Still It Grows
*Photo by Matt Curlee
MATT CURLEE is a Rochester, NY based composer and performer, focused on collaborative projects across a wide variety of styles and media, from music for film and TV, to non-traditional ensembles and improvisational music, to theatrical works, to dance, and beyond. Matt is also an assistant professor of music theory at the Eastman School of Music, where he has served since 2008.
Still It Grows by Matt Curlee is a percussion ensemble piece for percussion trio + percussion sextet. It was commissioned by 3D Percussion in 2024, and premiered in March 27th , 2024.
Interview with Matt Curlee
It’s always really interesting to hear what music I wrote reminds people of! I think I try to feed my musical database as much as possible, but then mostly allow those listening experiences come out in intuitive ways when I’m actually writing. Any time I’ve tried to model something consciously, it’s always felt artificial. I think the syntax features that distinguish anyone’s authentic musical language are incredibly subtle, so while there are a lot of composers I’d love to sound more like, I find I can’t really force it. That said, all of those comparisons really ring true now that I’m hearing them! The way that music works (at least for me) is that, even the techniques and moves that feel most native and authentic to me have an etymology, but one that’s probably more apparent to others than to myself, since I try to let those musical experiences and influences come out in a fully metabolized way.
When we first received the score and audio recording, our group chat went wild!
Naturally we started comparing the music to works by other composers. "This 5/16 reminds me of Viñao!" "I'm hearing a little Steve Reich when everything drops out but the two marimbas!" “the ending reminds me a bit of John Psathas' music!”
Would you say that any of these names are influences for you (at least for your percussion writing) or perhaps that you and these composers share common influences?
Initially establishing the sound palette for a work is often a challenge for me, and that endeavor can take a lot of forms. In a piece like Cistern, the instrument is fixed (just a big metal pot) so it's more of an additive process, starting with a single piece of hardware and trying to build a timbral range by experimenting with lots of playing techniques. With a piece like Still It Grows, it's just the opposite: 9 people could potentially make a whole lot of different kinds of noise, so it's more about limits, about drawing some sort of frame so a sonic picture can come into focus. As it turned out, this piece calls on each individual to contribute a relatively minimal set of components to that picture; sometimes reducing the parameter space allows detail and finesse to shine
Perhaps you have not written for percussion trio + percussion sextet before.
Is it very different from other percussion instrumentations? What is it like always being ready for the next challenge in instrumentation and genre given that your work ranges from pieces like The Yellow Wallpaper, for theater percussion to Unsoftly, to the Night for large ensemble (4 Winds (unspecified), 8-Part Chorus, 2 Percussionists, 2 VIn, Vla, 2 VC).
Most of my music for the last decade has been somehow inspired by natural processes, whether in fundamental physics or cosmology, in the corporeal world around us, or in the ways that we interface with that natural world. I'm always trying (with some sense of futility) to capture a feeling of organic development, like a tree growing or a rain cloud materializing.
Sometimes I'm attempting to musically model some of the physical reasons that those things happen the way that they do. However, I've been searching for that effect for so long that it shows up - to whatever degree l'm able to achieve it - even when I'm not thinking about it.
Still It Grows was mostly done, without a title, and I asked my partner what it sounded like to her. She said it reminded her of the first-tentative, eventually exuberant arrival of spring, so it acquired this spring-like title. But spring can also be a metaphor for a lot of things that develop in messy, chaotic, but beautiful ways.
For me, it also represents the growth that goes on behind the scenes for all of us, maybe especially when we're not really thinking about it...intuitive acquisition is a process that, in some ways, looks a lot like any other system in nature: evolving through time guided by simple, local principles, but producing highly structured, even creative results.
Can you talk a little bit about what inspired you as you composed Still it Grows. What does the title mean to you?