Scat (2007)
For flute (or oboe), violin, viola, cello, piano (or harpsichord)
First performance by the Walden Chamber Players, Northampton, MA, 9 November 2007
9 minutes
Selected reviews
David Weininger, Boston Globe, 9 November 2007
An A-list composer, an off-the-beaten-track premiere
"The Chicago-based composer Augusta Read Thomas writes precisely calibrated music of refined beauty. Her works are in the repertory of several A-list players and ensembles, including the cellist Matt Haimovitz, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the chorus Chanticleer. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is scheduled to premiere a new piece of hers next season.
"Her latest work is the chamber piece Scat, composed for the Walden Chamber Players. And it's having its official world premiere Sunday morning at a pretty non-A-list site: the Hampshire Jail and House of Correction in Northampton. By now it's become common to hear classical music in lounges and bars, but even by those standards, having a premiere in a prison is a distinctly atypical gambit.
"Strictly speaking, the first performance is tonight at Smith College, but Christof Huebner, the Chamber Players' artistic director, notes that concert came together after the premiere had been planned. Scat will also be played Sunday afternoon at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown.
"Speaking by phone from her home, Thomas says she and the Walden group had originally discussed premiering the piece at Smith. "We started talking about the fact that there was this prison right there in Northampton," about a mile from the campus, she says. It seemed like a chance to expand the idea of musical outreach. "Instead of just going to nursing homes or hospitals or into kindergarten classes and things of that kind," she says, why not work with a different segment of society?
"It's an undertaking with which Thomas was already familiar. Years ago, while teaching at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., she made several visits to the nearby Albion Correctional Facility, a women's prison. "I was talking about contemporary women composers," she says. "This is not a subject people would know a lot about. But I remember the incredible eagerness — they wanted to talk and listen and learn. Here they are sitting in a prison, but you play them some music and it ignites that same spark we all have."
"Scat was written for harpsichord, oboe, and three strings. It performs a curious inversion on the idea of scat singing, in which the singer's voice mimics an instrumental improvisation. "I got the idea, why not reverse that?" Thomas says. "Why not just have straight instruments, in a sense, trying to sound like scat?" The resulting piece is light on its feet, with the strings and oboe twirling around the brittle, tick-tack sound of the harpsichord. "It sounds like it's bouncing along the surface of the water, like a stone skipping."
"Thomas thought that the jazz element might make the piece accessible to a broad audience. At the prison, she and the musicians intend to talk about the piece, demonstrate how it's put together, and answer questions. "I'd love to hear what they want to know — what interests them about the instruments or the orchestration or the jazz history or what it's like to be a woman composer," she says. Some who think prisons should have a punitive role, rather than a rehabilitative one, might question whether inmates should have the benefit of music performances. Huebner strongly believes they should. "I think we all know how quickly a wrong decision in each of our lives can result in circumstances such as some of these inmates have found themselves in and now pay the price for," he writes in an e-mail. He notes that attending the concert is a privilege inmates have to earn. "We believe that music, and art in general, has a positive message to convey."
"He also quotes something said to him by Patrick Cahillane, the prison's deputy superintendent: "Some day these prisoners might be our neighbors again. So it makes sense to educate, enlighten, and expose them to interesting and thought-provoking — maybe even attitude-changing? — ideas."
"Cahillane amplifies the point by phone, noting that most people incarcerated in the United States go back into society. "The goal of people who run correctional facilities should be to help people do so in a positive way. And this project is of a piece with that aim."
"Thomas hopes the encounter benefits all the participants: "It's all of us together sharing a couple of hours over a new piece," she says. "I'm hoping it'll be more like a seminar and less like a concert."
"Tonight at Sweeney Hall, Smith College, Northampton; Sunday at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown. 866-393-2927, waldenchamberplayers.org"
Andrew L. Pincus, Special to The Eagle (Williamstown), 9 November 2007
'Scat': A premiere behind bars
"WILLIAMSTOWN - The performance of Augusta Read Thomas' jazz-inspired quintet, Scat, on Sunday would be a world premiere — if the world premiere weren't being given that morning in jail.
"It'll happen in Northampton. At 11 a.m., five members of the Walden Chamber Players, accompanied by Thomas, will play and talk about her nine-minute piece in the Hampshire County Jail. At 3 p.m., they'll repeat Scat here, along with four other pieces, at the Clark Art Institute.
"How do about 40 prisoners — about 15 percent of the jail's population — get to hear a new work by one of the country's most-in-demand composers before a paying audience gets its chance in one of the most prestigious museums?
"It's called outreach. Or maybe it should be called inreach. Or education and rehabilitation.
""Historically, across this country, 98 percent of the individuals who are incarcerated come back to the community," says deputy superintendent Patrick J. Cahillane of the Hampshire sheriff's office, who arranged the visit. "So if this gives them some connection to the community at large, it helps."
"In the jail, they'll perform the Bach/Mozart and Thomas pieces, leaving time for discussion with the inmates.
"The jail performance is a "privilege" for selected inmates, according to Cahillane. They are participants in a pre-release program "to increase the possibility of them doing OK on the outside."
"Participants are not required to attend the concert or other activities. But, Cahillane says, 30 to 50 usually do. The message is: There are better ways than crime.
"As the title suggests, Scat takes off from the jazz style of vocalization.
"Composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2006, recipient of a new Boston Symphony Orchestra commission, teacher at leading conservatories, and part-time resident of Becket: Thomas is not someone you would pick out of a crowd as an aficionado of jazz. Her work is serious in tone and sometimes complex in orientation. But, she says, jazz has been an interest of hers for most of her 43 years.
"Writing a prison piece
"The idea of writing a prison piece came to her about 12 years ago, when she did a program on living women composers in the women's prison in Albion, NY.
"It was really, really beautiful and rewarding to do that," she says. The program met with "enthusiasm and passion."
"A member of the Walden advisory board, she and artistic director Christof Huebner began discussing a new piece to be composed by her about two years ago. She knew what she wanted to write, "even before I set notes."
"Cahillane accepted the offer, believing "what a great addition it is, just sending a positive message to people that are incarcerated." Last Sunday, a Walden trio headed by Huebner, the group's violist, did a lecture-demonstration in the jail as a trial run.
"For the Walden group, the move into a jail is an extension of an outreach program that is currently taking it into schools from Nantucket to Texas. For the jail administration, the visit continues a program that brings in volunteers from the community in theater, music and other arts activities.
"Other jails have similar programs. But Hampshire, Cahillane says, is fortunate in being able to draw on teachers and students from Smith and other campuses in the five-college area. The jail, for example, is regularly visited by two art teachers.
"Visiting room, music hall
"Last Sunday's program was held in the art room. For the bigger audience expected this Sunday, the visiting room will be turned into a chamber music hall.
"Thomas, whose new piece for the BSO, Helios Choros II, is a co-commission with the London Symphony Orchestra, hopes her listeners will hear echoes of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in her transformation of scat singing into instrumental dress. She'll lead a discussion with musical examples, explaining such things as why she wrote the way she did and how challenging or easy it is to play certain sections.
"There are other lessons to be learned.
"Cahillane says there's no way to measure the effect of such activities on inmates returned to society, but he has seen a change among some. They'll think, "Wow, I can get out and I can do something with my life."
"Not a musician himself, but tempted to take up an instrument when he retires, the superintendent recalls how one inmate last Sunday asked Huebner how long the players have to practice. Three or more hours a day, plus two or more hours in rehearsal - and all this after a lifetime of study, Huebner replied.
"The inmates saw that "it is their job, it is work," Cahillane says. And "to get anywhere in this life, you have to put in your hard work and pay your dues.""
Clarence Fanto, Special to the Eagle, 14 November 2007
An adventurous musical grab-bag
"Thomas, a longtime admirer of jazz, wrote Scat as an inversion of the stylistic technique in which jazz singers (Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Bobby McFerrin, among many others) imitate instruments either wordlessly or with random syllables and nonsense words. Her combination of oboe (or flute), violin, viola, cello and piano (or harpsichord) employs some gestures and elements typical of jazz, but comes across as a free-form, propulsive chamber work infused with tightly-coiled energy. The Walden performers successfully captured the improvisational spirit of the eight-minute work. Thomas has created a fascinating piece that honors the jazz tradition while avoiding imitative "crossover" techniques. Scat is well worth additional hearings."
To obtain examination or performance material for any of Augusta Read Thomas's works, please contact G. Schirmer Inc..