Zanaida Robles - Part 2

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 150: Zanaida Robles - Part 2

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In this week’s episode, we talk to Zanaida Robles about her compositional process, where she finds texts to set, and the difference in using existing text versus setting something written specifically for the composer. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Zanaida Robles, check her out here: https://zanaidarobles.com/. This episode was originally recorded in January 2024.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/15732665

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Addy Geenen, Yoyo Hung-Yu Lin

Don't miss Ensemble for These Times' upcoming concert 'Mujeres Ahora' on May 9 at the Community Music Center, presented as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival. For more information, go to www.E4TT.org.

Chapters

• 0:38 In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Zanaida Robles, who we spoke to in January 2024.
• 0:46 Choral music features heavily in your compositional oeuvre, what's your process? How do you find or write your texts? Because you write some of your texts, right?
• 4:05 So for your texts that you don't write, where do you find those? Are they usually a commission, somebody hands you a text, or...
• 6:27 So you're finding that most of them, when you reach out to them, they're happy to have you write to their poetry, their text?

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Zanaida Robles, who we spoke to in January 2024 [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. Choral music features heavily in your compositional oeuvre, what's your process? How do you find or write your texts? Because you write some of your texts, right?

 Zanaida Robles  00:41

Some of them. Um, I don't, I'm not. I don't think I try to write, take that. I'm not trying to write text. And I'm, you know, I don't really see myself as much of a poet. I think I'm a rom- I think I'm a romantic. And when I used to write, you know, teenage love poetry, you know. And I thought, and I, you know, I used to write poetry. And, you know, kind of, you know, you look back on some things and you're just like...

Nanette McGuinness  01:07

The shame, the shame.

Zanaida Robles  01:08

But every now and then, but every now and then, something just comes out. I think, I guess, one way to describe my the way I write is it's just, sort of, there's a lot of improvisation and intuition involved. Because I guess I start from, you know, the heart, from the spirit, like, that's, that's sort of a foundation that I kind of start with. I'm just, I'm kind of trying to grasp the feel of, you know, the text, if I'm writing, or if something's coming, if I'm if I'm experiencing an emotion or an experience that I need to write about. You know, there's always, there's a character inherent in that, so that that will inform, for example, the key or the mood or the tempo or the harmony to begin with. But it comes it's this, there's an intuition aspect of it. And then from there, some songs just sort of, I guess there's an aspect of me that's more of a songwriter, you know. And some things come out, like, you know, verses and choruses, and chorus will come out, and then I'll construct the verse. Other things kind of come out with, um, thematic material or, like, a melodic line or a harmony, and then I'll use, you know, whatever compositional skills, you know, I sort of cultivated, you know, over the years of study and try to construct something that way. I guess that's a lot. That's a long way to answer the question. I there's lots of different techniques. But I guess the the main thing to you know, I keep in mind is just always trying to get at the essence of what the if it's, if it's a choral text, I'm really trying to get at what the, what is it? What is the character, what is the emotion? And then I try to construct something that brings that out musically.

Nanette McGuinness  02:56

There's no wrong way. Everybody's different, and everybody gets at what they're doing in a different way, which is part of what makes this such a fascinating question.

Zanaida Robles  03:05

Yeah, yeah, it's true. And I would also add that it's, it's it changes. I don't, I don't approach every piece the same way it because I just don't think you can, I mean, yeah, I can't imagine having a, you know, it's especially with vocal music with choral music, because there's texts have such wildly different character and color. It requires different you know, different points of attack. I guess you know different ways to get at it. So there's no there, like you said, there is no wrong way to approach some to approach it. You do what, what feels what feels right.

Nanette McGuinness  03:45

Right, right, what feels native. So for your texts that you don't write, where do you find those? Are they usually a commission, somebody hands you a text, or...

Zanaida Robles  03:56

It's a combination of things. I subscribe to, whathat is it? Poem a day?

Nanette McGuinness  04:02

Oh, yeah.

Zanaida Robles  04:03

A lot of, I think a lot of folks know about poem a day. What a great resource. I'm so grateful for the curators of the daily poetry they send out. You know, you get a poem every day. Sometimes, I'm kind of inundated right now, I haven't been reading their poems because I'm a little overwhelmed, but I really have been exposed there, you know, all last year, um, especially, and especially in, you know, during COVID as well I, you know, you know, I was just digesting all of this poetry. And there was so many, there was so much writing happening about what was happening in the world.

Nanette McGuinness  04:36

Right.

Zanaida Robles  04:36

Um, and so that was kind of an intro, you know, you start reading this outpouring of of expressive poetry about the you know this, what's going on, and then that kind of opens the door into other things. And then I got introduced to Poem-a-Day, and I've just learned about so many amazing poets. And because they pub, they publish public domain works as well as, you know, original copyrighted things as well by living poets. So there's a whole spectrum of things, and I've learned that some things feel like, to be honest, most of that stuff, you know, I used to like, I'm gonna scour this. I'm gonna scour this whole catalog, you know, this whole library, for a poem that I can set, you know, I gotta find a text that's free. And I'm, thankfully, I'm, I think I've evolved past that, and I'm at a point now where I'm actually just enjoying reading poetry, um, and every now and then the text will jump out, and I'll be like, oh, that that's in the public domain, and it would make it, or it'll jump out, and I'll say, let me see if I can contact this person, which has happened several times. I've actually been like, I found your poem on Poem-a-Day. It moved me. I'm I'm so moved by this, will I, may I have permission to set it? So that's happened a couple times as well, which is so cool, because then you find all these little connections between all these people you never thought you would have. So that's been a really cool element of my compositional life that I've been grateful for is the connection to people through through poetry. I never imagined that that would happen, and it does happen.

Nanette McGuinness  06:10

No, it's true. So you're finding that most of them, when you reach out to them, they're happy to have you write to their poetry, their text?

Zanaida Robles  06:18

Sometimes, I mean, some I, um, there have been a few occasions. It's, it doesn't happen all the time. And I'm, let me just say, like, I'm, I'm not a full time composer. So when I talk about, oh, this happens, and it's so great, like, okay, so it's happened like, like, two or three times.

Nanette McGuinness  06:38

That's okay, that's alright.

Zanaida Robles  06:40

You know what I mean, but, but, like, and so of those few times it's happened, sometimes it's they, I get a response right away back, you know, I'm so glad you like what I wrote. You can just use it, or you can use everything. In one case, a person wrote back and like, you know, thank you for reading my stuff. You can use whatever you want of mine forever.

Nanette McGuinness  06:59

Before that can multiply, basically.

Zanaida Robles  07:00

Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's amazing. Sometimes I get, you know, back, you know, so whatever, so and so's agent or, person, you know, assistant this, you know, Mr. or Dr. or Mrs. so and so would like to know what you'd intend to do with this, you know, that kind of thing. And so, there's all kinds of ways to engage with people at different stages and different levels. But generally there's a good response.

Nanette McGuinness  07:01

That's nice, yeah, I guess the most disheartening one is, sure you can, and you can pay $1,000 for the right to do it, in which case you go, well...

Zanaida Robles  07:16

Yeah, well, but you know what, um, I have gotten to a place now where I don't think I've had to pay quite that much for the use.

Nanette McGuinness  07:41

No, I'm exaggerating a little bit.

Zanaida Robles  07:42

But, but I'm getting to, getting to a place where I realize, you know, the the there's a there's a difference between finding a poem you like and setting it and having someone craft a lyric for you. And I actually haven't actually had that before. I haven't actually found a lyricist. That's kind of my next step, like, you know, at some point you can only mine, you know, so many sources for poetry, and you can only ask so many people. And honestly, there actually have been times where I've been like, oh, maybe I should set this and then either the poet or someone else, or I will just come to the conclusion myself, will realize that this poem doesn't really need music, or this poem, or this, you know, this poem deserves a life of its own for now, on its own, yeah, yeah, you know. And that's, that's super valuable. Like, I do remember when, when Amanda Gorman, like when she came on the scene, she did her poetry at the inauguration, everybody was blown away, right? And I got all these emails, you should set Amanda Gorman's text. Oh, my God, her. You should set this, you should set this. And I'm thinking to myself, No... I think I'm gonna let, you know this her work, first of all, her poetry is so musical and lyrical, just in itself. I don't really want to mess with that. So I haven't always been in this place as a composer, but now I'm at a place where, you know, I can separate out and appreciate poetry for what it is. And, you know, I'm starting to get into more where, where can I really find lyrics? And perhaps it's time to pay and have someone actually craft that. So that's where I am in my career.

Nanette McGuinness  09:18

Yeah, we've worked with some, a few composers who work specifically with their own lyricists. And we did one commission for the Cassandra Project where the composer brought her librettist in, basically, and they wrote it. She wrote one the the lyrics, and the composer wrote the text. And we were involved in kind of vetting the whole thing. It was a very powerful piece from 2020. That I think gives a composer a chance to have a deeper, I don't know if deeper is the right... you're just there from the ground up, instead of taking something and shifting it to what your muse says, your muse is kind of there riding on the shoulder from the get go. I don't know if that's the right way to say...

Zanaida Robles  10:04

No, absolutely, absolutely right. I mean, I think you know the pieces that are that, you know one of, one of my works that I wrote, no fairy tale here, sort of happened that way. But there, there was a she, well, she was a poet that was commissioned alongside with me to create this piece, marrying her poetry with my, and I didn't know her, we just kind of met, kind of over online and over the phone, and she's we decided, she decided she was going to write on this, this subject. And so she wrote something original, brand new, just for me to set and that piece... it it was hard to write, it was interesting, but it resulted in something so dynamic and interesting that I would never have thought of on my own. And it remains one of one of my more most performed pieces, and people are like, it's got a lot of energy behind it. And I think it's because when you're there from the ground up at the beginning, I'd like to have more experiences like that. So now I'm looking for more time, more ways I can do that.

Nanette McGuinness  11:11

I'll bet. What made it harder, you were saying?

Zanaida Robles  11:13

I think that what was hard about it was the the the poem was, well, first of all, was very it's a very emotionally charged kind of anger. There's a lot of like, anger and frustration in it.

Nanette McGuinness  11:30

Got it, yeah.

Zanaida Robles  11:31

And I think it was like just just feeling this responsibility to know and knowing that this, this poetry was written for this purpose. It just, it just felt like it was, there was so much more purpose. And I so, I put so much of my heart into, I mean, I put my heart in everything, but I really, really felt a personal... I felt I guess it was the more personal connection that I felt to it, knowing that it was written for me to compose music with. I feel like I haven't had that before. Everything else is like the poetry's already existed, or the text source has already...this is not always poetry, but when it's written just for you to set, like, it's just really personal and you I just feel like I dug deeper than I usually did, because I felt the responsibility to to bring it out in the most authentic way I could, you know, whatever it is.

Nanette McGuinness  11:31

Yeah, that's, that's what I was getting from what you were saying, the sense of obligation, of responsibility, of you know, you've got to rise to this to the utmost.

Zanaida Robles  12:44

Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  12:45

Interesting, yeah, yeah, so, so, yeah, of course, one would want to do more of that, because after going as far as you can with something, other things may feel pale in comparison.

Zanaida Robles  12:57

Yeah, exactly.

Nanette McGuinness  12:58

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure and a special thank you to our guest, Zanaida Robles, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media, and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure" [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS].