The other thing, apart from the music making on stage in that immediate and lived way, the Atlanta School [of Composers] was never in my design. We didn’t set out to do that. It evolved very organically. One day I woke up and there it was.
What we did do was say, “We’re an American orchestra in a quintessentially American city. We’d like to commit to living American composers, why don’t we commit to composers of my generation? Let’s not get a composer in residence, which is one way of approaching how to do new music with an orchestra. Let’s not do a scatter shot of a lot of composers. Let’s just focus on a few so that we [and] our audience have time and opportunity to develop real relationships with [them]. Let’s repeat them and do different works of theirs, record them and tour their repertoire.” That led to a realization that there was something going on in American music that was generationally identifiable.
I had to speak at a board meeting and was supposed to say something inspiring. It was early, so I’m walking to the meeting with my coffee thinking, “What the hell am I going to say?” It was then that I realized these composers we’ve been cultivating, however different they are, have something in common. At that point it was Michael Gandolfi, Jennifer Higdon, Osvaldo Golijov and Chris Theofanidis. They may not sound like each other on the surface but when you start to look at how they’re distinguished from the previous generation, their teachers [and] the kinds of materials they use and what interests them, they’re all tonal, tuneful and influenced by popular or world music. They share that aesthetic, however differently they engage it. I got very excited because I hadn’t thought of it in that way.
Robert SpanoAt that point, when I talked to the board, I was saying “These composers represent a new American school of composition which is as identifiable as any other in history.” You can hear that this is happening with music, that there is a shift. They don’t sound like [Charles] Wuorinen. I said “American,” then we realized if we’re going to identify them this way, then let’s have some hubris. Let’s call them the “Atlanta School.”
ArtsATL: Because it’s happening here.
Spano: And the dissemination of their music was largely due to the work we have done with them in the first place, getting those recordings around. They’ve become the most-performed living [American] composers. Their music is a vital part of the repertoire.
I think I’ve been misunderstood a bit in my efforts to do this [but that's] changing as time goes on. I think my colleagues now realize it’s not true that somehow I think this is better than or more important than [other contemporary music]. I felt it was the right agenda for the ASO to do. I love these guys and I love their music, but it’s not an aesthetic judgment about music in general. In other words I still want my Boulez in my listening and performing life. I just happen to have really eclectic interests.