A.R.T. Dramaturg Ryan McKittrick speaks with Diedre Murray, Composer of Best of Both Worlds.
Ryan McKittrick: When you first read Diane Paulus and Randy Weiner’s adaptation of The Winter’s Tale what was your reaction as a composer?
Diedre Murray: I thought the music should be magisterial. I wanted to create a world with real kings and queens, so I knew the music had to be big and powerful. It also had to have a lot of pathos – because one child dies and everyone thinks the baby and the queen die, too. But there’s also a lot of joy in the story, so I wanted to convey that through the music. When I read The Winter’s Tale, I also became very interested in Shakespeare’s character, Time. That character isn’t in Best of Both Worlds, but I’ve put Time in the music. There’s clock music through the whole show – all these eighth note patterns.
RM: You’ve written music for almost the entire show. What made you decide to underscore the spoken scenes?
DM: One of the roles of a composer is to use sound to tell the audience where they are. The underscoring in the piece helps establish location. Sometimes it’s a specific location, like Ezekiel’s kingdom – a world of groove. Rich. Spicy. Opulent. And sometimes the music helps establish a psychological or emotional location. The underscoring also helps the listener understand the alphabet or the musical language of the piece.
RM: What is the musical language of Best of Both Worlds?
DM: My style! It’s hard to describe. I have a place that I always write from, which is an imaginary African-American location. It’s like an imaginary Eden from the 1910s or 1920s that has an imaginary sound. A kind of Main Street, U.S.A. My musical language comes from there.
RM: Could you describe that place?
DM: My folks are from Virginia, so I think it’s the pre-Civil Rights, agrarian South. But not the Deep South. It’s a place with tall grass, bright sunshine, and farmers. My music dwells in that house. But I’m also a New York City kid, and my music is definitely multi-cultural. I like to say that in New York you might wake up and eat a bowl of Cheerios, then have pizza for lunch, and then Chinese food for dinner. And then get up in the morning and have leftover Chinese for breakfast. The point is that in New York I’ve always had a lot of input from multiple sources. New York City is like a giant playpen for an artist. For instance, when I was growing up I took a year off school and all I did was go to churches and listen to concerts. New York is like a big laboratory, and my music is an amalgam of many different sounds and styles. The beginning of Best of Both Worlds actually has a Latin sound to it – it’s influenced by salsa.
RM: On the first day of rehearsal, you told the cast that everything comes back to jazz for you. What did you mean?
DM: My music’s DNA has always been jazz. Writing music for the theater is actually my second career. Before I began working in the theater I spent thirty years playing as a jazz musician. So all of my music is influenced in some way by jazz.
RM: You also told the actors that you’ve tried to give them a certain amount of freedom in the songs.
DM: Jazz is really the opposite of European classical music. In jazz you learn a vocabulary. You learn a set of rules, and then you go out and improvise on the rules. In classical music you learn a vocabulary and then that vocabulary is refined in service of the composer. So the skills are different. The skill in jazz is about individualism. There are many moments in Best of Both Worlds where there’s room for improvisation – a chance for the performers to get off the page. If they can’t get off the page, they can sing the songs as written. They’ll still work. But the joy is getting off the page and interpreting the song. I think my background in jazz is one of the reasons I enjoy working with Diane Paulus so much. She’s a natural risk-taker and improviser. So we think alike from that point of view.
RM: What musicians have influenced you?
DM: There are so many musical influences I’ve accumulated over my lifetime. I love Mark Murphy, Henry Threadgill, and Adam Guettel. I was also influenced by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. Americana! I love West Side Story. I also go to the opera a lot. I’m a Puccini fanatic.
RM: What do you like about Puccini?
DM: He’s never afraid to go there – wherever that is. When other composers might feel they need to pull back musically, Puccini just goes there. It’s ravishing. The other thing Puccini does is take you from one place right into something totally different. It’s just like life – something happens and then you open the door and something else is right there. There doesn’t have to be a formal transition. That’s the logic of being alive.
RM: Do you feel Puccini’s influence in the music for Best of Both Worlds?
DM: Yes, in the moments that are inspired by gospel music. The thing about gospel that’s so much like Puccini is that you want to feel moved when you go to church or to a Puccini opera. Gospel singers use the word “anointed,” which means the Spirit has been translated and put on you so you understand it. The spirit of God through you. I relate that to Puccini. For me, seeing a Puccini opera is like going to church. I love singers that can move you. Why would you leave your comfortable house when it’s cold outside and go spend your money on a performance? You want to be moved! Something’s got to happen! Why are we doing art in the first place? It’s got to be a heightened reality.
RM: How does gospel music achieve that heightened reality?
DM: The singers believe. And they translate their belief through song, so the song has a more profound meaning. That’s what being anointed is all about.
