Composer Spotlight- Carleton Macy

Get to Know...Carleton Macy

As you’re preparing for the new school year and choosing repertoire for your advanced student flute quartet (or your own!), we suggest checking out Carleton Macy’s wonderful work Intensity. An honorable mention in 2015, Intensity for four C flutes (amplified) is available for free download on his website! www.carletonmacy.com
 
Q&A with Carleton…
 
What about new music for the flute appeals to you?
First, I am very drawn to the flute’s flexibility on so many levels: pitch range, textures, articulation, tone
qualities, and extended techniques including some available only through amplification. Second, and
perhaps most importantly, I am drawn to flute performers because they always tend to be very open to new
music.
 
Who is your favorite “new music” composer?
When I am composing, my favorite composer is myself (of course!). Between compositions my favorite
composers shift depending upon whose music has recently made the strongest impression upon me. The
composers who come to mind now are Michael Gordon (and his recently completed work “Van Gogh”,
Kevin Puts (especially his opera, “Silent Night”), and Silvestre Revueltas (a not so “new” composer) whose
CD is in my car. My favorite new music pieces are always those that have found new ways to say the same
old things.
 
Describe your musical background and current activities:
I grew up learning trumpet in public schools and then added trombone and switched to French horn because
horn music was more interesting and more substantive when playing in an orchestra. I studied music ed,
taught in Peace Corps (Ethiopia), and then went back to grad school to become a conductor and along the
way I became a composer. I taught theory/comp and directed a jazz band at Macalester College for 35
years Along the way I learned to play Renaissance wind instruments, Baroque and contemporary recorder
(mostly alto), swing and jazz drum set, and Chinese traditional instruments on which I performed with the
Minnesota Chinese Music Ensemble. I am now retired from teaching but remain very active as a composer
living in California, and once again loving performance on horn and bass drum (in a pipe band.)
 
How do you view the composing profession?
College faculty members are “required” to be professionally active which means actively seeking out
juried performance and recording opportunities. Making real money composing would be wonderful, but
the reality is that few composers can make more than a minimal honorarium and a small amount from
ASCAP and BMI sampled performances. This may have bothered me at one time, but now I prefer to give
my music away, which I do on my website: carletonmacy.com. On this site you may listen to and freely
download pdfs of scores and parts for most of my music. A good performance of a new piece is the best
pay! If a performer can get a grant to commission me, I’d be glad to share the wealth!
 
What advice can you give to flutists about approaching new music.
(1) expect to put in the same amount of time preparing a new piece that you would put into the preparation
of a piece from the standard repertoire. Standard repertoire often gets more prep time because colleagues
already know how it should be played, and thus performance expectations are higher. (2) Don’t hesitate to
contact and consult with the composer. This is so easy to do now: send a recording of a run-through, even
if recorded on one’s phone, or set up a skyped run-through. Most composers want to be involved with
performance preparation. (3) Always commit to an expressive point of view in all of the music, new and
old, that you perform….. and, of course, have fun while you are doing it!
 
More about Carleton…

I compose works ranging from vocal and orchestral to jazz and music for non-western instruments, often integrating a variety of historical and ethnic stylistic influences. My compositions have been performed throughout the United States, in Europe and Asia, and are recorded on INNOVA, Naxos, DAPHENO, and Latvian Radio. Macy’s Composition teachers have included William Bergsma, Robert Suderberg, and Donal Michalsky.
I am a Professor Emeritus of Music at Macalester College where I began teaching in 1978. In addition to teaching theory and composition courses I directed the MacJazz big band, the Macalester Collegium Musicum, and the Mac New Music Ensemble which specialized in improvised music.   I have an active interest in Non-Western music, having served as Artistic Director, conductor and sheng performer with the Minnesota Chinese Music Ensemble. I am presently an active composer living in Pacific Grove, California where I am also an active performer on French horn, alto recorder, and bass drum.

If you enjoyed Intensity…

A Little Fuguing
Instrumentation: fl, ssax(cl), elec gtr, mar
Duration: 5’
Year of Composition: 2006
 
Centering
Instrumentation: double woodwind quintet and piano
Duration: 20’
Year of Composition: 1984
 
Commentaries
Instrumentation: fl, ob, cl, bn, hn
Duration:14’30”
Year of Composition: 1988
 
Concertino
Instrumentation: fl, ob, cl, bn, hn, vib, mar
Duration: 8’
Year of Composition: 1993
 
Douce Dame
Instrumentation: Mez, fl, cl, pf, vn, va, vc
Duration: 11’20”
Year of Composition: 2012
 
Echoes
Instrumentation: picc, 2fl, afl, 3cl, bcl
Duration: 8’
Year of Composition: 2011
 
El Dia de los Muertos
Instrumentation: fl, cl, pf
Duration: 8’30
Year of Composition:2009
 
Equinox and Solstice
Instrumentation: 2fl, pf
Duration: 11’
Year of Composition: 1992
 
Flute Games
Instrumentation: Mez, fl
Duration: 12’30”
Year of Composition: 1982
 
FMV
Instrumentation: fl, va, man
Year of Composition: 2006
 
Friends in Time
Instrumentation: flute (amplified), elec gtr
Duration: 8’15”
Year of Composition: 1991
 
Mid-Summer Dreams
Instrumentation: fl, cl, vn, va, vc
Duration: 10”
Year of Composition: 2006
 
 
Monogram: Alexander George Macy
Instrumentation: solo flute
Duration: 4’
Year of Composition: 1983
 
Opera Venti
Instrumentation: fl, ob, cl, bn, hn
Duration: 12’
Year of Composition: 1990
 
Shades of Green
Instrumentation: fl, cl
Duration: 4’10”
Year of Composition: 2013
 
Three Flutes Quartets from Mozart
Instrumentation: 3 fl, afl
Duration: 9’45”
Year of Composition: 1988
 
Toute Ensemble
Instrumentation: 6fl (3rd dbl picc)
Duration: 10’30”
Year of Composition: 1978
 
Twigs: a Serenade for Woodwind Quintet
Instrumentation: fl, ob, cl, bn, hn
Duration: 13’
Year of Composition: 1980
 
Waves
Instrumentation: fl, ob, bn, pf
Duration: 10’30”
Year of Composition: 1984
 
 
 

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