Interview from Anti-Mag: http://www.anti-mag.com/nick_vasallo.html

Written by: Jo Ann L.B. Duggins
Photos by: Denise Mahoney

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Full Name: Nicholas Vasallo
Age: 28
Function: 1st year Doctorate student
Currently Residing: Santa Cruz, CA
Currently Listening to: Conlon Nancarrow

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Sometimes I meet people and I find they are flying at the bare minimum to "get by". Sometimes I meet people and they blow me away. Such is the case of Nick Vasallo. This California native is a musician and composer and although started his venture later in life, has really grown to understand the inner workings of great musicianship.

I have always been into Classical music, (thanks, Mom), but didn’t really grow to appreciate it until much later in my life. For, me Classical music is a force to be reckoned with. The power of one piece can bring me to tears and I love that emotion in my music. Nick Vasallo’s creates a dark world of not only Classical, but also the raw force of....wait for it.....Metal. Yes, his love and talent of guitar meshes quite nicely with his Classical compoosition painting a landscape of sounds. It can be minimal at times and very ecletic at others.

It’s easy to tell that Nick has a keen sense of the complexicty of composing these pieces. It’s Classical music for the modern age. I like how he did a presentation on The Parallels Between Metal and Classical Music...very interesting. After hearing "The Burning, I feel so unaccomplished!

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You’ve just finished your first piece of 2008 entitled "Coalescence". How did it go?
Very smoothly; I finished it rather quickly - perhaps a week, but I was pre-planning its construction in my head for a while.

When did you begin composing music and has it always been in this particular genre?
Well, when I was fourteen I started writing songs on my guitar...I was just learning how to play so the songs were simple, melodic, and sometimes full of yelling/screaming. When I started a punk band (high school) with my best friend, Carlos Saldana, I took songwriting more seriously...by the time I was nineteen I was getting into more complex music (Metal and Classical). After writing and performing for my metal band, Antagony, I was searching for a more flexible avenue of expression - that’s when I turned to "Classical" composition. I was never formally taught music - everything was very organic and by the ear. I wrote a string quartet when I was 23 and showed Dr. Owen Lee at Diablo Valley College and he recommended I study music academically.

I thought it was very interesting and impressive that you didn’t start your music training until you were 23 years of age! What sparked the want to do such music and do you think of where you would be if you started earlier?
In addition to my aforementioned succinct compositional history, I was also doing some Film Scoring before I went to school for Music. I thought that maybe some formal training might do me some good. I sometimes ponder where I would be if I had those parents that forced their children to learn piano or Music Theory at a young age. I really don’t know. I actually think learning music the way I did - "on the streets" as Professor Hansen told me, has benefited me...at least in setting me apart from the majority of other composers.

How did you come up with the notion of "Burning"...is there a story with the movements?
The graphic designer for "The Burning" really liked that track and the sound of the title. I was going to emit that track from the CD but it ended up being the hidden track and there are some clues on the actual cover. "The Burning" title comes from my favorite song by the (now defunct) Oakland Crust Punk/Doom Metal band Eldopa.

What do you find most challenging about doing this type of composing and the most easy?
The most challenging part for me is capturing everything in my head...sometimes there are too many ideas. Focus is very important for a composer. The easiest part...hmm....not performing it.

Your music has been featured on film and tv...how does this happen...do they find you and do you compose a new piece or use one already completed?
Most of my work in Film and TV has been work for hire but on many occasions a director will want a particular track of mine and license it from me.

What were you listening to growing up and who has influenced you through the years?
When I was young: Beethoven, The Beatles, Nirvana, Eldopa, Screeching Weasel. Since then: Stravinsky, Bernard Herrmann, Mike Patton, Arvo Part, Ligeti, Radiohead.

You give a very modern approach to classical music, how do you feel the culture is changing if at all?
"The Burning" is new in its approach to western art "Classical" music. I, and my generation, is guilty of being easily bored. It’s not that our attention span is short, it just takes a little more to get our attention. Rather than saying something overly eloquent, musically speaking, or soporifically subtle - this album speaks directly and succinctly...beauty through simplicity.

Where do people go to see you perform? Are you a touring musician or do you stick to more studio work?
I am mainly a studio musician, but people can see my works performed by others throughout the country. Find the "Upcoming Performances" link on my website.

Who or what would you most want to compose for? What is your favorite classical piece in history?
I would love to compose a requiem with the San Francisco Symphony and Vienna Boys Choir. My favorite Classical piece would probably be Beethoven’s op.130 fifth movement (Cavatina) it is part of his late string quartets and his most moving work ever. He felt that of all his pieces this one haunted him the most.

Favorite body of water and why?
The Pacific Ocean; its beautiful and frightening.

For more info on Nick Vasallo, visit his MySpace or you can go to his site and check out his video section.

Back to Sounds

"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of looking insufficiently progressive."

- Charles Peguy from "Notre Patrie" (1905)

I was introduced to this quote by my former teacher Frank La Rocca. Whose work I greatly admire, especially his choral stuff. I remember reading of his orchestral piece "Crossing the Rubicon" and the parallel of his change in style to Aaron Copland's in the late 1930's. For those of you that don't know Copland you will hear his influence upon almost every soundtrack involving the American countryside (and the 'ole West). He consciously wanted to reach out to the broadest possible audience and therefore wrote in a more accessible style. Who is to say that his new writing is of less merit than his former angular atonal language? In addition, who is to say that a struggling folk musician that made it big (eg. Kimya Dawson's music from the movie "Juno") is so much different than what Copland or many other contemporary composers that achieve some success have also done.

As in my essay "Dark Reflections..." I speak of classical musics' (aka Western Art Music) sometimes dogmatic and patriarchal view and its marginalized fanbase that tends to revel in its obscurity or exclusivity...admonishing others and dealing mainly with people into the same thing. It is also of note to recognize that "Classical" music is the poorest selling genre today. So for me and the other 99.7% of "Classical" composers out there...this is not for the money.

The criticism I receive mainly revolves around a "mainstream" voice that overshadows my modernist attitude (at least in my older works) . The thing is, I have many musical spheres I work within. If you have a good set of ears you would have noticed the strong return of tonality (in contemporary classical music), albeit not exactly functional as we are taught in school, but functional within itself. Yes, I write tonal music. Yes, I write film music. But I also write experimental, aleotoric, electronic, atonal, and even Death Metal music. Eclectic...yes. Most of the work on my page was written 2-4 years ago and to my great honor it has been received well. Just because it has been released by a label and I help promote it on my site does not mean I am attempting to sell my soul with shameless self-promotion. Why do you think there are so many musicians on MySpace - let alone the Internet (especially "Classical" composers)??? Furthermore...why do we even perform music live??? Because we want others to HEAR IT!!! To quote Bernard Herrmann: "What good is music if it's not heard!?"

Nowadays, I write in an ever changing style (The Vertigo Series was written 3 years ago), my newest works are not up here, I only have a single movement of a set of piano miniatures which is relatively new compared to all the other pieces. I am carving out my voice and honing in on things I wish to make my own. So, while creating a caricature of me may help alleviate your own insecurities as a composer and subdue deeper (musical) meanings; there is nontheless, a fundamental problem that will always haunt you. You must figure this out on your own... Throughout history, we have seen criticism to artists from their peers (or worse - from mere critics) - ridiculing other's work because of either its popularity and/or accessibility (eg. Metallica, Green Day, Steven Spielberg, John Williams, Aaron Copland, Arvo Part, Phillip Glass, Danny Elfman). I cannot speak for those artists but I can speak for myself. I write what I want to hear. No more...no less. I love and live to create...and if someone that hears my work is touched in any way, then that is a wonderful thing. I believe that there is beauty in simplicity and you can create a complex universe with simple undercurrents. I will continue to evolve and utilize everything in my musical spheres in order to harness the energy I wish to conduce to the listener.

If this monologue still perplexes your understanding of my artistic integrity - then know this. I will write what I want to write. Are we still at the crossroads? I'll walk my path.

http://www.freewebs.com/peterstanchek/interviews.htm

1. "Never Odd or Even" op.47 (2007) - My first piece for 2007. The piece, like the title, is a palindrome. Only not a literal one - it's an emotional palindrome that requires extreme sensitivity for the listener on many levels. Listen for the motivic transformations and the fugue. Dedicated to my fiancee - Denise Mahoney. (Performed by Lawrence Granger, Alex Kadarauch, Irene Gregorio, and Jeff Patterson)

2. "The Vertigo Series III. Confrontations" op.49 (2007) - There are many levels fighting for supremacy in this piece: a musical Confrontation. The original theme from the 1st movement ("Monolith" op.35), a new rhythmic motive that develops and encompasses all that cross its path, and a Spanish motive that becomes intertwined with the other 2 thematic ideas. They end up culminating into huge waves of gravitational harmony pulling you down into an abyss of musical infinity. (Performed by the CSUEB Percussion Ensemble directed by Arthur Storch)

3. "Without a Dream" op.50 (2007) - My friend, Rodrigo Cortes, has been asking me for months to compose a song for him to sing. This came to me as I was driving home, all I could think of writing was the saddest thing I could imagine: everything you ever thought you wanted is gone...now life is meaningless. (Performed by Rodrigo Cortes and Dominic Serrano)

4. "Emergence of the Kraken" op.52 (2007) - Another friend of mine, Israel Santiago, has been asking me to write a trombone choir piece. Rafael Hernandez (my Composition teacher at the time), wanted me to write using no references (piano, Sibelius, etc.) - only my internal ear. So this became an exercise in texture. It is also a tone-poem on Alfred Tennyson's "The Kraken". Dedicated to Israel Santiago and Andrew Walker. (Performed by the CSUEB Trombone Ensemble)

5. "De civitatibus" op.53 (2007) - For my last piece as a student at CSUEB I wanted to write something for a retiring professor, Dr. David Stein. He loves choral music and has been encouraging me to write more of it. Thanks to him I wrote "Lumen et Tenebras" op.45 which earned an award. The text is from JOB 24:12 and it is composed in the style of late Gesualdo. Carlo Gesualdo is a composer that caught my ear when I noticed the various similarities in our sound. (Performed by Amy Boyer, Mary Low, Liz Calame, Sean Cooper, Alex Kadarauch, and Nick Vasallo)