind of my first, my foundational base.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And then that started branching out, then further into like singer-songwriter work. Right, I was learning classical voice, but that was more training me towards opera and I really wanted to learn how to sing songs that were. You know, my influences at the time in high school were like Anita Franco, Tori Amos', work, Beth Gibbons from Portishead. I would say those four women kind of musically raised me.
Speaker 1What a good upbringing they got there.
Speaker 2Well, they're really kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1And.
Speaker 2I remember learning lots of different things from each one. You know Ani DeFranco is so good at making whip-smart lyrics and Mike Drop kind of.
Speaker 2you know, one-liners that are very powerful and very impactful and their delivery is very clear and articulate. Tori Amos, on the other hand, I remember learning from her that you could read the lyrics and they might not make any sense, but when she sings them, they make perfect sense, and I remember being like how is that the case, you know? But she taps into the subconscious in such an incredible way and I think that's her strength, is actually her ability to, um, kind of become an archetype when she sings. And so, even though, um, your cerebral brain might read these lyrics a certain way, as soon as it's embodied and as soon as it's sung and you hear it in the way she's delivering it, you're like, oh, of course.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So she's really taught me about like kind of dream language and how to, how to tap into kind of this not not a super self, but kind of a your archetypal self. When you sing or that singing can be a persona.
Speaker 1What do you mean by archetypal self?
Speaker 2I guess, getting not just your own story, but what does your story connect to as a larger pattern? I guess, yeah, whether it's the archetype of the mother, the archetype of the healer, the wounded healer, the archetype of the hero. There's lots of those A trickster.
Speaker 1Yeah, I love that ability to tap into archetypes. I just never really I don't know. I haven't heard it phrased like that, but I totally understand the idea of embodying an archetype and creating from that stance. That's really interesting. Thanks for elaborating on that, yeah.
Speaker 2Because Ani DeFranco Franco so much of like your personal life, speaking from that and finding the poetry in that, Right. And Tori Amos was kind of like zoomed out by 50 feet and and you saw yourself more as, like you know, in these larger categories of things and that you can tap into these higher realms. And so she kind of taught me that telescoping ability, or how to tap into your subconscious. Bjork taught me kept furthering. That was like cause.
Speaker 2Bjork is so much also a persona as well or kind of this fantastical and imaginary world, um, that can be brought together with electronics and with uh, vocals and how to and really production.
Speaker 1Um.
Speaker 2I feel like all the producers she's worked with on her earlier albums, like homogenic and post and um Vespertine, the ones that really have inspired me.
Speaker 1Um.
Speaker 2LFO and Mark Bell and Matt most. Those are the producers behind those records and I learned so much about how to bring together different sound spaces. Um, you know, when you, when are you making a visceral soundscape?
Speaker 1When are you?
Speaker 2making a um, an aerial or kind of atmospheric soundscape? When are you making um, sometimes even a paradoxical one, where sometimes some things are close mic'd and some things are very far away and delayed?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Which then indicates to the listener that you're in a dream world. You're not in actually a literal world anymore.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So it started to kind of she started to demonstrate for me kind of these aspects of like sonic surrealism or magical realism and sound for me, and also how that's embodied as a female body too. So when she performs I always think her costumes are fantastical and beautiful in this kind of way that shows off her creature self.
Speaker 1Yeah. Her creature self, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2I think, actually, as an artist, that's really kind of what we're all getting down to is actually being our most authentic selves, and I, I kind of say creature self because you, you're, you're tapping into whether that's primal or whether that's subconscious. Yeah, I think it's also sometimes, as an artist is trying to get back to all of, to the parts of yourself that get back to the unlearned part of yourself.
Speaker 1I love, I love that, the idea of the authentic self being a creature self. It's almost like just in that phrase, it almost reminds me of like a wild self, like a self that was untouched, because we are kind of these animals that are like almost pretending like we're not animals. You know, this idea that we're civilized.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, we are civilized beings, yes, and I love the idea of, because I think that in itself, like I don't know, my belief is that I don't think our society is really that healthy of a society, right, you know? And so there's a lot of things that we do to like, like, reject and cover parts of ourselves and, like you know, like you know, like Jungian shadow self and stuff like that. And I think the more you embrace those kind of uncomfortable I don't know really uncomfortable parts of yourself, uh, the more you you can be that authentic self.
Speaker 2right yeah, I think so much of music is getting back down to that level of play yes and it's and that is like everyone's inner child yeah you know, like when people talk about finding their authentic voice, I feel like a what we sing is usually trying to get down to that, like it's one protect. It's basically someone protecting their inner child or their inner self creatively.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And being able to tap into that.
Speaker 1What are ways that you've been able to tap into that?
Speaker 2I mean music is like my, I would say. That's why I gravitate towards music. Or it's like to me. It's the air I breathe.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2It's the thing that always makes me feel at home, no matter where I am. I know what artists I can listen to that will make me feel at ease or just familiarity. And then there are times when you're you're responding to your environment too.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And, um, you know, there's a time to be calling up memories and there's a time to be making new memories.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Um, and I feel like, uh, yeah, I tap into. I tap into the subconscious self, usually through music and through singing through humming.
Exploring Soundscapes and Creativity
Speaker 2Actually of the subconscious self, usually through music and through singing, through humming. Actually, it usually starts with um kind of humming to myself or to like. Sometimes I'm at the microwave and it's like there's a you know, it's like everything's a 60 hertz hum in America. That's a be natural, yeah, and while you're microwaving your like I I always think you know what are the pitches that are in our everyday life and I always kind of come along with things and then I try to harmonize with it or make an interesting relationship with it, and that's honestly it's very nerdy.
Speaker 1But how it begins, have you always been that kind of way, that creative way of being able to hear the different sounds that things are making and be playful with it?
Speaker 2I know that that's how it comes off in the external view of things. Really, what's happening when I do that is actually is that I'm matching pitches, so I have perfect pitch, which just means the ability to um know the reference pitch of something without having basically knowing what the pitch of anything is without a reference yeah and so um a lot of people have uh relative pitch um and so you know, it's usually the fact that I listen to a sound and I always think about what is the difference between sound and music.
Speaker 2Anyway, yeah or noise and sound. Right, noise to sound, to music, actually can be a whole spectrum. I think of things that are able to um be layered together in a way that tell a story yeah, there's traditional instruments and traditional ways we think about music.
Speaker 2But I think sound and noise start to get into that area then in film that we call sound design. But I, in the way I create music, I think sound design is fair game as music, as, because it is, it has the ability, because sound has associations, it has the ability because sound has associations. Sound has the ability to tell what kind of space we're in.
Speaker 2What kind of time are we in? Are we in a real space? Are we in a dream space? And I think noises also bring up a sense of. Let's see, I just feel like um, they all offer something to be able to storytell sound, and so when I layer and loop and process my voice or process sounds, what I'm really doing is trying to match um sounds together, or timbres or drones together in a way that then builds and creates a larger sentence and then another sentence adds and then it starts to create an interesting kind of layered experience or a soundscape.
Speaker 2And it's almost like from a visual standpoint. It's like focusing on one leaf and you zoom out and then you start to see the tree and you zoom out and you start to see the field that we're in. And then you zoom out and you start to see, you know where we are and kind of see the horizon line, and so a lot of my soundscapes start like that first really tiny, with sounds that begin very. They're very tactile and very visceral.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And then eventually, by the time you add and keep adding layers to it, then at that point we've really created a larger, we've zoomed out a few layers, and so it's about how to create a story. Then, I think, from that kind of telescoping of sound, yeah, a story then I think, from that kind of telescoping of sound.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I love you describing how you're describing this, because it I've listened to a lot of like noise music, quote unquote, and like experimental music and stuff like that, and it's crazy how much storytelling can be within that space, you know, and how much storytelling can be within that space, you know, and how much like memories, how many memories can be associated. And it's kind of like reminds me of like surrealism and as a whole, like if you watch like a David Lynch film or something and you're seeing like these seemingly random objects within different landscapes, but then it triggers something, I don't know. It feels like you're training your mind to be able to be fluid, to be able to hear or to think of a story line. Right, and you know, I've always been very confused about the difference between sound, design and composition. You know, I've always been like it feels like the same thing, but there is a separation.
Speaker 1And you know, I remember, you know, having associations with like the sound of like a lawnmower or something and like, uh, when I lived in hollister, which is like a, an hour away from here, it's like a very farm town but there's something called airline highway, where basically there's just a bunch of airplanes that would fly overhead, right, and so I have this like deep nostalgia whenever it comes airplanes or lawn mowers happening. You know, and it's the weirdest thing, that whenever I hear one of those sounds, it like really triggers an emotion, and then I, you know, it leads me to think like, well, this is kind of the same as I hear this chord and you know these like chord progressions, it does elicit the same emotion or like an emotion as well, you know. So I really love how you explore these sounds, like I, you know, and what I'm wondering is was there a time in your life when you realize that, because it's very liberating how you're describing this is very liberating? I feel like I've.
Speaker 1It took me a lot of struggles just to get to that kind of freedom of composition, right, of being able to compose something that uses different sounds and uses this kind of different tonal landscape. And you know, from hearing your compositions, they do sound like liberated, like free, and I, you know, that's just my opinion and I'm wondering have you always been in that space of? Or I guess a better question is, has there been any obstacles to your creativity?
Speaker 2I mean, I think usually the obstacles to creativity are um can be self-imposed, yeah because it's always about it's because a lot of it is like your perfectionism gets in the way. Yeah, I'm guessing I'm with someone with perfect pitch.
Speaker 1uh, all these different things, has there any? Has have you had any obstacles? Like, even if it's personal, yeah, of course, I mean, everyone does.
Exploring Composition and Musical Notation
Speaker 2I feel like whether I mean sometimes they're actually like very, you know, physical and economical limitations too, Um, but sometimes, uh, like having to make economical choices, is an interesting restraint that actually fosters creativity too. Um, is an interesting restraint that actually fosters creativity too. It makes you get very creative and resourceful about where you source your instruments and your sounds. Any percussion section of an orchestra will tell you that pots and pans are totally fair game.
Speaker 2Detuned metals all sorts of things that people find in the trash that people would consider quote-unquote trash. But actually to a percussionist, if it sounds like it has that special ring, they're going to heap that thing and that's kind of part of how that percussion world goes. It's very much an object world and the Cabrillo Festival really shows that. I mean the percussion section in the back there is quite the corner.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's true, definitely with Galen. It's his's last year.
Speaker 2it's sad, but happy from the mahler hammer to tubular bells and all the vibraphones yeah, you know forehand marimba, um, like the, the five octave marimba, I mean it's to detuned metals, to diatonic metals. It's really such a huge, dynamic addition to the orchestra Galen's gift of donating all of 400-some instruments to the festival for the future is really a testament of how this community keeps giving back, and I think it's wonderful to watch a classical festival like this that's has so much heart in it.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely, there's a lot of community.
Speaker 2In it there's a lot of heart and, yeah, I think it really shows too. It feels really welcoming here.
Speaker 1Yeah, I love that. Yeah, just to go on a selfish tangent how, how have you gone about notating experimental music, like so I know it's you, you're doing kind of unconventional things and I don't know, is there a standard of notation for experimental music or how do you go about doing that?
Speaker 2yeah, um, that's a very interesting question because, uh, it's so much is about what culture or industry you work in, and what are the norms right?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So in classical music, in the orchestral world, let's say, or the choral world or vocal world, it's very notation-based and starts with the page first. In time-based art or in multimedia work, things that are more structured in time and durational, those can be much more loosely written out and usually those are. That can be cellular structures, small ideas and brackets that have arrows that tell you how many times you loop it and how many times before you move on to this next figure. So it's kind of sometimes a mix between like a visual graph of small cells pointing to other things and then having a sense of how much time that is from left to right.
Speaker 1On this, large piece of paper or napkin or whatever you have of how?
Speaker 2how do you read this then?
Speaker 2Right, so here are all the cells, but a score really is just a map. It's a map of events in time, and so I feel like, so long as someone can read the instructions of what is the content, what is the form and what is the kind of arc or the direction through that whole thing, like what's your emotional impetus for it, um, and where are you landing, I mean that's really, I think, that the main things that you need for a composition. Yeah, um, and you know, I think it's an interesting question because so much of it is about living composers versus the kind of, um, you know, composers, who, who have passed, let's just say to be a classical composer with a capital C, ie not performing, giving away your piece, being just the composer only.
Speaker 2I remember learning in school that the first page of the score is the maybe the should have everything. Uh, everything you need to relay should be on that first page.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2There's so much information on that first page If you study it properly.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Um first, you know, the the themes are set, um the the tempo is set, the emotional weather, or like of or like the the kind of style with which you approach that phrase is set, but also what's your instrumentation, what is the. You know, of course, the origin and the maker, but the title, if there's a dedication, if there's a subtitle, all of these things help a musician. Then you know kind of calculate all the kind of context clues of like what is this piece of music we're going to?
Speaker 1step into.
Speaker 2What kind of world are we making, yeah, and why, and what is our role in all this? So it's very much kind of like reading a play.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2So you know that first couple pages that sets you up with who are your characters. Where are we? Yeah, absolutely. The litmus test of a good score is whether you can not be in the room or that you can pass and that your music can live on.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And so that is why you know notation is held in such high regard in conservatory and classical music, because it really does preserve everything. Also come across moments where we see just how kind of imbalanced the focus on Western music is then because Western music is privileged because it's written down. But because it's written, down that's the only reason why it?
Speaker 2propagates. There have been, of course, eons and eons of oral music around the world that have been passed down in oral traditions or by rote, and those things suffer, I think, in the scholarly fields because, they're not written down.
Speaker 2But they are music of the people and they're music that moves your body and it's music that is very, not difficult to write down but, let's just say, is not as accurately written down, and so that veers towards, kind of the other end of that spectrum I was talking about with time-based art. Um, so I feel like I'm always kind of towing, I'm always kind of toggling between these worlds. Yeah, of um, you know, when I'm in the classical world, I I adhere to their protocols, because that's how it works. Um, it's just also out of necessity. An orchestra is like full of 70 people.
Speaker 2You only have so much time. So the hierarchical way of running an orchestra rehearsal is out of necessity because you have to be able to streamline. You know comments and feedback and things like that, but it does make for a very opaque process. Then it's not as collaborative.
Speaker 2It's very then top-down and in time-based art it's kind of the opposite, where it's non-hierarchical and for the fact that it's not as permanent, it's not written down in a way that can be maybe preserved for hundreds of years, but it is for that moment, and so I feel like a lot of times those types of works get archived with video or with audio recordings. But I do say that that is.
Speaker 2It does from an academic standpoint, put it in disadvantage because there's not as much to quote-unquote study or to be able to point at and be able to analyze um like we do with classical music and I feel like, especially post 2020 um, yeah and having a moment of. You know, classical music had this moment of like hmm, we really have a white supremacy problem, don't we?
Speaker 1and it's like, actually you think, yeah, everyone that we study is european and male yeah and white and can I, can I, can I ask you about that specifically, because I think there that is a a big thing, you know, and how do we? What are in your opinion? I'm not expecting you to give me all the answers, but like, how do you think we can get out? Is it possible for classical music to get out of that? What needs to happen for this kind of Western art form, so to speak, to be able to be more inclusive and open up in that way?
Speaker 2Yeah, you know, I think it's also about how we teach music theory and classical. Just the idea of conserv some, it's. It's the kind of rigor they want and it's the focus they, they, they thrive in and for others it's really limiting and can sometimes even be scarring.
Speaker 2Um, I find it. I'm kind of dismayed by the fact that music theory, uh, people really go into music theory in undergrad being like, yeah, I love music, I want to learn this, and a lot of times they leave scarred. It's so true, it is I have. I keep hearing from all of my friends of how, like music theory turned them away from music because, it made them feel dumb. It made them feel, um, like they couldn't understand it. It was too intelligent, or yeah it was too.
Speaker 2It just got too cerebral for them right so it wasn't about the enjoyment of music anymore, but it was like, oh my God, I can't even keep up with this. And it felt more like math to them, or it felt more like science, and that to me is really sad, because the nerd in me really loved music theory, because it actually started to give me names to the things that I was already doing, but I didn't actually know what they were.
Speaker 2I was intuitively already making forms and songs but, once I actually understood what a sonata form was or what a scherzo is, what all these different dance forms have structures, aba, abcba. Once you start learning the internal engines of them, you're like, oh, there is a design behind this, right. And just learning the internal engines of them, you're like, oh, there is a design behind this, right and so, and just like learning the vocabulary of like, how do you make interesting transitions from one key to another? Finding common tones, finding how you can kind of pivot in a way that's subtle. Yeah, to me theory was exciting because it informed how I could compose better.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2So I had a personal investment in it. Yeah, yeah absolutely, whereas I'm not sure necessarily someone who's taking it for appreciation can be scared off, I think, by the academic rigor behind it and kind of the math-like quality about it.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I find that to be sad, that it turns a lot of people away, but I also think that we need to teach it differently. Contemporary example, then to offset that yeah, uh, usually from a female voice, or usually from underrepresented communities, um, or just another way to highlight that concept of uh, of. Here's the historic version of that concept and here's the contemporary version of this concept right um.
Speaker 2You know we learn about retrograde um and like how things can be flipped um and you can read the score backwards or perhaps even upside down, but these are all ways in which composers were able to create variation. With some, you know, you might make a eight bar phrase, but even just from that eight bar phrase you can create a small cell from within that, and then you can fragment that you can also you know mutate that by jiggering those notes around you can flip the clef.
Speaker 2There are lots of ways to create variation. You know Missy Elliott talks about in what's that song where she's? Like is it worth it. Put your thing down, flip it and reverse it and whatever that is that she just said. That is literally put your thing down flip it and reverse it and whatever that is that she? Just said that is literally put your thing down, flip it and reverse it.
Speaker 2Literally flips and reversed and that literally is inversion, retrograde. Yeah, exactly, and so she's like the Bjork of hip hop and I try to show my students this where it's like here's like the European way that we've done retrograde inversion. Here are some modern, contemporary examples of how you might use that in a lyrical way. You can also use it in a motivic way.
Speaker 1You can also use it.
Speaker 2So my first way of trying to at least widen music theory without throwing the baby out with the bathwater is more diverse examples that not just stay in the past but also are like okay, same concept, but what is that concept today?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2In popular music and classical music or just in another context, just so it can start having some kind of evolutionary development beyond just being a fossil of like. Oh, this is this concept from 1650.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I love that and I think you, particularly just by observing and doing some research, you kind of embody that, you know, that kind of cross-disciplinary. You are definitely like a bridge, it seems, between you know, doing electronic, like experimental stuff and kind of in the field. I would say I don't know in my brain, like in the field, and then like going here and now you're composing a whole orchestra, you know, and that that I don't see, we don't. I don't see that every day. You know what I mean.
Navigating Creativity and Artistic Process
Speaker 1I don't see that kind of, you know, and I think that's why I'm really excited to talk with you, because, you know, as someone who's a creative, who does like compose in the field and kind of with other folks and loves to experiment, but I also do have a love for orchestral music, you know, and other realms, and I have ideas that I need, I want to see realized. And here here you are, you know, making both those worlds coexist within one body, and I think that's a beautiful thing. And I'm wondering do you, do you ever go through any kind of struggles going back and forth? Because for me I feel like I'm like, oh, my God, I'm changing minds. I don't know, like what's your? Do you have any words of wisdom, any stories Like? Please lay it on me.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, I mean this new commission for Cabrillo Festival 24 is the start of the creative lab.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And the work is called Parhelion and yeah, it was a huge challenge actually um synthesizing all of my music cells actually for this. Um, that was actually a main challenge, I think in this project which was at first, I kept asking myself. I was like which bora do they want?
Speaker 1that we want you and you're like what is that?
Speaker 2well, I think, because my training has been all over the map and also each. So I've been, you know, I've been a folk singer, songwriter. I've also been an electronic soundscape artist. I've also worked with visual artists and done multimedia stuff. I also have a total choral and church side that's totally purist and loves singing in Latin chant. I also am an orchestra nerd and love the symphony too.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2But they all have such different industry protocols.
Speaker 1Yes, yes.
Speaker 2And also a different sense of just a different way to navigate and operate within them, and so I've just learned how to be a chameleon between all of these things over time, and even though I'm not a singer songwriter anymore, I still think that everything I write has the soul of a song.
Speaker 1Totally.
Speaker 2Because a song, to me, is so complete. A song has a beginning, middle and end, has an arc. There's usually some kind of you know thing that happens three quarters of the way through. That transmutes something. It's either like a kind of like scream or a cry, or it's something that like makes you know a breakdown. It breaks down whatever you just built up and lands you back in a place that hopefully, from the beginning of the song, is different.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So the song is really, I think, like a small way of transporting people. Yes, it's a small musical journey, and so I always think of how. So, even though I don't use words anymore, let's say, I still think of melody, I still think of how do you develop the musical story yeah how do you still expand people's ears?
Speaker 2um, in such a way that you can thwart it later, or support it, or transmute it later to then be, you know, either the bottom drops out, or this is when the bass drops in, or this is when you know you actually end up pivoting to a whole other aesthetic halfway through. And so, you know, all these past musical lives have informed, I think, where I am today. Yeah, you know all these past musical lives have informed, I think, where I am today. Yeah, but in writing this piece I really thought about, you know, the Cabrillo Festival being founded by Lou Harrison and having that kind of American experimentalist roots to it I knew was going to be a friend. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Because, the orchestra world is usually very conservative and very closed, yeah, and out of, and for good reason, because it's budgetary and because it's economical. But you know, if you ask them to do anything out of the normal traditions, a lot of times they'll give you a sideways look and say, like you want me to do what with my instrument.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Even sometimes, kalenyo Batuto, when you play with the backside of your bow. Yeah, even sometimes when you play with the back side of your bow. Yeah, even sometimes that ruffles some feathers Right, unless certain pro players have a separate bow. That's not wooden, that's made out of fiberglass that's particularly for that.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So that's they can, because they're worried about damaging their wooden bows.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And so sparring damage. A lot of musicians are not, or the Cabrillo musicians here are really adventurous. Yes, I'm really lucky that this is the festival that has commissioned a new orchestral work, and the fact that they have fostered this idea of this is about how we reframe the idea of the symphony. How do we reframe orchestra music in a way that is resonant with today. And today's world is very visual, is very electronic, is very cross-disciplinary.
Speaker 2I don't think we live in a world anymore where we have silos of genres anymore or silos of topics or communities. I feel like everything now is how things are nodal and how things actually are cross-disciplinary or interdisciplinary and kind of play with one another. So I also particularly feel fortunate. I think in my lifetime that I've been able to see that shift change happen in the industry, where it's welcome now to be a hybrid artist.
Speaker 2It's welcome now to be a multimedia artist, bringing worlds together, where I would say back when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, when the music industry or record labels were very much kind of the top dog in the game, that dictated then our know, our idea of genres and why we can't actually flip or all the branding that you made for yourself in this one genre will disappear if you, if you go over here, right or?
Speaker 2whatever these ideas are, and actually since that, since all of that has come down, um, it's then actually offered license then to artists to then be as creative and as original and as authentic as they can be. Of course, the downside of that, then, is that the infrastructure is no longer there. Um, in terms of distribution, and how to get things out like I don't think we have the infrastructure anymore to have another laurie anderson yeah, like or to have another david bowie like that right, like we just don't have that kind of, but never did.
Speaker 2I think that was healthy. Yeah, you know a lot of times like, yeah, people can soar to stardom, but I also, I, you know, sometimes I don't think that's, I don't envy that, because I think for every what did they say? It's like for every overnight. For every overnight success, it's always 10 years in the making, really.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And for I think, as as quickly as you go up, the quicker you'll also come down too. So I'm fine with a slow burn. It means I'll stick around longer.
Speaker 1Yes, according to that logic, definitely.
Speaker 2Or like I don't yeah, I don't. I'm not aiming for a big, jagged spike in my career, because that also means unsustainability.
Speaker 1Yeah. So, that makes sense.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I feel like even just cultivating good practice and being happy with the road that I'm on and enjoying it and being part of. You know my personal growth and my musical growth. I think it's been challenging to get to this new way of thinking Because I think, growing up, you always think about achieving and a very product-oriented kind of mindset and halfway through you realize people always talk about process and artistic process and, yeah, actually a lot ego will like the creative process will pretty much tell your ego to sit down.
Speaker 1Yeah, at a certain point it's so true like.
Speaker 2I think of it as a big sign.
Speaker 2Cosine wave yeah, it's like you start the process and you go off. You're like, yeah, you meet everyone, it's super cool and you're having fun, it's awesome. And then you come back down and then you're like, oh my god, we have to get down to work. And then, and then they're like, oh my god, and you're having fun, it's awesome. And then you come back down and then you're like, oh my God, we have to get down to work. And then they're like, oh my God. And they're like why did I even think this was a good idea? And then, oh my God, I can't even get out of this anymore. And now we're at the bottom. We're like is this even going to really work?
Speaker 1Right. And then miracles happen at yeah, going from the bottom.
Speaker 2Yeah, back to zero again, yeah, but that's where I think is the trusting God part, or the the surrender part.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Because on the front end, you're like it's all will. You're like I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And on the, on the back end, you're like God it's in your hands. I'm just going to keep like, because, like, just shut up and show up, yeah, and that's what quote unquote, trusting the process kind of is is. You know, I've started this thing, I've made it, let's just keep going until we see it to the end. Yeah, and at a certain point. Sometimes the creation tells you what it wants.
Speaker 1Yeah, and what?
Speaker 2it needs and what it will and won't hold.
Speaker 1Yes.
Atmospheric Inspiration for Parhelion
Speaker 2And that's been happening actually in this piece too. We were teching and, you know, setting up all the lighting looks and the beautiful visual production, that projection design for the for Perhelion, and we came into the space with more ideas than we needed, which is good, because I think I we also didn't know which ones would work in the space and we didn't know how it would. We theoretically had all these like plan A, plan B, plan C.
Speaker 1Totally.
Speaker 2And once we figured out where the projectors were going, we're like and then it was.
Speaker 1We don't need to do that yeah.
Speaker 2Everyone's like what are we doing with this mylar?
Speaker 1And I was like I don't even think we need the mylar, that's a good place to be, though, yeah. Versus like what do we like? It's not enough, or something you know you have more than enough, it's.
Speaker 2I think I won the tech team over that way, though, because they were like I mean, that'd be kind of great if we didn't have to do that Not because they didn't want to do it, but I could. I looked around to hit that particular real estate, which we're now already filling with lights and visuals. So it's going to be redundant, it's going to upstage it and so that's what I mean by your piece will tell you when it is full and it doesn't need anymore.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, and they're like, okay, and sometimes that happens too, where you just now you're the mother of this thing and you just have to listen to all of its weird cries and wants and things, and you know all right, before we move on to the second part, I want to just give you a chance to talk about um parhelion.
Speaker 1Uh, like what, what? What's the inspiration behind it? What's your, what's the vibe, what's going on?
Speaker 2yeah, um. So uh, parhelion is uh is a five movementmovement full evening-length orchestral piece with electronics and voice. It's split up into five movements which are entitled in five Latin names which are kind of elemental in weather. So Luke starts it off, which is light, and then Luke starts it off with light. Ventus, which is wind, aquarum, which is water, vichera, which is flesh or matter, and then Celestis, which is heavens. So the whole work goes through these five cycles, these five movements.
Speaker 2There are sub-movements subsets and sub-movements within that that are actually not shared in the program but are narrative that a lot of the players and myself and the conductor have just. So we have a kind of structure that's narrative and also very environmental. But it was really inspired by the James Turrell sky space.
Speaker 2So a parhelion, as a definition, is actually a weather phenomenon that happens around the sun when there's moisture in the air at a very particular angle there will be kind of this sometimes you'll see like a little fleck of rainbow in the sky and that usually is one of the four corners of a parhelion, which is the entire circle then around the sun. That is kind of like a. It's essentially just the light refracting off the atmospheric crystals of moisture.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2But what it appears as then is this giant kind of reflection with rainbow edges in the north, south, east and west part. Oh my gosh, and it's. I think it's really well, it's a. It's a particular phenomenon that I saw actually in a land art piece, uh, five years ago, and I'd never seen anything like that.
Speaker 1I was like what are we even?
Speaker 2staring at Um. Why is the sun dark? Yeah, it's actually that area between the rainbow and the sun that actually darkens everything Kind of looks like Glinda From the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2It's just like what's happening.
Speaker 1There's like a bubble in the sky.
Speaker 2You're like what was in this water, but inspired by the James Turrell skyspace, which is this James Turrell is a light artist, visual artist who's known for his works that deal with light perception. He studied perceptual psychology, so it's all about optical illusions and how our eyes, how to create different sense of perception of color and distance and sometimes time of perception of color and distance and sometimes time.
Speaker 2And so this piece is really inspired by, kind of like the weather systems of Santa Cruz, and also this idea of cycles, weather cycles, water cycles, how everything, even from like a droplet of water, can tell an enormous story of how one drop of water can provide so much nourishment and also um uh to to humans and to also to the earth around it, but also in in mass uh can also be an immovable force, like the ocean too. So if you trace a drop of water through all of the cycles it can go through, you know. It can be evaporated, it then roils in the sky and the cloud, it rains down, it then goes through systems to precipitate back into being.
Speaker 2So to me this whole thing was about how do I trace the like these atmospheric cycles.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Reflecting on Artistic Growth and Creativity
Speaker 2And Santa Cruz being near the water. Last year I kind of did a site visit and they also performed a piece of mine then that was pre-existing called the Wind of Two Koreas, but that was really a very smart way for me to learn about the Cabrillo Festival.
Speaker 1Yeah, smart way for me to learn about cabrillo festival.
Speaker 2Yeah, um, and kind of that was kind of reconnaissance for this commission. Um, because it the civic auditorium is a very quirky space. Um, it's not a typical uh you know black box theater or stadium it's like a basketball floor court has a particular, it's just very particular yeah and so if I was going to write something for this space, I just had to kind of understand where all the lighting was and how the space was operating.
Speaker 2So it was really great to to have a full year for it to gestate in my mind and to kind of really understand what, what community I was writing for, what place I was writing for you know not just the venue, but also the town and also the city of like what is the santa cruz culture um? So some of the lighting design harkens to that uh there's these sweeps of lighthouses that go by, also because I think lighthouses provide an interesting rhythm.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Not only is the orchestra creating sonic rhythms and different layers there, visuals then add a separate kind of oscillation cycle, or even in film people talk about how, if you want to match image to sound, you can either edit them together so that they support one another and it feels very dramatic and it's a jump cut, or you can offset them in such a way that they are actually dovetailed and they kind of allude to one another, but it's much more leaves it up to the mind, then, to bring it together.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And Parhelion plays with that kind of idea a lot of. How do these visual worlds that are being made by Joshua Ott's visuals on a software called Superdraw, and he considers it a visual instrument. So for him, even though he comes from the visual and interactive world, he very much thinks like a musician, comes from the visual and interactive world, he very much thinks like a musician, yeah, and so he's performing.
Speaker 2um, super draw has performed live in this concert, so I think everyone uh, at first I think believes that it's just, it's a, it's a preset video yeah visual. Um, but it's actually uh, it's performed live by nathan wheeler, who is, uh works with josh in bro Josh in Brooklyn, and Nathan is here on site literally watching the maestro's baton, watching his tempo and also drawing live, and so the visuals are different every night.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It's not canned. He's very much with the orchestra and I think what's exciting about this is we're alive at a very particular time where technology is doing what it's doing, the orchestra world is, you know, we're alive at a very particular time where technology is doing what it's doing, the orchestra world is, I think, molting.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Or you know, and I feel like as a world we're kind of molting in a post 2020 world of like what? What is the kind of world we want to return to? Right?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's something, that a global trauma like that. I think it would be a shame for us to just go back to quote, unquote the way things were, Not that that was ever normal or something that I think we aspire to have again.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So you know, I think it's a really interesting time. It's a tenuous time in a good way, that has a lot of potential.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Because I think there's a lot of soul-searching that happened during 2020, when everything was kind of locked down, a lot of arts organizations disbanded, a lot of places dissolved. I was really surprised and honored and deeply, deeply appreciative that Ellen Primack came back to me Cause she approached me about this in 2019.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I remember thinking, yeah, you know, this is probably dead in the water. I don't think it's, you know or I just kept.
Speaker 2I was reading the signs of what was happening in the arts world and I remembered thinking, yeah, that might not happen then. And I started to, yeah, that might not happen then. And I started to kind of, you know, curb my expectations just in case it didn't. And I was so grateful that the commitment behind Cabrillo Cabrillo Festival has been so steadfast, that Ivan Rodriguez, his new commission, my new commission, were all on track and that they were committed to doing it and just simply moved it back to when it was actually feasible, when we would actually be able to do it and to have this opportunity to be able to synthesize all of my musical selves.
Speaker 2I think is just even in my personal growth. I think really huge for me that, yeah, that I don't have to like filter out, I think, the various sides of myself anymore, and I think that's that's new. Cause there's academic Bora also. Yeah, and there's industry Bora.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Right, and so there's a time and a place for, you know, different hats and different roles that we serve, um, but it's, it's. I think it's actually really heartening to hear everyone kind of doing this kind of soul searching, because everyone knows that it wasn't great thing we came, that we came through yeah, um, and if we have it, I think it's also karmic slash, I'm not sure what yeah, um, that I'm now in a position at reed college where I I get to change the theory curriculum. Um, you know, I'm I'm in charge of kind of that. Um, yeah, how do we widen the lens? How do we create a music theory approach that is inclusive and welcoming and resonant and relevant to?
Speaker 2music today, while not throwing out all of the rigor and the good tip like not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, right Like there is a time and a place to also have that kind of technical rigor and knowledge about classical music and the foundations and the tenets of why it works. I just think that there are other types of musics as well that can be. That should be represented in academic circles. But again, that always comes down to whether it's notated to be able to study it.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So I think it's trying to find the balance between those two things, just like the music sound and noise spectrum. I think a lot about music in terms of head, heart and gut.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Because sometimes academic music is very heady or it teaches you to be very heady about it, but then you really lose focus on the heart and the gut, which is the whole reason why you liked it in the first place.
Speaker 2Yeah, the inner child in us loves music because our gut resonated with it, our heart resonated with it. Yeah, and sometimes the head is the last to catch up. So we learn about all of these concepts then, um, but I I feel like it shouldn't have to be at the price of or at the cost of, you know the original pull and why what magnetized to music anyway in the first place. So it's about how to widen people's knowledge and awareness of it without also alienating them with um you know, or intimidating them with you know.
Speaker 2All this western classical knowledge that if you don't know this, then you're not a good blank. You know you're not a good composer, you're not a good music student or conservatory student. Um, because that also in the arts, like what is.
Speaker 1Quote unquote good or best, anyway, these are such superlatives.
Speaker 2That don't you know? What I'm saying is that the creativity is not comparative.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I think that's like one of the foundational things that I want to. That took a long time to, I think, to get past. Or for for students for young students to see time to, I think, to get past. Or for students, for young students to see that it's not about a competition, it's actually actually creativity. When it's all authentic, everyone has their own voice. You're not competing with anyone. If anything, you're all just throwing down different authentic parts of yourself and you guys are inspiring each other.
Speaker 2But never is it, you know, because never are two souls the same either yeah and so whatever somebody writes, you can be influenced by them, but you're never going to create just like them, and that's what I think is so cool about composition. Everybody has a different voice, just as a different compositional voice as well as an actual physical voice. You work with what you have, and we all have different proclivities.
Speaker 2We all have different intuitions, yeah, um, and so we make different uh choices in our music with that um, and so I think it's about how do we keep that channel open from you know, having the head part of it, um, so that we can speak intelligently about it in certain circles or in certain formats, but also know when to bring out the head and the heart and the gut part of music too, which is I think it's something that really shows this is. I don't mean to diss all Germans right now, but you ever go to Germany and like, like, go to a dance.
Speaker 2So I remember going to this electronic dance yeah, in germany and I was like I have never seen any more awkward dancers in my life, because they're very heady yeah, totally and I was actually speaking with a german electronic producer about this, because he was like oh, yeah, yeah, in Germany they hardly dance, or if they dance, they have to understand it first, and then their head nods. Yeah, and then maybe their body follows, but it has to go through their head.
Speaker 1That's interesting.
Speaker 2And I remember he said he was like African culture. He was like other, he's like non-European culture. He was like must he's like, doesn't have to go to the head, it must actually hit the body.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2They need to move first.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And it doesn't necessarily have to go to the head, but for them it's like it has to be physical and embodied. And I thought a lot about. I was like, yeah, that explains a lot of how this dance floor looks. I a lot about I was like, yeah, that explains a lot of how this dance floor I mean that's amazing.
Speaker 2Um, yeah, because they're still connecting to it but they're connecting to it until it like intellectually first, and then their body moves in this semi, you know I always, I always tell people I love how music is so big that anyone can connect with it.
Speaker 1You know, I'm like, even if you're like an intellectual person who loves puzzles, I'm like there's a place for you there. You know, if you're just a creative like just you know, akin to like an abstract expressionist or something, there's a place for you there. You know, music is such a crazy art form. You know that it's so big. So I think it's really funny hearing about that German story, because I've met a lot of engineers in music who definitely have a very specific way of doing their things and I'm always like man, like I'm not like this, but I get, I'm stoked that you found this way into music.
Speaker 2That's why they're studio engineers. Yeah, or they can control everything.
Speaker 1Everything, every little thing you don't find those types of people on the road? Necessarily no.
Speaker 2Because a touring artist is a very different creature totally, yeah, totally. It's like a whole, whole bag so it all feels like the same ecology. Yeah, that's, that's that's.
Speaker 1I think that's why I like it is like there's not many, it's a very human, human, human experience. You know, you get all this diversity of humans that probably wouldn't be together if it wasn't for this. And it's just like even I had a band in high school where the band members, everyone, was so weird. We were just a bunch of different people from different backgrounds and we would probably not all hang together if it wasn't for being in this band and it was probably some of the nicest. We would probably not all hang together if it wasn't for being in this band. You know, and it was probably the some of the nicest it was. It wasn't like great, but it was good. It was good music that we were creating and I I just was like man. I think part of that was just from the diverse backgrounds.
Speaker 1You know, we had a keyboardist who nothing about music or theory, he knew about music. He music or theory, he knew about music. He was like a metal musician, so he was all on the keys doing synth stuff. And then I had a guitarist who was this country blues boy and a singer who's this complete R&B church vocalist, and just all from totally different groups and everything coming together, and so I think music has that really cool potential, just bring coming together. And so I think music has that like really cool potential, you know, just like bring people together, you know. And so I think I just I know it's cliche, but I love it we're going to move into we have two silly questions for you and then you get to speak on whatever you like. The first question is what's your astrology sign and do you resonate with it and why? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2I'm a Gemini, which means there's several of us in this room.
Speaker 1This is starting to make sense with the different worlds, is this?
Speaker 2why I feel justified to drive in a carpool.
Speaker 1You're like I'd love to hear that explanation. There's a few of us here, it's fine.
Speaker 2No, um, I'm a Gemini and yeah, I do relate with it. Yeah, Um because, uh, I know we're ruled by the planet Mercury.
Speaker 1So we're very mercurial yeah.
Speaker 2And in that way I think that's kind of shows in my musical shape-shifting. Yeah, you know I we're really good at opening projects and not great at and not we're not great at completing them Gemini's are really good at like getting interested in starting a whole thing Totally. So but my my, you know, the older I get, like there's a part of me that's like, okay, we need to close the boxes we open yeah the affirmation on the mirror.
Speaker 2Yeah, at a certain point. Well, I just moved to portland and I remember just being like you have to close like 38 boxes before you leave, not physical boxes, like literally. You need to close these musical projects before you go. And yeah, and I like having a lot of different projects in the mix too, because they end up inspiring you in different ways, because they're happening concurrently.
Speaker 1Yeah, that makes sense. But, yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 2But I, but yeah, I suppose, yeah, my moon sign is a Scorpio, which I, I, I that checks out, and my rising sign is a Leo. Oh okay, and once I figured out the trifecta.
Speaker 1I was like oh, that's why I feel impossible sometimes. Those are, those are all pretty solid like intense signs, for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2And sometimes, yeah, when I feel sometimes that I have many cells that are running in three different directions and I don't even know what to do with myself at that hour sometimes, except just to like wait it out and be like how about we not make large decisions? Yeah, we're going to have a self-care day.
Speaker 1We're just going to let the things happen, yeah, but.
Speaker 2I actually really love learning about different astrology systems.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So you know, in Chinese astrology it's by year, yeah.
Speaker 1Not by month.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I'm a metal monkey in that yeah, that system um, but I also love learning about, like mayan, astrology and all these different systems that work in larger cycles, so that's those are in 12-year cycles. Um, and even like the I ching and things like yeah, I love learning about different which is one of the influences behind the narrative of Parhelion.
Speaker 1Ooh, that's really exciting.
Speaker 2It's actually so. If anyone were to like, look in the studio of like, what is how the movements were structured? Yeah, I have an itching symbol for each movement and I put them all down in order in a way that seemed to make a nice climactic story, nice. So the first one is like gathering, and that's the well, because the beginning, luke, starts to me. Luke's, I'm playing with light quote, unquote in a sonic way by detuned metals. So it first starts with the very first sound of parhelion is actually the sound of the sun.
Speaker 2Um it's an electromagnetic frequency recording of um by NASA of the sun and cause the first movement is Solaris. And uh, so the sun radiation kind of like starts off the electronic signal and from there the Tam Tam oh man.
Speaker 1And then there the tam-tam, oh man.
Speaker 2And then there's a bunch of different detuned Asian metals, and then there's a last third one that's huge and that's just kind of be like the shimmers of light that we're getting, and then we're kind of in this cosmic stew and so the climax of the piece has an I Ching hexagram called the cauldron, and I think gathering is similar to the cauldron.
Speaker 2It's just the same elements but really spread out, and so the very first part of Parhelion is actually spatialized. So there will be players in the sides of the hall, in the back of the hall, so you'll be hearing kind of Doppler effects of all the directional instruments. So you'll be hearing kind of Doppler effects of all the directional instruments.
Speaker 2But then there are hexagrams that are, let's see, it's like splitting apart, sweeping changes. Let's see, I didn't use stagnancy, but there's a lot of different types of symbols that I just kind of organized in such a way that would make an interesting story of conflict development, some kind of head-to-head, and then what is the transmutation that happens from there and how do we get towards abundance at the end? How do we tie the end and the beginning?
Speaker 2together Because I think, in every piece that I make I'm trying to make an arc, but then ultimately that arc should kind of imply a circle. How are we bookending things in such a way that it still hearkens the beginning but it's not exactly the beginning, because hopefully by that point something has happened? That makes you see things differently or it's a very different approach by the end. So I love learning about divinations systems because I think there are just different ways to parse, you know our lives and how we navigate these, this, these forces that we're within.
Speaker 2I think they all have truth to them. They all have, and I don't think that they negate each other. I don't quite understand how they all coexist, but I do find truth in each of them. So, even just as a researcher, I just like to know all these different systems.
Speaker 1Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2And because in Chinese, where the I Ching comes from, the Chinese five element theory is also. It's like fire, earth, water, metal, wood. I think, and so how the hexagrams are lined up it's two trigrams stacked on top of one another.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2And so let's just say we, we, we think of this even as um uh people dynamics so you know, let's just say one person is fire and someone else is wood yeah so if fire's underneath wood, then that is an unsustainable relationship totally they will consume that person. Um, however, let's say they have a son or a daughter together. That is a water element. The water sates the fire.
Speaker 2So, it works and wood on top of water floats and so actually they this becomes ameliorating force, then, and so it actually does to me make sense as to why certain elements will just make you lose your eyebrows. Certain things will be calming and neutralizing. Yeah, it's probably like all the people in your band, really.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Is what is special about everyone's kind of astrological or cosmic signature, energetic signature, here in the room?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's going to make some interesting music together.
Speaker 1I love the idea, um, when I study astrology, I I think I resonated deeply with um, the elements as well, because that's it makes sense, how how people act together.
Speaker 1Exactly you're describing um, it's just kind of uh, I don't know, even as somebody who's like I'm just curious about everything. So I study a lot of different things and, you know, it all comes down to elements to me. Like you know, when I look at the world and I look at how people interact, it's like the pure, like fire, you know, coming from a place where something's like passionate, you know, like this kind of core burning feeling versus someone who's coming from water, which is much more like emotional based and kind of spiritual based. Even, you know, and like how those two energies can interact with one another is really interesting to me, you know, and I think that's a, it's a beautiful thing, you know, to see, to give people diversity and, you know, just to be able to see, like that kind of archetypal thing, just another way of understanding the more nuances of this experience, you know. Yeah, and so the last question is, if you had a power animal or some kind of animal that you just like resonated with, what would it be?
Speaker 1And it could be made up.
Speaker 2I think my spirit animal is a flying squirrel. I think they're awesome, um, because I mean I can't, I kind of am, I don't know. I just love squirrels. I just think they're like they're, they're fun they're like I. I match their energy. I'm very fastidious and kind of like. I'm always kind of darting from thing to thing, but I love the fact that when they need to, they're like, and then otherwise they're like. No, I'm a normal squirrel.
Speaker 1I'm a normal squirrel, yeah. Don't mind me, they're just flying away.
Speaker 2But I feel like that as a musician sometimes like there are times when you're just like mortal Bora and you're like paying bills and like doing stuff, you know, and then there's times where you're like your super self and you know, this premiere is one of them where you're just like okay, it's fwa time.
Speaker 2Oh my god so this thing that we've been like dreaming of in our head forever is actually going to happen now. So it's like I don't know, I really like squirrels, like flying squirrels, particularly to me, are like they show kind of how you can be really, really internal in some ways but also really dynamic too, when needed.
Speaker 1So I don't know. I love that, love that so much. Alright, so now this is your time. Like, where can people find you? Is there anything, anything that's happening? This is just your time to say all the things, oh yeah well, Parhelion is happening, with it's world premiere on Saturday, August 10th.
Speaker 2It's going to happen at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium not the college I think most people think that they associate it with it but it's at the downtown Civic Auditorium and we'll feature visuals from Joshua Ott. It is really the kickoff of the inaugural creative lab and so hopefully we'll bring that to other houses and to other symphonies in the future. That's the hope, right? Otherwise, I have an upcoming performance at the.
Speaker 2Seattle Symphony's Octave 9 space, which is their new music series, and it's in their alternative space that has spatial audio, and so that will be happening on Friday, october 25th in.
Speaker 1Seattle.
Speaker 2There will be a 7 pm show and a 9 pm show, so there's more information online at borayooncom. Otherwise, you can find my music on Spotify and SoundCloud and Apple Music. Yeah and yeah, so please keep in touch. You know we're all on the Instagrams and all the socials. Yeah, so you can find me at Borabot. That was actually my tour name that a lot of my collaborators gave me because they're like you're the last one to go to bed and the first one up. You're a bot.
Speaker 1How does this happen?
Speaker 2Yeah, so Borabot became the name.
Speaker 1Oh man, Well, Bora, thank you so much for coming on Speak for Change. It's been an honor.
Speaker 2Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1This has been Speak for Change podcast. I'm your host, thomas Sage Pettersen. Have a wonderful day, woohoo.