Internationally renowned composer Nico Muhly comes home to Vermont with piece for VSO

Nico Muhly is a world traveler. The composer was home in New York when he spoke with the Burlington Free Press in early April, but on the days before and after that conversation his itinerary included trips to Paris, Los Angeles and London.

When he’s home, though – not home in New York, but home home, the place where he feels he really belongs – it’s in central Vermont.

“If I say I’m going home,” Muhly said, “it’s to Randolph.”

One of the world’s most highly regarded contemporary composers, Muhly was born 42 years ago at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph. His parents lived primarily in Providence, Rhode Island, but their home and artistic studio in Tunbridge, outside Randolph, is where he feels most rooted, having spent every summer and most weekends there.

Considering his Vermont connections, it’s a little surprising that Muhly has never written a commissioned piece for the state’s most prominent classical organization, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. That changes May 4 when the VSO and another Vermont-born musician making waves internationally, pianist Adam Tendler, premiere a piece Muhly created specifically for Tendler and the VSO.

Working at Carnegie Hall, with Sufjan Stevens

The composer has certainly written high-profile commissioned pieces before, for the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and more. Muhly has collaborated with choreographers including Benjamin Millepied at the Paris Opera Ballet and Kyle Abraham at the New York City Ballet. He has dipped into the world of popular music to work with indie stars such as Bryce Dessner of The National and Sufjan Stevens.

Muhly’s mother, Bunny Harvey, an artist and teacher, attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. Muhly’s father, documentary filmmaker Frank Muhly, also went to school in the city, attending Brown University. Harvey taught at Wellesley College, 35 miles away in Massachusetts, so the family lived mostly in Providence, where Muhly attended school.

Muhly said his mother’s parents had homes in Woodstock and Randolph Center before his parents bought an old Cape Cod-style home in Tunbridge in the 1970s that they’ve added onto bit by bit. Those additions include a studio where Muhly sometimes creates his compositions.

“It’s gradually expanded into this kind of magical place,” said Muhly, who called the Tunbridge home “a gathering point” for friends and family. When he describes it to first-time visitors he says, “Yes, the highway (Interstate 89) is there, kind of, but it’s a click farther away than other places.”

Muhly attends festivals and collaborates with musicians worldwide, but that doesn’t keep him from Vermont. Sometimes, he said, he’ll wake up in a place like Helsinki, fly to Boston, board a tiny plane bound for Lebanon, New Hampshire, and arrive in Tunbridge to find himself “grilling a chicken at 6 p.m.”

Compositions by Justin Morgan

The story of how Muhly came to work on the VSO piece, a co-commission with the New Jersey Symphony, is not complicated.

“The phone rang and I said ‘Sure,’” he said. “It was pretty simple.”

The composition itself, a piano concerto titled “Sounding,” was not as easy. Muhly based the 15-minute piece on hymns by Justin Morgan, the renowned 18^th-century horse breeder who lived in Randolph.

“He was kind of a polymath,” Muhly said of Morgan. “He was a composer/horse breeder. I think he was also a publisher. He was one of the originators of shape-note music.”

Tapping into music a couple of centuries old is not uncommon for Muhly. “I would say a lot of my music is in some sort of dialogue with the past, either explicitly or not,” he said. But Morgan’s style didn’t mesh easily with Muhly’s approach.

“That music is actually quite at variance with the music from the past that I really relate to, which is Anglican choral music,” Muhly said. He had to translate Morgan’s style into his own language.

“That was randomly more challenging than I thought,” Muhly said. “It kind of doesn’t matter how big the piece is. You still have to have a really good idea.”

Adam Tendler plays Muhly’s music

Muhly often writes compositions with friends in mind to play them. He wrote “Sounding” to be played by Tendler, who grew up outside Barre, just up Vermont 14 from Tunbridge. Muhly said Tendler can provide the “technical fireworks” the piece requires.

Muhly said he likes to ask when writing for a musician such as Tendler “how does this fit in your hands?” Then, he said, “I am able to tailor the suit.”

Tendler performed April 11 at The Phoenix in Waterbury in conjunction with the Waterbury-based contemporary chamber group TURNmusic. The program featured eight piano pieces written by Muhly between 2005 and 2022.

The works displayed Muhly’s range, from the delicate, deliberate tone of “Lilt” to the more energetic and flamboyant “Move.” Tendler concluded with “Eiris, Sones,” a Muhly composition that will appear on Tendler’s upcoming album.

Tendler said he didn’t know Muhly while growing up in Vermont; they became friends while living in New York. “I really started as a fan of his,” Tendler told the audience at The Phoenix.

He described Muhly’s music as “precise,” but also surprising. Muhly likes to include what Tendler called “glitches” in his compositions, where one note can change the shape of an entire piece.

“I call it sometimes the ‘anti-ending,’” Tendler said, adding that Muhly might not care for that description. “I think it’s interesting to hear something that upends what has been established.”

Muhly will be back in Vermont for the May 4 performance of “Sounding.” He said he’s “really happy with the piece,” despite having wrestled with creating it.

“I’m glad I did it,” Muhly said, “so I don’t have to do it anymore.”

If you go

WHAT: “Mozart, Mazzoli, and Muhly,” a concert presented by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 4

WHERE: The Flynn, Burlington

INFORMATION: $8.35-$59. www.vso.org

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.