Season 4, Episode 1: Z. Randall Stroope, conductor & composer

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Welcome to another episode of Texas State choirs

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today. I'm your host, Dr. Jonathan Babcock and we are at

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the SWAK convention in Little Rock, Arkansas. And we're very

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excited to be talking with Dr. Z Randall stroupe, who is the

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Director of Choral Activities at Oklahoma State University and is

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also a world renowned composer and conductor. Dr. Stroup, thank

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you so much for being here. We appreciate it.

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Well, it's my honor. I think this is a really nice idea that

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you have going here and I'm happy to be a part of it.

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Great. Thank you. Thank you. Since our our main focus our our

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main audience is undergraduates. I always like to start with just

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talking about your undergraduate experience. Where did where did

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you go to school? How did it tell it? Tell us about your

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undergraduate experience?

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I think my undergraduate experience was I majored first

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of all in piano and voice. So which is a little unusual to

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have a double major. I also had a minor took a minor in was in

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music education. By the way. I took a minor in economics and a

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minor in German all all at one big time. So you were busy. I

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was busy. I still graduated in four years, but wow, no grass

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grow underneath my feet. And what was the what institution I

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went to actually or Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

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okay,

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grad. And certainly all of those things came together into what

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what your career

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really did, because as a composer, of course, you can't

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know everything about every instrument, but certainly having

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a strong knowledge of the piano and have a strong knowledge of

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coral and I was also a brass player there so of that part of

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it, so I felt pretty well rounded in that sense.

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Great. And I'm also going through your bio and such you've

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had some wonderful mentors, particularly one that stuck out

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to me was Margaret Hillis Margaret Hillis was just you

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know, she was one of the very first, the very first symphonic

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choir directors that really, there was just such spark in the

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music that you made. Tell us a little bit about working with

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Margaret,

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she, she is an all business conductor. She really was. And I

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would fly to Wilmette or to Chicago, which is right below

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Wilmette, a once a month, and I would spend two days with

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Margaret to mornings, I would take the train up to Wilmette to

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her home, she taught in her office upstairs and from nine to

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12. And she was at nine o'clock it started and exactly 12

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o'clock. It ended. And we studied all the large works, you

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know, Brahms Requiem, and Carmina Burana, and Hyden

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creations and just all those, that's what we did. And in the

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evening or the time between the two days, I would go back to the

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hotel, and she would give me her parts to like the Hyden creation

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or any number of the big works, that she had herself bowed. And

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I would copy all those parts. So I have her Boeing's and her

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markings on probably 30 large works. Oh my goodness. So she

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was let me take them overnight. And so I made copies at one of

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the coffee shops there. So, but she was all business and she

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would often have visitors enters home like one time I remember

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she had a visitor she named she says, Well, Danny is here. And

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she said one moment so I looked out the door and there's Daniel

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Barenboim's Danny Danny enter in a living room and they they

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talked for a couple of minutes and then she came back up and

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you know, she's she never said a word about it. She just said I'm

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kept talking about the score is in front of us. But yes, she was

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quite an inspiration. And I had her also come down to Omaha

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where I was working at the time and conducted a concert there

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for us. Oh, terrific. Yeah,

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right. And I have I have to give you some props. I, I found that

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most composers are not really good conductors and vice versa.

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But you do both. How do you balance both of those things?

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Huh?

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Well balanced could be just knowledge about both crafts. It

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could also be bouncing just the sheer schedule of those two.

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Yeah. I ride every day between 4am and 6am. Just just without

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fault. So for me it's a routine. And so the creativity is not

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something you just like turn on, on the weekends or whenever you

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have a few moments. It really has to be something that you if

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you're serious about it that you have a dedicated time to it

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every day, a dis it's a discipline. And you find that

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when you do sit down and even though it's 4am that it's

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amazing how much thoughts come to mind because your body and

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your mind is so used to it. It's used to turning on at that time.

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And

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so you can imagine there's very little distractions. No,

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no, no one's calling it that. And, you know, the day is fresh

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and you're not mulling over what you didn't get done the day

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before, and all that, like you would in the evening. So I find

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it to be the best time to do it. And then the conducting part

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really feeds that and vice versa. You know, what works in

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rehearsal. And as a composer, you know, what works in

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rehearsal. And as a conductor, you're looking back at the, you

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know, the page, and so that they they both are mutually

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beneficial. So I've really, they're very symbiotic. That

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relationship is very tight, Yang

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and Yang and Yang, who are some of the influences on your

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composition, right? I find a lot about your conducting who have

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what,

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two two main influences really one is Cecil F. injury was a an

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oboist at the University of Colorado, but the main one was

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Norman Lockwood, Norman Lockwood and Cecil Avenger. Both studied

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with natty Boulogne J, who was the great French core teacher.

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And so I studied with Norman for about 18 years. He was like a

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grandfather to me. His lessons were always on Sunday afternoon.

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And we would work for about an hour there at his piano. And he

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always smoked a pipe, he had no the tweed jacket, exactly what

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you would think of a composer. And then we would take a walk

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outside for a few minutes. And he had a little white house

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there in Denver. And then we would come back in and Vona, his

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wife would make tea. And then we would go back into the piano

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room and work some more. So it was just that same the whole

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ordeal took about two and a half hours really? So and he always

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took a special interest in me. And a lot.

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Messenger not a quarrel. No, not at all. You're

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exactly right. But you know, there's a lot to be I was an

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instrumentalist, as well as a choral. And again, it's that

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sort of that general knowledge about about the two sides, which

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really aren't two at all. They're just one with all Muse

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all music, right. And so I think universities particularly try to

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separate even instrumental conducting choral conducting

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instrumental methods, choral methods. And I do think that

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that's negative, because it is all one thing. It just is there

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should just be method

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or I'm pointing to our producer, Lucas, we were just talking

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before this interview, how we want to do other things we don't

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we don't just want to do choir, we want to reach out and do

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other ensembles. Other opportunities, richer

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experience, right? And, and I certainly teach that conducting

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is conducting, there's no difference between conducting

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choir and an orchestra. Those times are kind of, you know, the

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days of the choral conductors that just did big circles,

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constantly. I think we finally come away from

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You're right about that, that both of my can my composer, my

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composition, teachers Normand, and Cecil Avenger, they were

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composers first. I mean, they they didn't really favor ones,

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the voices over the instrumental orchestral. So they were really

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holistic, I think in their approach, but I can show you to

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this day, the marks in my music, that they their effect, and what

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they taught me and how it's still being written into the

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music, that influence so it's I really value that.

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That and it's great to just show that we as musicians are always

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growing and Oh, absolutely better and trying to make make

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it better.

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That's right.

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How do you go about choosing your texts for your pieces, that

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is a very difficult task. You can always choose the you know,

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there's always a body of texts, maybe 100 that everybody writes

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to, you know, a lot of your Sarah T's Dale's and just a lot

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of Psalms, for instance. But to really find unique texts that

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have not been set or haven't been set, but once or twice is,

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is tough. And it takes maybe out of it takes me about 80% of the

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time in a composition in a commission, let's say, to find

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the text about 80% of my work is finding the text and only 20%

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and writing it. What are the sources that you use? You know,

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I go to be honest, I guess I do the old method, I go to the

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library. What you see on Google is only about 5% of the poetry

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in print. And it's usually the hot poetry that they're trying

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to write because they want to sell ads. Frankly, I mean, you

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go to that poem, and you're surrounded by ads if it's a poem

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that's really obscure, no one's gonna look it up, then you're

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not going to. So that commercialism, I think

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negatively affects our choice of poetry sometimes. So if you go

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into, like a modern day me, Alma is one piece that I, that I

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wrote, and I went to Renaissance Spanish poetry in the library.

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And you know, there's a whole section on it. And I spent the

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afternoon just perusing through poetry and translations. And

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that's what you have to do, you know, and so that's, that's the

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investment. And that makes you be surprised how many pearls

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there are there that just haven't made it to the surface

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yet, if you will.

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And as you're talking, it's striking me that, yes. Most of

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the pieces I know of yours are not? Well known texts are

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incredible. They're really, really exciting.

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I don't, I don't write my own text, except on rare occasion.

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Because I think writing poetry is takes the same sort of craft,

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time, energy education, that writing music does that

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architecture does that. And so just say, Well, anyone can write

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poetry is a bit of an overstatement. So I think

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there's so much master poetry out there, that it would be it'd

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be hard pressed to write your own need to write your own. Now,

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I have written a few, maybe three or four in my, I have 180

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published pieces. But I don't, I don't make it a matter of habit

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by any stretch.

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Do you have any particular favorite poets or sources that

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you use?

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I think Garcilaso de la Vega is he's a renaissance poet of the

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Spanish Golden Age. He's one of my very favorites. Certainly,

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everybody loves Sara Teasdale. Sure, of course. There's just a

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whole Robert Frost. I've said a couple of his poems, and he's

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just an American favorite, of course, or again, everybody

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loves frost. A lot of your Scottish poets, particularly

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Scottish and British, I'm really attracted to. So there's just,

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it's just the fount of the fountain of poetry is so huge,

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there's really no reason to write your own unless, unless

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somebody's just doodling at the piano and comes up with an idea,

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right? Or we all do that. Oh, yeah.

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I would say nine times out of 10, those words don't come out

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very well. Well, composers, not a poet,

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composers, not a poet. Yeah. And, and, you know, for those

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that like to do that, then I think it's great. They have the

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right to do it, but I think, but I think if they would explore

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some of the master poets, they the writing would even be better

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because it'd be more inspired by it. There's more layers of

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complexity within a poem,

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there's more that you can form that you're going to write sets

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the form. Yeah. If you had to choose one, if he had to choose

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conducting or composing, which would it be?

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Well, I would choose composing budget,

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that you feel like that's, that's, you're

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right. I hope that I don't ever have to do that. But yeah, but

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that's, that's my true love, I think is sitting down. You know,

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it's, I grew up on a ranch in New Mexico, and I'm used to

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being it's a solitary life out there, you know. And I'm used to

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sitting in silence and just thinking, and just thinking, and

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you'll be surprised how much music comes through your head,

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is there's no problem with thinking of tunes. The problem

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is sorting out the tunes, the one tune that you like, among

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50, you know, so but but it's because, you know, music is, is

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created on a canvas of silence. And one has to be in silence to,

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for that to start pouring onto the paper. But I think every

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human being has a great deal to, to give, if they only get into a

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position where they can actually listen to do what's in their

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head. Listen to silence Oh.

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I just had a question. Oh, okay. So one of the main things you

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were here to do today was the conducting master class where

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the students that applied and came in, that we had six

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students this morning that you worked with, talk to me about

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your philosophy. I enjoyed your work very much this morning. As

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we were walking in and preparing for this, I think he was right

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on the money with everything. He said, You never said anything.

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Don't do that or never do that. You took what the students

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offered, and just made it a little bit tighter. Talk Talk to

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me a little bit about your philosophy of conducting and our

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role and What do you what do you think is are the important

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things for us to tackle as conductors? What's our role in

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this whole,

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I think to really try to recreate what the composer had

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in mind as much as we know, obviously, if they're living

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composer, they're number one in our age. So we we share a common

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humanity, and a time period in history where we understand the

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relationships that they may be drawing on. Whereas with handle,

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or ba, or Palestrina, you might you know, you're not living in

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that time, that time period of history. So we understand them,

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but not to the point that we might, someone who's our own age

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and living presently. So our job is to try to as best we can do

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resurrect sonically resurrect what those black and white, that

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page of just try Inc, and make it alive. And as conductors we

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have to do, we have to communicate with the audience,

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because if music, at the end of it all, if music doesn't

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communicate, then there is pointless, it's just, it's just

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craft, it's just simply working out. A part writing exercise on

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the on the paper is at the end of it all, you have to be able

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to communicate to an audience, your thoughts, the thoughts of

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the composer. And all of this chain has to make it all the way

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to the audience to be successful.

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And we have to do that without making a sound with it all has

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to be silent, it has to be silent ation.

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They say that 80% of communication is physical

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gesture, facial expression, and only 20% is the language. And

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that's why a political candidate, for instance, can get

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up and do a speech. We don't know whether they really believe

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in most of the presidential candidates, there's a speech

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writer anyway, they read it as they're hopping off the

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helicopter to make sure they have all the words pronounced

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correctly, that we don't know whether the candidate they

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actually believes that or not, because we don't know them

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personally. But the way they say it and their facial expression,

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their manner, tells us somehow, maybe wrongly at times, that

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they're honest, that they truly believe that, and they have our

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best interests in mind. Now, do they? Well, we hope so. But

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we're basing a lot about because we don't know any of our

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national candidates personally, we only read about them, and

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maybe what the pundits say about them. So it's it can be a really

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scary process, right.

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And we're going a lot on perception of perception, what

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we see, I loved in the masterclasses they, how much you

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talked about engaging your face and how this is really where the

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communication comes from, they're not looking at our

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hands, they're not you're looking in our face. And I find

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that so often with my own conducting students, that's the

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last thing they think about,

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you know, they're, they're busy getting the patterns, which of

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course have to be there, it's, it's your craft, it's like being

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able to spell words, and being able to write complete

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sentences, but you cannot communicate with your neighbor.

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You only know you only know the craft of putting English

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together, let's say, but you don't use that to communicate,

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it's just a craft. And so you've you've missed, you didn't take

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that final step that puts it all together and uses it to connect

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with another human being.

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Mm hmm. And so and I try to tell my students that that's, that's

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where the music becomes your own, when you've put your own

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personality on it. When you when you've, when you have conviction

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and belief in what you're doing. And you're showing that that's

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when it's your piece, it's not somebody else's, or not a

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recording that's laying around, it's yours, you've made that

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music, and you just have to put your personality on

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it. Some people interpret one of my works, let's say quite a bit

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differently than I did. Or I do. And I always lean back and go

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Well, isn't that great? Because they have every right to, to try

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to represent my work, but also their connection to the peace to

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their audiences in the way that they think is best so that they

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can it can be organic to them, it can be honest. And so that

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there's there can be kind of a tightrope there to see how much

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of your own personality as a conductor comes to play with

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trying to be really honest with with the score and what that you

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think the composer intended. So it can be a bit of a bit of a

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tug of war at times.

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I was thinking earlier when we were talking about your

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compositional process of letting go of it. And you know, so you

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started you've done all the all the work, you've found the text,

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and then at some point you have to say it's done. It's done. How

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do you how do you get there and not well. And then just letting

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go of it. And like you just said, letting somebody else do

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it in a way that you didn't really think about, but not

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storming the stage and telling the guy stop.

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You know, sometimes it's better. Sometimes their interpretation,

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you lean back and go, Well, I didn't really intend that. But

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now that I think about it, that's a great idea. And so

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it's great that you're okay. That's terrific.

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And you just lean back. And then the next time you conduct your

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own piece, you integrate what someone else had just done with

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it. And you go, Oh, that's a great idea. I think I'll steal

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their idea. So yeah, music is fluid. And we all should be in

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this business together and not be territorial. We certainly

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want to be a guardians of our craft, and try to constantly

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push our horizons, our parameters. But I think we can

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do do that in a very civil way, and really honor our friends and

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other colleagues that are conducting and across the

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country and composing, and there's room for everyone.

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Absolutely.

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It's it's not a sport, where we're beating each other, as

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true as we are all in this community, community all of all

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together. Well, thank you so much for taking the time out of

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your day to do this interview with us. I really enjoyed

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talking with you. And I look forward to hearing your next

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piece. What's what's on the burner. Now?

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Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but I have a piece that is

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due on February 1. Now that is behind us. I am 35 days or so

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behind, somehow. So the creative processes don't care about

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deadlines. It seems like I wish that they did because then I

Unknown: 00:21:49

would be a little more on time. So you'll find me the rest of

Unknown: 00:21:52

the weekend really scurrying about finding every available

Unknown: 00:21:57

minute to write in the middle of the weekend after I leave this

Unknown: 00:22:01

conference, I'm conducting the Beethoven mass and see at

Unknown: 00:22:06

Oklahoma State University on Saturday night. So that'll be a

Unknown: 00:22:11

good interruption, but a little bit of an interruption in the

Unknown: 00:22:14

process of having extra time. And

Unknown: 00:22:18

so what it is, was that can you tell us the title? Oh,

Unknown: 00:22:22

well, it's a it's a commission for a huge Church in Houston, is

Unknown: 00:22:28

their 50th anniversary in May. So it's not like that you can

Unknown: 00:22:36

you can put it off and tell him I didn't quite get it done. I'll

Unknown: 00:22:39

get it. Yeah, suddenly, the 50th anniversary becomes the 51st

Unknown: 00:22:44

anniversary, which isn't quite as celebratory as the 50. So, so

Unknown: 00:22:48

it's one of those that you will get it done. So yeah. So I feel

Unknown: 00:22:53

quite confident. I'm just running a little on the behind

Unknown: 00:22:56

side.

Unknown: 00:22:57

But we look forward to that, that coming out all your future

Unknown: 00:23:01

pieces. We'll keep an eye on that. Well,

Unknown: 00:23:03

thank you. I've really had a great time today. Thanks for the

Unknown: 00:23:05

interview. Absolutely. Thank

Unknown: 00:23:07

you. And this has been Texas State choirs today. We'll be

Unknown: 00:23:10

back with another interview before you know it. Thanks.