Have You Heard This? is an ongoing (and sometimes very informal) conversation about musical aesthetics between two friends who happen to be composers:
Joshua Shank, who, according to his co-host, writes “diatonic…schmaltzy…meh…”
…and Jon Fielder, who, according to his co-host, writes “angular, dissonant, kerplunkety bullshit.”
With a large helping of their shared sense of humor, Josh and Jon have been peacefully staring at each other from very opposite sides of the aesthetic spectrum for nearly a decade, and have often wondered why other composers they’ve met in their journeys sometimes can’t do the same. They’ve been talking about doing something like this since their years together in graduate school, and quarantine seemed like a good time to start a new creative journey together which might yield something productive for more than just the two of them; this podcast is the result.
Josh and Jon invite listeners to join them in talking about classical music they may or may not like…in a way they may or may not have talked about it before.
Have you heard this?
About Josh:
I’m a composer who sees writing for the human voice—and with choral ensembles specifically—as my primary vocation. I love how an audience at a choir concert is thinking communally about the texts and how, as a composer, I can use those texts to foreground issues of social inequality or advocate for the marginalized via more than just a title and a program note.
I currently live in Boston but have lived all over the United States. I grew up in the Midwest but, if asked, I’ll probably tell you I’m from Minneapolis. I spent years there as a public school teacher before moving to Austin to get graduate degrees in composition and musicology. After that, I moved to Washington state with my husband to be a college professor for a spell. In all those places I’ve been an educator in some form or another; I proudly come from a family of teachers.
What I’ve loved about being an artist and teacher in all these places is how different each and every community is and how much I’ve gained from that diversity, and my music has begun to reflect that particular way of engaging with the world. Every piece represents my efforts to get to know the folks who show up for those concerts, attend those rehearsals, and manage those inner workings of the organization, and I try to somehow bake that into a piece of music I’ve been asked to write. In fact, I don't really see myself as a Composer anymore but, rather, a Collaborator. I’m just one link in the chain of composer, conductor, performers, administrators, and audience members. If you wanted to make some music with me that would be awesome.
Check out my website for more info.
About Jon:
I’m a composer of electroacoustic and acoustic music, all of which shows a strong interest in timbre, texture, spatialization and narrative. My music is typically inspired by my love of natural landscapes, various topics of science and mathematics, the human voice (spoken, sung or just noise), and literature, all of which is filtered through my own personal life experiences. That said, my music is primarily driven by my obsession with sound itself. I've always been intrigued by the nature and physics of sound and the physicality of performing music as well the morphology of limited sonic materials over long stretches of time.
I also keep a blog called KLANG dedicated to discussing experimental and adventurous new music in America, reviews of recordings, concerts/festivals and books, and interviews with emerging American composers.
Check out my website for more info.