Interview with Lisa Kaplan of Eighth Blackbird

Collage New Music and Artistic Director Eric Nathan have launched a major new commissioning initiative in partnership with leading contemporary music ensembles Eighth Blackbird (Lisa Kaplan and Matthew Duvall, Artistic Co-Directors) and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (Matilda Hofman, Artistic Director). The “What is Home?” Commissioning Project What is Home?, the project invites six composers from across the United States to each respond to the question: What does home mean to you? Read an interview with Eighth Blackbird’s Co-Director Lisa Kaplan and watch composer JaRon Brown share more about his participation in the initiative and his upcoming premiere. 

Lisa Kaplan is a pianist specializing in the performance of new work by living composers. Kaplan is the founding pianist and Co-Artistic Director of the four-time Grammy Award-winning sextet Eighth Blackbird. 

How did Eighth Blackbird come to be involved in the “What is Home?” Commissioning Project?
Following a successful co-commission with Collage and Bang-on-a-Can where we commissioned Joan Tower to compose Into the Night, it seemed only fitting to do another project together. When Eric Nathan came on, he was in touch, as we knew each other from our grad school days. We decided for this co-commission to ask Left Coast Ensemble to be a part of it so we could have geographic sprawl as it were, from the East Coast, through Chicago and all the way to the Left (West) Coast.

Creating communities among artists to share their practices and support one another is often crucial to bringing our work into the world. How do you see this project aiding in this pursuit?
Interestingly both JaRon and April are composers that we came to know through our Blackbird Creative Lab program which seeks in part, as one of its goals, to build community between curious and collaborative emerging artists.

How does Eight Blackbird seek to create community, or home, in its local and more distant communities?
It is our hope that the diverse group of artists who took part in composing for What is Home? will forge connections with each other and embrace each others’ communities. The world of contemporary music is small and the more we can foster community the better off we are all for it!

What images come to mind in your personal life when you think of home? Is it your apartment, a loved one, or perhaps even that specifically tasty Danish that only that one coffee shop down the street from your office seems to get right?
Home for me is my daughter. It is the sound of her laughter and her humming while drawing.  It is the smell of delicious food cooking in our kitchen. It is our linked hands swinging side by side while out walking.

Lisa was interviewed by Collage Fellow Gaston Gosselin.

Eighth Blackbird moves music forward through innovative performance, advocacy for music by living composers, and its legacy of guiding an emerging generation of musicians. Learn more about Eighth Blackbird at https://www.eighthblackbird.org/