Underwood New Music Readings: Composer Spotlight - David Clay Mettens
Composer and clarinetist David Clay Mettens is one of the seven selected composers for ACO's 24th annual Underwood New Music Readings on May 6 and 7. His selected piece Sleeping I am carried… is based on a melodic fragment from Alban Berg’s Mombert setting “Schlafend trägt man mich.” Read his full program note here.
Clay was kind enough to answer some questions for SoundAdvice.
Composer/clarinetist David Clay Mettens
What was your reaction to finding out your piece had been selected for the Underwood New Music Readings?
I was absolutely thrilled to find out that my piece was going to be read by the American Composers Orchestra as part of the Underwood New Music Readings! This will be my first time working with a professional orchestra. My piece, Sleeping I am carried..., has been read and performed by excellent student orchestras at Eastman, but I'm very curious to hear what a reading with professionals shows about the piece. It's so rewarding to have a piece performed by different groups. Each new performance brings out new qualities in the music. I'm also really excited to work with the composer mentors and see the perspective they bring to my work.
What preparations are you making ahead of the readings with the American Composers Orchestra?
Over the last few weeks I've made a few cosmetic edits to my score based on suggestions from ACO's engraving specialist. Otherwise, I've been trying to reflect on the questions that I had after the previous reading and performance of the piece: Am I really getting the balance I want in these two measures? Does this doubling produce the color I had imagined? Is the profile of a gesture in the strings clear enough? After a first performance, you wonder if these things are inherent in the score or just result from some particularity of the situation—the hall, the ensemble, etc. The answers to these questions help me to grow as a composer and sharpen my inner ear.
Follow Clay onTwitterandSoundcloud
www.mettensmusic.com
American Composers Orchestra is grateful to the many organizations that make its programs possible including Arthur F. & Alice E. Adams Charitable Fund, Altman Foundation, Amphion Foundation, Benevity, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, BMI Foundation, BMI, Inc., Charity Navigator's Giving Basket, Cheswatyr Foundation, Edward T. Cone Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Ford Foundation’s Good Neighbor Committee, Give Lively, Francis B. Goelet Charitable Trust, Fromm Music Foundation, Steven R. Gerber Trust, G. Schirmer/Wise Music Foundation, The Hearst Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Adele and John Gray Endowment Fund, Jephson Educational Trusts, Jerome Foundation, MacMillan Family Foundation, Mellon Foundation, New Music USA’s Organization Fund, The New York Community Trust (Musical Arts Fund, Clara Lewisohn Rossin Trust, and Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund), Pacific Harmony Foundation, Paypal Giving Fund, Rexford Fund, Sphinx Venture Fund, TD Charitable Foundation, Turrell Fund, UKOGF Foundation, Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Corporate gifts to match employee contributions are made by Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Triton Container International Incorporated of North America, and Neiman Marcus.
Public funds are provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, Office of Brooklyn Borough President Reynoso, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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