FROM SOMEWHERE by composer Laurie Altman and pianist Clipper Erickson finds common ground between the global and the personal. Altman’s compositions — ranging from sonatas and fugues to heartfelt solos — draw on diverse musical influences, including jazz, classical, and boogie. Through music, Altman contemplates the devastating war in Aleppo, the impact of COVID-19, and the death of George Floyd, as well as the most meaningful personal relationships in his own life.
Today, Laurie is our featured artist in the “Inside Story,” a blog series exploring the inner workings and personalities of our composers and performers. Read on to learn why he upholds transparency in the emotional aspects of his music, and how growing up in New York City influenced his artistry…
If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing?
In all likelihood, I would probably have become a poet. Writing, whether by note or word, has enabled me to give substance and shaping to inward emotions and the sufferings of human beings, their families, and the consistently dark places the world’s leaders so often lead us into.
If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?
I can probably only collaborate with myself, for I am far too opinionated; my emotions are too strongly felt to even allow another individual to moderate, eliminate, or transform my original creation. This of course applies only to the writing of a new work. Furthermore, each time I write a new piece there will inevitably be a collaboration with those performing it. In fact, such interactions can often improve various elements of the composition, without removing its essence.
I am no island unto myself, just merely a creative individual, more inclined to and attracted by the “aloneness” attached to my work.
What emotions do you hope listeners will experience after hearing your music?
The emotions, those following upon the hearing of a musical creation of mine, cannot be so easily categorized, for we all approach listening from different vantage points, and levels of expertise, asking and sometimes expecting something different one way or another; never to be scientifically codified. Since I work from a place of musical honesty, emotional conviction and precision of feeling (without gratuitous gestures), I would ask that such aspects are hopefully and readily apparent to all my listeners and fellow musicians.
What were your first musical experiences?
My most telling, most impactful early musical memory occurred (I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old) at home, listening to Stravinsky’s Firebird on the radio. The Finale had just begun with the French Horn`s exquisite opening lamentation. A most intense and personal emotion emerged (coupled with goose bumps)… a recognition of the music’s transparent beauty, pushing me to sense, seek, and discover the place where such beauty comes from. (I had already been writing music for two or three years). It became my musical mantra, and is so, even today… the starting and finishing point of my work. A motivation towards clarity, concision, and personal feelings; something to be shared and responded to by all those appreciatively listening and enjoying my music.
What are your other passions besides music?
The writing of poetry… a second book is on its way. Living here in Switzerland, all things related to the natural environment, and of course, with my wife Jeannine, a deep passion for hiking… its beauty and often, its solitude. Reading historical fiction, and cooking. I remain an ardent adherent to the notion that in life, creativity isn’t what you do, but rather, how you choose to live your life.
What musical mentor had the greatest impact upon your life and your music?
A most difficult question to answer since all of us begin in the most raw cultural state, and require, on this personal journey to go where we have to go and where things begin to touch and affect our very being. Therefore, limiting such a list to one individual isn’t very easy. Hence, a short list: J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, and finally… the gift of having grown up in New York City and enriched, daily, by the Met and the Museum of Art; Harlem, and the Apollo Theatre; the Cloisters and all of the marvelous and scintillating Jazz Clubs; and the Metropolitan Opera Company and the Ballet. Such was my daily haven, and my cultural sustenance, an elevating and enlightening treasure to cherish forever.
Laurie Altman was born in 1944 and raised in New York City. He attended the Mannes College of Music in New York where he majored in composition and studied most notably with William Sydeman and Lester Trimble. Altman has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Mason Gross Fellowship, a Lincoln Center Composers Forum Award, a Woodrow Wilson Composers residency Fellowship, and a University Professors Citation of Excellence from Tufts University in Boston. A Resident Composer at Westminster Choir College/Rider University in Princeton NJ for many years, Altman in addition pursued an extensive career as a performing jazz pianist with his quintet in New York City, and other venues including clubs and festivals in Russia, Helsinki, and Germany. Since moving to Switzerland in 2010, he has had two European premieres at the Musikverein in Vienna, as well as performances in Zurich.
