This interview has been edited for style. 

Nicholas Tran: Jan, how are you?

Janice Hamer: I’m doing great. I’m so excited to meet you! I wish I could interview you!

N: Interviews don’t have to be one-way! I’m sure you’ll get to know me and Convergence Ensemble just as I’ll get to know you. 

J: I noticed that part of Convergence’s work is bringing pieces into schools!

N: Yes! For me, that’s really one of the defining characteristics of Convergence. Our artistic director, Rachel Goodwin worked so hard over the years to partner with Boston schools to serve underrepresented students and kids who otherwise would have very little access to classical music. 

J: That’s just wonderful!

N: So, you studied at Earl Kim at Harvard. Tell me about him! How was he as a teacher? 

J: Yes, I studied with him as an undergrad. He came to Harvard when I was a junior. I had a rather traumatic experience as a freshman… I had taken my portfolio to show a composer who was a visiting faculty member to see if I could major in music. That faculty member thumbed through my portfolio for about ten seconds and said, “well, women have never composed and they never will be known or appreciated. You may have a lot of talent, but I would not encourage you. I would feel irresponsible.” So, after that event, I didn’t write for about two years. 

When Earl came to Harvard in 1967, I crawled on my knees to his class and asked, “Do you think it would be okay if I audited your seminar?” He shook his head and said “No, this is a working seminar. Everyone composes and does the work. We talk about each other’s work. Have you ever composed?” I said, “Oh yes, ever since I was nine.” He said, “Well then why don’t you leave your music with me for a week, and I’ll let you know if you should be in the class.”

That was quite the difference from the guy that looked at my portfolio as a freshman. I probably didn’t sleep much that week. I came back and Earl said, “Of course you can be in the class.” I was probably the first female composer enrolled in a composition seminar at Harvard. It was wonderful. He was wonderful. We became close friends and remained that way until he died.

N: What a journey. Thank you for sharing. I’m glad that Earl allowed you into his class!

J: Earl was, in general, the type of person who gave people permission. He was anti-authoritarian, subversive in a quiet way, and wanted to encourage freedom and self-expression. 

My experience of him as a teacher was that he took you from where you were and didn’t impose rules or exercises or compositional activities… it wasn’t necessarily the type of training that would give you a lot of technique. He was a type of Zen teacher. He could understand what your intention was and compare it to what you actually had on the page. He would have us play everything on the piano. Sometimes there was a little moment in the piece where he would say, “that really works.” It was a very unstructured and freeing type of teaching. He also had the class as a seminar so that we could hear other students’ pieces and see their scores. That was a further teaching. 

N: I’ve heard lessons with Earl were very free and that he seemed to love to teach and let students’ voices shine.

J: I think he had a very complex relationship with teaching. On the one hand, I think he really felt an affinity with his students. I think he enjoyed having students appreciate him also. On the other hand, he was very protective of his free time. He wanted to compose and do his own thing. He hated getting ready for teaching. He hated leaving his home. I remember much later that he would complain about having to go to the music building, which was only a few blocks away, to teach. 

Once he was in the classroom, he would be giving his all. 

N: He’s been described to me as a very dedicated person. I commend him for being protective of his time. I think that is something that many of us struggle with. I find it really fascinating that he taught his students in a masterclass setting. Gerald Levinson, your composer colleague at Swarthmore, taught my colleagues and I in a composition masterclass setting as well. I took my first lessons with him! When I transferred to the Boston Conservatory, I thought it was strange that we were receiving one-on-one lessons. 

J: I had one year of graduate study at Brandeis University where we started off in a masterclass setting. I didn’t like it at all! I persuaded the professor—poor guy—to give us private lessons. That was a lot more time consuming for him. 

As for Earl’s seminar, I guess I felt very proud of being in it. It was a seminar for graduate students and undergrads. So, there were graduate students there! There were maybe six or seven of us there at a time. Quite a few of them became serious composers or theorists. A number of them remained in touch with Earl as a friend. That speaks very well of Earl as a teacher.

N: You know, at Swarthmore, I was dabbling around in chemistry and physics, but I always found myself in the music building. Eventually I realized that I wasn’t doing well in the science classes and said, “Well, I guess it’s time to be a music major!” However, I found that the relationships people have with music professors seem to be so much closer and more personal than with other professors in other fields. I wonder what lessons you learned with Earl both in music and in life, as his friend and a colleague, and as a professor.

J: I think that’s a great question. I think he remained a strong influence on me throughout the rest of his life—not just musically. As I said before, he was a person who was quietly subversive. He tended to undermine systematic or categorical thinking. I think that was something that I partly took from him and it influenced many aspects of my own being—from starting an anti-nuclear group at Princeton to the way I teach to the way I do life. He had been that way from the get-go. He was a Korean-American child growing up in California. His parents were immigrants. I think he received some treatment from others with prejudice. He went to teach as Berkeley in the early 50s during the McCarthy period. They were asked to sign a Loyalty Oath, all the professors, saying that “I am not a communist, and I am loyal to the United States,” and so forth. Earl said “no thanks. I cannot sign that.” He said that he does not categorize himself, and I believe he was fired. Luckily, he was hired at Princeton by a former teacher of his, Roger Sessions. Politically, I think he continued to express his independence. 

He was a faculty member at Harvard during the 1968-69 anti-Vietnam protests, which took over the university. Our exams were uprooted. The whole scheduled was canceled. There were marches, arrests, and beatings by the police. The faculty meetings were on the radio. I remember listening, I think in the spring of 1969, and they were discussing whether to expel the students who broke into a building or to expunge them, meaning their records would be forever removed and they could never come back or how to punish them. I suddenly heard this lone voice and I recognized this particular high-baritone sound and he said, “what are we talking about? These are our kids. Why are we talking about punishing them? Why aren’t we working together? Why aren’t we looking to see what actually needs to be done here? Some of their protests are justified.” He meant that both literally and figuratively. His stepson was one of the protesters. So that was his kid literally but also the entire body of students were his kids. 

Musically, his aesthetic, as you know, is very spare. Not minimalist in the usual sense of the word—he used to say, “reduction to the maximum.” It was an aesthetic that was not typical for the time. My fellow students and I were either writing atonal, thorny, hard music or serial music. I guess one or two of my colleagues were using writing avant-garde music that involved motorcycles driving onto stage or banging on the piano. It was a time of extreme music—very different than what is being written now. Earl’s music was very unique in that it didn’t have anything to do with that. 

N: All of the readings that I’ve done and conversations I’ve had said that Earl wanted to have his own voice and that he was very adverse to being put into a category. He didn’t want to represent any category. Tony Brandt said that his music process was just him and the music. Nothing else. 

J: He certainly used known materials—whole-tone scales, octatonic scales, etc. He wasn’t creating a new musical universe but within that universe, he was creating his own voice. One of the things that we had in common was our love of the voice and the use of text. I am a choral conductor as well as a composer. The use of text—the way that texts are set—is really the most important thing for me. 

N: I know Earl faced some prejudice. Tony and Martha told me about times where Earl’s life was in danger. I was also told that Earl did not necessarily want to be associated with Korean music. Tony made it seem like Earl always kept a positive outlook on life despite the challenges he faced.

J: I think he was a complicated person, as everybody is. I think that he loved his work, poetry, reading, film, his family—you know, he had sources of joy and pleasure. He loved cooking and eating. He had a lot of admirers. I really enjoyed being an admirer of his music. I would often bring tissues when listening to his music because it always brought me to tears. We had a little joke: He would say, “Jan, get ready, bring the Kleenex.” 

N: Did Earl ever talk about Now and Then with you?

J: He played it for me. I remember it in various stages. I remember how fragile and delicate everything was and how it creates a sense of great sadness—again with limited material. Limited in the sense that it’s not a big, dramatic work. It’s understated. 

N: His setting of “thither” is my favorite. The sparseness of the harp and the voice was really something. I had not listened to a recording of the piece prior to managing the rehearsing. I did study the score though, and I was shocked by how spare and austere the music was. The sound was so commanding.

J: Exactly. The dichotomy between the spareness and the power of expression—it can really make you rethink what you want to do compositionally. You realize so much of the heavy, powerful dynamics that go into a lot of new music don’t have the same wallop as what he was doing. Have you listened to other works of his? 

N: I listened to Where Grief Slumbers with Dawn Upshaw. I had the same reaction to the command of timbre and color. Paul Salerni also recommended Earl’s theatre works to me. The more I read and talk about Earl, the more excited I am to delve into his music.

J: There was a piece for chorus that he wrote that is shamelessly tonal. It’s very conservative but it’s absolutely ravishing. I think it’s mostly been sung by young choruses—colleges. I feel very sad that he died so early. He was sort of stuck for a long time. There were long periods where he was not composing. When he really got going, he was really churning it out. I think he would have written an opera.

N: We’re doing Now and Then with a talk about nuclear disarmament, featuring activists Ray Matsumiya and Joseph Gerson. Earl and Martha co-founded Musicians Against Nuclear Arms. Did they ever talk to you about their work? I know you mentioned that you started your own anti-nuclear war group at Princeton. 

J: I wasn’t around a lot when they were doing their work with MANA. I got involved in 1982-83. I started my group partly as a result of Earl and Martha’s work. I just asked some pretty fundamental questions. Living in Princeton, they had a nuclear disarmament gathering every year. It had become a tradition. People would wave and even say, “okay, see you next year.” I thought to myself, “see you next year? Why don’t we get rid of this problem?” It just seemed to me that people weren’t really thinking about it and feeling numbed by the consequences of a nuclear war. We developed a questionnaire that we offered to an organization in DC. Our questionnaire eventually made it to the Congressional Black Caucus. The work was really centered around dealing with the numbness of nuclear armaments. 

N: What was the process like organizing and pushing people to be more conscious? Nobody I knew growing up talked about nuclear weapons. It seemed like a fact that was to be accepted and that there was no possibility of a life without nuclear weapons.

J: The bottom line that I wanted to stress was that you can make a difference, even as a small individual. You may think that you’re too small and too powerless but, in fact, important movements have come about from individuals. I was interested in working around government, not necessarily through government. 

N: Did activism and social consciousness influence any lessons you had with Earl or your own teachings as a professor? I’m wondering what social responsibility you think artists have, if any.

J: My lessons with Earl were long since over by the time I got “woke.” I became very interested in the Middle East and lived in the Middle East for eight months, becoming interested in the possibilities of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians for example—between Jews and Arabs, more generally. I was involved in a group called the Leningrad Sisters Project when I lived in Philadelphia. 

I think all of this culminated in me writing my opera—a full length opera called Lost Childhood. It involved a Holocaust story and a dialogue between a Holocaust survivor grown up and a German after the war—so, two generations looking back after the Holocaust. The German was a fictitious person based on a real character, who was the great grandson of Richard Wagner and the Holocaust survivor was a psychiatrist, also fictionalized, in New York who had written a memoir about his Holocaust experience.

N: That sounds like a wonderful story for an opera. I would love to hear it. I read a little bit about it as I was researching you! 

J: I can send a recording to you!

N: Thank you! I love listening to new works. It used to be the case in Boston that you could go to a music event every single night. That’s not possible anymore with the pandemic. 

J: It’s not that easy right now. Listening on YouTube—actually, I always feel like I should be looking at the score! Where am I going to get these scores? If you don’t see the score, yes you’re opening your ears but you don’t get to see how things are notated. You have to set aside time to listen. 

N: I remember when I first started at the Conservatory, I realized I had not known how to listen. Marti Epstein really taught me how to listen. Learning how to sit down and focus, imaging the score and then comparing it to the physical score was such an important lesson. 

J: Yes, exactly. 

N: You also studied with Thea Musgrave. I don’t know many pieces by her but I love her horn concerto and her piece for horn and piano. Can you tell me a little bit about her? 

J: She’s an amazing composer and going strong. I think she’s 91 now and keeps composing away. She’s a different person than Earl. She shares his political consciousness and human rights consciousness. Thea is a Scotswoman. She’s very practical and very down to Earth. Her teaching is very practical. Unlike Earl, she would give you specific exercises. When I was working with her, I was working on a piece for solo soprano and orchestra. She was very good as thinking about the orchestra—be careful about that high horn note, do you really want that word with that vowel on a high note, etc. 

She has been a wonderful supportive composer. As a woman composer, she forged ahead writing big pieces and commissions. She did not have the second performances that she deserved until recently. Her 90th birthday brought a huge wave of new attention, both here and in Britain.

N: Thea’s lessons sound like Gerry’s lessons at Swarthmore. I remember all sorts of exercises that he made us do. We started off with only one note, then added octaves, etc. When I came to the Conservatory, I think I was a little frustrated with how free everything was—you know, “write what you want, and I’ll look at it each week.” 

J: I think there is a lot to be said about the two styles.

N: To close out, I wanted to ask you how you think our music industry can recover as we hopefully emerge from the pandemic? What do you think we should do to rebuild or reshape the industry? How can we be more accessible? 

J:  I think these online and zoom concerts are fabulous. Without technology, we wouldn’t be able to have any of this during the pandemic. The orchestra here, the National Philharmonic, the ones who did my opera, are doing an hour-long series at the moment, brilliantly curated with spoken introductions. I think it’s more lively than sitting in a dark concert hall when you’re sleepy, listening to something far away from you. I’m sure a lot of that will continue. 

I think the formality of the concert hall will change. I just hope we get back to that soon. It’s horrible for musicians. How can anyone earn a living? I think one wonderful thing that has happened with the protest movements is the recognition that composers who have been performed and played are mostly white men. I think already there has been a change with the online concerts. I hope that will continue. The other day, I saw a chamber concert where they didn’t mention that a composer was Black or a woman—they just included them very regularly in their repertoire. It was just wonderful that those people are in the canon. 

N: I hope those things continue. I don’t see a way to continue if those things don’t keep happening. Maybe I’m being hopeful, but there seems to be more interest in new music and commissioning people—paying people! I think we’re seeing that there is a lot more flexibility, that you can commission works that are meant for social distancing. 

J: Absolutely. It’s been a long period of stressing the past more than the present. 

N: With the online concerts, I think the experience is more accessible. People don’t have to drive to a concert—

J: Right! Or get dressed up or find parking.

N: The very first classical concert I went to was with my mom and dad at the Dallas Symphony. It was a concert with Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, and Copland. Both of my parents had no musical training, but they loved music. My dad was so incredibly uncomfortable in the concert setting. He didn’t know what to do or what to wear. After ten minutes at the concert, he was ready to leave. Now that concerts are online, I think people can ease themselves into music. They can listen to one piece without having to sit there for two hours. 

J: It’s much more suited to our lifestyle!

N: I kind of like seeing the comment section of a video go wild. It feels livelier—I think you’re right! It’s kind of weird to sit there in silence for two hours. 

J: Well, Nicholas, I hate to say goodbye—talking to you has been wonderful! I have to go now.

N: Thank you so much for speaking! It was an absolute pleasure meeting you. I can’t wait to listen to the recording of your opera, and I hope you join us on December 5 for the salon event. By the way, my music will be played on Dec 11 by the JACK Quartet at National Sawdust! 

J: It was a pleasure! Send me a reminder! Take care.

Nicholas Tran is a composer and Convergence Ensemble’s Administrative-Operations Manager. He earned his Bachelor’s of Music in Composition at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. His collaborators have included the JACK Quartet as part of the National Sawdust 2020 New Works Commission and the Mivos Quartet.