Interview, Carlos Simon on art and activism

GRAMMY-nominated composer, activist and curator Carlos Simon has just released an album of orchestral works with the National Symphony Orchestra (where he's been Composer-in-Residence since 2021), and has a new commission being premiered at the 2024 Last Night of the Proms, on 14th September. Matthew spoke to him about the musical, social and wider artistic influences that inspire his compositions, and his creative plans for the future.

Is it your intention to raise awareness of displacement and the need to belong, across cultural divides, at a time when many countries are in discourse about limiting freedoms of movement?

As an artist I subscribe to the notion that it should reflect the world in which we live, and there are many things that happen in our world. In my community it’s very much happening in social issues around race, and of course you can’t talk about these things without the history that comes with it. Particularly in the States, everything is linked to slavery: it’s so systematic that it continues through our world today, and so my music often reflects that in many different ways. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not completely about being socially active, because that’s not all I see. I’m writing a piece now which is about God: it’s simply about the sacred and the divine, and so that’s part of my world. It’s a huge part of what I do, and I think music is a great platform to spark change: I can’t make change because I’m not a politician, but I can start a discussion around it with my music, and I think that’s an important vocation that I accept.

Artist Romare Bearden’s ‘The Block’ has a great vibrancy and eclecticism about it, and I think the collage approach really helps it to stand out, bringing lots of elements together. What musical choices have you made to reflect this in your piece?

I don’t spend a whole lot of time on the different ideas. In a way it’s pasted together in the same way that Bearden would have done, using different mediums, orchestral colours, and different combinations of instruments, and even musical styles. It’s not a complete collage, but look at it from a bird’s-eye view and you get the picture of this block in Harlem from a musical perspective. Looking closely, it’s like, this is an oboe and a French horn together playing this little riff. It sounds musically like the Blues, but then this section over here sounds a little bit like Beethoven. Put it together and it’s a big collage, meant to represent Bearden’s piece. I love Romare Bearden; his work is so provocative. He was actually a musician himself; he played piano, and he was a songwriter too. He loved Bessie Smith, he loved the Blues, and I think that’s why I’m drawn to him and his work. If you look at his pieces they often reflect that, looking back at other artists and depicting them in his work.

You’ve been drawn to negro spirituals as part of expressing themes of displacement and slavery, as Michael Tippett was when he wrote A Child of Our Time. Your musical voices are very different, but there’s an interesting common thread there. Do you think this is where the notion of music as a universal language holds strong?

These are songs that were birthed out of struggle, turmoil, hardship and pain, and we’re still using those pieces as a resource, because we feel it. I feel it. I feel the pain and the struggle, and of course I tap into that, particularly as a Black American who is a descendant of an enslaved person. Tapping into that and using it as a vehicle, just to connect with someone else - so in that way, yes, it is universal.

There’s something in it that allows injection of a deeper consciousness, which can connect with someone on a level they wouldn’t expect. We love Beethoven, we’re still celebrating him and playing his music, but why? I think there’s a sense of vulnerability that he brought to his music, with all the ails and the struggles that he dealt with, being deaf and not completely finding love. All these things are built into the music: if you don’t know anything about Beethoven, for some reason you can listen to it and connect with it in some type of way, and I think it’s because of that injection that he placed into the music. It has lasted all this time, and we’re still listening to it with that same feeling that people would have experienced in his time.

Folklore is itself a cross-cultural concept, embodying commonalities where people see difference. How has this influenced your composing as well as the more direct inspiration of the Afro-American slave trade?

In Tales: A Folklore Symphony, I was captivated by these stories that I was reading in a book, compiled by Henry Lewis Gates. He’s a professor at Harvard, but known for collecting and understanding African American history. These stories really grabbed me, particularly the one about Flying Africans, the second movement of my piece. The story goes that all Africans used to know how to fly before they were enslaved, and on the journey to America they lost their ability - or some of them actually kept the ability but hid it, because they didn’t want people to know. There were times when it got really bad for some, and there’s the story that one or two individuals would just fly away because it was so bad.

They had to maintain that ability to get away, but it’s kind of related to a lot of Black Americans, particularly in the 50s and 60s. I know a lot of Black Americans who kept themselves down or kept things a secret, even enslaved people who knew how to read. It was illegal for the enslaved to read, and you would be killed because of that. This notion that you have to shrink yourself in order to survive, it really hit me. I embedded the spiritual, Steal Away, ‘I ain’t got long to be here’, because that emotional content and intent, works really well with the story itself.

As a whole the symphony is really meant to pay homage to enslaved Black Americans, but also to the future. Motherboxx Connection is the first movement and it's to highlight comic book heroes who are black. It starts the work with some positivity, because I see enslaved Black Americans as heroes, and for me they are the biggest heroes of American society… The reason we have this country is because of them.

There are many different contexts in which we can see ‘slumber’ in the modern world. Sometimes it’s the slumber of hivemind memory, and the forgetting of those things which should be remembered as a warning for the future. Another is the phenomenon of social media, which can distract us from being awake to life and being in the moment. What were the main types of slumber which inspired you to write Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra?

Wake Up served two purposes. I was commissioned to write the piece to commemorate the opening of the new hall that the San Diego Symphony was building. They wanted a piece to show off and wake the hall up, and even wake the people in the audience up, physically. They were coming from outside and I wanted to wake them up to this new experience, showcasing different sections of the orchestra so they can hear it for themselves in the hall. A concerto is a showpiece for a soloist: in this case it’s a showcase for the orchestra, so every section has its moment to shine. But again it’s also talking about that deeper level of consciousness - I wanted to wake the audience up to what’s happening socially.

I believe that we all have a particular duty, a vocation through what we do, to make some social change, to make the world a happier place. That’s part of the piece; it’s to wake you up to what’s happening. All too often we get into a mindset of ‘Oh, it’s just a job. I’m going to do what I have to do to make ends meet, I’m just trying to do what I can for financial gain or prosperity’, but I think there is a deeper level, using what you do as a means to helping and highlighting what’s happening in the world.

How are your choices about orchestration, form and tonality determined? You work to commission quite a lot, but do you begin the composition process with an idea of what resources you are going to use and how it’s going to come together, or is it a case of living it as it happens?

It’s a little bit of both. I will obviously know the instrumentation, what the orchestration will be and how long the piece will be, so that gives me the template. Then there are the musical elements, the ideas that come in whatever way they come. I do have to start first with the concept, what I want to say in the piece: if it’s about a person, an event, a story, what elements do I want to focus on and how do I want to say it… From that perspective I will go into research about the concept; I will read books, watch interviews, even travel if it’s about a particular person who lived in a particular place: it’s worth it for me to take a day trip there and feel the energy of the space.

I did that with a piece called Requiem for the Enslaved - I spent a week in Louisiana, in a place where enslaved people were at a plantation and I was writing a piece about them. It was important for me to actually go to the plantation which still exists, and talk to descendents and the people in the community. This is before I write one note, and once I’ve had that experience, I feel like I’m full of whatever it is I’m writing about. Then I will go to the piano and start the writing process. Refinement comes later.

The accompanying booklet notes are, to me, an essential element of this album, and they’ve prompted me to increase my awareness of things I hadn’t considered so deeply before. Have you considered a multi-media presentation, combining the music with visual elements, or is it more for you that the listener’s interpretation, whether informed or not, is the central part of your social and artistic statement?

Ultimately, I do want to combine all my work with some type of multimedia presentation. Whether it be video, dance or anything else, I believe in collaboration of the arts. We live in a very, very different world than Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. Their music is so descriptive and programmatic (well Beethoven only sometimes, with the Pastoral Symphony) that it feels like you’re in a space and you’re visualising it. We live in a world of TikTok and Instagram, where people are used to seeing things, with music or some type of element with it, so I think eventually we will get to the place where we will have some visual elements that come with the music. I’m currently writing a piece for the Los Angeles Philharmonic called the Good News Mass: it will be accompanied by a film, so it’s something that I’m actively trying to pursue.

You write for Washington National Opera; are the themes of this album something you might revisit and explore further in an operatic piece?

I am at the beginning stages of an opera, and it takes inspiration from the Flying Africans theme. It’s a work that’s based in magic, but also folklore and climate change, displacement, set in the future – maybe 50 or 60 years from today. I can’t say too much more just yet…opera takes years and years to develop, so hopefully we’ll still be around!

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is premiering Hellfighter’s Blues at the Last Night of the Proms; what can you tell us about this work?

It’s inspired by the life of James Reese Europe, the bandleader who was known for bringing jazz to Europe. He served in World War II, but of course Black Americans weren’t allowed to fight in combat. There was an infantry who actually did serve, but they also played instruments, formed a band and played in Paris. They took the techniques that they were playing in Harlem and applied them there, and the musicians and people there thought they were playing fake instruments, because it didn’t sound like a flute or a trumpet - it sounded other-worldly.

If you listen to the recordings there’s a whimsical nature about it, and it’s quite fun to listen to, with whistles and things. I wanted to build that into the piece; the seriousness of the fact that it’s music from the early part of the twentieth century, but you can feel the joy in it. These were soldiers who were bringing joy in a particular place where it may have been dismal and hard because of what was happening. So, you feel that joy in the recordings, and I wanted to embed that into the work.

I’ll be watching! How important do you see the Last Night, not only as a platform for you and your music, but also in reflecting your description of music as your pulpit?

As an American I obviously didn't grow up with Last Night of the Proms, but being asked to join this is a great honour for me. I just want people to enjoy the work and to be inspired to learn about this great man who inspired me, and who continues to inspire others. It’s a great opportunity and I’m excited to see and experience it myself.