Carnegie Hall

Passionately dedicated to the creation of new ecosystems for the music of our time, Claire Chase is the first flutist to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (2012). As this season’s Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall, the tirelessly innovative Chase presents the continuation of Density 2036—“one of the great musical undertakings of our time, a singular project by a singular artist” (The New York Times)—in which she introduces a new repertoire of works for flute. She recently discussed the importance of collaboration and the role of the artist in the modern world.

Your series kicks into high gear this May with a handful of artists—both acoustic and electronic—who collectively help to highlight the depth and diversity of the flute.

My residency is called Collaborations, and I like to think of that word in terms of the meaning of its Latin root, “to work with”—which is something musicians of all eras have been called to do. In a climate so obsessed with individualism, I want to highlight the collaborative efforts and collective labors that make music and musical communities the lanterns of possibility and regeneration that they are. Working with one another is about working with our differences—in celebration and not in fear of our differences—musical and otherwise. It’s about working with our hopeful futures as well as with our complicated pasts. What we do best as artists is to imagine things that don’t yet exist. That’s our collective superpower.

Beyond the Density programs, you also perform a flute concerto in an all-Finnish program with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

I’m very excited to play this gorgeous flute concerto—Aile du songe, The Winged Dream—by Kaija Saariaho, one of my all-time heroines, with another one of my heroines and dearest collaborators, the supernova Susanna Mälkki. This is, I think, some of the most captivating flute music ever written. The piece is inspired by birds and by flying, literally and metaphorically. Messiaen was a huge inspiration for Kaija, and what he said about birds—that they are “the first and greatest musicians”—rings true in this piece.

Your residency coincides with the 10th anniversary of Density 2036, in which you aim to create “a new ecosystem for flute music.”

Density 2036, in a nutshell, is a multi-decade project that began in 2013 with the idea to re-imagine the repertory of the flute leading up to the 100th birthday in 2036 of Density 21.5, the seminal 1936 solo flute composition by Edgar Varèse. Each year between 2013 and 2036, I will commission a new program of music. The Density @ 10 series—which will be a one-week series bookended by concerts at Carnegie Hall with other performances at The Kitchen—will be the first time all 10 programs (about 10 hours of music in total) will be heard live sequentially and in conversation with one another.

The 10th installment of Density is a commission by Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

There are no rules in Density as far as instrumentation beyond the flute, so when Anna said she wanted to involve other musicians, I was so delighted. We decided together on the instrumentation of flute and electronics, piano, and two cellos, and I’m so honored to welcome four of my favorite chamber musicians into this journey.

Last January, you began Collaborations with a program of works by Pauline Oliveros—another composer whose works have inspired your journey as an artist.

Who better to exemplify the ethos of collaboration than the late, great Pauline Oliveros, whose life’s work was about creating a new music reflective of a new humanity? And so we began our series with Pauline’s radically inclusive musical vision as a launching point, and we invited audiences of all ages and abilities to (literally!) get on stage with us at Carnegie Hall and make music. Pauline is my most important musical mentor. She is one of the most genre-defying and bridgebuilding artists of any era. One of her most beautiful teachings—one of the tremendous gifts that she gave us—was to give attention to the way that we listen. “How we listen creates our life,” she said. Those are words to live by, in music and in life.

Photography: Pauline Oliveros at 90 by Pete Checchia, all other photography by Walter Wlodarczyk.