{"id":38051,"date":"2016-08-19T15:18:37","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T19:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=38051"},"modified":"2016-08-19T15:18:37","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T19:18:37","slug":"five-minutes-norbert-palej","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/08\/19\/five-minutes-norbert-palej\/","title":{"rendered":"FIVE MINUTES | Norbert Palej: “While Snobs Argue About ‘Qualitative Values’, Art Lives And Bleeds”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The creative process is not as uniform as you might think. Composition in the 21st-century is extremely eclectic, with composers writing concert music, electroacoustic music, film and television scores, video game soundtracks, and some even abandoning written notation for the recording studio or the improvisation scene. With this series, we push some of Toronto\u2019s best composers to the centre stage and pry into their creative practice. This series of short interviews<\/a><\/span> asks all composers the same three questions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

B<\/span>orn in Poland, raised in Germany, educated in the United States and now living in Toronto, composer Norbert Palej<\/a> has experienced the extremes of the compositional world, from the modernist residues of continental Europe to the populism of American conservatories. Palej\u2019s music bears the traces of his education, but his recent work often contains a dialogue with his Polish heritage, such as his 2014 commission from New Music Concerts<\/a>, \u201cThe Grey Hour\u201d, an evocative tone poem based on Polish peasant life, or his short song cycle, \u201cFour Lyrical Moments\u201d, based on the poetry of the Polish writer Halina Po\u015bwiatowska. Palej\u2019s music frequently bears a humility and emotional directness that is occasionally hard to find in contemporary music, and his short and direct answers show that sometimes it is best not to talk about music but rather to listen and discover the meaning for one\u2019s self.<\/p>\n

\"NPALEJ\"<\/p>\n

Playlist<\/h3>\n

Symphony No. 1<\/a> (2013)<\/p>\n

Symphony No. 2 \u2018Ihr Hohlem L\u00fcfte\u2019 (2015)<\/p>\n

Violin Concerto \u2018In Memoriam Steven Stucky\u2019 (2016)<\/p>\n

#1.\u00a0How do you write your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In short bursts, separated by periods of searching. The bursts are a result of (self-induced) inspiration, which happens every 2-3 days. The search is the process of distilling emotion. Nowadays, I reject anything that originates in reason, and accept only those solutions that fulfill two conditions: 1) I don\u2019t understand them, and 2) they feel right. I notate straight into Sibelius.
\n#2.\u00a0When do you write your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When working on a given piece, I \u201cshow up for work\u201d every morning for about 2-3 hours. During that time, when inspired, I compose for anywhere between a few minutes to 1-2 hours.<\/p>\n

#3.\u00a0In classical music, there is the concept of a “canon” of music, which is\u00a0used by classical music establishments\u00a0to monitor repertoire and assign a qualitative value to works. How valuable is this “classical canon” to you as a contemporary composer? <\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no such thing as “qualitative value\u201d for art. It is either meaningful or not; there are no ranks. Meaningful art captures something real: a unique human experience. Everything else is just ink on paper, usually, a lot of ink wasted to impress someone else. Instances of true art are few and far between. The canon is dead \u2013 a fossil. Fossils are beautiful and inspiring; they tell us: memento mori. While snobs argue about \u201cqualitative values”, art lives and bleeds.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and review\u00a0before anyone else finds out? Get our exclusive newsletter\u00a0<\/em>here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/em>for all the latest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Composer Norbert Palej explains where his music comes from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":38055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,18,6259,29],"tags":[2423],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/08\/norbertphoto.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-9TJ","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38051"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38059,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38051\/revisions\/38059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38051"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=38051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}