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Music between the lines: how duality informs the artistic process and future of classical music

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Music between the lines: how duality informs the artistic process and future of classical music

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MUSIC BETWEEN THE LINES:
HOW DUALITY INFORMS THE ARTISTIC PROCESS AND
FUTURE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC

By

Polina Cherezova

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL FOR
COMMUNICATION AND JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM (THE ARTS)

May 2021

Copyright 2021 Polina Cherezova
ii
Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who helped make this thesis possible.
My eternal thanks to Sasha Anawalt for her constant support and encouragement, and for always
pushing me to stretch my mind about the future of arts journalism. To Willa Seidenberg, Sandy
Tolan, and Edward Lifson for their thoughtful guidance in helping me explore the world of audio
storytelling. Special thanks to Tim Page for recommending this program to me and for providing
the link between music and journalism at USC.

I am forever grateful for my piano professor, Antoinette Perry, and the rest of the
wonderful faculty at Thornton School of Music, for providing me with a place to grow as a
musician, performer, and artist alongside my journalism studies. To my pre-college piano
teacher, Irina Tchetchko, without whom I would not be where I am today—thank you for
believing in me from the very beginning.

To the talented composers and musicians I interviewed for this thesis—Conrad Tao, the
musicians of Mixtape Series, and Derrick Spiva Jr.—thank you for telling your stories and for
constantly striving to make classical music accessible and relevant in today’s world. To my
friends and peers who inspire me every day. To my sister, Masha, for courageously moving to
Russia and following her dreams. And of course, to my mom and dad for their unconditional
love and support—thank you.

iii
Abstract

This thesis serves to explore the presence and effectiveness of dualities in the realm of classical
music through a series of profiles, most of which are in podcast format, about musicians who
care about the future of classical music and have achieved recognition through successful
demonstration of duality.
This project emerged from my initial interest to defy the stereotypes people have about
classical music and combat issues of underrepresentation and lack of diversity associated with
the genre. After talking to several groundbreaking musicians and composers, and hearing their
music, I realized there appeared to be a pattern of dualities, or juxtapositions between two
different entities, in their work: composer-pianist Conrad Tao performs “new” classical music
alongside classical music of the past, the musicians of Mixtape Series weave together classical
music with musical genres like rock and pop, and composer Derrick Spiva Jr. bridges classical
music with diverse cultural and musical traditions from around the world.
Over the course of the development of this thesis, I discovered dualities can indeed bring
together otherwise contrasting genres, traditions, and ideas into the same space. Through sound
rich audio and narrative storytelling, this thesis serves to bring listeners into the minds of several
musicians and demonstrate the power duality has in pushing classical music forward into a new
place, as a more inclusive and accessible genre.

iv
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………ii
Abstract………….………………………………………………………………………………iii
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1
Dueling Dreams: Two Sisters Chase Art to Opposite Sides of the World……………………….5
Conrad Tao, the Free-Spirit of Classical Music…………………………………………………17
Dvorak Meets the Beatles: A Modern Mixtape on Classical Instruments………………………22
‘To Be a Horizon’: Derrick Spiva Jr. Brings Cultures Together Through Music……...………. 31
Bibliography – Interviews.………………………………………………………………………38
Bibliography – Music……………………………………………………………………………39
Bibliography – Text……………………………………………………………………………...41

1
Introduction

Most people would have a hard time envisioning themselves at a concert hall listening to
a world-renowned orchestra perform Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring on a Friday night. Watching a
football game, maybe, but not a classical concert. Classical music is just not part of the typical
American experience. But growing up in a Russian household, my love for classical music
bloomed early. As a classically trained pianist, my childhood was filled with dusty cassette tapes
and CDs of Mozart Symphonies and Tchaikovsky’s ballets. It’s a genre that reflects the depths of
the soul and humanity. Yet, in the most recent survey conducted by the National Endowment for
the Arts, only 8.6% of the U.S. population reported attending a classical concert in 2017. This
number upsets me. There are too many issues involved in the inaccessibility of classical music
including elitism, stereotypes, and underrepresentation. It doesn’t help that visiting a concert hall
means abiding to a tense environment where clapping between movements triggers a response of
harsh glares and shushes. These rules exist out of respect for the genre, but they’re also part of
the problem, repelling our modern generation further and further from classical music. Interested
in how classical music can break these boundaries, I recalled an article the classical pianist
Charlie Albright wrote about this topic. He believed that the issue of classical music’s
irrelevance was due more to the 20
th
century “classical” rules and etiquette surrounding the
concert hall experience rather than the music itself.
1
I agreed with him then and still do, but I
wanted to test his theory by interviewing a pianist, a composer, and an ensemble all of whom
work in the classical sphere at a professional level and with national, sometimes international,
success. How were these musicians able to grow an audience that defies the stereotypical image

1
Charlie Albright, “‘Classical’ music is dying…and that’s the best thing for classical music,” CNN.com (2016).
2
of the white-skinned, wealthy, elderly listener, and attract classical music fans of all ages, social
classes, and ethnicities?
In my search for sources, I looked for classical musicians and composers who truly care
about the genre and have found success in breaking classical music free from its stereotypes and
traditions. I found three examples: a composer-pianist named Conrad Tao, four classically
trained musicians from Mixtape Series, and a composer named Derrick Spiva Jr. These
musicians not only satisfy my criteria, but they share another common thread: each found
success when combining classical music with something else, such as another musical genre or
tradition that is more familiar and accessible to today’s listeners. Another way to describe this is
duality, or the juxtaposition of two separate sides or identities. I became intrigued with how the
presence of dualities place classical music into a context relevant to today, and how the tension
between two sides can become a space of innovation for the genre moving forward.
To define my terms, I consulted several resources. First, I looked into the writings of
Jerrold Levinson, a well-known philosopher of art and aesthetics. His ideas provided me with a
basis for establishing the distinct difference between a duality and a hybrid. Levinson defines
hybrid art forms as “art forms arising from the actual combination or interpenetration of earlier
art forms.”
2
Essentially, it is the merging of two forms into one, creating an entirely new and
different art form. Levinson spells this out as A + B = C. Duality, on the other hand, is the
placement of two separate entities next to one another in which each separate entity still exists as
itself. This looks more like A + B = AB. It’s this and that, which turns out to be more of an
inclusive form than a hybrid. For instance, a hypothetical hybrid genre of “classical pop music”

2
Jerrold Levinson, “Hybrid Art Forms,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 18, no.4 (1984): 6.
3
would combine the best bits and piece of each genre, while a duality of classical music and pop
music would maintain each genre’s individual properties while they interact in the same space.
The two sides in a duality engage in a push and pull between one another which creates
tension. As a result, feelings of inner conflict and discomfort are developed, ultimately
establishing balance and peace. Chicana poet and cultural theorist Gloria Anzaldúa describes this
type of disorientation in her writings as “nepantla,” or the space in the middle, the place in
between two identities. She specifically refers to border artists caught between two cultural
worlds who eventually find themselves by disrupting these separations between cultures.
3
But
these dualities don’t just have to be between two cultures, they can also be between two genres,
traditions, forms, or mediums. For example, while Spiva Jr. manifests duality through cultural
traditions, Mixtape Series presents it through musical genres and Tao through honoring and
defying the expectations and boundaries of classical music.
When experiencing a duality of two musical genres or traditions, a listener’s perception
of each individual genre or tradition is also enhanced. For instance, classical music performed in
a rock music context proves highly effective in influencing a rock fan to develop an appreciation
for classical music, and vice versa. The musicians of Mixtape Series reported experiencing
gratifying audience reactions from Beatles fans who said hearing Beatles in a context with
classical music made them realize they actually enjoy classical music, too. Reactions to Spiva
Jr.’s music are similar. Through his piece “To Be a Horizon,” he said a person with Ghanaian
roots and a person with Persian roots are able to find common ground as both of their cultural
traditions are honored in the same space.

3
Gloria Anzaldúa, “Border Arte,” La Frontera/The Border: Art about the Mexico/United States Border Experience
(1993): 177.
4
Each musician I interviewed for this thesis identified the “same space” as a solution for
making classical music relevant and accessible to all kinds of listeners. Through a compilation of
four journalism pieces, three of which are in audio format, a medium closest to my
understanding of the world as a musician, I found proof for the effectiveness of duality in the
relevance of classical music. I started this thesis with a transcription of a 12-minute audio
journalism piece about myself because I embody duality through my identity as a Russian
American classical pianist and journalist. Next, is a written profile of Tao, a composer-pianist
who attracts listeners through breaking elitist traditions and performing “new” classical music
alongside classical music of the past. The third journalism piece is a transcription of a five-
minute audio profile of Mixtape Series, a group of four classically trained musicians who find
similarities between classical music and genres like rock, electronic, and pop and perform them
together in an entirely new kind of listening experience. Last is a transcription of a seven-minute
audio profile of composer Spiva Jr., an African American of multicultural ancestry who blends
classical music with diverse cultural traditions to inspire unity and connection between human
beings.
The musicians and composers I interviewed for this thesis successfully demonstrate how
the effective duality of genres, traditions, and methods entice new listeners and bring people of
different interests, ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds together into the “same space.” Along this
journey, I’ve come to find that dualities do indeed provide the balance classical music seeks
between the past and the present, between honoring tradition and future innovation. The
relevance is simply found in the space in the middle, by listening between the lines.

5
Dueling Dreams: Two Sisters Chase Art to Opposite Sides of the World

HOST INTRO: It’s easy to feel like you don’t belong anywhere especially when your family
immigrated to the United States when you were just a small child. Russian American pianist
Polina Cherezova plumbs her mind and soul to better understand her roots and love for music, all
while questioning what it means to feel stuck between her Russian and American identities—
especially after her younger sister makes a big move back to their family’s native land.

00:00 – MUSIC: “Des Abends/In the Evening” from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op.12. Polina
Cherezova.

00:02 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
When I sit behind my piano, it doesn’t matter what I am, who I am, or where I’m from. It’s all
about the music. But away from my piano, I’m a 23-year-old Russian American, and there’s one
thing that has plagued me for more than half of my life. It’s when someone asks me “Where are
you from?” Simple question, right? But my body freezes up, and my throat gets dry. I usually
end up going on some long-winded explanation nobody asked for — “Oh, I was born in Russia,
but my family moved to America when I was 11 months old. Half of my childhood was spent in
Ohio, the other half in California.” To Russians, this means I’m American. To Americans, it
means I’m Russian. But I don’t feel either. Though I was born in Russia, I could never envision
myself living there. The weather is bipolar, and the living conditions are, well, unlivable. On the
other hand, in America, the way most people look at art and culture, it’s just not the same. I’m
sort of in between it all. So, imagine my surprise when my little sister, the only one in our family
6
born in America, the one who hardly knew Russian, suddenly drops everything and moves across
the world to our native land to pursue ballet.

01:19 – AMBIENT SOUND: Music fades out. Water running in the sink, tea kettle warming up,
making coffee, pouring buckwheat into a metal pan.

01:21 – HOST: Polina Cherezova

When the sun sets in southern California, it rises in the heart of Siberia. That’s where my
younger sister is—6,000 miles away. She’s just woken up. She waters her plants, prepares a
healthy breakfast of buckwheat, and makes her daily trek over to the Novosibirsk State
Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet (NOVAT).

01:40 – AMBIENT: Footsteps. Russian voices. Walking to the theater. Creak of door opening.

01:42 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Every day, locals and tourists walk by it. Everyone knows it's there, but not everyone knows that
inside, life is bustling even amidst a global pandemic.

01:51 – AMBIENT: Inside NOVAT. Russian voices. Ballet music. Pointe shoe sounds.

01:52 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
7
Sounds from pointe shoes hitting the floor echo in the building. Ballet dancers stretch outside the
doorways, while others leap through the marley floored studios. Exotic music from the ballet La
Bayadere resonates through the hallways. My younger sister, Masha, is a ballet dancer. In March
of 2019, she boarded a one-way flight to Russia.

02:14 – INTERVIEW: Masha Cherezova
I think only like the day before, I remember in my vlog I said, “Bye bye, America,” and that felt
weird.

02:20 – MUSIC: “Des Abends/In the Evening” from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op.12. Polina
Cherezova.

02:23 – INTERVIEW: Masha Cherezova
When I thought ballet, I always thought Russia. That was definitely the number one dream.

02:29 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
As a classical pianist myself, the thought of training in Russia had certainly crossed my mind
before. I’ve always idealized the Moscow conservatory. I looked up to Russian pianists like
Vladimir Horowitz and Evgeny Kissin, composers like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff,
dreaming of the day I could play them until finally one day I could.

02:46 – MUSIC: Piano Concerto No.2 by Rachmaninoff. Polina Cherezova.

8
02:58 – INTERVIEW: Masha Cherezova

POLINA CHEREZOVA: So, you know how we always talk about not really feeling like we’re
Russian or American?

MASHA CHEREZOVA: Oh yeah, like the semi lingual, like I can’t speak either language
fluently or natively.

03:12 – HOST: Polina Cherezova.
So, when Masha moved, it made me question everything. How could she just drop everything
and move to Russia? Trading sunny southern California, for what? For Astrakhan? A rundown
town south of the Volga river which neither I, nor she, had ever heard of?

03:27 – MUSIC: The Lark by Balakirev/Glinka. Polina Cherezova.

03:28 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
When Masha arrived, she experienced a culture shock. Old and tiny wooden cottages were
scattered all around. There were barely any sidewalks, mostly just dirt roads. And of course,
everyone was speaking in Russian.

03:40 – INTERVIEW: Masha Cherezova
I felt a little out of place.

9
03:42 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
She lived in an apartment on the first floor of a really old building. There was no elevator, the
floors were chipped, tiles were misplaced. Tubes and pipes were sticking out in the most obvious
places. Her kitchen didn’t have an oven, and the gas stove had to be turned on with a match. But
I felt kind of envious of her courage. Why wasn’t it me, the older sister, making all these
sacrifices for something I loved?

04:07 – INTERVIEW: Masha Cherezova
I slept on a couch and I don’t even know how I did that, but when that’s what you have, it was
enough to live and get by.

04:19 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
In 1997, the year I was born, my parents had just that—enough to live and get by.
I was born in a little town near Moscow called Dubna. During this time, science academia was
not fully supported in Russia so like any immigration story, my parents decided to move to the
United States for better opportunities.

04:39 – INTERVIEW: Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya
It was for us, very intriguing too, how we can survive with the sort of amount of money, but
maybe big, big future.

04:50 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
10
My mom remembers her first impressions of America, when she stepped off the plane—of all
things, of a sandwich shop.

04:56 – INTERVIEW: Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya
It was really weird smell from Subway. It was mustard with pickles and very intensely “eating
smell” that I remembered forever.

05:11 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
We lived in Ohio first, the most American of places. Our life was simple, we had a small
apartment, no furniture. But the first thing my parents bought from a garage sale was a piano.

05:34 – INTERVIEW: Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya
It’s just I think the way how I grew with piano, so I just thought it’s really important to have an
instrument in your house.

05:46 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Music became a big part of my life. My mom tells me how whenever I would get nauseous
during car rides, she would sing songs from Soviet cartoons and I would sing along with her.

05:54 – AMBIENT: Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya sings a song from Soviet cartoon—Bremenskie
Muzykanty.

06:00 – INTERVIEW: Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya
11
Yeah, it helped you not to pay attention to your nausea and cope with it better.

06:11 – CLIP: “Nichevo na svete luchshe netu” from Bremenskie Muzykanty fades in on top of
Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya’s singing as it fades out.

06:19 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
When I was 10 years old, we moved to California

06:19 – AMBIENT: ocean waves

06:25 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
I remember my mom playing Tchaikovsky’s Seasons on our piano in the living room.

06:26 – MUSIC: “May” from Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, Op.37a. Polina Cherezova.

06:28 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
From my bedroom, I would put my ear up to the wall, and listen to her closely. I loved every
minute of it. So, at 10, I begged my parents to start piano lessons again. I had taken lessons
earlier, but this time it was for real.

06:42 – MUSIC: Polka by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Polina Cherezova.

06:44 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
12
This is me performing a Rachmaninoff polka. My teacher was playing along on the piano next to
me. I learned classical music, but also American jazz, like Ray Charles, and George Gershwin.

06:57 – MUSIC: I Got Rhythm by George Gershwin. Polina Cherezova.

07:07 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
I learned about musicality, imagination, that music could be fun and exciting. But the Russian
soul inside me, and inside Masha, yearned for more.

07:14 – MUSIC: The Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker.

07:17 – INTERVIEW: Masha Cherezova
We would go the library every week and every week I would get The Nutcracker and I would
watch it and I remember I would put on my, a dress, and pretend to be the main character Masha
and I always thought that like “Oh, I could do that, and I don't need any ballet lessons like I
already know.”

07:43 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
For Masha, it was ballet, for me, it was the music of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. As we
grew older music and ballet became our safe haven. At school it was hard to connect with the
other kids. We didn’t have cable TV, we didn’t know the big-name celebrities, or anything about
pop culture really. The only music we knew was classical music, or the songs my dad would play
in the car, like the Beatles.
13
08:05 – MUSIC: “Yellow Submarine.” The Beatles.

08:12 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Or something like this.

08:13 – MUSIC: “Loshad Belaya.” Aquarium.

08:14 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
This is a Russian song called “Loshad Belaya,” or “White Horse,” by a group called Aquarium.
I used to sit in the backseat of the car staring out the window, gazing at the landscapes, grassy
fields. It felt sort of isolating navigating through a country we knew nothing about. My sister and
I both found fulfillment through classical ballet and music. It was kind of like our way of
reconnecting with the country and culture we came from. If we couldn’t fit in at school, then
maybe we could fit in with our art.

08:53 – MUSIC: “Sweet Dreams” from Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album. Polina Cherezova.

08:55 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
As I started to get more serious about music, parents thought it was time to look for a better
teacher. So, I auditioned for the studio of Irina Tchetchko, a graduate of the Moscow
Conservatory.

09:04 – INTERVIEW: Irina Tchetchko
14
I still remember that shiny girl who came first in my studio, and I noticed that you had a very
good musical ear and also the huge desire to play piano.

09:20 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Her piano room was very clean, and light. The air always smelled like cinnamon apples. There
was Yamaha baby grand piano in the corner, and bookshelves full of music. Mrs. Tchetchko
went through the traditional conservatory education in Russia. If I had lived in Russia, I would
have had to start really young. Students are scouted for talent before entering the top music
schools in the nation. They spend years working on simple pieces building up a proper
foundation developing musicality and artistry along the way.

09:50 – INTERVIEW: Irina Tchetchko
I remember in one of the classrooms we used to have a framed Beethoven’s quote that says: To
play a wrong note is insignificant, but to play without a passion is inexcusable. You also have to
be a bit of a philosopher to be able to express in music such of elements as love and pain.

10:15 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Under Mrs. Tchetchko’s guidance, I improved really fast. And several years later, I went on to
pursue music at UCLA.

10:22 – MUSIC: “Aufschwung/Soaring” from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op.12. Polina
Cherezova.

15
10:31 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Finally, this was what I wanted. Wasn’t it? I imagined myself and the other music students going
to concerts every night, we would collaborate with each other, play music, spend time sharing
knowledge, listening. Listening more and talking about music and immersing into the beauty of
art and culture. But it wasn’t like that at all. Instead, it felt like I was swimming in an ocean just
trying to stay afloat.

10:58 – MUSIC: “Warum?/Why?” from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op.12. Polina Cherezova.

10:59 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
I would trudge over to the music school, spend hours in the dark underground practice rooms,
and then come back to my dorm. And every day was just like that. It was more about
competition, how to get ahead, how to be the best. This American obsession with image and
success. It wasn’t really about the music. Maybe I was naïve and idealistic about what I thought
music school should be but undeniably there was a dull ache within me that I couldn’t
understand. My mom always told me stories about how she and her friends would push through
to sold out concerts without tickets to catch famous musicians like Evgeny Kissin perform live.
And in some ways, I expected this too.

11:39 – INTERVIEW: Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya

YEKATERINA KADYSHEVSKAYA: We didn’t even think what’s going to be next just
because everyone goes, and we decided it’s the only way we can get in.
16
POLINA CHEREZOVA: Were the tickets expensive? Or was it just because it was sold out?

YEKATERINA KADYSHEVSKAYA: I think they were just sold out because so many fans, so
many people who loves classical music and knows precisely that they wanted to exactly this
person and playing exactly this piece.

12:07 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
But here, people won’t jump at the opportunity to see a classical concert.

12:09 – MUSIC: Nocturne Op.48, no.1 by Chopin. Polina Cherezova.

12:13 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
The tension of my dual identity extends far beyond being Russian or American. In America, I’ve
learned that there is a greater priority in making the career as a musician rather than the music
itself. So now I suddenly get why my sister moved to Russia. As winter settles in, my sister is on
the other side of the globe, she’s dancing, rehearsing and performing. While I’m here, in
southern California practicing piano at home—in solitude.

12:45 – MUSIC: fades out. Ends in silence.

17
Conrad Tao, The Free-Spirit of Classical Music

Conrad Tao, the internationally acclaimed composer-pianist, lives in an imaginative
cosmos of his own, where vulnerability reigns. He is not afraid to perform barefoot. He adores
the world of techno. He struggles to envision himself in the self-conscious setting of competition.
And he grew up creating pop music mash-ups on Tumblr.
Over the phone recently, Tao said he is “all about freedom” when it comes to music. You
get the sense Tao is always in a state of deep contemplation. His calm tone is genuine and
sensitive, but tinted with a kindling fire.
On March 10, the 25-year old performed a solo piano recital at Walt Disney Concert
Hall. The first half of the program included Frederic Rzewski’s “Which Side Are You On” and
Aaron Copland’s Piano Sonata (1941), both featured on his American Rage album, while the
second half highlighted Rzewski’s hour-long exploration, “The People United Will Never Be
Defeated.”
As part of the remarkable LA Phil Power to the People! Festival, Tao curated his
program to reflect the historical, social, and political world around him. His fascination with
Copland, for instance, increased after watching an explicitly homophobic ad by Rick Perry for
the 2012 presidential campaign, scored to Copland-esque music resembling “Appalachian
Spring.” Although Copland’s music often symbolizes American nationalism, the irony of
Copland, who everyone – except for apparently Perry, the Republican – knows was gay was too
good for Tao to resist.
18
“I will never not find it ironic that the music of a gay, commie Jew can be so abstracted
and so turned into an aesthetic,” he said. “A style of vague Americana which is basically used to
stoke nostalgia, nothing else.”
Inspired by labor union struggles in the US, Tao learned the first Rzewski piece, off-set
by the second, a set of 36 variations based on a popular Chilean protest tune from the Pinochet
regime. Each work is full of technical challenges, such as sudden jumps from low to high
registers and rapid nimble passages, as well as interesting score markings, requiring the pianist to
whistle, slam the piano lid, or play a lengthy improvisation.
“The fight for justice doesn’t end,” Tao said, about the challenging score and its parallel
to his “battle” to learn it. “Even if you rationally understand that, it’s not an easy emotional
world to capture or convey.”
Born in Urbana, Illinois, to a family of non-musicians, Tao was 18 months old when he
first tickled a piano’s ivories. By age 12, he was touring professionally. Tao said he was lucky to
have been able to breakthrough at such a young age. He never had to participate in piano
competitions, and this fact enabled him to develop artistically without seeking approval and
recognition from others, he said.
“I’ve always kind of done my own thing,” Tao added. “Still to this day, I feel like what
I’m trying to communicate and embody is: Come as you are. It demands that you actually bring
yourself into the work, and it demands that you explore a certain kind of freedom onstage. The
wonderful thing that one realizes is that freedom can be really scary, but that’s not a bad thing.”
Tao has been improvising as long as he’s been reading notated music, but the first time
he experienced improv onstage was in a 2016 concert with percussionist, Tyshawn Sorey. Tao
19
said he felt giddy and vulnerable, like he was able to get away with sharing something with the
audience he never thought he could.
“I didn’t know you could do that for an audience. I didn’t know you could be that free in
front of people,” he said. “It made me realize how much I had almost internalized not bringing
too much of myself into the performance as almost an ethical imperative.”
Then he experienced an unforgettable sense of liberty again a year ago, while working on
a recording for David Lang’s opera, the loser, for solo baritone accompanied by an ensemble of
piano, percussion, viola, cello and double bass. The score focuses largely on bold rhythms and
repetitive minimalism that serve the baritone’s ominous narrative. During the recording session,
Lang called the score merely a “proposal,” and gave Tao the freedom to add his own ideas to it.
“I loved that,” he said.
As a composer himself, Tao is obsessed with this idea he calls “excess,” referring to the
layers of sound that could be considered excessive to the score. In the tradition of notated music,
classically trained players often see the score as a Platonic ideal. This is the narrative Tao grew
up with, and that he has since come to understand is “flat out wrong.” Rather, he now imagines
the score to be like the gates in competitive downhill skiing; they demark the path and are meant
to be ricocheted through.
“Excess. I find it to be for me like the most vividly human aspect of musical
performance,” Tao said. “Sounds of effort, all of these sounds that I really hear as these traces of
the human.”
Tao also carries improvisation out of the piano keys and into his life, and will often make
rash decisions on the day of performance. Will he perform barefoot or not? (It depends on how
low the pedal is to the ground.) Then there was the morning in New York when he was riding the
20
subway to Carnegie Hall, where he would perform later that night. He couldn’t bring himself to
listen to anything other than Daniel Johnston’s pop song, “True Love Will Find You in The
End,” through his headphones. He decided he would sing it for the recital’s encore.
“I’m going to listen to that impulse and, you know, do it,” Tao said.
Of the practice room, viewed by so many as a torture chamber, Tao unsurprisingly sees it
differently: “You could open up this new way of relating to the score where the score is not
necessarily this intimidating beast for you to conquer. Maybe it was never about conquering it in
the first place.”
Tao grew up using the internet, and saw it as a place for expressing his individuality.
During his Tumblr phase circa 2010, he posted audio memes and music mash-ups. Tao
reminisced about one of his greatest hits: a mash-up of the Twin Peaks theme and “Everytime”
by Britney Spears, which he created after re-watching “Spring Breakers.”
“The internet is like a constant, endless barrage of projection, and all of our naked
desires,” he said. “I tend to see it as almost embarrassingly human.”
In today’s internet driven world, however, Tao also believes the classical music hall is
vitally important, in part, because it is an opportunity to put your phone away.
“I have had the opportunity to bring friends to shows of mine, friends who don’t go to
classical concerts usually,” he said. “And that is something that they often say, that it was so nice
to just sit and listen.”
The closest thing he has found to a good concert hall experience is a really good club
experience. Both musical styles deal with the age-old concept of tension and release, and both
settings are for “unplugging.”
21
By playing less of the old stuff and more new classical music – and new music, period
– Tao’s goal is to rid classical music of its default settings, urging listeners to come to concerts
hungry for the unfamiliar. Music is evidence of human desire, he said, and people will always
have an impulse for narrative and for finding meaning.
“It’s a human pursuit,” Tao said. “I guess I have this deep faith that the need for music
will never go away.”

22
Dvorak Meets the Beatles: A Modern Mixtape on Classical Instruments

HOST INTRO: Friends share their favorite music using playlists. These compilations earned the
nickname Mixtapes back in the 80’s when they were compiled onto cassettes. Four young
classical musicians are keeping the trend alive with their performance series called Mixtape.
They splice classical music with genres like rock, electronic, and pop, finding similarities
between the harmony, rhythm, and mood. Their hope is that audience members will come for
one genre and stay for the other. Polina Cherezova talks to the core group about how they came
up with Mixtape and their vison for bringing larger audiences to classical music.

00:00 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
What does Yesterday by the Beatles…

00:02 – MUSIC: “Yesterday.” The Beatles.

00:07 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Have in common with Dvorak’s American String Quartet?

00:09 – MUSIC: “Lento,” American String Quartet No.12 in F major. Cleveland Quartet.

00:13 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Mixtape would respond with this…

00:14 – MUSIC: “American Yesterday.” Mixtape Series.
23
00:18 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
“American Yesterday.” It’s an arrangement the group created by mixing the two together.

00:22 – INTERVIEW: Juan-Salvador Carrasco
What we really want to do with Mixtape is to open the minds of both types of audiences.

00:27 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
That’s Juan-Salvador Carrasco, co-founder and cellist of Mixtape. As a classically trained
musician, he wanted to create a concert series that would challenge the stereotypes people have
about classical music.

00:39 – INTERVIEW: Juan-Salvador Carrasco
Sometimes classical musicians think that classical music is a higher art form than other types of
music, and that's not true and non-classical musicians think that classical music is more boring
than other types of music. And that's also not true.

00:50 – MUSIC: “Car Flo Ex Oh.” Mixtape Series.

00:55 – INTERVIEW: Michael Siess
We know that the classical music we've been studying our whole lives is really good.

00:58 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
That’s Michael Siess, co-founder and violinist.
24
01:01 – INTERVIEW: Michael Siess
So, we needed to find a way to get people in the door that’s different.

01:05 – AMBIENT SOUND: Chatter between the four musicians.

NATHAN BEN-YEHUDA: Didn't you go through a huge like funk phase this summer?

MICHAEL SIESS: Oh my God, yeah absolutely…

JUAN-SALVADOR CARRASCO: The only way to get to know new music is for to at one
point be unfamiliar.

MISHA VAYMAN: I mean, music really is just a brussel sprout.

01:15 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
This is Misha Vayman, also a violinist.

01:18 – AMBIENT: Chatter between the four musicians.

JUAN-SALVADOR: Love me some brussel sprouts.

MISHA VAYMAN: This is gonna be like a new running joke

25
JUAN-SALVADOR: Misha’s just super funny.

MISHA VAYMAN: When I'm being a little too funny.

01:22 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
And Nathan Ben-Yehuda, the pianist.

01:26 – AMBIENT: Chatter

NATHAN BEN-YEHUDA: I’m the newest addition to the group.

MISHA VAYMAN: Nathan’s always saying, can you play that less classically?

01:31 – INTERVIEW: Juan-Salvador Carrasco
We just kind of sucked him into the group through osmosis since then.

01:35 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
And that’s the band.

01:42 – INTERVIEW: Michael Siess
Because we're doing like arrangements were not really writing stuff down, the work we're doing
feels more like a rock band or jazz band would maybe go with.

26
01:49 – INTERVIEW: Nathan Ben-Yehuda
With our group and our rehearsals, I notice us pushing away from playing our instruments in the
way that we were taught. It's like, well, actually you can, you know, put putty and pieces of
paper into the piano to make it sound like a synth bass. And that's a great effect.

02:01 – MUSIC: “Present Tense” by Radiohead cover. Mixtape Series.

02:04 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Juan-Salvador, Michael, and Nathan met at the Colburn Academy in Los Angeles towards the
end of their high school years. When they weren’t diligently rehearsing chamber music, they
would improvise and mess around. After high school, they lost touch and went on to pursue their
undergraduate degrees all over the world. Michael went to the Cleveland Institute of Music
where he met Misha. And now, all four of them are in Los Angeles. In the Spring of 2019,
Mixtape came to life. Three of the group members enrolled in the Thornton School of Music at
USC. Michael and Juan-Salvador practicing yoga at the Art of Living yoga studio near campus.

02:40 – INTERVIEW: Michael Siess
One day we were just walked in and we were happening to be chatting about string quartets or
music or something and the owner was like “Hey guys, musicians by any chance?” We’re like
“Yeah, we’re, you know? We’re Thornton.”

02:51 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
The owner mentioned there was an old building right next door.
27
02:54 – INTERVIEW: Michael Siess
He’s like “I've been wanting to get some live music in there. So, if you guys have anything you
wanna do—give me a call.”

03:01 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Once they saw the building, they were struck by how spacious it was and its beautiful stained-
glass dome.

03:07 – INTERVIEW: Michael Siess
It was definitely like OK, we have to do something kind of different in here. It's not just a normal
concert hall.

03:11 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
So, they got creative. They put playlists together, rearranged some music, and performed their
first Mixtape Series concert.

03:14 – CLIP: Mixtape Preview

03:22 – INTERVIEW: Michael Siess
We've definitely had a few people you know, walk up, one guy, even nearly in tears, just think
that was the coolest thing to just sit there and then take in this whole experience.

03:29 – INTERVIEW: Juan-Salvador Carrasco
28
People in the audience coming up to us just wide eyed like I couldn't belie- like I was hearing
music. I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I thought I was listening to Brahms and it turned
out to be The Beatles.

03:46 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
For a typical ensemble rehearsal, you would learn your part ahead of time and then work out the
details together. Mixtape rehearsals are completely different.

03:52 – MUSIC: “Solar.” Mixtape Series.

03:55 – AMBIENT: Conversation between Nathan Ben-Yehuda and Misha Vayman

NATHAN BEN-YEHUDA: We sit down at rehearsal with nothing, except you know, we listen
to the song.

MISHA VAYMAN: Can we listen to the song again? (laughter)

04:02 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
During the pandemic, it’s been difficult to find spaces to rehearse. But since Juan Salvador,
Michael and Nathan all live together, they found a way to make it work. If you look at their
YouTube channel, you can see Nathan has a grand piano in his room.

29
04:15 – CLIP: Mixtape rehearsal video on Instagram, dogs barking and crickets outside of
window.

04:15 – INTERVIEW: Misha Vayman
Of course, there’s a lot of, intrinsically, there's a lot of noise, like dogs barking and all of that. I
say specifically dogs barking because that was a really big issue one time. And they just wouldn't
stop. Nathan would start and then stop and start and then stop and start. (laughter)

04:32 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Some of the most fun they had recently was recording a song by Flying Lotus called “Do the
Astral Plane.” The track is completely electronic, the texture is thick, and it uses many different
effects.

04:35 – MUSIC: “Do the Astral Plane” by Flying Lotus cover. Mixtape Series.

04:42 – INTERVIEW: Misha Vayman
The song has so so so so much in it and we're like OK, we have two violins, cello and a piano.
What can be done? And I think the end result was actually it didn't feel stripped down, just felt
kind of like an alternate take on what he did. I'm very happy with how it turned out.
05:01 – MUSIC: (continued)

05:06 – INTERVIEW: Misha Vayman
30
We push an idea forward, if the majority of us likes it, it stays and if it doesn’t work, we just
throw it out and it’s as simple as that.

05:14 – INTERVIEW: Nathan Ben-Yehuda
That’s just such a great dynamic because it’s so easy to get stuck and you’re not creating
something anymore.

05:19 – AMBIENT: Chatter between the musicians

MISHA VAYMAN: I never feel any ego with these guys.

JUAN-SALVADOR CARRASCO: We don’t have any ego because Misha has all of it.
(laughter)

MISHA VAYMAN: Yeah, I have all of it.

05:26 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
The four classical musicians of Mixtape continue to come up with innovative ways for opening
the minds of all listeners. All it takes is a good old mixtape, and maybe you’ll be hooked on a
genre you never knew you’d like.

31
‘To be a Horizon’: Derrick Spiva Jr. Bridges Cultures with Classical Music

HOST INTRO: Last year, amid a pandemic as well political and racial strife, composer Derrick
Spiva Jr. released an excerpt of his piece "To be a Horizon," which, like so much of his work
combines Western classical music with influences from around the world, like Ghanaian
drumming, Persian classical music, gospel, and more. Polina Cherezova spoke with Spiva about
“To be a Horizon” and the birth of his genre-breaking musical style.

00:00 – MUSIC: “To be a Horizon” excerpt from Part 3 of Prisms, Cycles, and Leaps by Derrick
Spiva Jr. Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO)

00:05 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Listen to the sounds of the horizon, the warmth of golden harmonies, the celebration of cultural
communities coming together. Composer Derrick Spiva Jr. blends it all together, creating the
“American” music aesthetic he always longed to hear.

00:22 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
I was looking for this kind of music that I wasn’t really hearing so I was like maybe I should just
try and write it myself.

00:30 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
In May, Spiva released an excerpt of “To Be a Horizon,” the third part of his larger series
Prisms, Cycles, and Leaps.
32
00:36 – MUSIC:“To be a Horizon.” Derrick Spiva Jr. LACO.

00:38 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
The title “To be a Horizon” is expressing how it's impossible to reach an endpoint, right? If
you're looking at the horizon and you're like, “Oh, I'm gonna go there,” like you can't go there,
you just end up going around the Earth. And it’s kind of a metaphor for saying, if you are a
horizon, you can open yourself up to an infinite amount of ways to communicate and connect
with somebody else.

01:01 – MUSIC: “To be a Horizon.” Derrick Spiva Jr. LACO.

01:10 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
The excerpt begins with Spiva and Saili Oak counting adi tala. It’s an 8-beat rhythmic cycle from
South Indian classical music. Spiva’s teacher, Yeko Ladzekpo-Cole, is playing on a calabash, a
hollowed-out bowl shaped gourd. The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra enters with an exotic
melody.

01:34 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
So, you have everybody from all of these different cultures involved in this work and they're not
just doing something where they went ahead and just given up their culture to do someone else's.

01:49 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
33
When Spiva was a child, his dad would go on trips all around the world. He brought back
musical recordings from all of these different cultures. From Bulgarian choral music, to
instruments like the Armenian duduk…

02:00 – MUSIC: “Havun (Narekatsi).” Arsen Petrosyan.

02:03– HOST: Polina Cherezova
Spiva was exposed to sounds he had never heard before. He remembers the first time he heard a
South African vocal group called Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

02:11 – MUSIC: “The Moon is Walking.” Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

02:21 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
It felt so warm and just so profound, I almost cried.

02:27 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
The more he listened, the more his curiosity grew.

02:30 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
For me, it was always like “Ooh. I wonder if that genre would go with this one, or I wonder if
this instrument would go with that instrument.”

34
02:38 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Eventually, he found the world of film music, a genre that crosses boundaries all the time.
He would go to the store and buy hordes of CDs, records, and soundtracks, from films like
Jurassic Park or The Siege, finding tiny kernels of these moments he wanted to hear more of.
One of the soundtracks that influenced him most was from Alien 3 by Elliot Goldenthal.

02:57 – MUSIC: “Agnus Dei,” from Alien 3. Elliot Goldenthal.

03:01 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
It includes a women’s choir, Indonesian gamelan, and brass-like sounds that have been run
through a processor.

03:09 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
It’s meant to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and be like “Oh my gosh, like, are
they gonna eat me too?” These two contrasting things of me being absolutely terrified but it also
sounding beautiful, whoa like these two things can exist in the same space?

03:29 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Spiva realized he can use music to bring different cultures into the same space. Spiva has roots
from Ghana, Nigeria, Ireland, and Great Britain. He grew up in the Central Valley, the
productive agricultural region of California. As an African American with multicultural ancestry,
he often felt out of place.

35
03:47 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
There was always this kind of constant “check in” that I would do with myself, I guess,
wondering if I was doing what needed to be done to be part of the group.

03:58 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Like in “To Be a Horizon.” Spiva includes influences from a Reng, a dance form performed in
Persian classical music which is very similar to dance forms in West African music.

04:08 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
You kind of find that oh my gosh the way they approach these things is the same kind of
approach, even though the execution might be different, right?

POLINA CHEREZOVA: What does that kind of look like, if you can describe it?

DERRICK SPIVA JR. It’s like 3 over 2, so (taps the rhythm)

04:23 – MUSIC: “To be a Horizon.” Derrick Spiva Jr. LACO.

04:29 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
That kind of layering and juxtaposition can be found in many different cultures around the world,
and it often evokes dance.

04:39 – INTERVIEW: Ben Cadwallader
36
It’s not performative for Derrick. For Derrick, it is a statement of who he is at his core.

04:46 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
That’s Ben Cadwallader, executive director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

04:51 – INTERVIEW: Ben Cadwallader
It’s this authentic and beautiful co-mingling, interweaving of these different strands, these
different rhythms, these different melodies, these different cultures in a way that only Derrick
can do.

05:03 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
Spiva combines these various styles through classical music. But, coming through to classical
community was a bit of a rough ride.

05:10 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
I used to sit there at the back of Royce Hall at UCLA passing out programs for people and doing
my job and just kind of sitting there listening to the orchestras wondering when they were gonna
play my music. And then one day they played it.

05:23 – MUSIC: “To be a Horizon.” Derrick Spiva Jr. LACO.

05:27 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
37
Spiva embarked on his journey to bring people together through music. The climax of “To be a
Horizon” brings all of the diverse elements together. The rhythm picks up, everyone is dancing,
it builds and builds.

05:40 – INTERVIEW: Derrick Spiva Jr.
And it's like, well, if you're gonna do all that building you gotta be building to something. And
when we get to that something the whole objective is to just kind of stay in that space for a little
bit. That space of absolute joy.

05:53 – MUSIC: “To be a Horizon.” Derrick Spiva Jr. LACO.

06:07 – HOST: Polina Cherezova
You can listen to the excerpt of “To be a Horizon” on the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
YouTube channel. Spiva plans for a full premier once it's safe to return to concert halls again. In
the meantime, he continues to write music, inspiring infinite ways for people to connect—to be
like a horizon.

38
Bibliography – Interviews

Interview with Tao, Conrad on March 4, 2020
Interview with Spiva Jr., Derrick on September 4, 2020
Interview with Cherezova, Masha on September 12, 2020
Interview with Kadyshevskaya, Yekaterina on September 19, 2020
Interview with Tchetchko, Irina on October 1, 2020
Interview with Carrasco, Juan-Salvador from Mixtape Series on October 20, 2020
Interview with Siess, Michael from Mixtape Series on October 20, 2020
Interview with Vayman, Misha from Mixtape Series on October 20, 2020
Interview with Ben-Yehuda, Nathan from Mixtape Series on October 20, 2020
Interview with Cadwallader, Benjamin on December 2, 2020

39
Bibliography – Music

Aquarium. “Loshad’ Belaya,” White Horse. December 3, 2008.
Beatles, The. “Yellow Submarine,” Revolver. Parlophone and Capitol Records, August 5, 1966.
Beatles, The. “Yesterday,” Help!. Capitol Records, August 6, 1965.
Chopin, Frederic. Nocturne Op.48 No.1. Polina Cherezova. Recorded Oct 9, 2016.
Dvorak, Antonin. “Lento,” American String Quartet No.12 in F major. Cleveland Quartet. CD.
1991.
Flying Lotus. Do the Astral Plane. Cover by Mixtape Series. YouTube recording. Posted by
Mixtape Series,” Dec 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/8QF_2n-O-DY.
Gershwin, George. I Got Rhythm. Polina Cherezova. July, 2012
Gladkov, Gennady. “Ne chevo na sveti luchshe netu” from musical animation The Bremen Town
Musicians. Soyuzmultfilm, 1969.
Glinka, Mikhail arr. by Mily Balakirev. “The Lark.” Polina Cherezova. N.d.
Goldenthal, Elliot. “Agnus Dei,” soundtrack from Alien 3. MCA Records. June 9, 1992.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo. “The Moon is Walking,” from Moonwalker film. 1988.
Mixtape Series. American Yesterday. Mixtape Series Vol.1 “Currents” 2.0, performed at the Art
of Living Foundation, Los Angeles, on November 9, 2019.
https://youtu.be/W4xzjpGb1WI.
Mixtape Series. Car Flo Ex Oh. YouTube Recording. Posted by “Mixtape Series,” July 27, 2020.
https://youtu.be/9zbgWmoHdNk.
Mixtape Series. Preview. Mixtape Series Vol.1 “Currents” 2.0, performed at the Art of Living
Foundation, Los Angeles, on November 9, 2019. https://youtu.be/Mhqu0ovDf50.
40
Mixtape Series. Solar. YouTube Recording. Posted by “Mixtape Series,” September 21, 2020.
https://youtu.be/bk3ezoD2Rew.
Petrosyan, Arsen. Havun (Narekatsi). “Armenian Duduk Player Arsen Petrosyan Mystical Music
Video by Bobby Weitzner Productions.” YouTube video. Posted by “RLW
Productions,” October 21, 2017. https://youtu.be/nEh6ZaBKnGU.
Rachmaninoff, Sergei. Italian Polka. Polina Cherezova. Recorded live in Greene Music, San
Diego, CA. N.d.
Rachmaninoff, Sergei. Piano Concerto No.2, mvt.1. Polina Cherezova. Recorded live in Jan
Popper Hall, UCLA. N.d.
Radiohead. PT (Present Tense). Cover by Mixtape Series. YouTube Recording. Posted by
“Mixtape Series,” July 20, 2020. https://youtu.be/aOzDEoWcpb4.
Schumann, Robert. Fantasiestücke, Op.12. Polina Cherezova. Recorded live in Jan Popper Hall,
UCLA on March 17, 2019.
Spiva Jr., Derrick. “To be a Horizon” Part 3 of Prisms, Cycles, and Leaps. Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra. Premiered May 18, 2020. YouTube Video. https://youtu.be/7LK6zcF8RCg.
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich. “May” from The Seasons, Op.37a. Polina Cherezova. N.d.
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich. “Sweet Dreams” from Children’s Album. Polina Cherezova. N.d.
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich. “The Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker. Recorded live
performance by Ballet Arte, GCC. 2013.
@mixtape_series. “0 % RECORDING 100% BORK.” Instagram video, September 30, 2020.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFxmLDLA1mC/.

41
Bibliography – Text

Albright, Charlie. “‘Classical’ music is dying…and that’s the best thing for classical music,”
CNN.com, May 29, 2016.

Anzaldúa, Gloria. “Border Arte,” La Frontera/The Border: Art about the Mexico/United States
Border Experience (1993), San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art.

Farjoun, Moshe. “Beyond Dualism: Stability and Change as a Duality,” Academy of
Management Review 35, no.2 (2010): 202-225.

Kun, Josh. Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America. University of California Press, 2005.

Levinson, Jerrold. “Hybrid Art Forms,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 18, no.4 (1984).

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This thesis serves to explore the presence and effectiveness of dualities in the realm of classical music through a series of profiles, most of which are in podcast format, about musicians who care about the future of classical music and have achieved recognition through successful demonstration of duality. ❧ This project emerged from my initial interest to defy the stereotypes people have about classical music and combat issues of underrepresentation and lack of diversity associated with the genre. After talking to several groundbreaking musicians and composers, and hearing their music, I realized there appeared to be a pattern of dualities, or juxtapositions between two different entities, in their work: composer-pianist Conrad Tao performs “new” classical music alongside classical music of the past, the musicians of Mixtape Series weave together classical music with musical genres like rock and pop, and composer Derrick Spiva Jr. bridges classical music with diverse cultural and musical traditions from around the world. ❧ Over the course of the development of this thesis, I discovered dualities can indeed bring together otherwise contrasting genres, traditions, and ideas into the same space. Through sound rich audio and narrative storytelling, this thesis serves to bring listeners into the minds of several musicians and demonstrate the power duality has in pushing classical music forward into a new place, as a more inclusive and accessible genre.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Cherezova, Polina (author)

Core Title Music between the lines: how duality informs the artistic process and future of classical music

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 04/09/2021

Defense Date 04/08/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag art,audio documentary,Ballet,Classical music,Composers,culture,dualities,duality,music,Musicians,narrative,new classical music,OAI-PMH Harvest,podcast,pop,Radio,relevant,Rock,Russia,Russian American,tradition

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Anawalt, Sasha (committee chair), Seidenberg, Willa (committee member), Tolan, Sandy (committee member)

Creator Email pcherezo@usc.edu,polya97@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-440861

Unique identifier UC11666670

Identifier etd-CherezovaP-9432.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-440861 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-CherezovaP-9432.pdf

Dmrecord 440861

Document Type Thesis

Rights Cherezova, Polina

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA