Composer Spotlight- Paul Elwood

Get to Know...Paul Elwood

Our second Colorado-based finalist, Paul Elwood is Associate Professor of Music Composition at the University of Northern Colorado. Paul was a finalist in 2014 for his flute duet, Marfa Lights (flute 2 doubling piccolo).
 
Q&A with Paul …
 
What about new music for flute appeals to you?
I love the timbral diversity of the instrument from diverse rich tones that the instrument produces to a wide variety of extended techniques available. I like the fact that many flutists with whom I've worked tackle a variety of techniques, rhythms, and compositions with an open mind.
 
Who are your favorite “new” music composers and why?
Thomas Adès for his inventive use of the instruments, and his complexity of writing at the micro- and macro-level; Augusta Read Thomas for not only musical construction but beauty of orchestration; Sean Friar and Andrew Norman ("Nouveau LA School Composers") for their youthful energy, virtuosic technique, and musicality, and Caroline Shaw for her unbridled and inspired writing.
 
What are your favorite new music pieces and why?
"Concentric Circles," violin concerto by Adès, a colorful, energetic composition; "Partita" by Caroline Shaw, for reasons cited above, and "Fighting Words" by Sean Friar using text from a variety of political speeches. There are a host of others from "classics" including Crippled Symmetry by Morton Feldman that uses beautiful, if random, combinations of colour between flute, glockenspiel, and piano, Stockhausen's early electronic work for their sheer monumental invention, and Messiaen's "Oiseaux Exotiques," an early strong influence on my work.
 
Do you have any upcoming events that you would like our friends and followers to know about?
I'm finishing a double concerto for violin and cello for the University of Northern Colorado orchestra, beginning a work for electric guitar and chamber ensemble commissioned by French experimentalist Jean Marc Montera, and working on an ongoing abstract multi-media homage to silent film actress Louise Brooks. She never compromised her intellectual integrity for fame - which ultimately cost her her career in film; there never seemed to wallow in self-pity after she made her last film (one of John Wayne's first) and ended up selling shoes in NYC for a spell. "Marfa Lights," the composition selected as a finalist in the FNMC competition, will be performed in November in Iowa City with the University of Iowa Percussion as part of my evening-length concept presentation titled "Strange Angels: exploring the paranormal."
 
What advice can you give to flutists about approaching new music in practice?
Listen to a lot of new music (listening to "old" music is a given) and keep an open mind to as much of it as you can.
 
More About Paul…
 
Paul Elwood’s music has been featured at festivals in Moscow, Sofia, Mexico City, Marseille, Wollongong (Australia), Edinburgh, Darmstadt, Madrid (July 2015), Strasbourg, and all over the U.S.A. Performers that have played his music include pianist Stephen Drury, percussionist Stuart Gerber, the Bent Frequency Duo, Zeitgeist (Minneapolis), the Callithumpian Consort (Boston), the North Carolina Symphony, the Charleston Symphony, the Wichita Symphony, Tambuco (the Mexican Percussion Quartet), saxophonist Jon Gudmundson, and Ensemble Signos (Mexico City). Recent recordings are on Innova Recordings as composer/banjoist with percussionist Famoudou Don Moye of the Art Ensemble of Chicago (titled Nice Folks, January 2015), Misfit Toys (2013, featuring drummer Matt Wilson, percussionist Dan Moore, and reed player Robert Paredes) and his own chamber and folk music, Stanley Kubrick’s Mountain Home (2011), with bassist Bertram Turetzky (2008), and Electric Cowboy Cacophony (2008).
 
He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and of the Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France), and he has won fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, the Djerassi Artists Foundation, the Ucross Foundation, and Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain. In 2000 he won the Sigma Alpha-Iota Inter-American Music Awards and was awarded a 2007 commissioning grant from the Jerome Foundation to compose for Zeitgeist. Elwood’s compositions are published by C.F. Peters, Smith Publications, and his own Western Wear Music Publishing.
 
Elwood is an active five-string banjoist in both the realms of experimental and bluegrass music. In 2015 he played on the premiere of “Hanover” by Alvin Lucier, a composition using three banjos played with EBows with chamber ensemble. He is working on a new composition for solo banjo written for him by Christian Wolff
And he has collaborated with guitarist Jean-Marc Montera, guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, cellist Hank Roberts, the Callithumpian Consort of the New England Conservatory, famed banjoist Tony Trischka, Zeitgeist, bluegrass legend John Hartford, percussionist Eddie Prévost, and pipa player Min Xiao-Fen, among many others.
 
For more information visit his website: www.paul-elwood.com or blog http://soundchoice.typepad.com
 
If you enjoyed Marfa Lights check out Paul’s other works with flute…
 
A Vast Ocean of Promise
Instrumentation: solo bassoon with flute, clarinet, piano, two violins, viola, and five-string banjo
Duration: 18:00
Year of Composition: 1999
 
Along the Mystic Thruway
Instrumentation: flute, piano, cello
Duration: 9:00
Year of Composition: 1996
 
Alters Altered
Instrumentation: flute and piano
Duration: 6:00
Year of Composition: 1998
 
Blue Prairie
Instrumentation: yodeler with flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello
Duration: 15:00
Year of Composition: 1990
 
Circo De Montes, Teatro De Las Nubes
Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello
Duration: 9:30
Year of Composition: 2001
 
Deirdre’s Lament
Instrumentation: flute, two percussion, piano, two violins, cello and banjo (Ballet)
Duration: 50:00
Year of Composition: 2010
 
Entre Irse Y Quesdarse
Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello
Duration: 13:00
Year of Composition: 1990
 
Four Directions
Instrumentation:  flute (wearing Velcro-soled shoes)
Duration: 6:00
Year of Composition: 1991
 
Pilot Jack Knight: Aviator
Instrumentation: flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello
Duration: 4:30
Year of Composition: 1987
 
Road of Darkness, Distant Moon
Instrumentation: double bass, flute/piccolo, percussion, five-string banjo
Duration: 11:00
Year of Composition: 2003
 
Snow Falls Ceaselessly
Instrumentation: flute, cello, percussion, piano, and audience players
Duration: 15:00
Year of Composition: 1984
 
Stanley Kubrick’s Mountain Home
Instrumentation: soprano, Appalachian instruments (fiddle, banjo, mandolin, guitar) flute, clarinet, piano, violin, cello
Duration: 25:00
Year of Composition: 2001
 
Strange Angels: Exploring the Paranormal
An evening length collection of works that includes Marfa Lights
Year of Composition: 2010
 
The Eternal Sky
Instrumentation: flute and piano
Duration: 9:30
Year of Composition: 2008
 
The Vault of Heaven, The Crystal Sea
Instrumentation: solo cello with flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, and violin
Duration: 20:00
Year of Composition: 1995
 
The Void Beneath The Coffee Table
Instrumentation: solo banjo, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello
Duration: 15:00
Year of Composition: 1989
 
Two Extremities
Instrumentation: soprano, piano, bowed five-string banjo, flute, violin, and wine glasses
Duration: 7:30
Year of Composition: 1998
 
Under the Table
Instrumentation: soprano, flute, cello, and banjo
Duration: 10:30
Year of Composition: 2012
 
Usher
Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, and cello
Duration: 40:00
Year of Composition: 1988
 
Verbum Salutis
Instrumentation: flute, bass clarinet, cello, percussion, and hand signer
Duration: 8:00
Year of Composition: 1985
 

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