The Inside Story: Gerardo Dirié and NOCTUARY DUOS

NOCTUARY DUOS from composer Gerardo Dirié explores sonic worlds of shifting hues, puzzling lyricism, and dramatic trajectories. At once playful and deeply reflective, NOCTUARY DUOS invites listeners to consider their place in the cosmos.

Today, Gerardo is our featured artist in the “Inside Story,” a blog series exploring the inner workings and personalities of our composers and performers. Read on to learn about his love for literature, studying languages, exploring new musical instruments, and more…

Take us on a walk through your musical library. What record gets the most plays? Are there any “deep cuts” that you particularly enjoy?

I listen to many new works weekly as I supervise my students. We share the detailed listening to their ongoing projects and we engage in rich conversations that follow. Often, we get into puzzling situations and dig together into a broad repertoire for reference, repertoire from everywhere and any time period. I get to listen again to music I had listened to decades ago, now feeling fresh, surprising, and still amazing. I also do a good deal of listening while driving on frequent long commutes. I get to focus on the selection of CDs that get repeated play for a while, until a few months later when the selection gives its place to another set. My most recent selection included Dino Saluzzi’s Kultrum, Egberto Gismonti’s Sanfona, Johanna Rose and Javier Núñez playing C.P.E. Bach’s 3 Sonatas for Viola da Gamba, Daniel Binelli’s El Bandoneón, and Byung-ki Hwang in Kayagum Masterpieces. I listen to a fair amount of live music too, but these are singular events, one-time or very rare performances. For example, these occasions included some exciting premieres of contemporary music, and Buxtehude’s cycle Membra Jesu Nostri, which I haven’t heard live until this occasion. Although these listening opportunities may occur just once, they stand as meaningful and valuable to me, yet not due to repeated listening.

What emotions do you hope listeners will experience after hearing your work?

My hopes tend to be more about the sort of listening that listeners do. I hope they listen with attention and alertness, in a gentle open mindset. In general, I do not aim effortfully at transmitting my emotions to the listeners but rather on enticing a type of listening that allows for rich emotional responses, and these would be the emotions of those listening. Commonly, I get feedback about those emotions, or thoughts, and they tend to correlate with my initial creative aims. However, I wouldn’t consider this to be a particular achievement on my part, as I feel enriched when the listeners share about having experienced very different, or opposing, or far fetched emotions or thoughts upon listening to my music.

How have your influences changed as you grow as a musician?

I remember listening to a diverse selection of music since I was a child. Thinking about the angle of this question, I feel a bit disoriented trying to determine how my influences might have changed, and I think that I need to swap the agency in the sentence. New and diverse music has always been in my life, what must have influenced my continued learning is that my listening got more detailed, and this may have enriched my internal aural resources, preferences and decisions. Also, the musicians whom I have collaborated with have influenced my music making through their unique ways of being fully and subjectively involved in their sounding and their bodily coordination with their instruments, their amazing attention to craft each utterance and to shape every sonic trajectory and forms. I find these attributes essential for inspiring me to create more music and to share our respective worlds in every project. Since I can remember, I have maintained a predisposition to listen attentively to the sounds around me (this is still partly evident in the Alamedas compositions in the new album). I assign much importance to this predisposition because it has accompanied me not only as I grew as a musician, but simply and fundamentally as I grew as this person.

What were your first musical experiences?

I am sure I did not know that I was having a “musical experience” when these occurred! I believe I was simply feeling joyful, being together through and with sound. I remember that at about age 3, as my mother played on her upright piano Taquito Militar (the celebrated milonga by Mariano Mores), I was tasked to knock on the soundboard the four distinctive strikes — a moment of exciting anticipation. In my mind, I was simultaneously being son, part of a piano, sounds of “toc toc toc toc,” and part of the milonga, and involving all those who were present in the scene.

What are your other passions besides music?

I have always loved literature, learning languages, exploring new musical instruments, and learning about “learning.” I have maintained sustained interest in different pedagogies, the teaching and learning processes in all art forms. I enjoy looking for connections through all art forms and enjoy applying these interests in my routine practice and passion as an educator. I make every effort to spend time taking walks in natural environments. Occasionally, some of those walks emerge in new compositions too.

What musical mentor had the greatest impact on your artistic journey? Is there any wisdom they’ve imparted onto you that still resonates today?

Thank you for this question! I am unreservedly grateful to all the music mentors I had. I was very fortunate to have them in my path. They were all, to a similar extent, open, generous, visionary, playful, adventurous, free-spirited, and always encouraging. Any piece of teaching or instruction that came from them carried those attributes too, and they are present in my mind inspiring my work in my teaching.