So Long Since I Felt This Way
In this issue, we asked musicians from all corners—as well as writers, painters, and actors—about the musical experiences that changed their lives. For violinist David Harrington, it was two notes of a relatively obscure 1917 recording. For composer Chen Yi, it was a mother’s lullaby for her child, sung on a Chinese farm. For pianist Jason Moran, it was listening to Chuck D rap on an early hiphop hit in his family’s kitchen.
In this article, Ellen Reid discusses crafting work and performing in an environment like no other.
As a composer, I write music for others to play. It’s an incredible thing—to see an idea, dreamed up in your head, performed by talented musicians. Still, one contrasting moment stands out. I’m originally from Oak Ridge, not far from Knoxville, Tennessee, and in 2021, I created an installation of my public art project Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK in Tennessee’s Ijams Nature Center—a truly stunning place. SOUNDWALK is a GPS- enabled work of public art installed in parks and experienced through a free smartphone app. It’s kind of like a personal film score; the music changes based on where you’re walking.
I’ve created over a dozen SOUNDWALKs in public parks around the world, including in London, Tokyo, New York, and Los Angeles, but this one, being so close to where I grew up, meant a lot to me. East Tennessee is lush and beautiful. Ijams has a quarry filled with striking ice-blue water, and there are smaller, almost secret quarries, so the music for this SOUNDWALK suggests lots of small discoveries.
In 2022, I returned to Tennessee to perform music from SOUNDWALK as part of the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville. In its form as an installation, the music from SOUNDWALK must seamlessly flow together, whichever path or direction you take, so it’s assembled in repeating layers of infinite loops; one layer is a drone, another is the melody, and another has chords, etc. They’re all timed differently, so that the way the chords interact with the melody and the drone is constantly reframed. By design, it will never feel complete; it compels you to keep walking and exploring.
The challenge bringing this music into the concert space was: how could I make this kind of endless soundscape into something that feels like a discrete piece of music? I dove into reimagining the music. At the time, I had not performed in concert in more than a decade. Writing music for the Ijams SOUNDWALK had felt important, but performing it live at the festival alongside a phenomenal collection of musicians ended up having the biggest impact.
Onstage with people whom I deeply respect and who have been honing their crafts for years and years—Eliza Bagg (voice/violin), Nadia Sirota (viola/voice), Gabriel Cabezas (cello), Alex Sopp (flute/ voice), and Ashley Jackson (harp/voice)—I felt an energy in my soul that had not been activated in a long time. The piece begins with me on synth, playing an open fifth, starting on an A. Then we all sing, adding a major third, a very simple harmony. One by one, the instruments enter. Something about singing that major third with everybody, and then hearing their beautiful performances unfurl—the simplicity of it, and the fact that it felt so great to be making music together—made me choke up. I remember thinking: it’s been so long since I felt this way. I remember feeling filled with light.
So often, I write music and hand it over to other people—gifted players, conductors, or ensembles. But it felt incredible to be on the inside. It changed me. I’ve realized how much I want to have my body involved in the music I’m writing. There is no going back.
I just released an album of music, Big Majestic, adapted from SOUNDWALK installations around the world. I had been working on it for years. Similarly to crafting the live performance, I needed to mold these infinitely-looping soundscapes into the shape of an album.
Even as we performed that first song of the set, also titled “Big Majestic,” I knew that it should open the album. I don’t think it’s possible for a recording to completely capture the feeling of performance, of being inside the music onstage, but I think we got really close. Now, I can share that feeling with many more people, and I can revisit it anytime I want.
Related articles
All This Because I Talk So Well
