Two of his most recent operas, Two Boys<\/i> (2010) and Marnie<\/i> (2017), had their worldwide debuts at the English National Opera and their North American premieres at the Metropolitan Opera. In February 2019, Marnie,<\/i> an operatic adaptation of Winston Graham\u2019s 1961 novel, was shown in primetime on PBS\u2019 13th season of Great Performances at the Met<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Muhly, an artist-in-residence at BU Tanglewood Institute, is a \u201cprodigious talent,\u201d according to the New Yorker<\/i><\/a>; he\u2019s also a prolific one. As well as arranging for dozens of orchestras and ensembles, he\u2019s released solo albums; worked with artists like Bj\u00f6rk, Usher, and Grizzly Bear; and collaborated with musicians Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, and James McAlister on a solar system\u2013inspired album the Guardian<\/i><\/a> described as a \u201cheavenly suite of songs.\u201d<\/p>\n Being in demand means racking up a lot of air miles: Muhly splits his year between London and New York, but work may also take him to Hamburg, Singapore, Sydney, Los Angeles, and other cities around the globe. Muhly hasn\u2019t bent his artistic process to suit a life spent on the road; rather, he\u2019s molded the world to fit his preferred style of working. For extended trips, he packs his desktop computer, full-size keyboard\u2014it must have a number pad\u2014and portable MIDI keyboard. He prefers to stay in apartments where the tables are sturdy enough to hold all of his equipment.<\/p>\n \u201cI need to have a physical space,\u201d says Muhly. \u201cIf I\u2019m somewhere for longer than four or five days, I put up pictures of my friends, things that are totally a-musical that I can look at when my eyes tire of the page.\u201d He doesn\u2019t see these objects as distraction.<\/p>\n \u201cThe opposite. It\u2019s much more grounding,\u201d says Muhly. \u201cIt\u2019s just a way to create a sense of continuity because I travel so much.\u201d<\/p>\n He also roots himself by listening to music with a score every day, even if only for five minutes. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter where I am, what I\u2019m doing; just to remind myself where I come from,\u201d he says of connecting with his profession. \u201cJust a little bit of grounding and listening is really important and having a dialogue in your mind with other people\u2019s music.\u201d<\/p>\n Muhly is interested in the habits of other composers, not to emulate them but as a way to \u201clook toward someone else\u2019s detail.\u201d In an October 2018 diary article for the London Review of Books<\/i><\/a>, Muhly wrote that what he wants to hear from other composers is \u201cshoptalk: What kinds of pencil are you using? How are you finding this particular piece of software? Do you watch the news while you work? I find these details telling.\u201d<\/p>\n When Muhly talks about his creative process with CFA <\/i>magazine, the conversation is loaded with telling details: his favorite type of pen, his document storage preferences, how he maps a composition. His descriptions turn composing from an ethereal act to a tactile one.<\/p>\n When Muhly started composing, he\u2019d pull notes, snippets of rhythms, from the air and throw them onto paper. Then he\u2019d stitch all the bits together. For listeners, he says, the finished piece of music was like an unsatisfying dinner at a fancy small-plate restaurant: the morsels were delicious, but you left hungry and made a beeline for a pizza joint. \u201cAll my pieces were 55 great ideas in a row\u2014there was no structure.\u201d<\/p>\n Handwritten notes and physical organization are central to Muhly’s creative process. “I still find the case–and this is absolutely generational–that when my neck is bent, looking down, I feel much more productive than when I’m looking at a screen, which feels to me like a passive exercise,” he says.<\/p><\/div>\n Today, when he\u2019s working on a commission, he doesn\u2019t notch any notes until he\u2019s mapped out the piece\u2019s structure.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are the high points? What are the low points? If it\u2019s an opera, what is the narrative of the piece?\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just a diagram. It almost looks like an EKG of your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n A conversation with Muhly rarely stays in one place. It ambles from the \u201cincredibly moving\u201d blog dedicated to Old and Middle English that he adores and thinks you might too, to an \u201cextraordinary\u201d stone carving business in Rhode Island to his \u201cobsession\u201d with how to balance a whaling ban against the rights of first peoples.<\/p>\n So many topics pique his interest\u2014art, history, current affairs. \u201cI\u2019m constantly doing things that aren\u2019t writing music, which makes the music better.\u201d In fact, before writing a single note, Muhly has a period of what he has called \u201cimprovisational research\u201d: diving around the internet, printing articles and pictures, soaking up ideas.<\/p>\n \u201cYou go down the rabbit hole and that\u2019s such a pleasure,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s an element of procrastination, which I will freely admit, but I find myself deeply productive when I\u2019m thinking about another thing.\u201d<\/p>\n In his diary for the London Review of Books<\/i>, Muhly described his research as a \u201cmagical vessel full of information and possibility.\u201d And, if it\u2019s hard to see how the study of whaling policies can shape a cello concerto, Muhly can\u2019t explain it either.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the magic trick, right? I don\u2019t know how it comes out, but I do know that it does,\u201d he says. There\u2019s no direct connection between A and B, \u201cbut it\u2019s more like you just feel yourself expanding.\u201d<\/p>\n Muhly describes his soundproofed New York office space as a luxury “that not a lot of composers have.” But it’s one that has contributed to a better work-life balance. His office and home have different feels: “My home is very uncluttered,” he says. The studio is not messy, but “a little more populated.”<\/p><\/div>\n With the structure in place and rabbit holes explored, says Muhly, the music flows quickly. Knowing the physical boundaries of a piece helps him figure out which notes should go where. He says it\u2019s like deciding where to put furniture in a new apartment.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, it\u2019s once you\u2019ve marinated in the empty space long enough and you know the physical restrictions\u2014you know how big it is, you know how wide the doors are, the things that aren\u2019t going to change\u2014and that\u2019s musically structure,\u201d he says, and then \u201cthings present themselves in this kind of magical way, and you think, \u2018Oh, this is where the Welsh dresser can go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In the past, Muhly would write everything out by hand, then input it into the computer where it would stay. Today, it\u2019s a more fluid process. In his studio, his computer is hooked up to two screens\u2014one horizontal, one vertical\u2014two chunky speakers, and a MIDI keyboard. He\u2019ll input the bulk of a composition using the music notation software Sibelius, then print it out and scribble on it (he prefers uni-ball pens, for those interested in the shoptalk details), repeating the process through revisions and editing.<\/p>\n \u201cI still find the case\u2014and this is absolutely generational\u2014that when my neck is bent, looking down, I feel much more productive than when I\u2019m looking at a screen, which feels to me like a passive exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n Muhly commissioned the stone \u201cM\u201d that rests on his harmonium \u201cas a memorial stone for a friend with that initial.\u201d Talking about it sends Muhly down one of his rabbit holes\u2014the history of stone carving; then to a local stone carving business founded in 1705; then to traveling and learning languages…<\/p><\/div>\n Although a conversation with Muhly is freewheeling, his working process is tightly organized. Every new project gets a physical folder\u2014always with flaps\u2014which will become home to Muhly\u2019s maps and research. As the composition progresses, he\u2019ll also use the folder to store manuscripts.<\/p>\n He came up with the system as a student in New York at Columbia University and the Juilliard School, squeezed into a tiny dorm room.<\/p>\n \u201cNew York spaces you have access to are very, very small,\u201d says Muhly. \u201cYou have to figure out how to compartmentalize your work, just physically.\u201d As a student, he could easily grab his work and run to class; as a professional composer, he finds the folders bring a similar benefit. \u201cWhen I\u2019m at Tanglewood, I\u2019m teaching in the afternoons, but in the mornings, I have some time to write, so I get up and I can just grab the red folder and I\u2019m going.\u201d<\/p>\n Wherever he travels in the world, the folders travel too.<\/p>\n From the moment he prints a manuscript, Muhly is editing. Sometimes alone, sometimes with an editor, sometimes with a collaborator. With choreographer Benjamin Millepied, Muhly says, the collaboration starts with a discussion about structure over a meal, \u201cthen I go away and start sending him music. And I\u2019ve learned from him that either he says, \u2018Yes, this is great, this is perfect,\u2019 or, \u2018I need more time here or less time here.\u2019 So that\u2019s more of a group editing process.\u201d<\/p>\n With Nicholas Wright, the librettist for Marnie<\/i>, a lot of that work was done in person. The two were even editing together right up until opening night: Wright and Muhly chopped an entire scene at the last moment. When they brought Marnie<\/i> from the United Kingdom to the United States, they continued tinkering, adding a short scene to close a gap in the story they felt their previous cut had exposed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe found it left a hole in Marnie\u2019s trajectory\u2014something terribly important that wasn\u2019t dealt with in her story,\u201d Wright told Broadway World Opera<\/i><\/a> in October 2018. \u201cIt was all about Marnie\u2019s recovery and journey from the act of violence at the hands of her husband\u2014to make sure that was adequately dealt with.\u201d<\/p>\n Every project and every collaboration is different, says Muhly. \u201cWith collaboration, you just have to see each thing as its own ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\nDrawing a Map<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nDown the Rabbit Hole<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nPlacing Furniture<\/h3>\n
![\"Muhly](\"\/cfa-magazine\/files\/2019\/05\/re-19-1076-CFAMUHLY-004.jpg\")
Physical Compartmentalization<\/h3>\n
Editing an Ecosystem<\/h3>\n