Composing The Great Experiment: Daniel DiMarino on Cello, Collaboration, Energy, and Voice

In this episode of the Cello Museum Podcast, composer Daniel DiMarino and cellist Dr. Jonathan Simmons take us inside the creation of "The Great Experiment," a newly commissioned work for cello and piano.

Framed as a “study of energy,” the piece evolved through collaboration, revision, and performance. DiMarino shares his compositional process—from first ideas to final form—along with the challenges of writing for cello and piano for the first time.

The conversation explores:

•  Writing for the cello: register, balance, and texture 
•  Shaping musical form through energy and contrast 
•  Collaboration between composer and performer 
•  The meaning behind the title "The Great Experiment"
•  What defines an “American” musical sound 
•  Influences from Copland, Kodály, Korngold, and film music 
•  Accessibility and connecting with audiences 

DiMarino also discusses his work in music production, church music, and cinematic composition, and how these experiences shape his musical voice.

At the heart of this conversation is a central idea:

“I’m not particularly interested in my ideas just being my ideas… I want something approachable.”

🔗 Learn More

Daniel DiMarino
 https://www.danieldimarinomusic.com

Dr. Jonathan Simmons
 https://jonathansimmonscello.com

Explore more at the Cello Museum:
 https://cellomuseum.org

Watch the world premiere of "The Great Experiment" & read show notes: https://cellomuseum.org/composing-the-great-experiment-daniel-dimarino-on-cello-collaboration-energy-and-voice/

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The Cello Museum Podcast is the official podcast of the Cello Museum.

Explore articles, exhibitions, and upcoming events at: https://cellomuseum.org 

Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and share this episode with fellow cellists and music lovers.

If this conversation inspires you to explore unaccompanied cello repertoire, join us in Delaware this summer at the Bethany Beach Cellofest (9–16 August). Find details here. 

Transcript

Speaker 0:07

In this episode, we go behind the scenes of a newly commissioned cello work. Composer Daniel DiMarino and cellist Dr. Jonathan Simmons take us inside the creation of "The Great Experiment": From First Ideas to Premier Performance. Their conversation explores what it means to write for the cello, how collaboration shapes a piece, and how musical ideas evolve through sound, energy, and performance. This interview is conducted by Dr. Jonathan Simmons.

Speaker 2 0:37

Well, good morning. I'm Dr. Jonathan Simmons. And I'm Daniel DiMarino. What was your inspiration for writing "The Great Experiment"?

Speaker 1 0:46

Thank you so much for performing my piece. I thought the premiere went very well. I was very pleased with the performance. As far as inspiration, there are definitely nods to early 20th- century Romanticism and early Hollywood. People like Korngold and Bernard Herrmann, even John Williams a little bit, although he's a little bit later. There's a nod to Holst as well. There are ways he moves around key areas with whole step motion, but also some chromaticism. I definitely borrowed from his language. I also think the very beginning is inspired by a piece by Kodály, Dances of Galánta, that opening cello thematic material. It has this nice A-string, higher register, triumphant sound to it. That definitely influenced the opening. Those were my main inspirations as far as the genre. Mainly I was inspired by the theme of the recital. I wanted to reflect an American sound, which obviously has so much diversity as far as what that would mean. But you do have hallmarks of the American sound, especially in the early 20th century, that I was definitely trying to incorporate.

Speaker 2 1:55

For our listeners, the program was an all-American concert. You mentioned Bernard Herrmann, and the only music of his that I've heard is the Psycho soundtrack, and I did not know psycho in what you wrote. Well, if you go back, some of the earlier stuff has that older Hollywood sound. Could you then tell us a little bit more about your compositional process? How do you go about writing a piece?

Speaker 1 2:15

It really depends composing a concert work versus an arrangement or uh producing something, which I dabble in. For a concert piece, I often start at the beginning. I'll write the very opening and from there I'll know where I'm headed. For this piece, I actually wrote the first eight to twelve bars first. I described this piece as a study of energy in my program note. I was trying to figure out how to take my ideas and use texture and other things to propel the piece forward. So what's funny is when I wrote this piece, I wrote a first draft and I had this very long middle section that was slow. And I realized that the energy had been lost. The middle section was too long and it wasn't a balanced piece. So I had to go back and figure out how to take some of that later, faster material and introduce it earlier and give it some momentum so that way when we returned back to it, it was more convincing. So this was actually a more roundabout process than I expected as far as the form. Sometimes I take more of a rigid approach to form, but it was my first time writing a concert cello and piano piece. So I had to figure out how to make that work. I wrote the first theme, the melody, based on the opening motive, developing that into something more concrete and memorable. And then from there, I knew I wanted some contrast. I wanted a lot more energy with some of the faster sections. And I wanted to really figure out how those two would eventually come together. And they do. They overlap and they complement each other. That's my process. Finding the worlds that I want to visit and then figuring out how they connect. If they're two different, then it doesn't necessarily work. But if they can be married together, that's my end goal.

Speaker 2 4:07

From a performer's experience, you sent the draft and then you said something about it needing more energy, and you sent back the final version, and it got harder and it got faster.

Speaker 1 4:17

There was definitely more energy.

Speaker 2 4:20

Absolutely. You mentioned that this is the first time writing for cello and piano. How do you approach that instrumentation being first time, different from anything else you've ever written?

Speaker 1 4:31

Yeah, so it was my first time writing a concert piece. I've written arrangements or other things, but for just cello and piano, it was my first crack at it. I had written for violin and piano, and I'm a violinist, so that was a little bit easier in certain ways. But the challenge with the cello is that the register being much lower, you have to find these pockets that you place the cello into so that the piano and the cello are not competing. I don't want to have you on the A string the whole time, way up high, right? If I want to give you some lower mid-range, then that's an opportunity for the piano to explore the book ends of the register. So that was definitely something I was experimenting with. What's nice is when you have a low C string note, the piano can echo that or even play an octave lower and really reinforce that. When you're in the middle range, I'd say that's the most challenging, but I found that I was able to add a lot of textural elements in the higher range of the piano, some more staccato notes and some other textures. And that way you were able to hear the piano doing something interesting, but it wasn't covering you up. So when I wrote for violin and piano for the first time, I actually ended up having to really thin out the piano texture because I have sort of a piano background as well. So I was used to these big chords and this kind of Rachmaninoff like thing. But that can very easily cover the solo instrument. So that was one of the challenges, or at least just the things to work through writing for the cello and piano. Contrast was a huge emphasis as well. So throughout the piece, I have the cello playing a melody, but I have the piano playing poop poop poop poop these staccato things, and then vice versa, you're playing that kind of shorter and stuff, and then the piano is playing the melodic material underneath or above that. So contrast was definitely a very helpful tool. And because I think orchestrally, that's my mindset, I sometimes felt like I was seeing an orchestral vision, hearing it in my head, and then I was reducing it to what would this sound like if it were for cello and piano. Those were ways I approached it that were helpful, but it was interesting as a first crack at it.

Speaker 2 6:41

It turned out very well. You mentioned staying in different ranges between the piano and the cello. That reminds me of the first piece I ever thought of that on was the Brahms cello sonata and E minor, a lot of times where you're in canon or you're doing imitative things, and he does it so masterfully.

Speaker 1 6:58

Canon is a huge thing. I didn't use a ton of that in this piece, but when I write something for a larger ensemble, Canon is an amazing way to develop material. It works in your mind. You can draw the connections. Sometimes I see the subconscious.

Speaker 2 7:12

So well. The Franck sonata, so many great pieces. And in this project, one thing you graciously did is you allowed me to pick the title, which I gave you part way through. You already had a draft before I picked the title. Did having a title affect how you finished up the piece at all?

Speaker 1 7:29

I think so. I think it really identified what I was thinking about, but not certain of regarding my influences for it. And so when you told me, oh, it sounds like this, and I was like, Oh, good. That's what I wanted. It just solidified where I put my emphasis in this style. And so it didn't redirect what I was doing, but it helped me solidify that. I definitely think that was helpful. And I was able to double down on that and make it happen.

Speaker 2 8:00

I thought of the great experiment because originally it was a quote by George Washington, as you may know, where he called the American form of government the last great experiment in happiness. But then I thought writing a piece of music is really a great experiment. Commissioning a piece of the great experiment.

Speaker 1 8:16

Double meaning.

Speaker 2 8:31

And we all know each other. Did knowing the performers influence how you composed the piece?

Speaker 1 8:37

Knowing you and Matt personally was good because I could do whatever I wanted. You guys are very skilled. It was funny because I think originally Matt was like, make it really easy, and then I completely ignored him. No, no, no. But I knew he was very capable, and I obviously knew you were very capable. So I definitely felt like I had a lot of liberty there. But also just knowing the types of music that both cellists and pianists tend to gravitate towards and the repertoire, it informed my landscape for the piece. If it were something like a bassoon player, I'm not quite as familiar with the bassoon repertoire, but since cello and piano have such iconic works in the catalogs, that was very helpful and the personal connection definitely helped as well. Sounds good.

Speaker 2 9:23

Did you have anything specific in mind as far as an influence? I know you mentioned film scores in general, repertoire in general. Do you have anything more specific?

Speaker 1 9:33

I really think that opening Kodály quote, not quote, nod was a big thing. I don't know why I thought of that, but it came to my mind. There are definitely spots where I think you can hear K orngold nod, especially in the slower sections, some of the nine chords, eleven chords, almost jazzy chords. I definitely was thinking about that. I performed the piano and violin version of the Much Ado About Nothing Suite in college, and I have grown to really like that piece. So since it was for violin and piano, it was somewhat similar medium. I tried to use some of those tricks that he used. Those were definitely in my mind.

Speaker 2 10:14

And it was really interesting to see how it ended, because in the cello part, you stacked a bunch of fifths on top of each other. So it was almost a C Major chord at the end, but not quite. The George Walker sonata that we did next on the program starts the same way, just harmony in fifths instead of thirds.

Speaker 1 10:32

There's also a Copland appreciation there. I don't think the piece sounds like Copland. Some things that he does, I think, are just very Americana, very traditionally American. So definitely borrowed that as well.

Speaker 2 10:46

The only non-American piece that we did on the recital was Nadia Boulanger, but she counts as American because she taught Aaron Copland, she taught Leonard Bernstein on every composer on the program, with the exception of you, because you weren't even born yet.

Speaker 1 11:01

I think that's definitely true. She informed that voice heavily. That's very cool.

Speaker 2 11:05

So you've talked a lot about your compositional style, your process. How did you make this piece sound American? What is an American style to you?

Speaker 1 11:15

You can get technical with it. I think that the harmonic rhythm and the harmonic progression, there are very American ways to do that. A lot of whole step motion between key areas. C Major, D Major, C back down to C Major, that kind of thing. I always think of that as pretty American. That's where the Copland flavor comes into my head. So I tried to do that as a nod to the American style. I think also it sounds a little bit like a soundtrack. I think of Hollywood, I think of the movie score, Industrial Revolution, early film thing. I think there are definitely ways I mimic that with the chords. It sounds like the Woodwind section or the brass in a film score, when the monster is chasing after you. I really tried to give a nod to that as well. It's very rhythmic in spots. I don't know that it's rhythmically American, but just the energy idea. I think Americans are always trying to look for the climax of the story or what's going to happen next. And I had these point A and point B sections in my head, and then I figured out how to get there. How do I convincingly arrive at my various destinations? And so perhaps those destinations are cinematic moments, maybe that things occur. With the balance, of course, between that and it being a concert work. I think those are all built into the American language of music, especially in the 20th century. The harmonic rhythm and the structure of the harmonic movement were the main two things I was thinking about.

Speaker 2 12:51

As soon as you mentioned going up and down by whole steps, a fragment of Copland's Appalachian Spring just popped into my head. I'm like, oh, I know where that happens. Yeah, we did it a lot. When we were talking about the first draft, it did remind me of the Industrial Revolution. I don't know what about it, but that motoric.

Speaker 1 13:10

Something about the motives and the harmonies. I'm still not quite sure. I'll have to look back, let it sit for a while, and come back and figure out why.

Speaker 2 13:18

But could you tell us a little bit about your other composing? I know you've done a variety of things. You mentioned a couple of them, but what are some projects that really stand out to you as a composer?

Speaker 1 13:29

So right now I'm doing a lot of church music. So I've been focusing a lot on that. So it was very nice to have an opportunity to return to the concert music. So I've I've done a lot of church arranging for ad hoc volunteers and even choral stuff as well. I've also done a lot of music production. I've had a contract with Duolingo doing some production, but also a lot of music curriculum-related arranging, which is totally different. I'd never done that before. But it was an interesting exercise taking well-known songs and making them accessible for very beginning players. And then I also write cinematic music for a trailer music company. That's a sort of up-and-coming newer project, but that's something I've been doing. So I've gotten really used to the nuances of music production and the soundscape being more than just the notes and the rhythms, but the textures and the mixing and mastering and the pads and the rhythm, the drums, the percussion. And that's definitely informed my overall approach to music in a more nuanced way, knowing exactly what sound I'm looking for and not just what notes I want. So it was it's all been very valuable. So music production, arranging, sacred music, concert music. I haven't really done a full-fledged film score in a while. I've done some some smaller indie things, but that's one area I would love to explore more.

Speaker 2 15:01

I think I hear a really cinematic nod in your music. There's a lot of things that would lend themselves well to that. I'm not a music theorist who can point to exactly what it is, but something about it stands out.

Speaker 1 15:15

Yeah, that's definitely an aspect of my musical language I've always enjoyed. Since I was 12 years old, I've loved the cinematic sound.

Speaker 2 15:23

What else would you like to share with the cello museum audience? We have cellos who are professionals, we have cello lovers, everything in between. What do you want them to know about your piece, your composing?

Speaker 1 15:34

Well, I'm really grateful for the opportunity, and I really try and balance in my music an academic approach with something that's very widely accessible to a wide-range audience. I'm not particularly interested in my ideas, just being my ideas. I really like to make something that's approachable for a lot of different audience members. I just wanted to let everyone know that there are composers still doing that. So I think that's a very important thing to me when it comes to the composition process, is also knowing the audience, not just myself and the musicians, but knowing what the audience is going to be hearing. I think that's very important. I don't think that's dumbing it down at all. I think that's very important. I guess that's something I'd like everyone to chew on.

Speaker 2 16:23

Your piece is very accessible, not twelve-tone at all.

Speaker 1 16:27

I do use all twelve, but not in succession per se.

Speaker 2 16:32

You got through a couple different key areas there, so you get them all in. I had several people tell me that your piece was the favorite piece on the recital. So you're doing it. Making it very accessible.

Speaker 1 16:44

Thank you very much. I'm very excited, and I'm gonna have to listen again. I just want to keep listening because I thought it went very well. So thank you guys for playing.

Speaker 2 16:52

Absolutely. It was a pleasure, and I do hope we get a performance in the near future as well.

Speaker 1 16:57

That would be awesome.

Speaker 2 16:58

Right. Thanks again.

Speaker 17:06

Thank you for listening to the Cello Museum Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share it with a friend. To explore more about the cello, visit cello museum.org. And if you'd like to explore unaccompanied cello repertoire with us this summer, join Jennifer Kloetzel, Erica Lessie, and me at the Bethany Beach Cello Fest, August 9th through 16th. Details and registration are available on our website. Thanks again for listening.