Chris Ludwig - Composer
Christopher Ludwig (1972 - )
Who I Am - A Short Bio (in the third person as is fashionable)
Christopher Ludwig is a Vancouver based composer and flute player. He holds Bachelor degrees in Music and in Education, as well as a Master degree in Composition from the University of British Columbia. Ludwig studied with a variety of composition teachers including Canadian composers Stephen Chatman and Robert Pritchard. To date, he has composed over a hundred compositions including orchestral, chamber, vocal, and piano. Ludwig currently teaches flute, music history, theory, ear training, composition and arranging at the Mount Royal Institute in Richmond, B.C.
What I Think
Contemporary music can be a difficult medium in which to make your mark as an artist. It cannot be hung on a wall or sit on a bookshelf. At the surface, it may seem an enigma to the unaccustomed listener - a type of music written for theorists, music graduates and elite performers. New music is clearly in danger of becoming an irrelevant art form if it is to be relegated to the sanctuaries of music departments and small music societies.
No two composers will agree as to what constitutes new music. The terms 'new', 'contemporary', 'avant-guarde' and 'experimental' can be confusing. We live in a unique time in music history. The doors have been blown open. As artists, we can do anything we want without ascribing to a specific 'camp' of composition. Some composers may react against the scorning masses by exploring the farthest reaches of musical architecture to impress a certain community of musicians. Still others may feel they need to write music that is as palatable as possible to the 'average' listener (if there is such a thing). My composition teacher suggested that one should write to please oneself. Clearly this is a good start.
I seek to enshrine meaning within a work in a variety of ways. It is the beauty of harmonic color, texture, and motivic structure that motivates me. I enjoy music that arrives, then leaves, music that pushes and pulls. The concepts of warmth, cold, absolutes and the suggestive all call to the listener's sense of aesthetics. When I tell my friends who are not musicians what to listen for, the structures within my music become more apparent. In an ideal world, each composer could talk to every musician and listener involved in the performance of a work. Perhaps new music should be a part of the school curriculum. Maybe we should expose people to it on television. A more practical option, however, would come about if all musicians performed the music of living composers regularly. While I have no absolute answers as to how society could make new music a part of everyone's life, I do know how we as artists can make inroads. Being a composer is an enriching and life altering activity. This is not to say that one should act as though we are bestowed with divine gifts that place us above the 'teeming masses'. Be an advocate of all music and art, not just for the musicians in your midst, but also those who you think could never be interested. Invite rather than repel.
I believe that a composer needs to balance the need for total freedom and self-expression with the natural architecture that is inherent in all music. It matters not whether the controls are strict or lax. Like any craft, music should be forged with love and enthusiasm, even in the most brash of contemporary idioms. If you care enough, it will usually rub off on the people around you. Remember that art is the cornerstone of civilization. Can you name ten famous businessmen from the 17th century? Now do the same for your favorite composers! When others look back at us hundreds of years from now, I hope that they will find us interesting and compelling just as we find the musicians of the Baroque and the Renaissance.
Life as a Canadian Composer
You could call me a Canadian Composer, a British Columbia Composer, or a Vancouver Composer; rather, I’d like to be known as a Tsawwassen Composer. Tsawwassen is situated on the southern extremity of Vancouver. Tsawwassen and Point Roberts (U.S.A.) form a small isolated peninsula that defiantly rises up above the adjacent mud banks of the Fraser River Delta - a suitable metaphor for my life as a composer. I no longer bemoan my isolation from the mainstream of BC composers, where the Canadian kaleidoscope of new music is fairly expansive, yet lacking some basic colour. The few concerts dedicated to lesser-known Vancouver composers can be incomparable, colourful and refreshing. Such has been my experience with the concerts that I have attended or where my music has been performed. Government and its’ granting bodies should pay more attention to the fringe composers of Western Canada. The resulting music scene would be richer.
The vantage from Tsawwassen is spectacular from the view of this quiet individualist Canadian composer. Here, overlooking the northward madness of Vancouver, hearing only a smattering of outlines, there is relative calm - where Canada meets the United States – where the land meets the Straight of Georgia – where one’s cultural and national identity may never be fully clear...
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