How the best world premiere of my life proved that the system is broken…
It gets more cheerful at the end, I promise :)
I want to start with how deeply appreciative I am.
I had a beautiful time in LA and Newport Beach, CA, this past November (2022). I was there for the Choral Arts Initiative’s (CAI) world premiere of my piece Tupelo Poems, written ~5 years prior. The 4-day trip was a non-stop joy. Even inconveniences were joyous— like when I missed my layover in Las Vegas and had to rent a car and drive four hours through the desert to get to LA, I thought, “I’ve never seen a desert before, what a fun adventure!” This joy was thanks in large part to the friends I was staying with (Char and Sammy <3), internet friends turned IRL friends (Bee), the incredibly welcoming composers I shared the program with (Michael and Dale), the kind energy of the ensemble itself (Brandon, Connor, and too many people to list), and tbh YEARS of work on myself (and with, very recently, a therapist— s/o Jizette) to even be present enough to accept and experience that joy. I must have happy-cried 4 or 5 times over the course of that trip.
Folks were generous with their compliments throughout the process, with one recurring sentiment standing out to me:
“I can’t believe you wrote this when you were 22!”
I am 28 years old now… I’ll be 29 in August (2023). To some, 22 to 28 may not feel like a huge gap, but many of you will know what I mean when I say I feel like a completely different person. This temporal displacement is something I am keenly aware of— to me, it actually feels like a massive part of the piece’s own journey. I meditated on it often throughout the rehearsal process, the performance, and the days following— the fact that I, “present Dylan,” was having this experience on behalf of “little Dylan.” I processed this information through two lenses: joyous and critical (dualities, right?).
First, the joyous lens.
The privilege of sitting in the audience that night felt like a reciprocal gift between my past and present self. Like, “Little Dylan” created this art so that “Present Dylan” could share it when they developed enough of a platform. Reciprocally, the amount of work that “Present Dylan” has put in to develop that platform and foster a community that has been so beautifully supportive of that journey is a gift to “Little Dylan”— so that this piece that meant so much to them can finally be shared with the world.
It may seem contrived to delineate between my past and present selves, but when I listen to this music, I really do hear that duality. I also hear a landscape offering grounding and peace amidst struggles with depression/anxiety. I hear the influence of art and music that provided company amidst deep loneliness. I hear a synthesis and discovery of various cultural identities. I hear the hope for companionship thought to be lost. And I hear a kid, so filled with love and not knowing what to do with it, putting it in all the wrong places and the wrong people… and to know that because of me, because of us, that kid turned out okay… this is all a gift that “Little Dylan” has given to me.
Now for the critical lens.
The audience and ensemble receptivity felt tremendous; I have never received so much praise in my life. To have a piece performed at all is no small accomplishment; it requires a huge amount of effort— time, energy, money, community buy-in, etc. When a conductor programs a piece, they affirm their belief that it deserves all of that effort, as well as the accolades it could go on to gain from the performance. Tupelo Poems, in particular, requires significant effort to perform— it is fifteen minutes of constantly shifting textures and tonal centers, requiring a virtuosic level of vocal flexibility and skill and impeccable leadership from the conductor (s/o Connor). I believe that Tupelo Poems deserves every ounce of effort required to perform it, and I will humbly use CAI’s decision to program this piece as evidence. And if I say that Tupelo Poems deserves that effort now, in 2022, when I am 28 years old, I have to admit that it deserved that effort in 2017 when I wrote it at 22 years old.
But here’s the thing… it didn’t receive any of that effort in 2017. When I was 22, I wasn’t flying across the country to watch a world-class, world-renowned ensemble give my piece’s world premiere in a wealthy neighborhood in California alongside famous composers. I hadn’t won a bunch of awards or competitions. I wasn’t being housed and bought dinners and drinks and praised for my skill and innovation in the medium. At 22, I was (and still am) climbing my way out of poverty, the eighth of my late immigrant father’s eleven children, working multiple jobs and making no money, homeless in New Orleans but refusing to return to the trauma of the molded and hole-ridden trailer house I grew up in, resigned to living at my then-girlfriend’s house while she was cheating on me… I was just some poor mixed kid, without funds, without connections, without support. So when I sent Tupelo Poems off to several ensembles, of course, they weren’t interested. And yet it is the SAME MUSIC that has garnered such praise now.*
I can’t help but think if I had been some rich white kid in New York or Los Angeles, an artist’s child who had access to everything they needed to succeed at a young age if folks would have jumped at the opportunity to premiere or perform Tupelo Poems. Even if I was a middle-class midwestern kid whose parents could afford music lessons and trips to visit colleges and concerts and study-abroad programs and etc., I have to imagine folks would have at least given me a chance. And the thing is, it’s not just the one performance; it’s everything attached to that. It’s the recordings, the post-premiere wave you ride into continued success, the praise you garner, the content you create to build your image, the community you are welcomed into during that process, the empowerment, the self-worth…
So…
The moral of the story, admittedly old news, is that the system we live in is not a meritocracy. It does not prioritize talent, skill, or hard work in its distribution of opportunity. One must have access before anything else, a privilege currently and historically afforded only to those with money, geographic advantage, familial connections, etc. Even when leaders in the field attempt to diversify in terms of gender and race, they are still, more often than not, advocating for marginalized artists that have been privileged enough in other ways to have gained access to that opportunity in the first place. Even Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was a rich kid. Occasionally I will meet another artist who comes from a similar bracket of poverty as I do… I have NEVER met a classical musician who I shared that with.
If I was not as lucky as I was to have slowly shifted SES over the past six years, I’m not sure Tupelo Poems would have ever seen the light of day. The only way CAI even heard about me is because, in 2021, I had luckily saved up enough money for a plane ticket to Los Angeles, food, and an Air BnB. I was lucky enough to virtually meet an amazing friend (Char) prior to the trip who helped me a lot with rides and meals and brought me along to help on their video gigs for the experience. I was lucky to have a few connections through friends of friends and social media to reach out to while I was in town, and I was lucky they were receptive to hanging out with me. Luckily one of them (Alex B.) was a doctoral candidate at USC, and he decided to use one of my pieces for his coursework which is where, lucky for me, the assistant conductor of CAI (Connor S.) saw it and proposed a performance.
The Silver-ish Lining / Appreciating the Timeline
I do recognize the value in not having this opportunity until I was older… at 22, I do not think I had the maturity, the social skill, and the confidence to fly across the country, make 30 new friends at once, dive into new experiences, and receive it all in a pure way. I definitely would have been less of “a hit” with folks, LOL. Of course, I do have to point out that there is some circular logic in that the disadvantages that led me to be personally “not ready” earlier on are the same disadvantages that systemically prevented me from accessing this success earlier on. It is possible that, had I had a healthier and more privileged childhood, I would have been more likely to succeed AND better equipped to handle that success.**
I think it is important to grieve the things that could have been. In my case, grieving the never-to-be success story of the 22-year-old wunderkind composer, unhindered by mental, racial, or financial adversity. I also think pondering those possibilities can be an effective agent for change for criticism of our systems. In my case, picturing a world in which that adversity does not exist and implementing that vision in the ways over which I have control. Personally, however, I do not like to linger on “what if.” I find it detrimental to my motivation, my spirit, and my mental health in general. In addition to sharing a significant part of my journey, I am also writing this blog post to get these things out of my head, so I can better return to an (imperfect) state of gratitude, appreciation, and joy. I also recognize that the more I succeed, the more I can affect change, so there is comfort for me in knowing that there are things I can do to pay this luck forward, in the short term and the long term. More on that in the future :D
Thanks for reading!
Footnotes
*I do recognize that most pieces of music written by 22-year-olds do not receive performances, much less a world premiere, by ensembles of CAI’s caliber. And while I do experience degrees of privilege (male-presenting/passing, able-bodied, neurotypical-passing, etc.), I chalk this more up to luck, especially since I don’t occupy the privileged spaces that are the significant indicators of success in this field (SES, race, class, geography, nepotism, general access, etc.).
**This is a testament to the fact that even seemingly intangible things— maturity, intelligence, relationships, skill— are all informed by one’s privilege as well. Particularly in more formative years, if you don’t have to experience the physical repercussions of poverty, you’ve also avoided the permeative mental stress of that environment and, therefore, have that much less bullshit to work through in therapy, LOL. You have one less block when it comes to forming meaningful relationships in the future, one less block to finding the time and energy to develop the skills you want, or to learn things.
