In Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States

24. Mary Jane Leach

24 mary Jane Leach Mary Jane Leach’s music has evolved from instrumental music for multiples of the same instrument to an embrace of technology and on into music for vocal ensemble. Today, her compositional output varies, yet she focuses on advanced music for multiple voices as commissions dictate. Like Libby Larsen, Leach foresaw decades ago the technological shift in our culture and recognized its power within music. Leach’s early electro-acoustic works demonstrate this understanding . She has always embraced the exploration of acoustics and sound, seeking the fundamental pitch as well as created partials. Like Svjetlana Bukvich, each Marion ettlinger mArY JAne LeACH · 421 piece of Leach’s music has its own system based on the tuning of that particular piece. Not tuned to a piano or other instrument, Leach’s vocal music is based on tuning to the fundamental pitch of the work, while the surrounding partials are tuned to that fundamental. When working with technology, Leach completely controls the created partials achieved by tuning to the fundamental pitch; with live vocalists, the listening and tuning must emerge from the ensemble and the physical placement of singers within the space. In other words, all of the pitches played for both instrumental and vocal music must be tuned to the fundamental pitch of the piece. Leach was born in 1949 in Vermont and earned degrees from the University of Vermont and Columbia. An early member of the Downtown Ensemble and an active participant in New York’s new music scene in the 1970s and 1980s, Leach laments many of the changes made since then to clean up Manhattan. Her awards and commissions include a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, established by Jasper Johns and John Cage to support innovative artists in the performing arts. Leach’s early works scored for multiples of the same instrument include 4BC, for four bass clarinets, and Feu de Joie, for eight bassoons. Out of necessity, she began exploring technology to add multiple instruments and virtuosic lines to her sound. In light of that exploration, her friend and colleague Dora Ohrenstein suggested that she might have better access to musicians whose instrument was their voice. A trained vocalist herself, Leach thus began exploring writing for multiple voices. Beginning in 1985 with Green Mountain Madrigal, Leach has composed increasingly for vocal ensemble and created numerous works aimed toward advanced women’s ensembles. In addition to vocal-ensemble works and electro-acoustic repertoire, Leach’s catalog includes works for solo, chamber pieces, and a recent single-movement piano concerto. Despite Leach’s description of how she became a “choral composer,” I specifically do not use the word “choir” to describe her vocal music, because she approaches neither her music nor her treatment of text in the same manner as most composers of choral music. Leach’s music for multiple voices is more concerned with the aforementioned treatment of sound, developing partials and tuning to the fundamental. During our conversation, she explains her relationship to sound and how she acoustically composes some of the electronic effects of panning and layering. Leach is interested in the combination of tones at exact intervals and beats and how those combined tones interact with the acoustics of a space. When she adds instruments to the voices, as in O Magna Vasti Creta, they are usually intertwined with equal importance, neither as foreground nor background. Leach also has an appreciation for early music and the celebration 422 . chapter 24 of women within early texts, specifically the story of Ariadne, for which tale she composed a series of works and made a collected CD. Ariadne is also the name of her self-publishing company. Leach moved away from Manhattan when the New York scene changed, and she is currently a freelance composer living in a small town in upstate New York. Her Web site includes a picture of an old brick church “with good acoustics” that she purchased to use as her home and an occasional place for concert performance. Like Hilary Tann, she credits technology in part for her ability to stay connected and expand her fan base. A business-savvy individual, like many composers in this book, Leach recognizes that if one’s music is to be found, one must make it easily accessible. Through digital social networking and a comprehensive Web site, Leach has enjoyed strong support in Europe through grants and performances and...