Susanna Hancock’s musical journey started with an unquenchable thirst. She was an alto saxophone player in high school, but the band director needed a bassoon. So, at age 16, she taught herself the awkward double reed woodwind instrument; at the same time, Hancock — now 26 years old with a Masters of Music in Theory & Composition degree from New York University — started to delve into composition, embarking on a journey to learn as much as she could handle.
“Instruments, composition, theory, history… I loved all of it,” she told CL.
Today, Hancock is an adjunct at the University of South Florida, where she teaches Aural Theory and the Young Composers Program. Hancock is an alumni of the music school; there, she studied under an impressive roster of instructors including Bay area art-rock icon Paul Reller (“a walking encyclopedia,” is how Hancock describes him). USF is also where Hancock met Tyler Kline.
Kline — a Morehead State grad with a Masters of Music from USF — is a composer himself, and most recognizable as a voice on Sarasota’s all-classical station WSMR 89.1 FM and Tampa’s WUSF 89.7 FM. When they first crossed paths, Hancock was the president of USF’s student-run New-Music Consortium, where the pair worked with other students to produce contemporary music concerts at school and throughout the community.
These days, Kline, 27, and Hancock are orchestrating an impressive marriage between Tampa Bay’s composers and its blossoming food and drink scene as part of a new music group called Terroir.
Translated literally from French, “terroir” means “earth” or “soil.” In winemaking, it refers to the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced (including, but not limited to, factors such as soil, topography, and climate). In the hands of Hancock and Kline — plus the dozens of composers, musicians, chefs, brewers, bardenters and bakers they’ve worked with — Terroir has become a must-experience event. Terroir asks something easily digestible (food and drink) to compliment specific pieces of new music that are not just “classical,” but avant-garde and experimental, too — the effect is a concert that creates a sense of ownership of our local scene.
Terroir had its starter show in May 2018 at Lowry Park Central beer garden c.1949. Since then, Hancock and Kline have teamed up with culinarians to stage a total of seven Terroir concerts at other non-traditional concert venues like CAVU, Fancy Free Nursery and Hidden Springs Ale Works in Tampa Heights. Past performers have included both local composers affiliated with USF (Sean Hamilton, Baljinder Sekhon) and out-of-towners (Gemma Peacocke, Emma O’Halloran, and Null-state — an electroacoustic duo and organization co-founded by Melody Chua and Benjamin D. Whiting). On New Year’s Eve, Terroir teamed up with Noble Rice’s Erick Fralick for an epic, five-course mini-omakase.
“A lot of people are trying to solve the problem of getting more people exposed to contemporary music, since it’s developed quite a stigma over the past 100 years or so,” Kline explained.
Terroir won’t ever just give people what they seem to want, however. Hancock and Kline want the music to be true to what they love.
“[The programs] represent the spectrum of music out there, and create an access to it by putting it in an environment that allows folks to be comfortable and get excited about it, or even just be open to new things,” Kline added.
But that’s not always easy.
Hancock says that, ironically, the people most indifferent, or even resistant, to the idea of Terroir have been classical musicians.
“Some think that what we’re doing is sacrilege — dumbing down a holy art — but we think that’s ludicrous,” Hancock said. To her, the idea that they should put concert music on some kind of pedestal is, ultimately, self-defeating.
“It will never survive if we continue to treat the concert experience like a shrine or mausoleum. Music is meant to be shared and enjoyed, and quite honestly, even I’d prefer to listen to classical music at a bar than in a concert hall most of the time.”
Kind of makes sense in Hancock’s case, too. While both she and Kline are immersed in the Bay area food scene, Hancock made ends meet at NYU by waiting tables at The Standard, where she received extensive food and drink training. When she was five years old, Hancock’s mom — who sang Chinese folk songs and Peking opera to her as a child — opened her first Chinese restaurant. Mom ran several of them for the better part of two decades, but being a biracial child of an immigrant parent and also immersed in the restaurant industry used to be a point of shame for Hancock. Along the way, however, Hancock learned to wear those parts of her life like a badge of honor.
“[Terroir] is a union of the two worlds that I have always occupied… ‘food cost’ and ‘major scale’ were equally present in my life,” Hancock said.
On February 13, Terroir teams up with an ensemble led by USF pianist Eunmi Ko for another event at the Tampa Museum of Art. There’s no dress code, in keeping with the series' disdain for traditional classical-music rigidity, and attendees will have a chance to walk both Yayoi Kusama’s “Love Is Calling” and Robert Indiana’s sculpture retrospective before the five-course dinner created by SaltBlock Hospitality.
The event will once again highlight terroir of Tampa Bay’s food and drink scenes while also shedding light on its local composers. In short, it is a celebration of this locale and so many of the things truly distinct to Tampa Bay.
And let’s face it — for Bay area music lovers, the thirst for more and more of just that can be hard to quench, too.
Terroir008: deep heart’s core w/Eunmi Ko/Francesca Arnone/Keon Sahebkar/Zachary Hale. Wed. Feb. 13, 6:30 p.m. $110-$125. Tampa Museum of Art, 120 Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa. terroirnewmusic.org.
Read our full Q&A with Hancock and Kline below. Follow @CL_music on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter, too.
Susanna, you turn 27 in March, right?
Hancock: Sure do! My birthday is on International Women’s Day, so I love getting to share the day with great womxn and great causes.
Susanna, how does one settle on becoming a bassoonist, and when did your experience with the instrument start to unfold into becoming a full-fledged composer?
Hancock: The bassoon is one of those instruments that most kids don’t set out to play; they usually just fall into it, and that was certainly the case for me. I actually started bassoon incredibly late at 16; I had been playing alto saxophone and my band director asked if I wanted to try bassoon, because they needed a bassoon player in the top band. I thought, “Why not?” and I taught myself to play with a really shoddy instrument and an etude book in a practice room. After about a month, I began taking lessons and my teacher thought I had already been playing for 1-2 years!
I don’t know if bassoon what was got me interested in composition per se, because I delved into both around the same time. I have always had this unquenchable thirst to learn as much about music as I could handle: instruments, composition, theory, history… I loved all of it and knew that I wanted to pursue a career in music, but I was a bit lacking in direction until I picked up a bassoon and it clicked more so than any other instrument that I had tried. The same happened with composition; my high school offered an AP Music Theory course, and the end-of-the-year project (after the big exam) was to write a piece and have the other students in the class perform it. I couldn’t stop working on the piece, and I was ecstatic to hear it performed live. After that, I was hooked.
Also not much out there about the path that took you from Titusville to USF to NYU and back here to Tampa. Care to expand on that a little — like, give us the story of your own terroir or the way you blossomed and unfurled?
Hancock: I think I’ve had both a really boring and really bizarre musical upbringing that had gotten me to this point. I lived my entire life through high school graduation in Titusville, Florida. As a child, I was only introduced to music through 90’s pop radio, my dad’s religious family (at church), and my mom singing Chinese folk songs and Peking opera to me. (Let the record show that I probably couldn’t name classic rock bands to save my life.) While my family was pretty music-literate, it was not something that was encouraged of me (they would have rather seen me become a doctor), and maybe it was a little rebellion and a little wonder that made me pursue music so adamantly.
And the schooling?
Hancock: Both USF and NYU were not the schools that I was “supposed” to go to; I received a lot of advice to go to a certain other Florida university for my undergrad, because that was “the school you go to for music in the state,” and a well-known conservatory for my grad degree because of its prestige and a full-ride offer. I ultimately went to USF because I felt that it was the only place I could pursue both bassoon and composition seriously, and then NYU because the composition department was aligned with my ideals and I got to study with two people that I could have only even dreamed of being in the same room as: Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe (of Bang on a Can). In retrospect, they were absolutely the right decisions — for me, anyway.
What about Terroir New Music?
Hancock: A lot of people think I/we started Terroir to be trendy, but that’s absolutely not the case. It’s a union of the two worlds that I have always occupied: the food service industry and music. My mom opened her first Chinese restaurant when I was 5 years old, and ran multiple ones for the better part of two decades. “Food cost” and “major scale” were equally present in my life. It used to be a huge point of shame for me to have an immigrant parent (as well as simply being biracial) and be submerged in the restaurant industry, but now I wear it as a badge of honor. It’s who I am. Everything about Terroir IS who I am.
Susanna, could you talk about your studies with Paul Reller, who is a low-key art-rock God as far as Tampa bands go?
Hancock: That dude is like a walking encyclopedia! He knows practically everything there is to know about music, and he would make sure that his students could also throw down some serious knowledge. I’m extremely fortunate to have studied with Paul Reller, and also Baljinder Sekhon. The entire composition program at USF is extremely rigorous, and the student output reflects that; they are unbelievable musicians, writing music far beyond their years and constantly receiving awards and recognition. (I would know, because I also teach them!)
I think the fact that I am a product of USF and now back there teaching speaks volumes! (AAAAAYYYY)
Susanna, you’re also part of Kinds of Kings. How does your work in that collective affect your approach to Terroir New Music events?
Hancock: It is extremely important to me that the creative work I am involved in is a true reflection of the world around me, and that I use whatever platform and privilege I have to help make the musical world a more inclusive and equitable space.
With Terroir, I/we aim to highlight the terroir (complete natural environment which gives each crop its unique characteristics) of Tampa Bay – the food (our scene is incredible), the drink (our beer scene is also incredible), the music (utilizing primarily local composers and musicians), the locale (beloved venues in the area), and anything else that is truly distinct to us (Tampa, or wherever we are).
In Kinds of Kings, our mission is to create a musical world that is just as diverse, complex, and beautiful as the world at large by tackling socio political topics in the music we write and advocating for composers and other musicians who have been marginalized because of race, gender, or any other reason. It’s an uphill battle, but there is strength in numbers and my fellow Kings have been an incredible support system in many different ways.
Speaking truth to power, Tyler and I try to make sure that our programming, our events, and our organization at large are as welcoming as possible. It is our hope that any person can feel comfortable at a Terroir event, and sometimes this manifests itself in being able to see musicians and hearing music by composers that look like them, and covering topics that parallel their walks of life.
Your latest, I think, was blossom & furl — are you composing a lot right now? If so, what is the music like? And how has your work with Terroir New Music affected it?
Hancock: I actually finished blossom & furl in 2016, but it’s the most recent piece I’ve had performed (in NYC at a Kinds of Kings concert with Metropolis Ensemble). I wrote a few more pieces after that for the 2017 Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, where I was a composition fellow, but – believe it or not – I haven’t actually finished a single piece in over a year and a half.
I know anyone reading this is probably spitting out their drink in dismay, but I’m not apologizing or feeling bad for myself. I’ve actually gotten a lot of longevity out of the pieces I’ve written in the past few years — which are still being performed frequently — and I’ve been busy musically in other capacities. I’ve mostly had my hands full teaching multiple classes of Aural Theory as an adjunct at USF, which should really be viewed and paid as a full time position (yeah, I said it), and having to supplement that with other income. I’ve also been fully committed to advancing Terroir and Kinds of Kings, planning and overseeing multiple concerts. In some ways, I’m thankful for the break from writing because I don’t want to be burnt out and start hating music, or produce music that’s less than my best.
I’ve only recently distilled what I want my compositional ideals to be, and they can really be qualified as embracing the ambiguity/complexity of life (in the abstract) and the duality/plurality of my existence: Being biracial, working in food and music, being a composer/performer, etc. Think: continuous forms, blurred harmonic material, and constant states of transition. I’m starting to embrace elements of Chinese folk music, Spectralism, and microtonality, and as of late I’ve been pretty obsessed with writing for electric guitar.
Some stuff I have to look forward to this year: A piece on the Pulitzer series played by musicians of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, two evening-length projects as a part of Kinds of Kings, a solo consortium project, and a few chamber pieces.
Tyler, how old are you?
Kline: I am 27. I’ll be 28 in July.
Tyler, you’ve been on air-since 2009, I think — are there still composers names that you can’t pronounce?
Kline: At this point, I don’t get tripped up too often. When I first started (especially full time on Classical WSMR) I would make mistakes here and there, and sometimes get called out by listeners, but I was also constantly going to the other hosts and verifying my pronunciations. You kind of develop a vocabulary of names within a particular language or nationality — or really just phonetics — and that helps quite a bit when coming across new names.
Tyler, you got your bachelors at Morehead State and got in touch with James Grant who connected you to Dr. Sekhon and USF where you really came into your own as a composer — was the difference really just the study of composition?
Kline: Yeah, definitely. I don’t think I would ever do things differently, but when I was a student at Morehead State in Kentucky there was no composition faculty or composition courses (there still isn't). So, I had to figure out how to fulfill that interest on my own, and I had great support from faculty members and my peers.
Coming to USF, and especially studying with Baljinder, really blew open the door for me, though. I think it made all the difference, because before I really didn’t have even an inkling of an idea about the breadth of things happening under the umbrella of contemporary music. I was suddenly becoming aware of all kinds of different composers I didn’t know existed, all kinds of different pieces and ways to create music. It was almost too much to handle at first!
There’s so much to be grateful for from my time at USF with Baljinder and Paul Reller, but the way it transformed my way of thinking about sound (in addition to music) has made all the difference in the world with my work.
Is there anything about your terroir that readers should know?
Kline: I was born in Kentucky and lived there until I moved to Tampa about five or six years ago for grad school. I think the longer that I am away, the more my roots have an impact on my work. Recently I’ve been reading a lot of Wendell Berry, a Kentuckian and a farmer, and he writes a lot about agrarianism, conservation, and subjects related to nature. I realize that there isn’t much of a correlation between agrarianism and music composition, but I’m doing my best to draw on the ideologies of each in my work.
If you trace back my ancestry, I’m not that many generations removed from farmers, myself. So, I’ve recently been trying to create pieces that pay respect to my roots in that way: Loam, my concerto for tuba and percussion ensemble that I composed for Robert McCormick at USF, is directly inspired by this. I wanted to create music that sounds “earthy,” how I imagine soil being tilled would sound like if it were portrayed by a tuba and percussion. There’s also literal connections in that piece, like percussionists playing flower pots for a significant chunk of it.
There’s also Orchard, my collection of 50 solo piano pieces I completed this past September, and I think the connection to nature and agriculture is fairly implicit there. I actually view those pieces as “seeds” — they aren’t very long, about a minute or two each, and they are named after various fruits, after all. One of them, blood orange, actually acted like a seed for the end of a new piece of mine for orchestra.
Tyler, you have a new work, “West of the Sun” premiering this April, it’s five connected sections composed with the surrealist nature of author Haruki Murakami (and Eric Fralick’s menu) in mind — I think it’s safe to say that this work doesn’t exist without Terroir New Music, but could you explain the deep impact Murakami and Fralick have had on you?
Kline: Before I ever had a meal at Noble Rice, I think I had only read one Murakami novel (Kafka on the Shore), and then about the second time we were there I made this connection between items on his menu and characters in that book. So I started Googling the names on the menu and it seemed like most of them were from different books by Murakami, and that’s how I began my deep dive into his writing. I guess I thought, “If this Chef finds enough inspiration in these books to craft food based on the characters, I’ll probably find inspiration, too.”
"West of the Sun" is really the first piece of mine that uses Murakami’s writing as a source of inspiration and guidance. What he does is so inventive: A lot of his novels center around things like parallel timelines, or alternate realities, or impossible searches for people, and it always seems to teeter on, “OK, I know nothing like this could ever happen in real life but I could also totally see this happening.”
How does that come to fruition as far as composition goes?
Kline: So, I set up the piece to have a “parallel timeline,” so to speak: One is highly active that dies away over time, and the other begins as a single thread that expands into thick layers over time (kind of like a big crossfade). The first section of the piece is called “Hajime,” which translates to “genesis” in English, so the piece immediately snaps into this very specific sound-world that I had in mind, as if it's the genesis of some kind of existence. And, of course, I can’t talk about this without acknowledging Chef Eric Fralick; the name of his omakase experience at Noble Rice is “Hajime.” (Hajime is the main character in Murakami’s South of the Border, West of the Sun).
And back to Fralick…
Kline: As far as Chef Eric and his work goes, what I love about it is that whatever he puts in front of us to eat, it consistently pushes me outside of my comfort zone and blows my mind at the same time, but you also know a lot of thought has been put into the creation. That’s completely the experience I want to achieve with my music. And, I certainly think Terroir New Music has been a driving force in cultivating the special relationship we have with Chef and his entire team.
I’m going to assume that you both met at USF — at what point did the inklings of Terroir get born, and when did those starter ideas become Terroir New Music proper?
Kline: Susanna and I had one year of overlap at USF in the Composition Department, and during that time is when we both initially worked together on producing concerts for the department, as well as for the USF New-Music Consortium (Susanna was president of the organization at that time). I would say that’s kind of when the foundation of our team was established.
Hancock: I would add that at that time, Terroir was not on the table. I moved to NYC to do my master’s at NYU and the spark happened for me when I was working as a server at The Standard. They provided us with a lot of training in food and beverage (for which I am eternally grateful), and in one class our wine director brought up the idea of terroir. He said that he used wine and terroir to make sense of the world. It was literally a light bulb moment — I loved this word, I loved this concept, and I thought, “Music is the way I make sense of the world! Oh my god, why haven’t I ever tried to combine these two aspects of my life – music and food?”
How long was Terroir just an idea?
Hancock: I percolated on the idea for Terroir New Music for a good year or two – I just thought it wouldn’t have worked in NYC for a variety of reasons. When I moved back to Tampa to begin my job at USF, I noticed that the food scene had blossomed since I had left. I knew that Tyler was the only person that I would want to embark on this project with, so I pitched the idea to him. He basically said, “Alright, we’re doing it.” I was like, “No, wait, we have to plan everything out!” Tyler was really the one who pushed me – and us – to finally make it happen.
It’s kind of hard to believe that it’s been just over a year since Kickstarter supporters helped get this series off of the ground — you already had Terroir: 001 under you belts, but what were you two going to do had it not been a successful campaign?
Kline: The plan all along was to start this series no matter what, so had our Kickstarter not been successful, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Things may have gotten off to a slower start, but we definitely wouldn’t have thrown in the towel.
Hancock: Oh god, I don’t want to think about that! We were going to push through no matter what, but I honestly don’t think we would have been able to produce the depth and breadth of events that we have in the past year without the Kickstarter. We pretty much told ourselves that it had to be successful, and that it would be successful, and didn’t even entertain the idea of a contingency plan. The end of the campaign was at the end of December — which in retrospect, was not the greatest idea — so we were putting in full days of promotion for this and preparing for terroir003 (with Noble Rice) while other people were relaxing for the holidays.
Why did the Kickstarter work?
Hancock: For this type of Kickstarter campaign to be successful — funding musical projects — you really need to either have a huge following already (which we didn’t) or be willing to bust ass and show people how excited you are about what you’re doing (which we did). I think the Kickstarter was just as important for raising financial support as it was for emotional support — now we have people from around the world rooting for us, asking what projects we have coming down the pipeline, and staying engaged even when they can’t come to the actual events.
A lot of Terroir New Music’s goal has to do with making “classical”/avant-garde/experimental composition more accessible and also asking folks to take ownership of their local scene — have you/how have you seen that come to fruition over the last seven events?
Kline: I recall after one of our concerts, someone in the audience approaching us and saying, “I never expected to be at a concert like this on a Sunday afternoon, and I never expected it to sound like that. I loved it.” For us, we want to take something that many, many, many people, especially in Tampa, already love — food and beer — and use it to open the door to the music that we create.
A lot of people are trying to solve the problem of getting more people exposed to contemporary music, since it’s developed quite a stigma over the past 100 years or so, both in and out of the classical music community. Our biggest thing is to not “dumb down” the music to give people what we think they maybe might like. We want to be true to the music we love, present programs that represent the spectrum of music out there, and create an access to it by putting it in an environment that allows folks to be comfortable and get excited about it, or even just be open to new things.
Hancock: What’s been really rewarding, for me, is to see how excited individuals get about being involved with Terroir, and that is part of what we’ve always what we wanted the series to be: A showcasing of local talent. We want all of the composers, musicians, and other collaborators to feel like they can use Terroir as a platform for experimentation. Whenever people talk about Terroir as “Tyler and Susanna’s thing,” we really try to emphasize that this is the work of a whole lot of people, and more like a conduit for the community to see what cool stuff is being made in their backyards.
How important is it to draw people who are not from the university into the Terroir New Music net?
Kline: That’s actually a primary goal of what we do. When looking at the way this particular type of music is presented in the Tampa Bay area, St. Petersburg actually has a decent bit going on, Sarasota has some regular new-music ensembles and organizations presenting, but outside of the USF area, there isn’t really an organization consistently producing new-music focused events in Tampa proper.
In fact, in producing things almost on a hyper-local level (doing this event in Tampa Heights, that event in Seminole Heights, etc.), I think there’s folks who are probably more willing to give it a shot and check us out, versus driving up to USF and sitting in a recital hall. And whenever we get to pop up in the neighborhood at an unconventional venue and we have a good turn out, it’s much more rewarding, anyway. We don’t want to be operating within the confines of a traditional “classical music” venue.
Some people probably aren't into that.
Hancock: Ironically, the people most indifferent, or even resistant, to the idea of Terroir New Music have been classical musicians. Some think that what we’re doing is sacrilege — dumbing down a holy art — but we think that’s ludicrous. This idea that we should put concert music on some kind of pedestal is self-defeating; It will never survive if we continue to treat the concert experience like a shrine or mausoleum. Music is meant to be shared and enjoyed, and quite honestly, even I’d prefer to listen to classical music at a bar than in a concert hall most of the time.
Terroir New Music events are not dinner shows, per se, but a true collaboration between composers and chefs who are trying to create tangible connections between the plate and performer. What’s the process of connecting the chef and composer like — it seems like a lot of work…?
Hancock: OOF. It’s definitely a lot of work. Think of how much work planning a concert by itself is, then double or triple it when you add the food and beverage component. Sometimes it feels like we act more like wedding or event planners because of all of the moving parts that go into our events.
Kline: The process actually changes from event to event. In nearly every case, though, we act as a kind of liaison between the music creators and the food and beverage creators. For our beer concerts, both at c.1949 and Hidden Springs, we have set the music program, then sat down with someone from the bar or brewery to develop pairings. It gets tricky in these cases because we’re usually relying on whatever beer is available – but we like to defer to our brewery point person to see what they think would make great pairings.
Could you give an example of that?
Kline: The best example of the most true version of what we want to do is our event with Noble Rice: Creating both the music and the menu from the ground up, totally in collaboration, and you’re right — it is a lot of work! But that is actually really exciting when that happens, because you know you’re creating excited where the food and the music can’t exist without one another.
The biggest challenges we come across are often related to the logistics of serving the food. Different people eat at different paces, different people drink at different paces, and finding the sweet spot with the flow of an event in regards to that forces us to think outside the box of how we know a strictly-music concert should go.
Who else, not named Tyler or Susanna, is makes Terroir happen?
Kline: While we do the bulk of the work for Terroir, we absolutely have to acknowledge and thank the countless performers that have worked with us over the course of our existence. Terroir wouldn’t be possible without our talented friends; and the same goes for the composers whose works we have been able to program.
Also, of course, our friends in the food and beverage industry: The chefs, bakers, breweries, bars, etc. — we’ve fostered quite a special relationship with our foodie collaborators and we’re excited to keep on building that community. There are not many people trying to wed contemporary music with local food and local beer, and it wouldn’t be possible without those folks in the food/bev industry taking the plunge with us.
Hancock: Also shout out to the 200-plus people who contributed to the Kickstarter. Truly — it means the world that y’all were willing to take the plunge with us as well.
May I call you two a couple? If so, since this is “love” related and in close proximity to Valentine’s, could you talk about why you’ve chosen to be together, some things you like and don’t like about each other? What’s it like to build Terroir with your partner?
Kline: We are definitely a couple in every sense of the word, and I don’t think there’s any way that Susanna and I could not create something together — whether it’s an event series like Terroir, or a performance venue, or whatever. I think it’s a special dynamic that does elevate our relationship, and we make a pretty good team.
Hancock: I think we’ve chosen to be together because of all the normal reasons (I think he’s pretty cute and he had the coolest dog, which is now *my* dog hehe), but what really deepens our relationship is our ability to understand each other on a fundamental, life’s purpose kind of level and be able to hone this as work that we do together.
Nothing you don't like about him?
Hancock: I don’t think there’s anything that we don’t like about each other, but I will say we mostly function in complementary ways. I’m a very detail-oriented person, being cautious and methodical, and Tyler is more of a get-your-hands-dirty type of person, fearless and self-starting. I do a lot of the design and photo/video work for Terroir, and Tyler does the heavy lifting with running sound and social media. I think part of what makes Terroir work is that we can bounce things off of each other literally 24/7, and I’m not sure it would work quite the same if we weren’t romantic and creative partners.
You both have jobs, and you’re composers — how much extra work is Terroir New Music on top of everything else?
Hancock: The short story: A lot. The long story: It’s really a labor of love. We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t get us excited, or if we felt that we weren’t contributing to the Tampa arts scene in a meaningful way. Tyler and I have never paid ourselves a single penny from Terroir — any profits that we make go right back into the pot for future events: Paying musicians, advertising, rentals, etc.
Kline: When we are really cranking out events it can get to be a little overwhelming — I think we’ve been learning as we go to be more strategic in scheduling Terroir events and juggling all the things we have going on elsewhere in our lives. We’re both super ambitious people, and we will always find a way to make something work no matter what, which has its pros and cons; we’ll totally self-sacrifice if we’re not careful in order to make sure things are done the way we think they should be done.
Can music save a romantic relationship? On the surface, one could imagine how it enhances yours, but could you talk specifically about how/whether music affects your union?
Kline: Music is definitely important to us; it’s the whole reason we met, and it’s our vocation and craft. If we have “Something to say,” music is the way we say it. And, as you can probably imagine, we can really get into the weeds as far as talking about music goes — thankfully we are on the same page there. We are able to bounce ideas off each other, not just related to Terroir, but also our individual projects we are working on.
In a lot of ways now, though, food has turned out to be The Thing we are especially excited and passionate about. And it’s nice to have that to turn to so we’re not thinking about music 24/7 — I think everyone kind of needs an outlet like that.
Hancock: I think music, and food (The Thing), and Terroir are things that solidify this unbreakable bond between us; there’s something really cosmic and fulfilling about being able to do this kind of work with your romantic partner.
Music, and especially composition, is a really taxing craft: It’s intangible, underappreciated, and the pressure to churn out good work can be really hard on the individual; sharing a life with a person who is invested in the same things as you is basically the perfect support system.
Let’s talk about “deep heart’s core” — is it safe to say that this edition of the series is Terroir New Music’s most ambitious to date, right up there with the NYE x Noble Rice event?
Kline: For sure. There’s a lot of moving parts with this one, and it’s not been without its challenges. This event differs from the NYE x Noble Rice event in that we are employing actual performers, and existing pieces, whereas the Noble Rice event was entirely electronic music composed specifically for the event. It’s also a fairly holistic event: We had to craft a program that could work with the museum’s current exhibitions, and SaltBlock Hospitality then crafted a five-course menu that pairs with the musical program. As far as the “love” theme goes, we actually kind of lucked out that all of this is falling around Valentine’s Day.
“LOVE IS CALLING” is an amazing exhibition, and you’ve also had the Robert Indiana sculpture retrospective in mind — could you talk about pitching Terroir 008 to TMA and explain how it all came together?
Kline: Every event is a little different, and this one actually has its start with one of the performers, Dr. Eunmi Ko (who is on the piano faculty at USF). Originally, she kind of pitched the idea to the Tampa Museum of Art to do a concert there, and then pitched the idea to us to develop into a Terroir concert.
Hancock: Eunmi really is the reason this event came together; I think she already had some clear and great ideas for the programming, and after talking with the museum and looking at the exhibits, we built out the rest. A lot of our events have been formed this way — an organic evolution of the relationships we have.
How do the exhibits compliment the music and food?
Hancock: The Kusama exhibit is surreal; it’s like that carnival ride that you get off of and want to get right back in line for. I also really like “The Electric American Dream” from Robert Indiana’s exhibit; it’s 4 huge electric signs that show the words: “EAT,” “DIE,” “HUG,” and “ERR,” which he uses to sum up the American Dream / way of life. In a sense, I think Terroir encompasses a lot of these values: Food/drink (“EAT”), a sense of community (“HUG”), experimentation (“ERR”), and unique, one-night-only kind of experiences (“DIE”?).
Works from Sekhon, Tyler, Shelley Washington, Valerie Coleman, and Vera Ivanova were chosen with the concept of love in mind — is it hard to find the pieces or more like a thing where there’s too much to choose from?
Hancock: I actually think in our realm of contemporary music — concert music that stems from the Western classical canon — there’s not as many people writing about love as there used to be (like in opera) or as there currently are in pop music. I think that can be attributed to the fact that concert music of the past century has largely been welcoming only to “absolute music” (written with no inspiration, extra-musical meanings, or programmatic elements — just notes and rhythms — music for music’s sake), and love is a theme that’s been previously considered too feminine in a field dominated by white males. I don’t think I have even written any pieces about love! I wish I had, so that I had something to contribute to the program, but I think all five of the pieces on the program are great and I’m happy to give another composer the opportunity to have their music presented, rather than hog an opportunity or try to derive meaning from my music that isn’t there.
Eunmi Ko will play piano in an ensemble with Keon Sahebkar, Francesca Arnone and Zachary Hale — how do you settle on that lineup?
Kline: Really the music program dictated the group of performers, and each piece draws upon various combinations of the performers: A solo piano and electronics piece, music for flute + piano, and a piece for piano, double bass, and percussion. There’s also a work on the program that is strictly electronic, so guests will encounter a pretty good variety of music.
Hancock: Yeah — in this instance, we selected pieces first and then sought out performers. Eunmi was involved from the start of this project and has worked with Tyler quite a bit, and Zach Hale has been involved with Terroir as both a composer and performer before! Francesca and Keon are newcomers to the Terroir-verse, but hopefully this will be the start of many more projects with them.
I’ve found that people care less about the stuff above and more about the more rudimentary stuff. I can explain parking, but is there a dress code?
Kline: No dress code! We want folks to be comfortable at our events, and we want to take the formal rigidity out of the “classical music” experience — this one is no different.
This article appears in Feb 7-14, 2019.