The dissection unit of high-school biology is an adolescent rite of
passage, even for those who don’t participate: Some kids opt to cut
class rather than frogs; others call in PETA. But not composer Nico
Muhly. “My lab partner and I made short work of LaShawnda, our fetal
pig,” he remembers. Muhly, 26, scoffs at the notion that he might have
been squeamish: “What kind of show do you think I’m running here?”
At first glance, a very respectable, highbrow one. The New England
native has genuine cred with the tuxedoes-and-tiaras set. He holds a
master’s in music from Juilliard, where his instructors included John
Corigliano, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has written
works for the Boston Pops, the American Ballet Theatre, and the Chicago
Symphony MusicNOW. Prestigious institutions including the BBC, Carnegie
Hall, and the Whitney Museum have hosted premieres of his pieces.
But appearances are deceptive. Scrape below the surface, and one
discovers an individual fascinated with taking things apart and
reassembling them in unorthodox ways. One of Muhly’s recent works, the
oceanic sound collage “Wonders,” uses a bowl of whale meat for
percussion. His closet houses Comme des Garçons deconstructed
shirts and a series of smocks “recycled from ‘authentic French workers
garments.'” On his blog, he raves about the repurposed tapestries and
chairs of sculptor Louise Bourgeois. His favorite bedtime reading as a
child was David Macaulay’s The Way Things Work, a vividly
illustrated book that demystifies machines large and small.
Consequently, Muhly attracts other artists who rend conventions
asunder; his résumé lists credits more familiar to folks
who get their music tips from Pitchfork rather than season-
ticket
subscription brochures. Björk has utilized his gifts—as a
pianist, arranger, and conductor—on her last three albums. Ditto
the National, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Teitur, and Rufus Wainwright.
“Keep in Touch,” from Muhly’s 2006 debut, Speaks Volumes, was
written with its distinctive singer, Antony, as much in mind as the
violist who solicited the piece.
Incongruous? Not to Muhly. “I remember when my mom and I lived in
Italy,” he recalls. “I went to Italian public school, and my friends
could not get over the fact that we didn’t eat hot dogs and hamburgers
at home. The idea that my mother could navigate tortellini totally
rocked their world. Other times, Mom would make a potato salad, and
that was totally fine, too. We never felt like we were doing fusion or
Tex-Mex, we were just living our lives.”
He arrived at his musical style via similarly crossed paths. He
discovered underground sounds slowly, while studying English Lit at
Columbia. “This kid I knew said, ‘Hey, you like music—check out
this bizarre, noisy CD my friend sent me from Japan.'” A Sugarcubes fan
tipped him off to Björk. Gradually, his sonic world expanded. “But
it didn’t all jell until later,” he stresses. “It’s like evolution: Not
all giraffes got longer necks in the same year.”
So don’t ask Muhly to stick a pin labeled “You Are Here” apropos of
his place in modern music. He prefers to locate his work via his
stylistic points of origin: pre-Baroque English composers of church
music, and classical minimalists like Philip Glass (for whom he has
edited, scored, and conducted myriad projects) and Steve Reich; he
discusses the merits of the latest Rihanna single (“her voice is
totally crazy”) with the same relish as John Adams’s orchestral piece
“Short Ride in a Fast Machine.”
“I feel like I have a lot of fun access,” he adds of his ability to
move between worlds. “At this point, people aren’t in my grill about my
decisions.” Last year, he even wrote the score for the horror movie
Joshua.
Despite that curious credit, Nico Muhly is hardly l’enfant
terrible, cutting up sacred cows like he did poor LaShawnda. His
creative process is intense. He starts by brainstorming wildly, culling
from disparate sources and inspirations. Then he meticulously
reassembles select bits to his specifications. Whether the results
evoke Frankenstein’s monster or an heirloom patchwork quilt is beside
the point; either way, his music is striking.
As scattershot as his processes may seem, he does not eschew
structure. Even his most disorienting pieces are carefully scored. He
just sifts through tons of ideas before he gets to that stage; when
composing the percussion piece “Pillaging Music,” he created far more
content than the piece required, then stripped parts away, sometimes
with jarring results. “The idea is you’re left with these husks of
music,” he explains.
His new album, Mothertongue, slices, stretches, and
stratifies language and the human voice. “The Only Tune,” featuring
folk musician Sam Amidon, explodes a woodsy murder ballad. At first,
the lyric is splintered, Amidon teasing out words one at a time. But as
his banjo comes in, the singer finds a center of gravity, and a more
traditional song, some mystic Appalachian air, takes shape… only to
disintegrate and regenerate in other configurations, as wind and rain
mingle with piano and viola.
“The Only Tune” features on the program for the 802 Tour, on which
Muhly, Amidon, and Thomas Barlett of Doveman perform selections from
their individual repertory in various permutations. Like most things in
Muhly’s universe, these shows are neither fish nor fowl, recital nor
rock concert. Being out of the concert hall, he says, is a thrilling
prospect.
“In classical music, when you do a show, you prepare for months and
months, and know everything way in advance,” he observes. “Whereas on a
tour, a tire blows out and all of the sudden your date is canceled.”
Well, that might be an exaggeration: The industrious youngster who
memorized The Way Things Work can undoubtedly change a tire…
or just patch the damaged one with pigskin. 
