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On collaborating with my husband, composer Timothy C. Takach

Growing up as an only child in rural North Dakota encouraged a lot of creative, solitary play. It's definitely a contributing factor to my journey becoming a composer. Most of my compositional work today continues to be solitary, but every once in a while I am thrust into a collaborative situation in which my own creative juices must mix into a cocktail with someone else's.

Such is the case with my current project This Is How You Love, with my husband Tim. Eric Banks, conductor of the Seattle choir The Esoterics, had this crazy idea to have us compose a piece together ~ and not just a short, little experimental work, but half a program! ~ and base it on the subject of marriage! I know this idea scared me a lot more than it scared Tim. As a founder of Cantus (men's vocal ensemble) he was used to collaborating on a daily level. I've occasionally collaborated with choreographers and poets and electronic musicians...but....eek! I was not sure this would go well. All the possibilities for what and how we could argue made me more than a little queasy.

But I'm here to tell you that it's actually been fantastic. Sure, we've argued about a few things and had a few setbacks, but I'm really proud of the music we have created together.

This week we've been diligently working on this setting of "the love song for empty spaces." The poem was written by one of our very favorite muses, Julia Klatt Singer, and is a wonderful depiction of our current life together.

the love song of empty spaces

We commit to memory the sound of ice
melting in a glass, the amber glow
of a streetlight and the darkness
just out of its reach

Tucked neatly behind your folded arms
lie all the secrets this land has buried
truths you promise to tell me when
the wind is right.

There is no need for words with this still
life between us. We can see our future
in this fading sky, can read each other's
minds in the scent of late summer rain.

For this song we decided to sit down at the piano together and hash it through, note by note. I love how you can see our different handwriting on the manuscript paper ~ a beautiful co-mingling of our compositional material (which reminds me of the results of our co-mingling of genetic material: our children). Tim uses a thicker, darker pencil than I do.

This Is How You Love will end up being about 7 movements long, for mixed a cappella choir with a few soloists. So far we've written a few partner songs for double choir, and a piece where we have traded off sections back and forth. The creative process for this love song felt different. A step further.

We're very much looking forward to our trip to Seattle February 9-11 for the premiere. If you're in the area, we'd love to see you there.