Profile: Nolan Gasser

The recognized composer and musicologist is creating an American oratorio

May 17, 2006

Name: Nolan Gasser

Age: 41

Family: Married to wife Lynn. Two children: Camille, 10 and Preston, 4. Camille has been playing the piano since the age of 4.

Occupation: A musician in various capacities, including composer, pianist, conductor, arranger, music director, producer and musicologist.

Background: Gasser grew up in La Mirada in Southern California. His first gig was playing in the La Mirada Mall at age 11. He learned early on he had an interest in and an aptitude for a wide variety of music, whether it was the Beatles, Beethoven, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington or Renaissance music. Gasser attended the Dick Grove School of Music, where he studied film scoring and jazz arranging, then received an undergraduate degree from Cal State Northridge in piano and composition. He then studied for two years under composer Betsy Jolas in Paris and at the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau. Later, he received a master's degree from NYU in composition and a doctorate from Stanford in musicology. Gasser and his family have lived in Petaluma for four years.

Awards: "An ASCAP composers award in both 2004 and 2005."

How can you be classical in the 21st century? "That's one of the biggest challenges -- is classical music dead? And certainly I would say that it's not, it's alive and well, and it has a very significant role in society. It's a challenge for the composer, it's a challenge for the institutions of art, and for society in general to get to know, because it's part of the definition of our culture, is what's happening in serious music."

You seem to do a wide variety of things. What are some of them? "I created what's called the Music Genome Project as a musicologist (with Internet company Pandora). I am also the artistic director of the largest classical music Web site, ClassicalArchives.com. And I have had one radio hit. It's a Christmas song called 'Christmas by the Bay' with Tim Hockenberry."

"I am also the music director (of the Lynmar Winery outside Sebastopol). There aren't too many wineries with music directors. We just had a big concert this past Saturday, which was a benefit concert for the Fritz Institute, which is Lynn Fritz's humanitarian enterprise."

Please tell our readers about your oratorio. "It's called 'American Festivals.' The text is by Robert Trent Jones Jr. He is an internationally recognized golf course architect, and his work includes the Adobe Creek here in Petaluma. He's a poet as well, and he's written four poems on four different American holidays: On the Fourth of July, on Martin Luther King Day, on Memorial Day, and on Thanksgiving. And so I have set these poems to music for full orchestra, chorus and soloists, so large scale works. Each one of these movements has taken me five or six months."

"The first movement was premiered at the Spoleto music festival in Charleston, South Carolina. This is a piece for orchestra, chorus, and orator. For our premiere performance it was the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and our orator was the actor Sam Waterston from 'Law & Order.'"

"The second movement, 'Black Suit Blues,' was premiered by the Memphis Symphony last year. That's the movement that's going to be performed again by the Oakland Symphony on January 19. It's going to be a Martin Luther King tribute concert. That's for orchestra, chorus, baritone and tenor saxophone."

"I've just completed, just a few months ago, the third movement, which is 'Memorial Day.' 'Memorial Day' is for orchestra, chorus, mezzo-soprano, violin, trumpet and bagpipes. This is going to be premiered on Memorial Day weekend by the Arkansas Symphony at a big music festival called Riverfest, and General Wesley Clarke is going to introduce the piece. There's going to be about 25,000 people in the audience."

"The fourth movement is for Thanksgiving. That has not been written yet, but that will hopefully be premiered for next Thanksgiving."

"Once the whole thing is done we're going to perform it as a cycle and the whole thing will be about an hour long. We're going to make it into a theatrical event, sort of a story or a chronicle of the American experience as seen through these four different holidays, what we feel are quintessential holidays that help to make up our character as Americans."

"It's not just all waving the flag, it's really questioning who we are and what are our responsibilities as Americans, including, as Benjamin Franklin said, to question our leaders, and it's a republic if we keep it -- our own responsibilities and the difficulty of war and the difficulty of our own past with civil rights and race issues, but then ending with Thanksgiving, a real celebration of brotherhood -- a celebration of our land. And that's hopefully going to be sort of an American 'Ode to Joy.' That's my hope."

What do you like about Petaluma? "It's a great place to raise a family. I love the weather, and I love the how it seems to, in a rare way, have the best of the country, the city and the suburb all in it."

What's your advice to others interested in your field? "Just to understand how hard music is -- it's a never-ending pursuit and just to keep at it, keep studying, keep listening. I wouldn't really recommend anyone becoming a professional musician unless they feel like they have no choice, and then if they feel like they have no choice, then they have to give of themselves completely. Music is a very demanding mistress."

Who has inspired you? "There have been so many composers that I've worked with. In California, one of my earliest teachers was a Cuban composer named Aurelio de la Vega. He was one of the composers that gave me a sense of the importance of contemporary music."

Community activities: His kids' activities, including ice skating and T-ball.

Hobbies: "I love the outdoors. Hiking and biking and skiing."

Favorite Food: "Sonoma rack of lamb."

Favorite Movie: "'Excalibur.' It had a great soundtrack."

Favorite Book: "'The Name of the Rose,' by Umberto Eco."

How would you describe yourself? "A very passionate musician but also a family man."

-- Interviewed by Dane Golden