Cultural connections are the key elements that define a musician's artistic output, creating an individual sound through the intersection of these pieces. The meeting between an individual's cultural relationships doesn't happen instantly though; the various musical strains need to float through an individual's life for a while, sinking into the subconscious. Once several different cultural elements become an essential part of the musician's life, the similarities and differences between each one becomes glaringly apparent. At this point, the experimentation begins, forcing together diverse musical pieces while ripping apart other artistic points of interest. The end result provides a musical glimpse into the cultural crossroad of that individual's life.
Composer Roberto Sierra developed his musicianship by exploring the intersection of his cultural connections, leading to some outstanding music. Born on October 9, 1953 in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, the young Sierra soaked up the sounds of the island that surrounded him. He became fascinated with the piano when his parents bought an instrument for his sister—yet it was Sierra that began lessons. His private piano studies brought him into the world of classical music, a musical direction reinforced by the presence of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and the annual Casals Festival. The popular sounds of salsa resonated throughout the island though, imprinting the influence of artists such as Eddie Palmieri and Willie Colon upon Sierra's musical personality. Enthralled with music, Sierra found his way to the Conservatory Of Music in Puerto Rico, where he studied classical piano. Near the end of his studies, he discovered composition, a direction that would define his future as a musician. With composition driving his interests, Sierra hoped to further his studies, looking beyond his home for inspiration. He traveled to the Royal College Of Music in London before finding his way to Hamburg, Germany, where he began studies with influential composer György Ligeti. Best known for his scores to Stanley Kubrick movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut, Ligeti was a modern composer deeply interested in music from around the world. Sierra's knowledge of African and Caribbean music inspired Ligeti while the elder composer mentored his student; after many years, the two musicians left major impacts upon each other. With a significant amount of compositional experience under his belt, Sierra stood ready to share his cross-cultural ideas with the world.
These diverse cultural strains percolated within Sierra's musicianship during these formative years, moving towards a meeting point that would form the basis for his mature approach to composition. All of these different pieces would come to life in Sierra's pieces, ranging from the stunning “Missa Latina" to his awe inspiring 2011 collaboration with jazz saxophonist James Carter on the album Caribbean Rhapsody. In the first part of our interview with Sierra, we look at his exposure to both classical and popular music in Puerto Rico, his move towards composition, and his studies with Ligeti.
———- LATIN JAZZ CORNER: What part of Puerto Rico were you born in and how did you discover music there?
ROBERTO SIERRA: I was born on the Northern coast in a town called Vega Baja. It's in the middle of the island; it's a small coastal town. Then when I was around 16, we moved to the metropolitan area.
In Puerto Rico, music is everywhere. The kind of music that is everywhere is popular music, which you would find in jukeboxes. I remember hearing Afro-Caribbean music all the time. I saw the coming up of salsa in the sixties and seventies. This was music that was very central in my life. Then classical music was there as well—there was a piano that was bought for my sister, but I was the one that ended up learning how to play it.
LJC: So you started on piano—as a player, were you studying classical music or popular music?
RS: Classical music. Popular music was always present, but simply as some kind of living organism that was there. People who were doing popular music at the time in Puerto Rico, they didn't really study it. Nowadays they do, but back then, they just played it. I think that's changed now, because people seriously study it. But what I was playing on the piano then was classical music.
LJC: Was there a classical music scene around you that you could check out—was there exposure beyond your own piano studies?
RS: Yea, there was the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra that was founded a decade before that period. It was a young organization then and there was Casals festival that is still going on nowadays. That was it basically. Of course, there was some music at school; they had bands and things like that.
LJC: You mentioned salsa, were you aware of the Fania scene and everything that was going on in New York during the sixties and seventies?
RS: Absolutely—People like Eddie Palmieri, Hector Lavoe, and Willie Colon. That was the sound that I remember. La Lupe was an influence for me as well—she was an amazing performer. I mention La Lupe to people—even to people that are versed in popular music—she's not really all that well known. To me, she was something really spectacular. She had the passion, and it was deeply felt music, the way that she did it.
LJC: You went on and studied music at the conservatory in Puerto Rico . . .
RS: That was classical music that I studied there. I was studying piano at first and then at the end I decided to become a composer.
LJC: Were you actively composing and getting pieces performed, or was this just starting out?
RS: It was just starting out. When I was a student, I just was a student. It's not like nowadays. Students are doing composition and they want to be out on stage. For me, the stage was a very frightening thing.
LJC: Eventually, you moved to Europe and studied in London—what inspired you to leave the island and what were you looking for there in Europe?
RS: I wanted to see the world beyond my shores. I wasn't particularly interested in coming here to the States. The relationship between Puerto Rico and then United States, it wasn't different enough for me. In a way, I wanted to see a totally different scene. I went to London, then Holland, and then finally I moved to Hamburg, Germany.
LJC: You studied with György Ligeti while you were there. Most of us know his work from the Stanley Kubrick movies that he scored, like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm sure that he has a bigger legacy that impacted you—can you give us a little bit about who he was and what he gave to you?
RS: What I can safely say nowadays is that he is one of the great composers of the second part of the twentieth century. One of the things that was inspiring to me was the concept of absolute mastery of technique. It was the highest possible standard for technical skills. He was a man of great curiosity, interested in all cultures. He was very much interested in what I knew about the music from Puerto Rico for example. It was a very interesting connection for me.
LJC: There is a tension sometimes between tradition and personality in the modern era. How was that for you to bring this cultural element into the work—was there any struggle between what has come before and what is going ahead?
RS: At that time, all different types of music had started to crumble and things were starting to come undone. People were looking for other means of expression, trying to get away from the practices of well-known composers. After the second war, they had this very abstract music—you have that in jazz too. I think what I'm talking about goes in parallel.
In the sixties and the seventies, there was a lot of experimentation and going away from the norm. That started basically with the Central European modern music—I'm talking Stockhausen and people like that. There was an interesting background to music—the improvisatory element of jazz interested the classical composer while I think that the jazz musicians were interested in the handling of new sonorities that came from the other side. Then it became very, very static in the classical world. In the sixties, if you wrote a piece that had a tune in it, you would be crucified as a classical composer. It was very dogmatic for a while.
When I came to Europe in the eighties, one of the people who was really fed up with that was Ligeti. He always tried to stay away from any kind of mainstream. If you read his biography, you will find my name all over the place. In a serious way, I put him in contact with first, African music, and second, the music of Latin America. That influence is part of his later work. There is a heavy influence of African and Caribbean strains, particularly in the rhythmic strains of his later music. It was me who was there feeding this hunger that he had for knowledge about those musics. It was a very interesting thing.
On the other hand, he was a mentor to me. One of the things that he was gearing me to do was to look more inward and less outward. I always say this because we tend to forget it—the connections between what one man considers the vernacular—the sources that come out of academia—and the popular music are very common. Beethoven and Mozart, their music is full of the equivalents of what salsa would be to us nowadays. It's just that we don't hear it like that because the popular music of that time is not alive anymore. We only hear Mozart and we think that its a music that has nothing to do with the folk music of the time. But it does have a lot to do with it.
Composer Roberto Sierra developed his musicianship by exploring the intersection of his cultural connections, leading to some outstanding music. Born on October 9, 1953 in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, the young Sierra soaked up the sounds of the island that surrounded him. He became fascinated with the piano when his parents bought an instrument for his sister—yet it was Sierra that began lessons. His private piano studies brought him into the world of classical music, a musical direction reinforced by the presence of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and the annual Casals Festival. The popular sounds of salsa resonated throughout the island though, imprinting the influence of artists such as Eddie Palmieri and Willie Colon upon Sierra's musical personality. Enthralled with music, Sierra found his way to the Conservatory Of Music in Puerto Rico, where he studied classical piano. Near the end of his studies, he discovered composition, a direction that would define his future as a musician. With composition driving his interests, Sierra hoped to further his studies, looking beyond his home for inspiration. He traveled to the Royal College Of Music in London before finding his way to Hamburg, Germany, where he began studies with influential composer György Ligeti. Best known for his scores to Stanley Kubrick movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut, Ligeti was a modern composer deeply interested in music from around the world. Sierra's knowledge of African and Caribbean music inspired Ligeti while the elder composer mentored his student; after many years, the two musicians left major impacts upon each other. With a significant amount of compositional experience under his belt, Sierra stood ready to share his cross-cultural ideas with the world.
These diverse cultural strains percolated within Sierra's musicianship during these formative years, moving towards a meeting point that would form the basis for his mature approach to composition. All of these different pieces would come to life in Sierra's pieces, ranging from the stunning “Missa Latina" to his awe inspiring 2011 collaboration with jazz saxophonist James Carter on the album Caribbean Rhapsody. In the first part of our interview with Sierra, we look at his exposure to both classical and popular music in Puerto Rico, his move towards composition, and his studies with Ligeti.
———- LATIN JAZZ CORNER: What part of Puerto Rico were you born in and how did you discover music there?
ROBERTO SIERRA: I was born on the Northern coast in a town called Vega Baja. It's in the middle of the island; it's a small coastal town. Then when I was around 16, we moved to the metropolitan area.
In Puerto Rico, music is everywhere. The kind of music that is everywhere is popular music, which you would find in jukeboxes. I remember hearing Afro-Caribbean music all the time. I saw the coming up of salsa in the sixties and seventies. This was music that was very central in my life. Then classical music was there as well—there was a piano that was bought for my sister, but I was the one that ended up learning how to play it.
LJC: So you started on piano—as a player, were you studying classical music or popular music?
RS: Classical music. Popular music was always present, but simply as some kind of living organism that was there. People who were doing popular music at the time in Puerto Rico, they didn't really study it. Nowadays they do, but back then, they just played it. I think that's changed now, because people seriously study it. But what I was playing on the piano then was classical music.
LJC: Was there a classical music scene around you that you could check out—was there exposure beyond your own piano studies?
RS: Yea, there was the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra that was founded a decade before that period. It was a young organization then and there was Casals festival that is still going on nowadays. That was it basically. Of course, there was some music at school; they had bands and things like that.
LJC: You mentioned salsa, were you aware of the Fania scene and everything that was going on in New York during the sixties and seventies?
RS: Absolutely—People like Eddie Palmieri, Hector Lavoe, and Willie Colon. That was the sound that I remember. La Lupe was an influence for me as well—she was an amazing performer. I mention La Lupe to people—even to people that are versed in popular music—she's not really all that well known. To me, she was something really spectacular. She had the passion, and it was deeply felt music, the way that she did it.
LJC: You went on and studied music at the conservatory in Puerto Rico . . .
RS: That was classical music that I studied there. I was studying piano at first and then at the end I decided to become a composer.
LJC: Were you actively composing and getting pieces performed, or was this just starting out?
RS: It was just starting out. When I was a student, I just was a student. It's not like nowadays. Students are doing composition and they want to be out on stage. For me, the stage was a very frightening thing.
LJC: Eventually, you moved to Europe and studied in London—what inspired you to leave the island and what were you looking for there in Europe?
RS: I wanted to see the world beyond my shores. I wasn't particularly interested in coming here to the States. The relationship between Puerto Rico and then United States, it wasn't different enough for me. In a way, I wanted to see a totally different scene. I went to London, then Holland, and then finally I moved to Hamburg, Germany.
LJC: You studied with György Ligeti while you were there. Most of us know his work from the Stanley Kubrick movies that he scored, like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm sure that he has a bigger legacy that impacted you—can you give us a little bit about who he was and what he gave to you?
RS: What I can safely say nowadays is that he is one of the great composers of the second part of the twentieth century. One of the things that was inspiring to me was the concept of absolute mastery of technique. It was the highest possible standard for technical skills. He was a man of great curiosity, interested in all cultures. He was very much interested in what I knew about the music from Puerto Rico for example. It was a very interesting connection for me.
LJC: There is a tension sometimes between tradition and personality in the modern era. How was that for you to bring this cultural element into the work—was there any struggle between what has come before and what is going ahead?
RS: At that time, all different types of music had started to crumble and things were starting to come undone. People were looking for other means of expression, trying to get away from the practices of well-known composers. After the second war, they had this very abstract music—you have that in jazz too. I think what I'm talking about goes in parallel.
In the sixties and the seventies, there was a lot of experimentation and going away from the norm. That started basically with the Central European modern music—I'm talking Stockhausen and people like that. There was an interesting background to music—the improvisatory element of jazz interested the classical composer while I think that the jazz musicians were interested in the handling of new sonorities that came from the other side. Then it became very, very static in the classical world. In the sixties, if you wrote a piece that had a tune in it, you would be crucified as a classical composer. It was very dogmatic for a while.
When I came to Europe in the eighties, one of the people who was really fed up with that was Ligeti. He always tried to stay away from any kind of mainstream. If you read his biography, you will find my name all over the place. In a serious way, I put him in contact with first, African music, and second, the music of Latin America. That influence is part of his later work. There is a heavy influence of African and Caribbean strains, particularly in the rhythmic strains of his later music. It was me who was there feeding this hunger that he had for knowledge about those musics. It was a very interesting thing.
On the other hand, he was a mentor to me. One of the things that he was gearing me to do was to look more inward and less outward. I always say this because we tend to forget it—the connections between what one man considers the vernacular—the sources that come out of academia—and the popular music are very common. Beethoven and Mozart, their music is full of the equivalents of what salsa would be to us nowadays. It's just that we don't hear it like that because the popular music of that time is not alive anymore. We only hear Mozart and we think that its a music that has nothing to do with the folk music of the time. But it does have a lot to do with it.
