Stir Q&A: Renowned composers sound off on two new ground-breaking pieces for Chor Leoni
Melissa Dunphy and Grammy-nominee Kile Smith take audiences on a musical journey in Earth and Aether: the archaeology of soul and sky
Melissa Dunphy
Kile Smith
Chor Leoni presents Earth and Aether: the archaeology of soul and skyon May 11 at 4 pm at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church
FOR CHOR LEONI’S next performance, Earth and Aether: the archaeology of soul and sky, the 65-member choir has commissioned two of the world’s most sought-after choral composers to write ground-breaking companion pieces.
Grammy-nominated artist Kile Smith’s Wireless explores the world’s earliest radio broadcasts and transmissions dating from 1896 to 1920. Heard throughout the piece are everything from workaday transmissions such as “Can you hear me?” and “Hello. Test, one, two, three, four” to emergency calls from the Titanic, pop music, operatic arias, and more.
Melissa Dunphy’s composition, The Things We Leave Behind, has as its theme humanity's legacies buried beneath the Earth’s surface and how they might appear to future civilizations. Throughout the work, Dunphy contrasts stories of the past with those of the present, from the stone-age Venus of Willendorf figurine to mass-produced novelty mugs.
Raised in Australia by refugee parents from Greece and China, Dunphy immigrated to the U.S. in 2003 and went on to earn a bachelor’s of music in theory and composition from West Chester University and a Ph.D. in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania. A lecturer in composition at Rutgers University, she specializes in vocal, political, and theatrical music.
Smith has earned three Grammy nominations for his music. He has been commissioned by multiple choirs, including Conspirare and Santa Fe Desert Chorale, among many others; his major choral works are heard throughout Canada, the U.S., England, and New Zealand.
For the two world premieres, Chor Leoni will be accompanied by harpist Vivian Chen and saxophonist Julia Nolan.
“We’re thrilled to have had the opportunity to collaborate with these two incredible composers and bring these meaningful pieces to life,” Chor Leoni artistic director Erick Lichte says in a press release. “These new works give us a chance to examine how we live on this planet and bring listeners to a greater understanding of our human past, present, and future.”
Stir connected with Dunphy and Smith to hear more about their works.
How did music first enter your life?
Smith: I've sung in choirs all my life, from the kids’ choir in church to every school choir available. I still sing in church choir and in the only German TTBB choir [two tenors, a baritone, and bass] in the Philadelphia area, the Franklinville-Schwarzwald Männerchor. So, choral music was my first love in music and continues to play an important role in my composing. The sound of a Männerchor is still astounding to me, from great music composed for it by Mendelssohn and Schubert down to the little-known composers who specialized only in that, such as Friedrich Silcher.
Dunphy: When I was very small, my mother took me to piano lessons because she read somewhere that studying music benefitted children's math skills; this backfired on her somewhat, because I enjoyed music much more than math! The school I went to in Brisbane, Australia, has an excellent music program, so I also took up violin and viola (my main instrument), and sang in choirs growing up. For a period in my late teens, I “broke up” with classical music and played in all kinds of rock and folk bands.
What drew you to composition? What do you enjoy about the art form and how does it challenge you?
Smith: It wasn't until high school that I knew I had to be a composer. I heard the Brahms [A German] Requiem on an LP and it absolutely floored me. My heart almost stopped when I heard those low strings churning away at the opening; it was as if I was hearing music for the first time. I said to myself, “I've got to do that.”
Dunphy: I didn’t decide to become a composer until I was in my mid-20s, after I had moved from Australia to the USA, and came to it through theatre (my other love). While acting in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Harrisburg Shakespeare Festival, the composer backed out at the last minute, and I stepped in to write all the songs for the show. A lightbulb went off in my head, and I realized this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Maybe because of my theatre background, I’m especially drawn to vocal music, and the way music interacts with text—I often say that setting words to music feels very similar to preparing a monologue as an actor, because as a composer I make the same kinds of decisions I did as an actor when choosing how to express those words. It can feel like solving an intricate and exciting puzzle. And of course, the best part is when I get to hear my works come alive in the hands of incredible performers and see audiences connecting with it—that's pure magic.
What can you tell us about your new piece for Chor Leoni?
Smith (Wireless): The texts that I found from the early days of radio transmission—I chose ones from 1896 to 1920—surprised me by how mundane they were! There were no Gettysburg Addresses or recitations of human accomplishments, at least not that I found. Instead, there's “Can you hear me?” and “Hello. Test, one, two, three, four“, news reports, emergency calls from the Titanic, popular songs, opera arias, an impromptu speech: all testing the capabilities of this new technology. But they slowly arranged themselves into a narrative that I thought worked dramatically. And, without giving it away, what I found was that more than communicating farther and farther through the air, something even better appeared. Greater than the desire to reach out is the desire to come home. That, I thought, more than a century later and in the midst of all our ever-new and sometimes frightening technology, could speak to us today.
Writing a work that embraced the sound of Chor Leoni with soprano saxophone and harp was a special gift to me. It was a challenge and an inspiration to compose music for these forces and to work with Erick on such a substantial project. I'm looking forward to the concert, to Melissa's work, and to meeting this exciting community of musicians and listeners!
Dunphy (The Things We Leave Behind): The Things We Leave Behind is a choral exploration of the stories hidden within the everyday objects that survive us. I’ve written some program notes here, but here’s the short version: I have a sideline as an amateur archaeologist, and The Things We Leave Behind is the first choral work I’ve written that incorporates my passion for archaeology, including how my work in that field has shaped the ways I think about the world. There are four sections, each of which contrasts artifacts from the past with artifacts from the present: for example, the first song references the Willendorf Venus, while the second is about a Barbie doll abandoned in an attic. I’ve also written texts that draw upon the wills of early European settlers in Philadelphia, and the rhyming couplets that 19th-century enslaved potter David Drake inscribed on his stoneware pots. Something that particularly excites me about archaeology is the way it can tie into the issue of environmental stewardship; one of the songs is about human impact on the soil at the bottom of Crawford Lake in Ontario, where the stratification of manmade particles illustrates our legacy. The most emotional song for me personally is the last one, “World’s Greatest Dad”, in which I imagine the story of a ceramic mug that many of us have seen in our kitchen sinks, and the eternal wish it represents for both children and parents.
I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to write for harpist Vivian Chen and saxophonist Julia Nolan as well—as I was writing this work, I was inspired by the harp’s ancient roots in Sumeria and the saxophone’s association with contemporary music as one of the most recently developed acoustic instruments, so I enjoyed playing with the implications of those sounds.
Both Wireless and The Things We Leave Behind look to the past to illuminate the present and imagine the future, but from different angles: Wireless focuses on messages sent during the very beginning of radio broadcasting, while my piece explores the legacy of physical objects. Kile and I are both based in Philadelphia, but we haven’t conferred on the works we’ve created for this project, so I can’t say much about his music yet, as I’ll be hearing it for the first time when I’m in Vancouver for the premiere! 
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