In this instalment of Earmark, we catch up with Associate Composer Nolan Hildebrand about Black Sabbath, the importance of listening to lots of music (including a long listening list!), and pushing yourself to be more hardcore than what you may have initially thought.
What got you excited about music at a young age?
I think it was the drum kit that first got me excited about music (drums are my first/main acoustic instrument). Hearing War Pigs by Black Sabbath for the first time was pretty mind-blowing. That might have what intitaly got me excited about drums and music. For me, that track still stands up today. I also remember hearing my first drum teacher blast some rudiments in some of my early drum lessons. It was so fast and loud. I was amped.
What is an important music concert/event you attended?
Too many to count. I think the very first real concert that I remember going to was Swedish metal band Arch Enemy. That was the first time I saw music like that live, and at the time it was pretty great. I can think of a handful of contemporary classical concerts I saw in my undergrad at the University of Manitoba that were pretty eye-opening. The ECM+ Ensemble, TAK Ensemble, Groundswell Concerts, Send and Receive Festival, Cluster Festival and many more that I can’t remember. I was lucky that the composition faculty at UofM was very experimental and brought a lot of amazing artists to town.
Since moving to Toronto, I’ve seen some great noise shows. One of the best noise concerts in recent years was Jeff Carey. He makes glitched out noise music in SuperCollider that he synchronizes with a bunch of strobe lights. It was incredible. I’ve also seen a lot of amazing improvised and free jazz sets like Gordon Grdina Trio (with Jim Black on drum kit), Chris Pitsiokos Quartet, and Lori Freedman with Scott Thomson at Women From Space Festival. Going to Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 2023 was pretty incredible. That was the first time I really got to experience the contemporary classical music scene in Europe. It was extremely important for my development as a composer. This year I went to Akousma, an acousmatic music festival in Montreal and that was really amazing too.
What have you been listening to lately? Does any of this make its way into your music?
A lot of experimental and avant-garde contemporary classical music, noise music, acousmatic music, and metal music. Most of this finds its way into my music one way or another. Here’s a list of pieces and albums that I’ve been listening to lately
Anthony Braxton – Quartet (New Haven) (2014)
Capturing the Wind: A Japanese Noise Compilation
Stockhausen – Ceylon / Birds of Passage
Yann Robin – The Art of Metal III
Franck Donatoni – Puppenspiel I
Curtis Roads – Point Line Cloud
Panayiotis Kokoras – AI Phantasy
Christian Bouchard – Automacité
What is a significant insight that a mentor shared with you that has guided your practice?
I’ve been lucky to have a lot of great mentors throughout my studies. I remember in a composition lesson I showed Gordon Fitzell a piece where I thought I was being pretty hardcore (I wasn’t) and he encouraged me to be even more harcore! This was really freeing. Eliot Britton challenged a lot of my thinking and forced me to synthesize my ideas and to talk about my music in a more concrete way.
What is the most important lesson you would share with your younger self in regards to your music?
Listen to more music more often! I think I’ve always been shamefully slow at digging into a composer/artist’s catalog. I’ve been actively making time to listen to more music in the past few years and it’s been extremely gratifying. The more you hear the more you know.
Tell me about a project/work of yours that you are particularly proud of.
I feel that it’s typical of composers to feel more satisfied with their most recent works. That being said, in the past year or two, I feel like I’ve really discovered the type of music I want to compose, so some of my latest works are what I am most proud of. My piece Technicolour Yawn (vomit rainbows) for chamber sextet with fixed electronics is one of my favorite pieces I’ve written. It has all the noise, speed, intensity, and dynamism that I’m very partial to. Another recent piece in a similar vein is my work Dada Bender for percussion sextet with fixed electronics. Although these pieces are traditionally notated, I also work a lot with graphic notation in my music. My piece generative open graphic score #1 for solo instrument and mixer feedback utilizes an open graphic score and my work You Can’t Win for string quartet utilizes a prescriptive tablature style graphic notation. I’m also really proud of my newest release cutter from my solo noise project, Black Galaxie.