Latest / Sidewalk Talks / Music Reframed: SBSO’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” with Maestro Fouad Fakhouri

Transcript

Music Reframed: SBSO’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” with Maestro Fouad Fakhouri · Sidewalk Talks

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. My name is Phil. And on Saturday, March 28 at 07:30PM at the Historic Temple Theater in downtown Saginaw, the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra will continue its ninetieth season with a concert called Music Reframed Pictures at an Exhibition, and we'll chat about the concert today. Joined by a Maestro himself, Fouad Fakhouri. Fouad, good to chat with you again.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Great to see you.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: You just landed in Saginaw. Where are coming from?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I landed I think I landed yesterday yesterday afternoon. I came from home. I was in New York. I came in. But, you know, I had to switch airports last minute because the because of the accident at LaGuardia.
• 0:44
  So I was scheduled to leave, yeah, to leave in LaGuardia in the morning, and I had received a text message from Delta at 03:30 in the morning saying your flight's been canceled. So I had to call him and then go to New Jersey, to Newark, and then I came on a different flight yesterday. Yeah.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We won't we won't go into the politics of this. We'll just say that it's the mess of traveling by air.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Air in America right now.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Long lines too.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I believe how long were you in a line for?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So the line wasn't that bad about I think in J sorry. In Newark, it was about thirty five minutes. Okay. It wasn't bad, but there are lines, you know, if you go to JFK or to LaGuardia, they're much longer.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I heard I heard Atlanta's, like, three hours long right now. It's just Yeah. Wild.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that you made it here because I'm looking forward to this concert. This the lineup of this concert is super super cool, and I've talked to Cameron Massey about this before is, like, the programming that the SBSO does, it's so interesting to me. Mhmm. Because, like like, we're gonna talk about you get a titan of the classical literature, and then you bookend it with some EDM inspired classical pieces, and then, like, a double bass centered piece by Kevra. It's just it's really incredible that you get to experience all these different kinds of music in one single evening.
• 2:14
  So let's let's talk let's talk about each one of these. Let's start with the with the big boy here, Pictures Ex hibition. Talk to me a little bit about this piece, the background of it, the structure of it, which I think is so interesting. Talk to me like I'm somebody who's who's never heard this piece of music before.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the this concert is unique in the fact that it opens with a piece that was originally for piano and closes with a piece that was written for piano as well. Both pieces are orchestrated by Ravel, Maurice Ravel, the French composer Maurice Ravel. The first piece is his own. So he wrote it for piano first, Alborada del Gracioso.
• 2:54
  He wrote it for piano first, part of a a suite of pieces, and then he orchestrated it later on for a dance, for ballet. And then the last piece is in Modzorski's Pictures and Exhibition, which is, again, a suite of piano pieces, a grouping of piano pieces that Ravel took and orchestrated for orchestra. The Pictures and Exhibition is about a thirty, thirty five minute long piece that takes you on a journey through a museum of sorts where you get to see works by painter a of the time who Mussorgsky knew, and you sort of get to move from one painting to the next, and these paintings then become the movements of the piece. And then there is as there is within those movements that have these scenes, you get something called promenade, which is, you know, you're walking from one painting to the next, which is a repeated thematic material that's very short, but it sort of moves you from one photo or one painting to the next painting.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's it's it's such an interesting piece for for a lot of reasons, like you're you're going into like a suite like this and you're thinking like, oh, it's gonna be the our typical three movements, but there's And then there's the the promenades are are very short but in between, but it's like you're strolling between between these these these paintings. And I believe Modest and the artist, they were like friends, like the Russian art scene. And then the friend passes away. Doesn't he have like an aneurysm?
• 4:29
  He's like 39. He has an aneurysm. He passes away, and then this these pieces were written as a response to that?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yes. And then not only that, a lot of these paintings that that were painted were lost. So we don't know, you know, you have the title of these works because Muzzorski had seen them somewhere, but but we don't have the paintings anymore. And what we're doing this time in the the concert is that Cameron has found some of these paintings are available. Some of them are not, but Cameron has created this PowerPoint that we're gonna project as we perform the piece of some of those paintings as well as others that fit the pay the the sound that you're about to hear or the topic that you're going to hear within that that movement of the piece by other painters.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Very cool.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Other artists. Yeah.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Shout out to Cameron. Like, Cameron's always, like, he's always trying to push a little bit. Yes. Or like, throw it like, okay, we can do this, but what's the sauce that we can put on top? Or the cherry or the additional layer?
• 5:33
  Like, how can we be more reflective of the community? And and, like, I just I love the way that Cameron's thinking about, okay. We can have this, but what else can we do? What's the one more thing that we can do? And I think he's doing such a great job.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's no doubt. I mean, Cameron's I think Cameron's big skill set, I think, for me, at least, in terms of his sort of natural talent, is this type of stuff. You know? Taking taking whether it's marketing the orchestra or taking a topic like this and creating a slideshow or a PowerPoint, he's really, really great at also visual stuff.
• 6:07
  And then you're right. I mean, he's always pushing for what do we do to reflect the community. That's his biggest biggest thing. That does push programming as well. So it does inspire different ideas in terms of programming.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It also makes a lot of sense in terms of, like, how do how do we get more people interested in in supporting symphonic music? And, like, you think about, like, classical music. Like, at the time, that was that was the pop music of the day. That was the p the kind of music that people wanted to go to a concert hall and they wanted to listen to it.
• 6:44
  And so it would be disingenuous to inflict eighteenth century music on modern audiences and say, well, this is the only way that you can experience this this kind of music. And so throwing in, like, pieces by Kebra and saying, like, we're gonna we're gonna play a double bass for you in a way that you have never heard a double bass played. Right. Or like your work, which we'll talk about as well. Like, you can go to a night of music and there is something for everybody.
• 7:11
  It's gonna tweak your ears a little bit. You might be there for pictures at an exhibition. You might not. You're gonna hear it. You're gonna hear the next part.
• 7:19
  It's just it's, I think, the way to go about it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean and and then there's the other aspect of it. If we don't do that, then the art form just simply sort of stagnates and dies away because, you know, you can Beethoven is great. Brahms is wonderful. But, you know, audiences have heard these pieces hundreds of times, and, you know, you can do them another 100 times, but you're then not perpetuating the art form.
• 7:42
  You're not creating new art that resonates or that is built around the moment that you're living in. And that's what art should reflect. It should reflect the moment in time where you're alive, and it should reflect what you're doing.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. I I think reflect the moment in time that that you're living, and then also, like, pushing it a little bit. Yes. Like like, you're thinking, like, Stravinsky, like, causing riots in the streets. Like, he wasn't just reflecting the culture at the time.
• 8:09
  He was saying like, where could we go? And I'm gonna get a little bit saucy with this and see how people react and they're like, oh my god. You can't play music like this. And now we look at it as, like, some of the greatest music ever created by human beings. And so being reflective of the culture, having one foot in the in the past with the greats, one foot now, and then a little bit of a wink towards where could we be going with this thing?
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Right. But I mean, that's typically that's what artists do. I mean, even, you know, good artists, not all artists, but when you bring Stravinsky's, for instance, you're you're referencing Rite of Spring, you know, he was living in a moment in time where there was a lot of turbulence. Right? So the the work was premiered and or written in 1913, right before World War one.
• 8:55
  So he is reflecting a dynamic shift in the world, and he just sort of put it in music, and it started those the cracks, basically, in terms of art and certain musical art, symphonic art. And right after that, you have World War one erupt. So he is reflecting the turbulent times that he's living in, and it just happened to be before it, and it reflected that that time. So, yeah, I I I do agree completely. Art has to push boundaries and has to sort of perpetuate itself, constantly move on.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The Ravel's orchestration, it's it's kind of the one that everybody knows. Did you consider any other orchestrations, or is, like, Ravel your your boy? Is he your go to?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, they you're that's a great question. There are other composers that have orchestrated this piece. I have looked at other ones, and it's really I've done this now piece. This will be the third time I've done it with the Ravel orchestration, And I think it works quite well. It would be wonderful.
• 9:56
  I would love to try others. I just haven't. I've looked at them, but I haven't done it. But I've you know? So
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Hard to hard to look past something that works really well.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: But other ones you know, the the thing about the others, they work quite well in different ways. Some of them work really are really well orchestrated differently than than Ravel. But Ravel is such a great orchestrator that, you know, you won't go wrong with Ravel.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This being your third time conducting this piece, do you have a movement that that you kinda look at as, like, like, this is the emotional center of this entire piece of music?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Not so much with this one because they're so such small sort of really contained, you know, I mean, it's a painting, and it's contained within this movement. I really like the ending when you get all the way to the big door, you know, the the Yeah. The door or the gate. Yeah.
• 10:44
  The gate. So I I really like how it ends, how it builds, and how it gets to that point. But it's a wonderful work. It's wonderful work for piano, and then it's a great great work that he orchestrated as well, and it's a crowd favorite. So just to go back to what we started the conversation with, when when you when you put music that so I really wanted to do Cabral's piece, which is a cello sorry, a bass double bass concerto.
• 11:11
  And I had my piece on there, and those are really pieces that are not typical pieces that that regular symphonic audiences would expect necessarily. So I wanted to bookend them with pieces that people would know and and it would for them to digest, basically.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That that last last movement, it's very, like, it's very Mahler.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Like, here's this giant wall of sound with, of course, all the little thematic references from the rest of the movements kind of in between, but it's here's the gates of Kiev. Yeah. Yeah. It's dope. When talk to me about, like, what's going on in your brain when you're conducting.
• 11:52
  Like, do you do you are you thinking, like, technically? Are you thinking, like, kind of improvisationally, like, in the moment reacting to sound? Are you thinking emotionally? Like, what's going through your brain as you're conducting either this piece of music or anything?
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: So in a performance, typically, I am trying as best as possible to sort of let go of all of the technical stuff that we work through in the rehearsal. I'm not concerned with that as much anymore, and I'm trying to guide the form of the piece. And as I get older, this has become more and more important. When you're young, you're always worried about I wouldn't say this is gonna sound bad appearances, but, you know, you're worried about, did I make a mistake here? Did I polish this section well enough?
• 12:44
  You know, these sort of little minor details. But with sort of age now, I'm my biggest concern is, have I have I I been successful throughout the piece? I think about this as I'm going along in tying the beginning to the point that I'm in right now, knowing that I'm heading to the end, which is here. I'm always worried or cons my main concern now when I perform pieces is, am I keeping the macro form of the piece intact? Am I grabbing the audience with me, not just moment to moment, but over the work of thirty five minutes, or am I losing them there somewhere in some during the this piece?
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I wait. I I I can relate to that a little bit. When I was conducting choirs, like, of that technical work is in the rehearsal. It's in the preparation. And if you do your job in that performance, like, that's when you let go of it.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: And Right.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And when you are able to do that and be present and be reactive and think not only about what the musicians in front of you are doing and what how they're sounding, but also like the energy in the room and what is the audience reaction and how do you conduct not just the musicians, but also essentially conducting the audience by reacting like like, we're really feeling the energy here and I think they're gonna like this. That becomes very creative and I I used to think about the, like, Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. Like, he's just like like, everything. Like, the entire world is, like, he's essentially conducting, like, all of these different elements, and I think that's what really goes into making a good performance.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: That's very true. And and the word I mean, you know, it so happens that the word conductor conductor is interesting because you're conducting between I mean, you are a conduit almost, you know, between audience and and orchestra. And your job is to sort of tie those two together, and that's you know, at at the root of it, that's really what you're trying to do. Mhmm. It's not very difficult.
• 14:48
  Right? I mean, you're all you're trying to do is trying to take this great piece of music and present it to a group of people.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I I I love your riff on that word because you think conductor is like the conductor of a train, the leader, the person who makes everything go, you know, things like that. But your your interpretation of it is more like a conduit. Like, here's this music with these musicians and these this audience, and it's my job to connect all of them. Yeah. Interesting.
• 15:17
  Fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. So as a as a conductor and an, you know, piece of music like this that that many people have heard before, likely multiple times.
• 15:31
  They have their favorite recording. They turn it on. Like, how do you approach a work like this? Are you simply trying to honor the composer's intent and ravel? Are you trying to make people hear it in a different way and contribute something new?
• 15:47
  Like, what is your philosophy of that?
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: So because specifically with this piece, because I've done it, the first couple of times, I really did it as Ravel orchestrated it. Meaning, I just took what he wrote and tried to be as sort of faithful to what Ravel orchestrated. This time, I spent a lot of time on the original piano version of Mussorgsky
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Seeing how it was that he wrote it first, and then seeing the differences between what Ravel did. And he did take a lot of liberties in many many areas with orchestrating the works by Mussorgsky, and I tried to bridge those two ideas. And so I had I've changed a few things in the score to reflect Mudzorski's original piano version of the work. Most audiences, they're minor details. They won't notice them, but I wanted to do to reframe it, at least from my point of view, to be a little bit more closer to the original Mudzorski version.
• 16:42
  So that's that's the approach that I've taken. But, again, to to go back to your question, as you know, when I first started doing this, it was very important to me to be very, you know, faithful to every single note. And and now I look at it as more of I mean, I still want to be faithful to every single note in the score, but but I need to be also very cognizant of the overall effect of these small details and how they are received by the audience.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I think that one of the criticisms of of Ravel's orchestration that I've read is, like, he can sometimes take some some liberties. And and I and I love in this one that that you've gone back to the original piano compositions to to be able to almost translate it a little bit better into that original intent. You know, it's kinda like a game of telephone, you know, you get three orchestrations away and, you know, you like, the theme's still there and you can you can still hear it, but it's it's very much Ravel. Yeah. So so I love that that you kinda went back to the source text.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And Ravel, you know, mean, thing Mussorgsky is obviously Russian. Ravel is such a French although he was from, you know, Basque, I think. But really, as a as a composer, he's a very French composer, very refined orchestration, very brilliant, almost Debussy like in terms of how he writes these these textures. So the questions I kept having as I'm studying the piece again is I wonder if Mussorgsky were to orchestrate this, would he think about it this way or a different way?
• 18:21
  And I suspect many of the areas he would do it, he would have done them differently.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting if you could sit those two in a room.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And like Ravel have Ravel present his work. So, like, what do you think about this modest? It's like, what have you done?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I know. That would be great.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So this concert, pictures of an exhibition, wonderful classical literature, the piece everybody's heard before. And then you get to this piece on night nightlife.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Nightlife.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: By Cabra Seun Charles playing the double bass. The first time I ever so my original impression of the double bass instrument as an instrument was like, they're tucked over there, you know, they play their little, like, every once in a while thing or you get to the final movement and then they can really crank it. And the man who really redefined the instrument for me was Edgar Meyer.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: And the first time that I heard Edgar play solo, I was just like, oh my goodness. Like, just like this comes across as like this blue collar guy just sitting up there with his double bass and he just cranks into the the crazy stuff and played a bunch of like Chris Thiele and the Punch Brothers, kind of this wacky atonal bluegrass kind of stuff. So I was I was really interested to to listen to Kebra and I found the recording of it. And it's such an interesting piece because they're there for a lot of reasons that I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna get your thoughts in a second, but I'm just gushing about this is like like, here you have this kind of presentation of nightlife in a lot of different ways. Like, get get this reference to blues and like you you're sitting in in that blues bar smoking the cigarette, drinking whiskey, listening to the blues band.
• 20:14
  But then there's also jazz and that kind of nightlife. And then there's classical themes in there. It's like, well, like, now I'm at the concert hall and it it it's a really, really intriguing piece. So tell me a little bit about this piece, why you selected it. Tell me all the good stuff.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then, you know, you you mentioned I think you captured the essence of the piece and you captured Kebra. You know, the the piece does take you on a journey, a nightlife journey. Kebra says that they like music from all sorts of different genres, etcetera, and that they like to go out at night and enjoy the the evening. So Kebra's experience through this piece is that they take you on a journey from one venue to the next almost, where you will get to hear Baroque music, and then you'll get to hear a revival music or a church music, etcetera, etcetera, and even to a point where at one point, the orchestra is engaged by singing and speaking and hollering and, you know, that that type of stuff.
• 21:17
  So it's a twenty minute work where Kebras, obviously, is the featured soloist as well, performing on the double bass, keeping it together through that that thin line of the double bass in terms of just that that one constant. But the styles around it are constantly shifting and changing.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Have you worked with Kebre before? Is this your first time working with
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Kebre? I've never worked with Kebra. I met I there I knew about Kebra through through Kebra's manager, Dan Visconti, who's another composer as well. Now Dan is manages this company. Dan reached out and said, you know, you really have to hear Kepra's music.
• 21:57
  It's really interesting. And I I heard it, and I thought, yeah, we should present it in Saginaw.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I I I think the fit for Saginaw is super cool. Like, it's a a very cool vibe. And, you know, to thinking about soloist with an orchestra, you're thinking, you know, your piano concertos, you're thinking your violins, you're thinking like But your then here comes this double bass and just like the range of the double bass. I think this is a great piece, not just for Saginaw and the culture here, but also just to be able to present this instrument in a way to folks that that they likely have not heard it played before.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And that's I think that's one thing that I really wanted to do, which is expose audiences and listeners to something
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: think it's Meyer, but I'm Meyer.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The entire piece almost takes place at the in the treble clef. It's so high for the you know, he's playing all the way down, and it sounds it just sounds great. It has some great moments, and and it's really exciting.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Traditionally, singing classical symphonic music, you are a conductor interpreting music written by a composer who has passed away. They've lived a long time ago ago. You can you look back at their work and other interpretations, but but you don't get to work directly with them. What is that experience like of being a conductor, working with a composer who is also the soloist? Mean, that's that's kind of an interesting dynamic between the three creatively.
• 23:40
  What is that like?
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It is. It's quite interesting, and you have to it's a different experience. You
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: if you think about music even two hundred, a hundred years ago, almost all every performance that you had, probably a little bit over a hundred years ago, and then the eighteen hundreds, say the eighteen fifty, sixty, seventy, it started changing. But up until that point, every piece that was performed, really, you either had the composer there or was a it was a modern piece, basically. It was just being performed for the first time. Music to them was what we experience today with our more popular music. It was the last piece written.
• 24:22
  We just performed it. So this experience of having the composer there, let alone having the composer there as well as being the soloist, that has been gradually sort of receded in in terms of music that that we do. And no. You don't have those instances as often. The I'm really curious and can't wait to have Cabra, the composer, be there and perform their piece of music live as soloist because at your disposal, then you have everything there.
• 24:56
  You if you have a question about this chord, the composer is right there. I don't have to guess. I can ask. And then but then it also creates a little bit of a, you know, I wouldn't say dilemma or a conflict, but and a piece by Beethoven, if I decide to do something that's different, Beethoven is not gonna tell me, no. You can't do that.
• 25:14
  But in this case, Kebrev would probably say, that's not what I thought. Yeah. Could you please change it?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: There there's a there are interesting creative possibilities in that tension.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yes. That's a great yeah.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Which I think is good. And I think that's a lot of time where the magic happens when you have a conductor, composer, soloist. Not like like, I I think we're both searching for a better word than conflict. But like the the mixing of experiences and expertise and interpretations and all of those things, Like, that's where really the magic happens. Where you can scooch a composer away that maybe they haven't heard their own music before.
• 25:55
  And they can scooch you away where it's like, hey, hey, Fouad, you're you might be in a little bit of a rut here. This is really what I'm thinking. And now that kinda scratches your brain in a different way. And so it's I think some cool things can kind of erupt from that that kind
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: of I mean, you know, this is the what you bring up is really interesting, and more and more when I think about it, the word conflict, right, is such a has such negative connotations today. Everyone is afraid of conflict. Everyone is afraid of engaging with somebody else that might have a different point of view or a different opinion. And everyone, it seems, not everyone, I'm generalizing clearly, but but there seems to be this idea that if you if we don't think alike, then you and I cannot be in agreement, or you and I don't have much in common, which is horrible for advancing certainly art. Because without that tension that you spoke about, without the idea of you thinking differently than I I am, and us discussing it, and then coming to some sort of a, you know, not an agreement.
• 26:58
  You don't have you don't have to agree, but some sort of understanding that, you know, Phil's ideas are relevant, have a point, and have value and merit, although I disagree with them. That's important. And so in society today, I think given our, you know, especially with with technology and the fast clicking and the fast viewing, we've moved away from that. And that's dangerous, I think, for creative work. You know.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: It's it's so fascinating that you're talking about this because I went to a a community conversation in in Bay City last night that really designed to put a bunch of people in a room who had very different opinions about different issues in the community and get them to talk with each other. And I I really came away with that convinced like, this is the way that human beings have and need to communicate with each other. And and we we've lost so much of, like, but we've lost like the confrontation and the positive aspects of confrontation. Like, when you disagree with me, or you have a different perspective than me, not only am I confronted with a different perspective, but I'm confronted with my own perspective. Perspective.
• 28:19
  Right. And now I have to evaluate, well, why do I believe what I believe? And is it based in truth and facts? Or did I just kind of was I told this by somebody and I just kind of adopted it as true? And I don't really believe that.
• 28:33
  And now, that gets me thinking in a different different way. And so you go all the way back to like, the Socratic method, this dialectical method. It wasn't it wasn't about like, I have all of the answers and I'm going to teach you all the answers, and then like, you will know everything. It was this reductive act of questioning. It was always questioning to dig down, dig deeper, dig into the truth.
• 28:57
  And if you're not if you're not together with another person doing that, that cannot happen. And so that's what I hear in what you're saying is like, there's so much that can be gained by that dynamic. You're like, otherwise, you're just this person living this life creatively, always like thinking this way. And you sometimes you need to get slammed from left field by somebody to be like, no, this is what I think. And that's where progress is made
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: and Right.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: You have conviction and all those things.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: And how boring is life if you're not challenged to think differently? I mean, there there is that. You know what I I mean, if if you're just if you believe you're right all the time Yeah. Well, good for you. You're right, but you're missing out on a lot in life.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How, yeah, how how easy would life be? Yeah. I have all the answers. I know.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I have all the answers. Yeah.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Fascinating. Another piece of music. Also, like, I'm really struck by, like, the programming of this because you have a composer who lived a long time ago, bastion of classical music. Mhmm. And you're working with a soloist who is also the composer, very contemporary.
• 30:06
  And now, your piece of music, you get to conduct, you composed it, you're working with tell me about your piece, trance.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: So trance refers to trance music that, you know, I growing up in the nineteen nineties in terms of just I mean, I that's when I went to college, and that's when I was going out. And trance music was big during that time, and we would just gather, my friends and I, especially during the summers, you know, we'd go to these clubs where they play EDM, electronic dance music. They play trans music. We'd stay up all night till three or four in the morning. This is back home in Lebanon, with three till three or four in the morning.
• 30:44
  And then we'd go out and eat. Then we'd go have a sleep for four or five hours, then go to the beach, you know, the day at the beach, go back home, take a nap at five or six, and do it all over again. So this is an ode basically to a time in my life when I was doing that type of stuff, going to clubs and to EDM clubs, electronic dance music, and listening to that type of music. So that's the piece about.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: So so when I read that about you like, this piece being inspired by your youthful experience of chance, like, I I just had this wonderful vision of Maestro Fouad just getting absolutely wrecked on, like like, a rave, like, on a dance floor. It's just like it's really incredible, this kind of, like, other world of Fouad Fakhouri, which I
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Well, mean, you know, I know you had a vision, but had you been there thirty years ago, you would have probably seen it. It wasn't a vision. It was reality.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: You know what mean?
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Funny funny story about techno music. So you're thinking like techno thing electronic music really like Germany, you know, kind of kind of that. And I I was down in Detroit doing a story in Detroit, and I walked up, I got the location. It was this EDM Techno Museum. Mhmm.
• 32:06
  And it just this just this little house on, I believe, the North End Of Detroit. So I go walking up the house and the house man opens the door, introduces himself, and the house is like like pictures of the history of of techno music, things like that. And I'm talking to him and he's like, well well, it was it was me and another guy that started it. I was like, started what? And he goes, techno music.
• 32:32
  I was like, you? And he's like, yeah. We we were here in Detroit, and we're we're trying to like, we're doing techno electronic music, and it wasn't really taken off because it was Detroit, Motown, you know, like like, nobody wants to hear this this stuff. And so we went over to Germany, and it was around the time of the the Berlin Wall and, you know, all sorts of underground things happening, and their culture was exploding, and they took took to it right away. And, you know, that's why everybody thinks that Germany was the birthplace of techno, but Detroit was.
• 33:03
  And it was just mind blowing to have that kind of connection, to hear, like, the birthplace of techno music, just this little old house on the North End of Detroit. Who would've thought?
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I know. And I didn't know that until Don Belcher, our librarian, told me that. You know, I I I always thought it came out of Europe because that's where it was really big. But, yeah, it was it came out of Detroit.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It came out of Detroit because Detroit said no. They were like, no. This is we're we're Motown, like like, get out of here with this kind of noise. And so they just they went to where people wanted to listen to the music and culturally, it hit at the right time and exploded all over there.
• 33:39
  So Yeah. You're you're welcome, world.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Exactly.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Based on Detroit. Interesting to think about, like, an orchestra playing EDM. Yeah. Well, like, as a composer, how did you approach that? Were you thinking, like, how do I make an orchestra sound like electronic dance music, or was it trying to translate electronic dance music into the language of the orchestra?
• 34:06
  Like, where was your mind at?
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I thought about it before I composed the piece. I wanted to I I thought very I took a long time to think, do I wanna just replicate what I would hear in a club or or what I would sense in a club exactly as it was, or do I wanna replicate the experience? Because at one point in time, I thought I would use electronic instruments within the orchestra to to really sort of create that sound. Because there are certain sounds that the orchestra will not be able to sort of recreate.
• 34:38
  But then I decided against it. I thought instead of really just trying as much as possible to carbon copy an experience that I had in terms of sound and music, I want to create the general environment of what I would I felt during those nights out. So it's a little bit broader than, you know, what you would expect. But for instance, there is you know, the the thing about trans music, techno trans music, that I really always loved is this manipulation of energy. Because you would be in a club, and then the energy in the music would sort of, all of a sudden, sort of die down.
• 35:16
  And then you have this one line that just you typically I mean, you hear it. It's a formula. You have this static line that just go, and then there's nothing going on, and people are just waiting. And then from the background, you start getting this drum beat that goes boom, boom, boom. And then you add more and more percussion until it becomes almost obsessive, and then the beat drops, and then everything starts again, and then the club would go wild.
• 35:41
  Right? I mean, in in terms of dancing and doing all that stuff. And that those are the types of experiences that I want. So I created I recreated that type of effect in the middle of the piece where there's a slow movement. It's in about four different sections.
• 35:54
  There's an opening that's big and grand. Then there is a slow section that leads into this beat drop section, and then it ends with really these big flourishes, almost like the sun is coming out as you're leaving the club. That yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah. I I have not personally experienced trance music or EDM, like, in person. A little hard to with three kids at home. Yeah.
• 36:18
  But with, like, scrolling through social media, there's a whole culture on social media surrounding, like, EDM, DJs, things like that. And the that's the that's really my takeaway of the thing that impresses me the most and what I think is so beautiful about the forum is that manipulation of energy. Like, it is it is very much a moment where everyone is here right now. And it's really what makes live music so important. Right?
• 36:51
  And and what Spotify will never be able to replicate, what digital music will never be able to replicate is being in that warehouse with 400 other, like, sweating bodies just losing your mind. Or in a concert hall sitting in front of an orchestra and hit like, being able to hear your eardrums vibrate at the end of like a mile or something like it's just like you're sitting in this wall of sound, not just because of the music, but because you're there with human beings. And I think that's what makes EDM so so beautiful. Like, you see all of these people that for those four hours or six hours or however long they're there, they are all there together in that moment, loving whatever it is they're listening to, and it's That's such a powerful thing.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it brings them together. Right? And and
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you can
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: see it. I mean, if you go on YouTube or watch one of those outdoors EDM festival types of thing events, you know, even at certain moments, you just watch the audience or the people that are listening. They're swaying together in the same I mean, it's almost as if you're taking atoms and then all of a sudden sort of regulating the frequencies. They just they cannot but move together. Right?
• 38:03
  And talk about bringing people together. If you wanna bring people together, create a rhythm, manipulate a rhythm that starts a certain way, sets an expectation, moves away from it, and then comes back to it with such determination, they will jump together, all of them at the same time. They cannot but do it. It's almost binding. It's like glue.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: One of my teachers at Westminster Choir College, James Jordan, he he was telling me once in a workshop about a trainment. Mhmm. So you're you're conducting this choir and one of the magical things about a choir like a group of musicians is everybody is physically breathing together. I mean, then that that like the music obviously encourages that and almost dictates it. But he said, the really interesting thing about a group of musicians is that they're when they're really moving together, their heartbeats start to synchronize.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: And I I think that says so much about the importance of music and the importance of being together with people that there there is literally a physiological reaction in our bodies that says this is important and we are here with people feeling the same way, feeling the same things. We're part of a community that when it's not just emotional or cognitive or or isn't this so beautiful? Don't you think so too? But literally the your heart start to beat together, and you start to breathe together, and it's it's a moment that you cannot have any other way than being in a room listening to music with other people.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: That's right. And if there's any hope for us in terms of just I mean, to go back to this idea of of disagreement in social discourse, it is music really clearly helps with with that, because then you're not using words. Right? So there's nothing to argue about. You're you know, I can't say, well, you're interpreting this very wrong.
• 39:58
  I my interpretation is right. We're listening to the same thing, and you can hear it one way, and I can hear it a different way, but there's no disagreement. Right? We cannot disagree with what we're hearing. And we can both you can dislike it, of course, or I can like it and you know, not, but we cannot disagree on it, which I think is wonderful thing.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You can just sit back and listen to something beautiful.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Well, folks listening to this interview, you can sit back and listen to something beautiful this Saturday, March 28, 07:30PM at the Temple Theatre. SBSO with Maestro, all them amazing musicians. You gotta give the musicians a shout out, of course, for giving us just amazing music for ninety years from the SBSO. So go to Temple Theatre, go to SBSO, buy tickets, go listen to just a really incredible night of music. Fouad, I just wanna thank you for this conversation and for all the music that you give us here in Saginaw.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Phil. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Likewise. Thanks.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: You're awesome. Love conversation.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I know. That was good.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Love it. I like, I don't get to talk to anybody about music these days. Like, it's like, I love me some small businesses, and I love me some communities. But, man, to be able to talk to somebody about music is just
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: I have to tell you what I what I was thinking. I mean, as you were asking me the questions, every time I've been interviewed I mean, I get interviewed a lot, but I always leave interviews thinking, gosh, I was I never got to discuss things that I'm passionate about, like, even with longer interviews. But your questions were not only probing, but were really thought provoking and took us to places where I just wish I could discuss that all the time.