the COmposer’s voice:
FLEXIBLE DREAMS hich of my dream projects—the “bucket W list” pieces that I hope to write, future albums I’d like to record, and places I’d like to travel—will I work toward this year?
Dale Trumbore is a Los Angeles-based composer and writer whose music has been performed by organizations including the
Los Angeles
Children’s Chorus, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Modesto Symphony, Pacific Chorale, Pasadena Symphony, The Singers, and
VocalEssence.
How to Go On, Choral Arts Initiative’s album of
Trumbore’s
choral works, was a
#4-bestselling Classical album on iTunes the week of its release.
Hear Dale’s music at daletrumbore.com.
What collaborations will I pursue in order to make each dream project happen? What stories am I going to tell with the music I write? Near the beginning of each new year, I review past career goals and set new ones, and I ask variations of these same questions each time. As part of this process, I usually flip through my copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which I reread less for its exercises in creativity and more for the six years’ worth of notes and goals I’ve scribbled in the margins. During each pass through the book, I annotate goals I’ve outgrown and check off ones that have happened. Occasionally I’ll use a different book or a PDF workbook to write down new goals, too, and I have a few files on my computer with lists of things I want to achieve before turning a specific age that I revisit annually: 25 goals before I turn 25. 35 before 35. Looking back over years of goals, I can assess not only which dreams have actually happened, but the kinds of goals that come to fruition. Year after year, certain dream projects do become reality, not always exactly as I’d described, but more or less as I’d hoped they’d take shape. Last year, though, I noticed one big exception. Goals that mentioned very specific people—conductors I’d like to work with, and performers or ensembles I hoped would program or commission my work—were much less likely to pan out. This makes sense, of course; while composers can promote their music, we ultimately have little control over precisely who programs our work. We can’t will or force a conductor to commission us. Still, for years, I’ve fixated on certain ensembles. As I made yet another list of dream collaborators, I imagined that if these conductors would only commission me, surely I’d feel successful and happy.
18 • Cantate • Vol. 33, No. 2 • Winter 2021
On the rare occasion that my goal to work with one of these ensembles did happen, though, it rarely turned out as I’d hoped. A coveted commission would arrive, but with a text I didn’t love, and I’d be ashamed of the resulting piece. I’d idolize a competition—a long-awaited chance to work with a particular ensemble—and finally win, only to receive a premiere that was under tempo and underrehearsed. Even when an ensemble I longed to work with programmed my music in a gorgeous, near-perfect performance, I’d notice that, listening in the audience, I felt the same anxious, chattering thoughts I feel during every performance of my music: Is this piece any good? Do I even like this piece anymore? Does anyone here like this piece? Reality can’t possibly meet the unreasonably high expectations I’ve attached to these lists of “dream collaborators.” No matter how talented a performer is, no collaboration will turn me into a different person: someone who is never full of self-doubt, who feels as if every new piece she writes is perfect. I’ll probably never feel that way. I don’t think I’d want to feel that way. I do think that considering which collaborations you’d love to pursue in the future can be tremendously valuable. This is especially true when you’ve already established a working relationship with your envisioned collaborators. But when your instinct in setting dream goals for your music is to passively make a list of people with whom you’d like to collaborate, it might be more worthwhile to ask yourself why you’re drawn to these particular performers. Would working with any one of these collaborators contribute something to your career that you truly couldn’t achieve any other way, or with anyone else? ow, as each new year approaches and I N consider how I’d like my musical future to proceed, I remind myself to set goals for dream
projects rather than dream collaborators. I build flexibility into each dream, accepting that I can’t know precisely how each project will take shape until it becomes reality. Take How to Go On, the title piece on Choral Arts Initiative’s album of my choral
California Choral Directors Association
