Collaborative Commissions

DR Pigekoret (The Danish National Girls’ Choir), director Phillip Faber, & cellist Henrik Dam Thompson, performing “Vision of Flight“

How Does a Collaborative Commission Work?

Ensemble leadership and Karen brainstorm and choose a topic together.
In small groups, ensemble members discuss the topic with Karen.
Karen writes a text expressing the singers’ perspectives, composes the music, and leads a workshop with the ensemble.
Together, we create a new work in which the ensemble feels represented and heard.

Developing Collaborative Commissions

My journey towards deeper collaborations with choirs that commission me began during the pandemic, with the piece “Reunion.” I was working with Joyful Noise, a chorus for adults with developmental disabilities and acquired brain injuries, online. Their rehearsing online made it easy for me to spend time with them, getting a sense for their strengths and weaknesses, as well as what was important to them about making music together. At the suggestion of their artistic director Allison Fromm, they discussed the poem of mine that she had selected as a possibility for me to set, and decided together that they would like to sing that text. As far as I knew, it was the first time that I chorus I was writing for had had a say in any aspect of the piece I would create.

When Phillip Faber asked me for a new work for the Danish National Girls’ Choir on the theme of young women’s experiences, it was a bit of a eureka moment. I jumped at the chance to videoconference with a group of these singers and ask them about their experiences as young women in Copenhagen. The conversation went on into what was late in the night for them, and none of us wanted to end our discussion. They told me about the subtleties of sexism they experience, and their desire for what they called a “power song.” It was their idea for my poem to be from the perspective of an imagined, ideal future where self-expression is unrelated to sex or gender. The result was “Vision of Flight.” When I met these young women and heard them perform the piece, their connection with the music was much stronger than that of choirs who are just handed the new piece.

The next step in deepening the collaboration with a commissioning choir is for me to meet with all of the singers, not just a subgroup. For an upcoming commission (yet to be announced), we have scheduled three video meetings so that each discussion group will be a manageable size. The director and I decided together on a theme of mindfulness, so that will be the topic of the discussions. I look forward to sharing more about the development of this piece as it progresses.

Does the idea of a collaborative commission appeal to you? Let’s start a conversation!