Composer/guitarist/rapper Gene Pritsker has written over three hundred compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music, songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles, etc. He has been described by The New York Times as “Audacious….multitalented”, and he is the founder of Sound Liberation; an eclectic hip hop-chamber-jazz-rock ensemble who have released cds on Innova Records. But perhaps most importantly, he loves Zappa, Stravinsky, and The Wu Tang Clan. Something tells me he’s not your typical composer. Here’s what he had to say in our interview:
What’s your pet’s name and why?
Poochini, because he is very musical. I am planning to record his howl and create an electronic composition out of it.
How do you spoil yourself?
I write music every morning.
If you weren’t making music as a career what would you be doing?
I would not be DOING well. This question is too abstract for me.
Where do you live and how does that affect your music and the way you make it?
I live in New York City (represent, represent). I love the noise, the hustle, the constant action, it all rubs off in my music. I used to live next to an above ground subway train in Harlem, it surfaced every five minutes or so and my house shook. I think I wrote louder music back then.
What is your first sound memory?
Records played in my parents’ apartment in the old country (Soviet Union). Also, me trying to practice (scratching) the violin.
Name three Desert Island discs (or MP3s), recordings that you feel especially close to.
I can’t think of particular discs but I definitely would want some of Stravinsky’s greatest hits, Zappa’s greatest hits, and an early ’90s hip-hop compilation (Wu-Tang, Tribe Called Quest, etc).
What has been your most memorable or inspirational performance and why?
I can’t pinpoint ONE, but a few memorable ones would have to be:
- My bass concerto played by the Adelaide Symphony to a crowd of thirty thousand and me having to do a short interview in front of all those people before the performance. I got a high when thirty thousand people laughed at a joke.
- My opera Money being performed at the Etna Festival in Catania, Sicily. This was a great energy performance and a great tour with my group.
- Performing the solo DJ part (on my laptop) in my piece “3 Poems from Flowers of Evil” with a fifty piece choir (Latvian state choir) and the Absolute Ensemble chamber orchestra.
- Performing my violin concerto in an amphitheater in Greece to thousands of people.
Describe your most mind-blowing art experience (in any art form), something that instantly changed your life.
Hearing the “Rite of Spring.” I could not understand it. I was like ten, so I kept listening to it over and over until it started to make sense. But I knew this was something greater than me and I need to understand it and be it. Also being in the chorus for Mendelssohn’s “Walpurgis Nacht”; that’s when I knew I needed to write music for sure.
What is your greatest fear?
Death of others.
What has been your career low point?
Late ’90s, post music school blues, working part-time jobs just to pay the rent and not writing enough or performing/producing enough concerts.
What were your first compositions like? How have they changed?
My very first compositions where heavily inspired by romantic composers (especially Mendelssohn) but I was also writing heavy metal songs and had a jazz fusion band. I found my voice when I was able to blend many of these eclectic influences into a coherent style.
What did you learn from your teachers? Any words of wisdom to share?
My first composition teacher was a wild guy who would talk about the music of George Crumb and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Those two things influenced me in strange and good ways. My main composition teacher at Manhattan School of Music was Giampaolo Bracali. I learned so much from him. He let me have my own voice and concentrated on the technique of composition. A word of advice to young composers out there: DO NOT let a composition teacher dictate to you what you should write, think, express, etc. Just have them focus on the technique of composition, orchestration, and form. That is what a real composition teacher does; everything else is hot air.
How are you like your music? Would an outsider see/hear any similarity between your personality and your music?
My music has been described as eclectic. I am an eclectic personality, whatever that means. My tastes, though, in everything are very varied and I am open to all forms of art and expression. In that way I am just like my music.
Tell us about your new release and some of the thinking behind it.
Varieties of Religious Experiences Suite is music from my opera William James’ Varieties of Religious Experiences. I adapted this music as an instrumental suite for cello, two electric guitars, bass and drums. I was interested in how I can keep the essence of the opera while adding elements of freedom for the musicians to improvise. So it’s a mixture of very composed music and very free music, and I was experimenting with merging these two seemingly opposite approaches to musical composition. I do not consider it jazz music or contemporary classical music or whatever other categories it has been described as. But it is new chamber music. New because I wrote it a few years back, chamber because five people are playing together a written composition. Any other description, genre or style is superfluous to me. Many critics found very direct relation in this music to the text of William James’ lecture. I like to think that this was subconsciously written by me. I did read the text carefully but did not purposely try to convey its exact meaning, yet one critic wrote: ‘It is amazing how masterfully Pritsker explored the opportunities offered by James’ poetic vocabulary.” And I like that this is heard in this composition.
