Imagine any piece of music that you love immensely. A piece that you’ve listened to so many times that, if it were not for iTunes, you would be unable to enumerate how many times you have even heard it. A piece you love so dearly that you might even own multiple recordings of various interpretations of the piece. Think of the subtle or even not so subtle differences of those interpretations and how they inform your personal impression of the work. Now imagine that all your knowledge and personal history of that piece were erased, and you were forced to revert back to a state of having only heard the piece once. How would your relationship with that piece change? What moments would sound just as clearly the first time as they did the 23rd time? What nuances to which you had become so enamored with around the 41st listen would fail to even draw your attention upon the first hearing? Would the piece even be so dear to you at all on that first hearing?
This scenario of listening to a piece only once is unfortunately the norm for most concert goers of contemporary classical music. A great deal of emphasis is placed on premieres and then those works are shelved. Is it any wonder that our contemporary music scene is lacking in repertoire? Perversely, in a time in which there are more living composers than there have ever been, our contemporary repertoire is decidedly scarce.
This uniquely contemporary predicament is one of the many reasons why myself and 3 other Boston area composers formed The Fifth Floor Collective. Aside from premiering new works, we designate a select few pieces per season to reprise, giving our audience the chance to hear fantastic new music twice. By presenting these reprise performances we are giving our audience a small window in which they can develop a relationship with specific pieces of new music. Given time to digest or even re-contextualize these works, we believe that an audience’s appreciation of a work can only be enhanced. Indeed, it is the sole process by which a piece of music makes the transition from a momentary entertainment in a long succession of others to a piece of music that comes to be an indispensable part of our own deeply personal narratives.
The final concert of The Fifth Floor Collective’s 2010-2011 Season, Season in Review, is at 7:00 pm on May 20, 2011.
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