Jarrad Powell (Music ‘83 / Faculty, Music Department) defies the boundaries of musical traditions and forms. A highly complex and prolific artist, he pursues music along seemingly infinite avenues, including instrumental music for western and non-western instruments, vocal music, music for theater, dance and, more recently, film. Jarrad describes himself as “living the complete musical life.” He composes, performs, teaches, writes and builds instruments.
Jarrad Powell
Jarrad has been a faculty member in the Music Department at Cornish College of the Arts since 1987. He is Director of Gamelan Pacifica, one of the most active and adventurous gamelan ensembles in the United States; Music Director and Composer for the contemporary dance company, Scott/Powell Performance; and Co-Director of Composer/Choreographer, a venue that provides opportunities for composers and choreographers to work together in a collaborative process.
“Today, music has become increasingly diverse as to its sources, traditions and forms. In such a world, cooperation among artists must be achieved, not through likeness and homogeneity, but through differentiation and interdependence,” Jarrad explains. “This belief has led me to pursue in my own work both a diversity of means and an interest in collaboration, especially across disciplinary and even cultural boundaries.”
Jarrad has been especially noted for his work with Javanese gamelan. Since the early 1980s, he has directed the group Gamelan Pacifica, which was among the first ensembles to develop the resources to create and perform gamelan music in the U.S. Jarrad has collaborated with many noted Indonesian artists both here and in Indonesia and created compositions and theater pieces that are considered landmarks in the gamelan movement in this country. Gamelan Pacifica not only explores the music of Indonesia but also explores gamelan as a new compositional resource and a form of musical expression in the U.S.
Jarrad Powell with Gamelan Pacifica
“Gamelan music is about music-making as community process to a degree that I have not experienced in other forms of music,” Jarrad explains. “Also, it has allowed me to access in some way the deep tradition of another musical culture.”
Jarrad’s early musical inspiration came from his mother, who believed that music was an important part of life. “She knew how to play a little piano and had managed to scrape together $100 to buy a used piano, so that is where I started, with piano lessons from my mother. From that time on, I always played music in one form or another.”
A big turning point for Jarrad occurred after being introduced to the works of American composers John Cage, Harry Partch and Lou Harrison. “Here was creative music-making that made sense of the various things that interested me - experimentalism, non-western music, early music, folk music, technology - and I began to see how I could be a part of the kind of tradition that this music was establishing.”
Jarrad received his BFA in Music from Cornish in 1983. “When I came to Cornish, there was a lot of vitality in the area of creative music-making and contemporary composition. This was a revelation to me, since my previous musical experiences had been private or university or conservatory-type experiences.
I worked day and night and immersed myself in this remarkable opportunity, and it helped shape my sense of what an artistic community should be. When I went to grad school at Mills and studied at the Center for Contemporary Music there, I was able to carry forward what I had learned at Cornish and make the most of that experience. It is this sense of artistic community that influenced my professional life and eventually shaped my own approach to teaching.
It was at Cornish that Jarrad met choreographer Mary Sheldon Scott, with whom he founded Scott/Powell Performance in 1994. Since then, they have created 14 new works; their recent work Locate premiered at McCaw Hall in Seattle this past spring during the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Celebrate Seattle Festival. “We try to think of our work as theater where the movement and sound are on an equal footing rather than the idea of dancing to music. Synchronicities can occur between the sound and the music, but they can also proceed somewhat independently,” he explains. “In the development of our latest work, I am working more directly in the rehearsal process and also involving the dancers in the sound-making itself in order to further blur these boundaries.”
“Locate”, choreography by Mary Sheldon Scott, original music by Jarrad Powell. Photo by Angela Sterling
Jarrad is currently working on a new piece for Scott/Powell Performance, called Geography. It will premiere in Seattle at On the Boards in November and tour to the Myrna Loy Center in Helena, Montana, this coming February. Fellow Cornish faculty member, Robert Campbell, is also collaborating on this project as the visual designer. Three of the performers - Ellie Sandstrom, Jim Kent and Jess Klein - are graduates from the Cornish Dance Department.
One of Jarrad’s more recent projects includes music for the innovative short films of Robert Campbell, Tilt, Eidolon and Delta of C16H22O4. These are short non-narrative films that rely primarily on image and sound to create a unified work of art that is abstract but richly suggestive and emotional. “In a way, this work grew out of our work together in dance. Bob has done the visual design for several pieces for Scott/Powell Performance, and it was in this idiom where we first explored the relationship between his visual elements and my sound. From that experience, collaboration evolved naturally in the area of film, because that is a medium in which Bob likes to work.”
“Delta of C16H22O4.”, film by Robert Campbell, original music by Jarrad Powell
Through his work in dance, film and theater, Jarrad became increasingly interested in the possibilities of electro-acoustic music. “For me, it is inspiring creatively because it is the idiom that is most free of historical references and, somewhat ironically, the one that has brought me closest to nature, because in electro-acoustic music all sounds are available to us, so we learn to listen differently and often more deeply.”
“I guess you could say I develop in two directions at once, as someone who understands and respects tradition and as someone interested in innovation. I do not wish to resolve this contradiction. On the contrary, it is the means by which I advance into the future.”
by Meike Kaan
