Pacific Adds a Note of Seasoning

The appointment this week of Richard Danielpour as the Pacific Symphony’s new composer-in-residence, beginning in 1998, brought national attention to the Santa Ana-based orchestra, Orange County’s major symphonic ensemble.

Danielpour, 41, has splendid credits. More than 30 organizations, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony, have commissioned his work.

His music has been performed and recorded by artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman and Dawn Upshaw, among others, for the Sony Classical label, with which he has an exclusive contract. And G. Schirmer, one of the major houses, publishes it.

His three-year residency at the Pacific will not be his first such post. He has been a composer-in-residence at Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Festival (1989), Seattle Symphony (1991-92) and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (1994).

His association with Pacific Symphony music director Carl St.Clair goes back to 1989, when they were among a small group Leonard Bernstein took on a brief conducting tour of Europe. Two other composers, Christopher Rouse and Bright Sheng, and two other conductors, Eiji Oue and Mark Stringer, also made the trip.

“We were very young,” Danielpour said in a phone interview this week from the artists’ colony at Yaddo, in upstate New York. “Many of us were just having the first flourishing of our careers.”

Danielpour’s flourishing has had something to do with writing accessible music, though that’s not a conscious goal.

“I’m interested in writing music that pleases me and that musicians identify with,” he said. “The fact that it happens to be accessible is my good fortune.”

Danielpour was born in New York City. His mother is a sculptor, his father a writer and a businessman. His sister also is a writer.

“While there was no music in the house, there certainly was a lot of art,” he said. “I knew I was going to be a musician by the time I was 18, but I had no idea exactly what. When I went to Oberlin College [in Ohio], that was the first I discovered you could be a composition major.”

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Later, as a student at the Juilliard School, he heard his music played for the first time by an orchestra. “I got hit with a weight of tutti of my own music. My first reaction was, ‘I could get used to this.’ ”

Danielpour studied at Juilliard with American symphonists Vincent Persichetti and Peter Mennin. He also trained as a pianist with Lorin Hollander, Veronica Jochum and Gabriel Chodos. He teaches composition at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Manhattan School of Music.

As a teacher, he looks for singular personality in his students.

“It’s impossible to compose without an imagination,” he said, “and it’s impossible to compose without a slightly quirky and idiosyncratic personality.”

What are his quirks? “You just have to listen to the music. If I could actually describe it, I’d do what [a writer does] not what I do. My description is best described in the work itself.”

In the case of songs, his inspiration comes from the text. “Vocal music has to do with drawing everything that I can from a given text.”

For symphonic or nonvocal music, on the other hand, “I usually have to have an idea which almost comes off as dramatic or theatrical or operatic. I feel I’m an opera composer in disguise, even though I’ve never written an opera. There is a real dramatic trajectory in my music. You have to have one if you’re dealing with 20 to 30 minutes of music.”

He describes his writing process in a paradox: “I write fast, but I finish slow.”

“For me, the trick is to know when to begin. For a long time I think about a work until it almost feels the bag is about to burst. Usually there’s a moment at which the fullness of whatever has been brewing in there has to come out and has to be laid out.

“Then I write very quickly, particularly the first draft. [For instance,] the Concerto for Orchestra and the Cello Concerto, actually, the short scores were completed very quickly, as in 17 to 20 days. The orchestration was fairly mechanical after that.

“On the other hand, when I finally get a score in what looks like finished form, I do a lot of tinkering with it. I do a lot of changes at the first rehearsal. I believe that anything can be improved upon, and you allow room for that. It will be eventually better. I feel composers don’t do enough at rehearsals to push it that extra step forward. Very often, a piece could use a little bit of tweaking, and I have no hesitation doing it.”

Danielpour will write two major works for the Pacific during his tenure. He will be in Orange County at least three times a year, each time for a week to 10 days. “We’re not just performing my music, however. We’re also involved with a recording.”

In his scores, he’s “very specific” about what he wants, but he expects a conductor, especially a “musically literate” one, to interpret the music further.

“I’m fully aware of the fact that I cannot control the performance by what I put down. What is in the score, for a truly literate artist, someone musically literate, I’m aware my score is a departing point. It’s not so much a bible, but a door.”

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With his awards, honors and commissions, Danielpour seems to have led something of a charmed career so far.

“It’s been charmed and yet to do anything well is a struggle,” he said. “To do anything well is very, very difficult. So, yes, it’s been a struggle and I’ve never expected it not to be. At the same time, I feel I’ve been blessed at every step and carried at every step of my life. I feel very fortunate.

“I think of that saying, ‘To whom much has been given, much is required.’ I know I’ve been given an ability to make music and speak in a way slightly more articulate as a musician than as a speaker. One who is given a gift is held accountable for it. Not to share that gift is a sin.”