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Podcast transcription: Jamie Erekson/James W. McConkie
Glen Nelson: Hello everybody and welcome to the first podcast of the Mormon Arts Center. I'm your host Glen Nelson in New York. In today's episode, we'll be telling the story of one of the great what-ifs of Mormon Arts: the life and music of composer James Wilson McConkie. Sitting in the studio with me--and by studio I mean my studio apartment--is Jamie Erekson, grandson of McConkie, who is currently bringing to life the music of this forgotten LDS composer. McConkie is almost completely unknown now, but in the 1950s, he was poised for a major career in American classical music. He earned a PhD in Composition at Columbia University in 1950 and then went to Paris to study with the legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger. Then tragedy struck at the age of 32.
Recap Video
While the festival was coming to a close, our videographer was just getting started. In the weeks after we wrapped up in July, he and his crew were editing every presentation, concert, and discussion in order to put it all on YouTube. That way, anybody can experience the entire festival wherever they live. We asked him to create a short recap video, and we sent it out to all of our subscribers yesterday. Here's a link to the video on YouTube.
Podcast transcription: Scott Holden
Glen Nelson: Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Mormon Art Center's Studio Podcast. Two nights ago, Scott Holden stepped onto the stage at Carnegie Hall's beautiful, new jewel box Zankel Hall for a recital that would have sounded preposterous even a few years ago, a survey of classical music by Mormon composers performed in the most important music building in America. It's weird, Scott, now that I hear myself saying that out loud, it seemed almost too grand, but describing it any other way, shortchanges the historical moment it represented for me and the tremendous efforts behind it. So today Scott and I are sitting down together to listen to excerpts from a baker's dozen of LDS composers represented on the program, A Century of Mormon Music, and to describe what it was like to discover and champion these composers' works. Welcome.
Galaxies
It's exciting for me to see projects of the Mormon Arts Center continue to have a life beyond our projects. One example is the concert at Carnegie Hall by Scott Holden, A Century of Mormon Music. While he was rehearsing, he was also going into the recording studio. The result is a CD, The Unknown Galaxy: A Century of Classical Mormon Music, produced by Tantara Records' Heritage Series. For those unable to have attended the concert live, this is the next best thing.
Art Down
It felt strange seeing all of the paintings and drawings from the exhibition Nzambi (God) down off the walls at the Italian Academy this week. Columbia had requested that the show stay around another month after the festival ended in June so more people on campus could see it. I went to the gallery and removed the paintings, took off the hardware, pulled off the wall labels. The room felt so lonely. The director of the Italian Academy, Rick Whitaker, told me that he already missed the works.
Review: Immediate Present
We were pleased to read this week a critical review of the Mormon Arts Center publication, Immediate Present, by Laura Allred Hurtado in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. The reviewer was Sarah C. Reed. In 2017, for our first Mormon Arts Center festival, Hurtado brought together a group exhibition of two dozen contemporary Mormon artists. For the exhibition catalog, she paired an equal number of authors who wrote a response of one kind or another for each visual art work. Hurtado wrote an extended essay on Mormon art that introduced the volume.
More Great Press
In a Church News article over the weekend that highlighted events of the Mormon Arts Center Festival, staff writer Morgan Jones described some exciting elements of our June event. Although it happened far away from Salt Lake City, the Center has been very fortunate to attract the attention of media outlets in Utah, including the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, Church News, and KSL-TV.
The Festival on Your Phone
YouTube videos of the 2018 festival continue to be posted. There are currently 19 new videos, for a total on our channel of 52. That's hours and hours of presentations, performances, and interviews. Subscribe and receive notification when new videos appear on YouTube.
The Festival on YouTube
A priority for the Mormon Arts Center is sharing. It's no surprise, then, that after the festival our main goal is to get dozens and dozens of hours of video edited and posted online. The first eight presentations are now on YouTube, with more coming every few hours. Even for those attending, these should be welcome because the presentations and concerts were overlapping. Nobody could be everywhere at once. Well, our video crew could. Enjoy.
Nzambi (God) continues
Before the festival ended, the Italian Academy requested that Hildebrando's exhibition Nzambi (God) remain on display until August. We were prepared to take it down, but having an extension "by popular demand" so to speak, was more than welcome. It gives people a little bit longer to see it. The building is open to the public.
What Just Happened?
Throughout the 2018 festival, the Mormon Arts Center filmed all the events, performances, presentations, discussions, and panels at the Italian Academy on the campus of Columbia University. Our goal is to have all of these wonderful documents posted on YouTube in the next two weeks. That's an ambitious goal, given that it is many hours of programming, but we want everyone--no matter where you live--to have full access to what went on. We can't wait for you all to experience it.
Good(s) Piling Up
The deliveries are coming fast and furious now--treasures of books, posters, magazines, and CDs that will be available and displayed at the Festival, starting on Thursday. The biggest, heaviest, and most exciting to me are the cases of Mormon Cinema. Biggest because the boxes and boxes of books are taking up the lion's share of my little apartment; heaviest because at 680 pages, the book is our heftiest offering by far; and most exciting because after 20 years of research, a major publication is seeing the light of day.