Coming soon, I have a new album of orchestral music called “Environments” that I’ll be releasing in short order (within the next month, fingers crossed!). It’s a collection of 18 orchestral pieces, all composed during 2021 & 2022, that poses the question, what does “music about architecture” sound like? There’s a great quote that I heard from Jane Siberry, but could have originated elsewhere, which goes: “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” A valid point, but I cut out the talking and the dancing.
The real story is that I have always felt that my composition process works best when I have a narrative to write to, a story that the music should tell. It’s like the narrative structure “pulls” the music along, and gives it life (this type of music is called “Program Music”). While this has been helpful for my film work, it’s always seemed like a weakness to me, like I should be able to just write music for its own sake, without having to follow a story. During a conversation about this, my composition mentor, Michel Rochon suggested that I should take on a project where I was forced to write music about something static … like Architecture. I decided I would ask my patrons on the amazing Patreon platform, to suggest buildings, or places, public artworks, or natural environments that have made them feel awe or wonder, and I would write short pieces about each of their suggestions.
And here we are a year and a bit out from the beginning of that, and it’s finally (nearly) ready to see the light of day. The pieces run the gamut of musical styles (as the buildings and other spaces run the gamut of architectural or emotional styles). Some of the environments turned out to be indicators of much bigger things (the destruction during World War Two of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis, for example, or the fighting of Bangladeshis for their country’s very existence), or more about the architecture of a state of mind (the joy of seeing his daughter smile for the first time in many years after a very difficult period in her life, or the freedom of skydiving) than about actual buildings, but with every piece, you can feel a personal connection to the place, and the memories of that sense of wonder. There are musical references, too, from Madness and Björk to mall Muzak and TV theme songs from my youth.
I can’t thank my Patreon patrons enough for the support and originality they demonstrated! They get honourable mentions in the large format coffee-table book that accompanies the music. It will be available as both a digital download and possibly also a vinyl or CD special edition, with the coffee-table book beautifully printed and bound, if there’s enough interest in that. I’ll post here when it’s released!
Thanks for reading!
Steve Sauder Composer 