From the editor: Next week the High School presents On the Wings of the Arts, an inspiring performing arts evening. The highlight of the evening will be the performance of alumna Alice Hietala's “If Thou Wilt, Remember.” Current Grade 11 student Clarisse Tonigussi, recently interview Alice.
1. When did you begin composing?
I’ve always been writing or arranging things on the piano ever since I was really young. I composed a little sixteen bar piano tune when I was seven. It was called “Prelude for Late Night” (I think my mom came up with the title). When I was in grade seven and going through a phase where I hated piano lessons and didn’t want anything to do with music anymore, my teacher decided we would put away the classical Royal Conservatory of Music repertoire and spend a year or two working on jazz, improvisation, arrangement and composition. That decision pretty much rekindled my passion for music and was my first real foray into composition.
2. Where did you go to university?
I went to the Don Wright Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario.
3. Was it hard to get into university for composition?
I actually didn’t go to university for composition. I studied Music Education; my primary instrument was classical voice. At the time, applying for university was the most stressful and anxiety-ridden thing I had ever done; I was terrified I wouldn’t get in. I remember being exceedingly stressed about the whole process. None of my other friends had to “audition” for university. They just had to fill out forms; I had to learn opera arias!. However, looking back I realize I had no reason to be so anxious. I was completely ready and really didn’t have anything to worry about.
4. How did the song "If Thou Wilt, Remember" come about?
I took a choral arranging course in my last term of undergrad. “If Thou Wilt, Remember” was my final term project.
5. Why did you pick the text?
The short answer is I read the poem and burst into tears; that was enough for me!
The long answer is that I love Christina Rossetti’s poetry. I think she is one of the unsung heroines of 19th century English literature, though she is becoming more and more popular in literary circles. I find her poetry to be poignant and yet simple in its execution. Her words resonate with me on a very deep and genuine level.
The poem I used for “If Thou Wilt, Remember” was originally titled “Song” and is one of several poems by Rossetti exploring themes of death and remembrance. When I first read it and began to cry it wasn’t because the poem is necessarily sad (the poem itself asks that we do not mourn) but because it is honest and selfless. I felt that a text with that strong an emotional effect would be a solid foundation to build my piece on. I thought if nothing else in my music speaks to anyone at least the text will.
6. How long did it take you to write it?
It depends on when you consider the start of it’s composition to be. The choral arranging term project had a time frame of two weeks, so I guess the majority of the piece as it is today was written in 14 days. However, much of the musical material used was drawn from smaller aimless “ditties” I’d been playing around with for nearly three years. After I was given an offer of publication I spent two months tinkering with it further until I was satisfied with it before submitting it to Lighthouse Music Publications.
7. What was the process in getting it published like?
Truth be told, being published was not something I was looking for, or even considered. It literally fell into my lap as a result of the arranging course. The professor who taught the course was Jeffery Smallman. He has his own music publishing company and is a composer in his own right. After the class presentation Jeff approached me and asked if I would be willing to submit my piece to his company for consideration. Honestly, I never would have considered publication if I had not been approach with the offer. So my experience with the publishing process was super easy; I don’t think that’s the norm.
8. Have you ever heard your song in performance before?
Not in true performance. I spent twenty minutes work-shopping the piece with my choral arranging class and I’ve begun rehearsals of it with my own choir in London. The February performance of “If Thou Wilt, Remember” by the Toronto Waldorf High School will be the true premier.
9. How do you feel about other people singing/hearing your music in performance?
A lot of composers get rather anxious about the performance of their works. They have a very specific idea of what their music should sound like, how it should be performed and can get quite frustrated when performances don’t match their expectations. However I’m actually excited to hear a performance of my work that I am not involved with. I’m know I understand my music in a specific way, however I’m also aware that others may hear and see things in my work that I never even considered. I’m excited to see what this performance can draw out of my music that I perhaps never knew was there. I may have written the music, but that doesn’t mean I know everything that the piece it is capable of saying.
10. Do you have any recordings of it? If not, will you be doing so at some point?
Essentially, no. I have a midi of the piece as it is played by my publisher’s notation software that gives a reasonable “performance” but it is no substitute for the real thing. I have no immediate plans to make a professional recording.
11. Are you composing anything right now?
I am always composing, or rather I should say “noodling”. I sit at my piano and play around with ideas. Usually it’s nothing serious, just stuff I do to relax or “get away”. However, I do have a second choral piece called “Sweet Child” being released by Lighthouse sometime in March. It’s a lullaby set for SSA women’s chorus and piano. Also, I have an idea and a rough sketch for a third choral piece; however I’m still looking for the right text. I’m thinking of using something by William Blake or maybe Thomas Hardy.
12. What instruments do you usually compose for?
Recently I’ve been writing for choirs. I used to only write for piano or mixed instrument ensemble pieces for my old youth band “The Tunes”. Choral music is the most recent genre I started experimenting with.
13. Do you play most of the instruments you compose for?
The only instruments I properly play with any degree of competency are voice and piano. I used to write for different band instruments without really understanding the instrument and the results were often amusing at best and down right frightening at worst. However, since then I’ve learned that if I don’t know the capabilities and limitations of the instrument, ask someone who does. For example, when I was writing the oboe obbligato part in “If Thou Wilt, Remember”, I consulted heavily with a good friend and colleague of mine, Joshua Morrison. The part was originally written for soprano saxophone which Josh just so happened to play…exceedingly well. Co-incidence?
14. When you compose, how do you begin? Are you inspired by something you've seen or heard, or does the music simply seep into your head, or is it mostly technical and mathematical....or something different?
This is a very large question. I generally compose from a process of improvisation that I call “noodle-ing”. I sit at my piano and I play around with chord progressions, accompaniment styles and techniques, exploring different sounds and just experimenting. I make up long fantasias that have no specific purpose or direction. I can spend hours doing this; I am a prolific noodler. From the noodle-ing I create and expand upon a basic pallet of musical phrases, ideas and techniques that I can draw from for my formal, structured compositions. I take what I’ve learned from noodle-ing and I figure out how to make it into a proper piece. Often I write a piece with the explicit purpose of learning a specific compositional technique. For example, if I want to learn how to modulate, I will noodle until I’ve found a satisfying route then I write a piece that uses that modulation. When I compose I usually set myself a few parameters to work within: a specific key, number of voices, a mood, a text I want to set or even a technique I want to incorporate. From there I just play around. I generally find that most phrases “know where they want to go”. I have a sense of where phrases want to go melodically, harmonically or rhythmically. After that it’s simply a matter of physically finding what I already have a sense of. Sometimes a mistake will reveal an unexpected possibly that I hadn’t thought of. The more I play the more I can hear where the piece is going. If I find something I like but it doesn’t work for the specific piece at hand, I just tuck it away to use on something else. As a result, my pieces often become a patch work of ideas that have been worked on and played with for months, sometimes years, and the composition of one piece invariably influences the composition of another.
However, I do use formal music theory and counterpoint in my writing. The greater grasp I have of theory, the wider range of musical options I have to drawn from. It’s a little like painting. I see the conventions of western harmony to be like dollops of paint. I can take basic red, blue and yellow and mix them as I choose. I generally am not concerned with strictly adhering to harmony rules. In fact I break them all the time but only when I understand the purpose of the rule and the result in breaking it.
15. Who did/do you look up to in the musical realm?
I generally look up to the musicians and teachers who have directly shaped my growth as a musician. There will always be classical music stars and big names that I think are amazing but I find it hard to be inspired and influenced by someone I don’t know. There are several people, most of them teachers from my university, high school and elementary days who have influenced my musical development and for whom I have tremendous respect and admiration. My piano teacher, my high school music teachers, my university voice teacher, my choral conducting professor, my choir director and my arranging professor have all shapes different parts of my musical perspective, giving me the tools I need to make these musical explorations on my own.
16. Do you think perhaps, that Waldorf had any effect on the path you've chosen?
Absolutely! I went through 14 years of Waldorf education, I would not be the person nor the musician I am today without Waldorf. That is not to say there have not been other significant influences in my musical life, however Waldorf gave me the open and safe environment to explore my art beyond formal lessons, exams, theory and traditional classical performance practice. I was given endless opportunities to perform, compose, experiment, think and question my musical art in environments beyond the music room. School plays, Wooden Ship, Main Lesson projects, initiation trip bonfires, Wednesday morning jamming sessions, these forums gave me the opportunity to explore the communicative and communal qualities of music.
More importantly, Waldorf influenced my choice of path by giving me the freedom to choose my path. The education itself fosters the premise that there is no single road that all of us must follow. Students seem to be encouraged to develop as whole individuals with unique journeys. As such, I never felt a pressure from my educational system to go to university for something sensible and get a “real job”. My decision to pursue music was as reasonable a decision as pursuing pre-med. My education was never confused with job training.
17. Favourite part in “If Thou Wilt, Remember"
My favourite parts are the oboe solos, especially the last few bars of each solo with the broken arpeggios and the fermatas that leave the line suspended in the air like someone holding their breath and then they release and fall back down into resolution. I find it so mournful and immensely satisfying.
More video profiles of our alumni can be found here.
