Jeff Kryka
To Youth! To Wisdom! opens our 24th season, featuring the wisdom of venerated masters Brahms and Bart�k, and the youth of our youngest-ever commissioned composer, 25 year-old Jeff Kryka.
Can you talk a little about your background, training, and particularly your experiences as a composer starting off at a young age?
While growing up in Rochester, MN, I started piano lessons when I was 5, and I remember being interested in coming up with my own versions of the pieces I was playing. My first composition was actually a segue I wrote to take me from a part of one piece I really liked to a completely different piece. My teacher, Glenna Muir, who taught me until I graduated from high school, always encouraged my writing.
About the time I was in middle school, I started playing cello in orchestra, and I quickly fell in love with orchestra music. By the time I was in high school, I’d written several orchestra pieces, without any composition or orchestration training.
Although my style is very different now than it was when I was younger, I don’t think I would be where I am today if it weren’t for my early upbringing in music. Aside from encouragement from my parents, friends, and music teachers, I didn’t receive any formal composition training until I was in college. I was just writing music that I knew in my heart I liked, and the process of its creation just seemed to come very naturally to me. I still feel this way about my music, and it is something I hope I never lose.
About your experiences in film/TV music: how is it different than composing concert music?
Since I started composing, I’ve always wanted to direct at least some of my focus on composing for film. I wrote my first film score when I was an undergrad at UW, Madison, and right away I realized that I wasn’t going to have to completely revamp my composition process. Whether I’m writing for a film, or for a string quintet, my job is still the same: to compose the best music I possibly can. The only thing that changes with film is that I am usually serving a predetermined dramatic emotion, whereas in concert music I get to freely choose that emotion. Since my music already tends to be dramatic on its own, getting a hold of which emotion I need to play, and timing it to hit certain cues is usually not too hard.
Can you give us some background on your new work for Pacific Serenades, Quintessence?
Quintessence literally means the “fifth essence,” which was thought by the ancients to be the purest most rarefied element, after earth, air, fire, and water. This was the substance that supposedly composed all things beyond our terrestrial sphere, i.e. the sun, moon, stars, planets.
Naturally, I found the concept of quintessence instantly appealing for the basis of a string quintet: the work is in five movements, contains extended sections in 5/4 and 5/2 time, and is based on a five-note motive. The five-movement structure is divided into three sections: four paired outer movements that orbit a central scherzo. Often the music is dance-like; the five-note motive even makes an appearance as a waltz melody in the third movement. I always imagined the motions of celestial bodies to be something like a dance. Watching the way the planets wandered across the sky, sometimes oddly retrograde to the movements of the moon, sun, and stars, I like to think this is how the ancients saw the universe, too. By the end of the fifth movement, with the five-note motive transformed into a great chorale, this is what Quintessence has become: the music of the spheres.
What are your thoughts on composing a piece for Pacific Serenades?
It is such an honor to be the youngest composer to be commissioned by Pacific Serenades. I’ve been coming to these concerts since I moved to Los Angeles in 2006, and have enjoyed each and every one of them. It is incredibly rare to have a chamber music organization that gives such high quality performances of new music alongside classic repertoire on each and every concert. I’ve often daydreamed about the sort of piece I would write for Pacific Serenades, and now here my dream has become a reality. I thank Mark Carlson and Pacific Serenades for giving me such an incredible opportunity.
To the patrons attending the concerts, thank you so much for coming to hear new music. Whether this is your first time coming to hear Pacific Serenades, or you’ve been coming for years, I truly hope you enjoy the concert! It’s been a blast writing this piece, and I can’t wait to hear it performed.
