INTERVIEW WITH DAN JOSEPH

With a unique instrumentation anchored by hammer dulcimer and harpsichord, a mix of winds, strings and percussion, Dan Joseph Ensemble’s sound is harmonically rich and deeply resonant, evoking a musical world both ancient and modern. On May 24th at Roulette – in its second concert since the group’s return from a three-year absence – the Dan Joseph Ensemble will perform a full program of the composer’s chamber works featuring the second hearing of his newest large-scale work Tonalization (for the afterlife). We met up with Dan Joseph to talk about his upcoming concert.

ROULETTE: Tell us as about the work you’ll be doing at Roulette.
DAN JOSEPH: We will be performing a good chunk of the pieces I have so far composed for my mixed chamber ensemble. The newest is a sextet titled Tonalization (for the afterlife) which will be played for only the second time. We will also include two earlier ensemble works: Archaea Quartet (2001) and Percussion and Strings (2004), both of which appear on our first recording Archaea (Mutable Music 2006)

The project began somewhat accidentally in 2000 while I was still living in the Bay Area. By that time I had been working seriously with the hammer dulcimer for only a few years, mostly in duos, improv settings and solo, and then quite unexpectedly I was offered a harpsichord by the San Francisco Community Music Center where I was then teaching. Someone had donated the instrument to the school and they didn’t have space for it.  The Director of the Baroque Music program, Shirley Wong, knew I was a composer and thought I might find a use for it and offered it to me on permanent loan. Well I accepted and I did find a use for it and one thing led to another and I took it with me to New York and now I have a neo-baroque, post-Appalachian, minimalist chamber group……

After a couple of concerts in San Francisco, I moved to New York, in 2001, and that is where the group began to grow. The first Dan Joseph Ensemble concert in New York was in 2002 and the only player that is still in the group is violinist Tom Chiu. He has played in every New York concert the ensemble has performed. Cellist Loren Dempster also came here from the Bay Area and we knew each other there in the 90s. We began a duo collaboration soon after he arrived in New York and I also began writing him into the ensemble and he has continued as the sole cellist. Marija Ilic joined sometime in 2004 and has held the harpsichord chair since. Danny Tunick also came in around 2004 with the first work involving percussion. The flute is a new instrument in the project as of this year and I just began working with Leah Paul. Clarinetist Katie Porter is playing her first concert with us here at Roulette, and I have worked with her elsewhere, most recently playing the music of composer Craig Shepard.

R: Are there working artists today with whose work you identify, or rather, who do you consider to be your peers?
DJ: I identify with many artists working today, the list could be very long! and it is hard to say who is a peer because so many artists that I admire and identify with are both older and much better known than I, but Matt Welch and his project Blarvuster comes to mind first as I think it is the closest thing in town that is like this project of mine. Also the composer/performers who comprise Gamelan Son of Lion, Barbara Benary, Daniel Goode et. al are important to me, the Deep Listening Band is incredible, as is Joan La Barbara, John King, Annie Gosfield, Michael Gordon, Colleen (aka Cecile Schott), Matt Ingalls and the sfSoundGroup, Craig Shepard and the Wandelweiser composers collective…and many more…

R: What are some defining characteristics of the musical scene you would fit yourself into? What elements of your scene differentiate it from what has come before, or what is happening now?
DJ: Admittedly I am basically a “Groucho Marxist” in that I wouldn’t really want to be part of a club that would have me as a member. At the same time I feel a kinship with so many of the “scenes” out there today that it would be silly for me to try to demarcate the boundaries of one scene or the other. But if I had to describe where I think I fit in it would be in an unpretentious, Do-It-Yourself, experimental-but-approachable, deeply aware of sound and beauty kind of scene……

R: What was the last music you listened to?
DJ: John Luther Adams - Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing

R: Chocolate, Vanilla or Rocky Road?
DJ: Definitely chocolate.

R: What is music?
DJ: Pitch-centric organized sound

R: Do you consider yourself more a composer or a performer?
DJ: Composer

R: Who do you see as instrumental in your development as an artist?
DJ: My family, Bruce Merkle, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley.

R: What is interesting to you about your own work?
DJ: The instruments.

R: Other thoughts?
DJ: I LOVE Roulette! And if you aren’t already a member, you should become one today!!