CHAD CANNON
Dreams of a Sleeping World
Art, Poetry and Music Collaboration
Chad Cannon is an American composer interested in the intersection of cultures,
history, and human stories. His score to the Academy Award-winning Netflix
documentary, American Factory, has been called “stirring” (NY Times)
and “graceful” (Washington Post) and was nominated for a Cinema Eye
Honors Award. Other film scores include the Minneapolis police documentary Women
in Blue (“lush and powerful” - IndieWire), the Hiroshima film Paper
Lanterns (“haunting and mystical” - The Japan Times), and the
upcoming PBS special Harbor from the Holocaust (with special guest
artist Yo-Yo Ma).
As orchestrator, additional composer, and/or
cultural consultant, Chad has collaborated with some of the world’s best-known
film composers, starting with Japanese composers Joe Hisaishi (known for his
work with Hayao Miyazaki) and Shigeru Umebayashi, in addition to Harry
Gregson-Williams, Alexandre Desplat & Howard Shore (under Conrad Pope) and
Tyler Bates (under Tim Williams). Titles include Disney’s 2020 Mulan,
Sony PlayStation’s Ghost of Tsushima, Illumination’s The Secret Life
of Pets.
Praised by The New York Times as
“subtle, agile,” and with “vividness of emotion”, Chad’s concert works tend to
explore human emotion through the lens of cultural history, and often include
visual or literary elements. The Dreams of a Sleeping World, an
hour-long symphony with woodwind soloist and choir, is based on 10 paintings by
Japanese-Brazilian painter Oscar Oiwa, and features poems from around the world
by individuals who have experienced large-scale calamities firsthand. The
symphony was premiered in 2017 by Mate Bekavac with the Slovenia Philharmonic
and Choir, and recorded by Vladimir Kulenovic and the Hollywood Studio Symphony
in 2018.
Chad is the founder of the Asia / America New
Music Institute (AANMI), which promotes cultural diplomacy through contemporary
concert music. AANMI has done work in Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam,
Singapore, South Korea, and the U.S. He holds degrees from Harvard &
Juilliard.
Pratik:
What’s the nucleus of your collaboration, Dreams of a Sleeping World?
Chad Cannon:
The Dreams of a Sleeping World is, at its core, a piece about human
suffering. Inspired by ten paintings from Japanese-Brazilian visual artist
Oscar Oiwa, the piece explores an array of human and natural catastrophes
through the linguistic lens of poets who have experienced these events
firsthand. I specifically chose Oscar’s work because it represents a
contemporary artist’s reaction to the sometimes-terrifying effects of a
globally connected society, and I chose these particular poets because I felt
that the words needed to come from the people who know what it’s like to have
their world, their community, their lives, shattered by events that were
completely beyond their control.
My own life
experience has been a lovely, peaceful one, full of joy and happiness, but I
have had the opportunity to visit places in the world where great suffering has
occurred. Throughout my 20s, I spent a great deal of time (cumulatively about 3
years) working on humanitarian or charitable projects in Asia. These
experiences included participating in projects in Tohoku, Japan, following the
2011 triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown), 8 music tours
with Midori Goto (including visits to Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Nepal, each of
which involved visiting refugee camps, special needs schools, hospitals,
schools for the blind and for the deaf, etc.), and a 2-year church mission in
Japan for the Latter-day Saint Christian church. All of these experiences left
me a changed person, and The Dreams of a Sleeping World is the reaction
of my inner soul to all of the things I saw, heard, and felt.
As far as the
“nucleus” of the actual work itself, I would say that in addition to being
“about” human suffering, the work also deals with the great cycle of life and
death. When we are born into this world, fate seems to be the guiding principle
– we have no say whether we are born into a slum in Dhaka or into a penthouse
suite in Manhattan. We don’t get to choose if we are male or female, or which
language our parents will speak. We don’t get to choose if our children will
drown in a tsunami, or if our grandmother will die underneath a falling beam
during an earthquake. However, we can indeed control how we treat those around
us, and we can choose to have hope in an otherwise bleak universe. I am talking
about the hope I saw in faces of humanitarian aid workers such as Seng Rah
Lahpai in Myanmar, or firefighters from Yamagata who would spend their weekends
volunteering in Miyagi Prefecture after the tsunami. It’s the kind of hope that
lets us celebrate our common humanity in the face of huge adversity.
Pratik: Do
you see any role your American upbringing has played in the making of this
symphony?
Chad Cannon:
That is an interesting question, and I’ve actually never considered in relation
to this particular piece! I would say the number one “American” factor in this
work is, ironically, the idea of presenting a more “universal” worldview. The
United States is a place where people from basically every cultural tradition
on earth mingle freely. My high school in Salt Lake City was quite diverse,
even though Utah as a whole is mostly Caucasian and Christian. From a young age
I started meeting people who had come from war-torn parts of the world. For
example, one of my first dates in high school was with a lovely person who
happened to be a refugee from the war in Bosnia in the 1990s. Meeting somebody
who had seen firsthand the devastating effects of such a catastrophe made me
realize that not everybody on earth gets to grow up in such peaceful
circumstances. I suppose that could happen anywhere, but for me the pluralism
of American society is the thing that makes it most American!
As far as the
musical language, there are some moments that are meant to be understood as
“American”, such as the lonely jazz trumpet solos in the third movement,
Ghosts, where the American poet Brian Turner is giving his perspective as an
American soldier in Iraq. Likewise, the incredibly beautiful words of American
poet William Stafford provide the closing “curtains” to the whole symphony, and
the music at that point I would say becomes a bit American overall in its
brightness of color, even though the context of the painting and the poem is
the city of Hiroshima in the aftermath of the atomic bomb.
Pratik: Can
you please describe briefly your journey as a Music composer?
Chad Cannon:
From a young age I was surrounded by music. I’m the youngest of 6 children and
my mother’s two battles in life were to get her children to play music
seriously, and to attend church seriously. Of course at church there is a lot
of music as well! Eventually I realized that I was able to imitate other
composers’ writing, and pretty soon I was off writing my own music. When I
became an adult I studied music at Harvard University and later at Juilliard.
Finally my road led me to Los Angeles, where I first worked for a famous
orchestrator named Conrad Pope on big-budget Hollywood films such as Peter
Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy. Nowadays I spend most of my time composing
my own music for a variety of media projects, most recently for the
Oscar-winning documentary film, American Factory.
Pratik: Who
were your major mentors/Inspirations in this journey?
Chad Cannon:
I already mentioned Conrad Pope, he was essential to my post-schooling years!
When I was a student, I was hugely inspired by the American composer John
Adams. At Harvard I took a course about his operas, and he and his long-time
collaborator Pete Sellars came and spent a few days workshopping with our
class. I also had a chance to see their production of Adams’ opera, Nixon in
China at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. That was a transformative
experience for me to hear the power of lyrics, visual spectacle, and live
orchestral music all coming together in a meaningful, politically, and
culturally “relevant” manner.
More recently I
have had the wonderful privilege of working as an arranger for Studio Ghibli
composer Joe Hisaishi, whose work on Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films have
received worldwide acclaim. Hisaishi is a true master of orchestral and
character-based compositions, and I can honestly say The Dreams of a
Sleeping World would not exist without Hisaishi’s influence. I’d say you
can clearly hear this in the 6th movement, where I tried to include much color
and childlike wonder, a la Hayao Miyazaki / Joe Hisaishi.
Pratik: Who
are your favorite poets/music composers? What
art forms -- Poetry/Music/Art -- can play in today’s society?
Chad Cannon:
Oh, there are so many! I think my all-time favorite poet is Langston Hughes.
For me, he captured the essence of what it was like to be an African-American
in this country prior to the Civil Rights Movement. I’m not a scholar of his
life or his works, but I think it’s fairly clear that his poetry played a major
role in helping the wider world understand the suffering of his own community.
Poetry, music, and art can all play a role in helping people build empathy for
those whose life experiences differ from themselves, and empathy is something
the world needs a LOT more of.
Pratik: When
did you first meet Oscar? Can you please share your experiences of working with
him.
Chad Cannon: I
first met Oscar when I was an intern at the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) in New
York City in 2012. ACC is an organization founded by John D Rockefeller III,
who loved Asian art. Its main purpose is to support artist exchange programs
between the U.S. and Asia, and also between countries within Asia. Oscar was an
ACC grant recipient, and had donated one of his paintings to an ACC fundraiser.
In an attempt to help the ACC get interest, I took a family friend to his
studio to observe his work. It was so inspiring for me to see an artist who
just gets up every day, comes into his studio, and creates works of art all day
long. It made me want to become a full-time artist myself, and I still think of
Oscar’s dedication every time I find myself struggling in my own composing
studio.
Later on, as my
career started to develop following my years in NYC, Oscar had reached out to
me to see if I could create some music for a video of his for an exhibition he
was going to have in Beijing. He sent me a book of his paintings as a
thank-you, and when I opened that book and started looking at his incredible oeuvre,
I was stunned! I decided right then and there that I would love to create a
large piece of music inspired by his paintings. So,
The Dreams of a Sleeping
World (the title of which was taken from one of his other paintings), began
to take shape.
Oscar was
extremely generous in letting me browse through all of his works, and very
supportive when I ended up choosing to divide the 10 paintings into Part I -
The Sea, and Part II - The Land. The first five paintings are water-themed, and
the second five are earth/land themed. Oscar was also very kind to let me pair
poetry with each of the paintings, which in a way ascribed whole new meanings.
For example, the second movement, Invisible Sea, is paired with a poem by
Rabindranath Tagore. The poem seemed to me to be all about death, and the
symbolism of dying to the bottom of the ocean seemed perfect for the imagery I
was seeing in Oscar’s painting. The original intent behind Oscar’s piece,
however, had to do with the B.P. Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So in other
words, the painting itself was super specific, whereas my reaction to it was
much more broad. And there are examples where the opposite happened. Swirl, for
example, is a painting Oscar intended to reflect a sort of inner chaos, or a psychological
unfolding, but I chose a poem that was specifically about the 2005 Hurricane
Katrina and the Superdome disaster that happened in Louisiana. So there, we had
a painting that was more broad in intent, and my selection of a poem draws the
audience into a very specific mindset. In each instance, though, Oscar was
incredibly flexible and really gave me creative freedom to craft the narrative
of the symphony.
One other thing
about Oscar is that he is incredibly warm-hearted and fun to spend time with.
We have had meals together in many different cities now. In 2019 I had the
wonderful opportunity to be present for the grand opening of his summer-long
solo exhibition at the Kanazawa 21st Century Art Museum, which is one of
Japan’s most prestigious and well-visited contemporary art museums. Oscar is so
humble, and has a great sense of humor, and I think both of these qualities
come across in his artwork, even though the art I chose for the symphony was
mostly quite serious.
Pratik: How
did you pick up the poets included in the Collaboration?
Chad Cannon:
I spent about 3 months reading poetry online until I found the poets and poems
that felt right for this project. I was just immersed in reading, and thinking,
and searching again. Thank goodness for online poetry forums! I actually should
have spent more time in a physical library but alas, ever since my Harvard
library card expired, I have been mostly an online reader. In some cases I
discovered poems accidentally, but mostly I actually searched for poetry
specific to events I had in mind, such as the 2011 Great Eastern Japan
Earthquake & Tsunami, or the Vietnam War.
Pratik: Where
did you first meet Yuyutsu and how did his poetry come part of the symphony?
Chad Cannon:
Yuyutsu came into my life because I had searched specifically for “Nepal
Earthquake Poems,” which of course led me directly to his anthology, Quaking
Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems, which is full of heartbreaking and also loving
poetry. The very first poem, “Twisted Galaxies,” was just the perfect, pithy
set of words that conveyed exactly the kind of naturalistic beauty and tragedy
that I was searching for. I was really trying to find the right voice for those
many people I had seen in Nepal who were struggling to rebuild their
communities after the 2015 earthquakes. When I visited Nepal in November and
December 2016, I got to visit with the Kathmandu University Music Department,
which at the time was holding classes in a house in Kathmandu, because their
campus in Bhaktapur had been completely destroyed and then flooded by all the
rain. At first I felt terrible for these poor music students and professors for
their loss, but then I felt so inspired by their resilience and their
dedication to their art. My main takeaway from that experience is that the
human spirit is unbreakable, particularly when paired with something as human
as creating works of art. Yuyutsu’s poetry for me became the embodiment of that
unbreakable human spirit, so I ended up choosing that as the “voice of Nepal”
in the symphony. I’m so grateful Yuyutsu was kind enough to drop by Los Angeles
and stay in our landlord’s guesthouse when we had the L.A. premiere of the
Dreams of a Sleeping World film (which is now available for anyone to see on
YouTube).
Pratik: We
know your associations with Japan and Nepal? Please share some of the
highlights of your stays in these nations as a music composer.
For Full Interview Read the Fall 2020 issue of Pratik
Now available on Amazon USA, UK, Canada, Europe and India, Links below:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon UK:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon ITLAY: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon INDIA; https://www.amazon.in/dp/B08GZ23NSG?ref=myi_title_dpUS
