An Interview with Ben Hackbarth
AUGUST 2000
Benjamin Hackbarth is the director of the Centre for Music, Technology and Creativity, the artistic director of the Open Circuit Festival and the Head of Composition at the University of Liverpool where he writes music for instruments and electronic sound. Ben has been named composer in residence for musical research and composer in research at IRCAM three times since 2010. He was also a composer affiliated with the Center for Research and Computing in the Arts (CRCA) and a Sonic Arts Researcher at CalIT2. He has had residencies at Cité des Arts, Centre Internationale de Récollets, Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with other artists to create multimedia installations with realtime graphics, sound and motion tracking. Notable performances include those by the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble InterContemporain, the New York New Music Ensemble, the L.A. Percussion Quartet, the Collage New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Ensemble SurPlus and the Wet Ink Ensemble. His work has been presented in venues such as Cité de la Musique, Akademie Schloss Solitude, the MATA festival, SIGGRAPH, the Florida Electro-acoustic Music Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Ingenuity Festival, E-Werk, the Pelt Gallery, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, the Roulette Concert Space and Espace de Projection at IRCAM. Ben's music can be heard on CD releases by the Carrier Records and EMF labels
John Kochevar: What was your intent when you wrote Red Shift?
Hackbarth: I started on the piece when I was 16 years-old. There were two musical germs:
The cellular – A group of pitches.
The melodic – A set of sequences.
Red Shift was an experiment in how extreme I could make variations on these two simple forms.
I guess I was inspired by Varese. I was listening to Integrales and read how he saw shapes in space and wrote music to describe their rotation. I liked the idea of a shape in space and the rotation of the shape, but where Varese described small changes I wanted to get to larger extremes. I think it is really important for the modern day composer to push ahead at the extremes.
You know Red Shift is an effect of light – like the Doppler effect – where the experience of the object depends on the momentum and position of the observer. Stars that are moving away look red, stars moving toward you look blue. I named my composition Red Shift because I wanted to show that we are still looking at the same star or listening to the same basic notes, but can get a very different physical experience depending on our viewpoint.
Kochevar: What happened in the course of composition? Did everything go as planned or did things turn out differently.
Hackbarth: Whenever anyone goes from a Platonic form to the actual, things change. I started the piece as an exercise, and after about a year I started studying with a composition teacher. It changed a lot, but I can still feel the original idea when I hear it.
Kochevar: What should listeners know before they hear this music? What should they listen for?
Hackbarth: There is not much repetition in Red Shift. I wanted to show different views of the same things but in a way that is so extreme that you can barely connect from one idea to the next. This is music for people who are trying to connect the physical world with music, but still trying to get feelings and texture.
Kochevar: Let me change the subject. We are always trying to take the pulse of the audience for new music. In your opinion, are they alive or dead?
Hackbarth: I guess it depends on where you are. There is not much of a pulse in Tempe, Arizona.
Kochevar: Do you play new music for your friends? What can you do to create an interest in contemporary music?
Hackbarth: There is not much interest here. Sometimes I play contemporary music from early in the 20thcentury for my friends. Some of them come back and ask to hear it again.
Frankly, I can not imagine growing an audience for contemporary music. That’s not my concern. A composer should push forward. How an audience reacts is not the point….
Kochevar: So, last but not least, people will be curious about how you started down this path.
Hackbarth: I was playing jazz trumpet and piano and the idea of improvisation got me into composition. I also liked math and physics. I really liked calculus. I guess this had an influence on how I started composing. Recently my attitudes have changed a Iot. I realize the composers I was listening to wrote 60, 70, 80 years ago. Now I am more interested in more sophisticated contemporary music. For example, I’m listening to synthesizer music. I’m hoping that Eastman will help me keep up with developments in contemporary music.
Kochevar: Aren’t you concerned about making a living after you graduate? You could always study applied math and practice composition on the side. Aren’t your parents concerned?
Hackbarth: I thought about that. My dad is a professor of composition at Arizona State, and I know that there are very few jobs outside academics. The thing is, I really like music. I like math too, but if I am not doing it I don’t miss it. If I did not do music I would really miss it. Besides, I’m only 18. It’s not like I am going to ruin my life.
Kochevar: Bravo…