[MUSIC PLAYING]
NICK MICELI: I wrote
an intro for my guest,
but Carnegie Hall wrote
a much better one,
so I'm going to read theirs.
Christopher Tin is a two-time
Grammy award-winning composer.
His music has been
performed and premiered
in many of the world's
most prestigious venues--
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center,
and the Hollywood Bowl.
He has been performed
by ensembles
diverse as the Philharmonic
Orchestra, Metropole Orchestra,
and the US Navy
Band, and has also
conducted concerts
of his own music
with the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Welsh
National Opera Orchestra.
His song "Baba Yetu,"
originally written
for the video game
"Civilization IV,"
is a modern choral standard
and the first piece
of music written
for a video game
ever to win a Grammy
award as officially
noted by "The Guinness
Book of World Records."
His debut album
"Calling All Dawns"
won him a second Grammy for
Best Classical Crossover
Album in that same year.
Although a frequent DCINY
composer in residence,
yesterday marked Mr.
Tin's conducting debut
on the DCINY series.
So thank you for joining me.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Thanks, Nick.
Thank you, Google.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
NICK MICELI: So I wanted to
kick off with "Baba Yetu"
because that is what seemed to
have kick-started everything.
Right?
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
It really did, yes.
NICK MICELI: And so
for the lucky few who
are uninitiated and
aren't familiar with it,
we have a video to
play of the song.
We're going to just play
the first chunk of it.
And the video
involves a cinematic
from the game
"Civilization IV," so that
explains why the graphics
are a little bit [INAUDIBLE]
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
It's like-- yeah.
Yeah, graphics from
2005, basically.
It's very pixelated.
NICK MICELI: Let's
roll the film.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Enjoy.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC - CHRISTOPHER TIN, "BABA
 YETU"]
[END PLAYBACK]
Hey.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
NICK MICELI: So,
how did this begin?
"The Guinness Book
of World Records"
says that you were
contacted by the team.
But the truth is, it was a
little more lucky networking,
right?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
Well, sort of.
So the story is, I was
five years out of school,
and I went back to my
five-year college reunion
back at Stanford and I
ran into my old roommate.
And we reconnected and he said,
I'm now a video game designer
and I'm working on this
game "Civilization IV."
And I said, oh, I
love the "Civ" series.
You know, I played
"Civilization" growing up.
And he said, well,
we're looking for--
I got a call a couple of months
later where he said, basically,
we're looking for someone to
write a new theme for our game.
And I played the
development team
some of the music that
you wrote back in college,
and they loved the
international influence.
They love that you had
worked with African gospel
choirs and Japanese
taiko ensembles
and you knew your way
around an orchestra.
And so, they
basically commissioned
me to write a song
for "Civilization IV."
And this being my first time
writing for a video game,
I really wanted to
make a big impression,
so I spent a lot of time
working on this song.
Like, the opening melody,
the first four bars, it
took literally a
week of throwing out,
you know, only passable ideas
until I came across a great one
that I decided to develop.
And so, writing the piece
took about a month to do.
But I'm glad I spent
the time to do it,
because it really took on a life
of its own outside of the game,
after the game came out.
NICK MICELI: Oh, yeah.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: And it's really
what sort of put me on the map
in the professional
community, and it
was sort of the starting
point and the basis
for which I sort of launched
my own career as a recording
artist and as a classical
composer as well.
NICK MICELI: So how much
direction did they give you?
Did you know that
it was going to have
this big globe in the background
with the sun circling around
it?
Did they tell you they
wanted a certain theme,
or did they just kind
of say, have at it?
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
You know, what's
actually really
great about working
with them is that there wasn't
over-direction, in a way.
They literally just
sent me a picture
of the globes, as
seen from outer space,
with the sun rising over it.
And that's kind of all
I had to work with,
which was all I needed,
really, because I'm a very
visually-oriented person.
And sometimes,
when I see an image
that really strikes
emotion within me,
then I react musically.
As a composer, you want
to be reactive to things.
Right?
You want to hear
something and say, oh, I
know what follows that.
Or you want to see
something and you
want to say, oh, I know
what should accompany that.
I sent them initial
drafts of ideas.
My former roommate
was a cellist as well,
so he's a very musical
guy and a radio DJ
actually, so he knew
his stuff and he gave me
some really useful notes--
things like, at this point,
two minutes into the piece,
I think you need a
bridge because it's
getting a little boring, and
so I wrote a bridge based
on his notes.
NICK MICELI: Right
where we faded out?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Right
where you faded out.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
But if you know the song,
it's the part that goes,
"ufalme wako."
Sorry, my voice is a
little shot because I've
been talking to people
for like 24 hours straight
since the Carnegie
concert right now.
It's been a little intense.
But you know, I got just the
right amount of direction
from them, and just a
perfect amount of freedom,
which is kind of a rarity
when you're working
in films or TV or video games.
Sometimes, there's a
tendency to over-direct.
NICK MICELI: And the reception
has been absolutely incredible.
I mean, I did a quick check
on YouTube just to see--
I typed in "'Baba Yetu'
covers," and there were so many,
almost every one of them
having millions-- some of them,
tens of millions-- of views.
I found acapella, guitar, piano,
saxophone quartet, otamatone.
It was performed by
Tommy Tallarico's
Rico's "Video Game Music Live."
It was on "America's
Got Talent" twice.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Twice
in the same season, yeah.
NICK MICELI: It was
the same season?
I didn't know that.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
This past season.
NICK MICELI: One of them
got a golden buzzer,
and the other one
was a dance routine.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: In
the finals, yeah.
NICK MICELI: So what has
that been like for you,
seeing this song take
a life of its own?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It's been
great, I mean, fantastic.
I mean, I love it.
You know, honestly,
I love the covers.
And the weirder the
covers, the better.
Like the otamatone cover--
so weird.
So great though.
NICK MICELI: For
those who don't know,
it's a Japanese toy with a
face that you kind of squish.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
You squish the face.
It goes [IMITATING SOUND].
NICK MICELI: And a neck
that, as you touch, it goes.
[IMITATING SOUND],,
and that's it.
That's the whole instrument.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I love it.
I love it.
The weirder, the better, to me.
NICK MICELI:
[IMITATING OTAMATONE]
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
Banjo covers-- oh
my god, so great.
Like, ukulele covers--
I mean, I love them all.
And of course, there's a
lot of choirs that sing it.
In fact, Google's very own
in-house acappella group,
Scalability, performed
it last year.
Right?
NICK MICELI: Nice transition.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Hey.
Well done, right?
Shout out to Google here.
NICK MICELI: Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Thank you.
Thank you very much.
But yeah, it's great
actually, seeing
it kind of travel the world
and take on a life of its own.
And then, honestly, what's
a lot of fun too is,
sometimes, you see it performed
at weddings, for example.
I'm a big softie.
Oops.
I'm a big softie, so I love
seeing things like that,
or hearing stories
of people processing
down the aisle to my music.
Oh, my god.
It makes me so
emotional, so I love it.
NICK MICELI: It was
performed at the UN,
and that makes a lot of sense
because one of the top comments
is always, if there was a
national anthem for humanity,
this would be it.
It seems to just be an
excellent sort of collection
of all those feelings.
So when you wanted
to capture that,
what made you think to use
the Lord's Prayer in Swahili?
Like, it was such an
interesting source text.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: OK.
This is one of these mundane
answers to what should
be a very poetic question.
But basically, the
choir that I was using
was my own acappella
group from Stanford.
This is for the original
recording on the game.
And they just
happened to know how
to pronounce the words to
the Lord's Prayer in Swahili,
and that happened to fit
the rhythm of my melody,
so I said, there we go.
Let's just do it.
NICK MICELI: It worked.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: But I had to
run it by the development team,
of course, because
you can't just
do this, something like that.
And, as it turns out, this
was the first iteration
of the "Civilization" franchise
that featured religion
as a playable element.
So they thought, oh, well,
this works out great,
so let's do it.
NICK MICELI: That's awesome.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I
mean, at one point,
I had sort of toyed with
the idea, which is very--
it's common in
scoring circles, when
you have some sort of choir
on your soundtrack, just
to make up a bunch of gibberish.
Right?
And there are composers
that base entire careers
on that sort of thing.
NICK MICELI: Like pseudo-Latin.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah,
pseudo-Latin basically.
And I thought, no,
I don't want to do
that because I love extra
layers of meaning in things.
So let's actually use a
language, a living language,
and a text that has a deeper
meaning to it so that people
can start to explore
and think about how they
want to engage with this song.
You know?
NICK MICELI: That's a great
transition to the album,
but I have to ask,
since you mentioned,
if you play "Civ," which
civilization do you play?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It's been a
while since I've played "Civ."
"Civ IV" was actually
the last "Civ"
I played because, since
then, I, you know--
NICK MICELI: Life.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah, had
a kid, just got married,
just no time to play "Civ."
And "Civ" is not exactly an
easy game just to flip on and--
NICK MICELI: No.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
--flip off, right?
NICK MICELI: [INAUDIBLE]
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It's like
a four week commitment,
you know, the moment
you fire it up.
So it's been hard to actually
ever find time to play.
I used to play as the Romans.
NICK MICELI: Nice.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
Or the Mongolians.
NICK MICELI: Good choices.
So your album, "Calling All
Dawns," every one of the tracks
is featured in a different
language, all of them
with fascinating source text.
So we've got-- from starting
in the Swahili, it goes into--
I have it here--
Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese,
French, Latin, Irish, Polish,
Hebrew, Farsi,
Sanskrit, and Maori.
So, was this something
that you were working on
at the same time?
Did it come to life after
"Baba Yetu" was written?
How did the two kind
of come together?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It
came after "Baba Yetu."
So what happened was
"Baba Yetu" took off
and took on a life of its own.
And I got an email from
someone who said, hey,
do you have an album
of material like this?
Because if you did, I
would totally buy it.
And that's all it
took for me to say,
oh, I should make an album now.
Because one guy is going to
buy my album, I was like,
let's do it.
NICK MICELI: Got one.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I got one.
That's all I need.
And so, at that point,
I thought, well, OK,
what are we going to do?
Like, do I just make
an album of settings
of various Christian texts
in African languages,
or do I think broader in scope?
And so I thought about this idea
of making something that was
very inclusive, very worldwide.
And I love to travel actually.
I love going out there and
visiting new countries,
visiting new people,
learning things
about different cultures,
eating new foods.
I mean, I'm just very
into all of that.
And so, for me, it was
just an easy choice.
Let's do something that sort
of reflected my interest
in multiculturalism
and internationalism
and different religions
and different philosophies.
But also, it was a
way to avoid being
pigeonholed as that
African choral music guy.
Right?
NICK MICELI: Smart.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
Because there is nothing
that the industry loves more
than coming up with a label
and slapping it on you
for life, and I really
wanted to avoid that.
So "Calling All Dawns" came out
of that spirit of just wanting
to embrace the world, but also
not to make a very bad career
decision.
NICK MICELI: I noticed
that the performance
of "Baba Yetu" in the
original "Civilization"
is different than the
one on your album.
There's a few key differences.
One of the ones
I picked up on is
you have a little motif in
there that references the theme
to your second track--
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
"Mado Kara Mieru."
NICK MICELI: Thank you.
And so, that seems
to be something
that you layered in later on.
So was this intentional?
You wanted to kind of
reference other tracks?
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
Yes, absolutely.
So if the philosophy
behind your album--
your multilingual, multi-ethnic,
multi-religious album--
is one of connectedness,
and this idea that,
whatever language you speak,
whatever God you pray to,
we're all sort of cut
of the same cloth.
As human beings, we all
share commonalities.
Then, the way you
express that in music
is you interweave
all of the songs
together and have a
motif from one piece
recur in a later movement,
or preface a latter movement
with just a hint of a melody
in an earlier movement,
and things like that.
So you connect them all and you
come up with a story that way.
And you come up with like
a matrix of relationships,
like this language
is tied into--
or like, you know, this culture
is tied into this culture,
and we connect that
with a musical motif.
So it's a very common
and old musical technique
that composers have been
using since the 19th century,
but it was what
this album needed.
NICK MICELI: Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
NICK MICELI: The choice
of text behind the songs
often has a lot of meaning.
Your first album has
this whole cycle of day
into night into dawn.
The album ends
the way it begins.
You have this nice symbolism.
But your average
listener isn't going
to know what a lot of
the text is talking about
unless they happen to have
a translation open in front
of them.
So, given that this is a
choral piece and the chorus
is the center of it,
how important is that?
How important is the meaning
of the text behind it?
Is there sort of
like an extra layer
for the passionate listeners?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I never
thought that it was--
I never wanted to be the
person to beat people
over the head with
my own beliefs.
Right?
I always love a
subtle message encoded
into something that's more
broadly accessible and not
preachy in a way.
So on the surface
level, I wanted
to just make great music
that anyone who just hears it
would gravitate
towards, whether or not
they know what the
music is about.
But for those who want to
go a little further then
there's layers of meaning.
There is the meaning
behind the texts
or there's all the
interconnected musical
motifs, things like that.
I think that's how you create
a piece of music that stands up
to repeated listens.
You know, there can't just
be one-- you know, a surface,
and then you listen
and then you're done.
There has to be something
more so that, every time you
listen to it, you discover
something new about.
And that's what I try
to do in my music.
NICK MICELI: So when
you're composing,
are you thinking about the live
performance in a concert hall,
how it will sound on an album?
Is there one that
you're prioritizing for
or are you trying
to hit all of them?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Well, now I am.
Now that I'm actually
doing a lot more concerts,
like the one we did
yesterday, I'm thinking--
I'm composing very much
with concert in mind.
But when I was doing
"Calling All Dawns,"
I didn't think I
would ever perform it.
I was just making
an album, which
is why there is a 85-piece
orchestra and 200 singers
and percussionists from
Japan and Africa and India,
and it's just this whole
crazy mishmash of things
that you have access to
as a record producer.
But as a conductor and
a concert promoter,
you can't-- it's very hard
to get all of these elements
together.
I mean, just the
demands of the soloists
themselves, there's just
so many different languages
that they need to sing in and
so many sort of vocal traditions
that they have to perform in.
And that's one of the
other things that really
led me to make this album.
I was really fascinated
by the different ways
that people sing
around the world,
because it's very different.
Like, you know, you have the
Portuguese Fado tradition
versus the Chinese opera
tradition versus Maori hackas,
right?
And maybe this is a good
actual moment to bring on--
NICK MICELI: Absolutely.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: So we
have two of our soloists
from my Carnegie concert
yesterday with us.
We have Camille
Brault, mezzo-soprano.
NICK MICELI: Coming on up.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
And Lewis Whaitiri.
He's Maori, and they're going
to join us on stage here.
[APPLAUSE]
NICK MICELI: So,
I was lucky enough
to see the performance
last night.
And having listened to your
album hundreds of times,
it was such a different
experience hearing it live.
And I think even some of the
performers themselves didn't
know it was coming, so when we
had our two Maori singers come
out at the last number,
they were dressed
in full traditional
Maori garb, and I
don't think any of the
chorus was expecting that.
Did you notice the
reaction as you come out
and all of the heads
singing kind of
turned and looked at you?
LEWIS WHAITIRI: Probably
because, more than anything,
they were staring
at our sexy legs.
[LAUGHING]
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
LEWIS WHAITIRI: You know,
for us as Maori people,
whenever we come and do events
like this, it's very rare.
So we take every
opportunity that we can get
and we bask in the ambience.
I mean, never in my life,
never in my parents'
life or my cousin's life
who I perform with, David,
we would have never
thought they we
would have performed a
haka in Carnegie Hall,
so we're still buzzing now.
[LAUGHING]
Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I
did warn the choir
that there would be two hot
half-naked Maori men coming on
during the last movement.
NICK MICELI: Not enough.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: But I did--
you know, I'm conducting,
and suddenly, you
see all their eyes go like this.
Watch me.
Watch me, please.
Watch me.
[LAUGHING]
It's a pretty fantastic
way to end, I think.
NICK MICELI: Camille, you
had told a fascinating story
yesterday about your experience
as a soloist on that stage.
It was, from the
audience's perspective,
just this incredible blend
of your voice leading
"Rassemblons-Nous," and
a choir in the background
and the orchestra.
But you told me
you couldn't even
hear half of what was
going on behind you.
So how does that work.
CAMILLE BRAULT: The
thing is, there are so
many people on stage.
But when you sing, you
just hear yourself singing.
And hopefully, you have
a conductor who is here.
But maybe people think we
actually hear everything
and we play by ear,
but not at all.
Chris was here, and
we're just-- you know,
we just look at him because--
CHRISTOPHER TIN: We've just got
to look at him, yeah, you know.
CAMILLE BRAULT: It's
impossible to even hear
the percussion sometimes.
And it's not Carnegie
Hall, it's anywhere.
And people think the conductor
is here in the middle and just
moving, but no, not at all.
And we need a lot of
cues from the conductor,
and hopefully, we had some
time to rehearse and say,
hey, at this moment,
can you actually give me
a cue for my consonant, or when
I should, you know, come in
and can sing and everything.
Yeah.
I couldn't hear the choir.
There were like more than
200 singers behind me,
and it's crazy.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It's
funny to hear that.
That's crazy, right?
CAMILLE BRAULT: Yeah.
And you have these
mics and everything,
and you just hear your voice
and you're like, oh, that's me.
[INAUDIBLE]
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I think
this speaks to the importance
of a good sound team, honestly.
Like, if you ever
go to a live concert
and the singer just sounds bad
or out of tune or something
like that, most
likely, it's just
a problem with their monitor
mix and they're just not hearing
what they need to hear to get
the rhythm or to get the pitch.
That's most often
the reason why,
if you watch the Grammys and
somebody is really out of tune,
it's because they're just
not getting their mix right.
NICK MICELI: So for
you, as a composer,
conducting is a
completely separate skill.
Was this something that
you had wanted to do?
What was it like
now coming in front
of Carnegie Hall with
hundreds of people
up there looking to
you for direction.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Well,
it was a lot of fun.
Let me tell you that.
It was a hell of a lot of fun.
NICK MICELI: It was for us too.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: So
yeah, it's very true.
Composing and conducting music
are very, very different art
forms, but they feed
into each other so well
and you get a lot of
composer conductors.
And that's a very common
combo because, I think,
as a composer, you learn
to write better music
by conducting the
great standards,
or studying how one
writes for the instruments
so they work well
in performance.
And as a conductor, I
think you understand
what you're conducting better
if you've sort of put your mind
into the composer's mind.
So they're very different
skills that you sort of
have to cultivate
separately, but they do feed
into each other in a
very handy sort of way.
So for all the
composers out there,
I highly recommend studying
conducting as well.
NICK MICELI: That's awesome.
Lewis, you offered earlier.
If you would be
willing, we would
love to get a
demonstration of a haka.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Do it.
NICK MICELI: Sound
tip, you're going
to want to lower the
mics a little bit.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah, you
might want to lower the mics.
[APPLAUSE]
It's about to get loud.
LEWIS WHAITIRI:
[CHANTING IN MAORI]
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
[APPLAUSE]
You can see why I put that
in the very last movement
of the piece, because you cannot
follow that up with anything,
nothing at all.
It's such a theatrical movement
at the end of the piece when
you guys come out.
And suddenly, it's like--
NICK MICELI: And
the chant you did
at the performance yesterday,
that wasn't in the album.
That was something that was--
what was that to you?
That was something from your
childhood or something that--
LEWIS WHAITIRI: Well,
apart from the one that
was in the album, when we met
Chris two years ago in Wales,
he said, oh, you
know, do you think
you might want to throw
something else in?
So the other chant
that we-- sorry.
I'm still trying
to catch my breath.
[LAUGHING]
NICK MICELI: I should've given
you a break before asking.
LEWIS WHAITIRI:
So the other chant
that we put into the album
is actually something
that we have grown up with.
We come from a long
line of navigators
who navigated the
Pacific and, you know,
went on double-hull canoes
throughout the Pacific
and ended up in New Zealand.
And so the chant that we
did was a chant or a prayer
that our ancestors did
for our specific canoe.
And so the reason why
David and I did that was we
were coming from New
Zealand over to Wales,
and so making sure that we
cleared a pathway for us
to do our performance,
but also to clear
a pathway for the whole
event that was happening.
Yeah.
NICK MICELI: That's awesome.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
That's beautiful.
NICK MICELI: Thank you
for sharing that with us.
LEWIS WHAITIRI: Cheers.
No, thank you.
NICK MICELI: So I want to move
on to your new album that's
coming out.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Oh, sure.
NICK MICELI: And we
have a brief video
that we're going to
play to introduce that,
so let's get that one.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Super.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- OK.
So let's go back to
[INAUDIBLE] here.
By the way, this is the sort
of stuff I love talking about.
I love talking
about music theory.
I love talking about composition
technique, orchestration
technique, arranging.
It actually really
helps me to be
able to articulate sort of
my own philosophies in music,
and to explain it
to people who range
from actual professional
composers-- of which we have
several on this chat--
and also just people
who aren't necessarily
trained musicians.
Starting from here,
chord [INAUDIBLE]
The way I'm
structuring this album
is that I'm taking all
of these great writers
and thinkers and
poets and philosophers
and so forth, and I'm arranging
them chronologically so
that their texts essentially
tell this history of aviation.
And secondly, with that
particular structure,
I thought, wouldn't
it be interesting
if, as we're progressing
through the history of aviation,
we're also progressing
through the history
of Western music in a way?
And so the earliest
movements start
with sort of a
musical style that's
indicative of medieval
music or ancient music.
And as we get further
along into the text,
as we get into Copernicus and
Jules Verne and then Amelia
Earhart and Yuri Gagarin and
JFK and whoever else I'm using,
we progress through
the eras of music,
so medieval to renaissance
to baroque to classical,
impressionist, romantic,
modern, postmodern.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The third movement is a telling
of the Daedalus and Icarus
story as told by Ovid.
I wanted to treat this one
operatically in the sense
that Daedalus is a very
strong central character
to this story.
And in the telling of
the myth, he actually
has some lines that
he speaks directly.
And so I thought, I'm going
to put an operatic tenor
on the stage and he's
going to be Daedalus,
and much of this
piece is going to be
a dialogue between Daedalus,
the tenor, and the chorus
commenting on his actions.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In the course of looking
for stories about Lucifer
and the fall of angels
and that sort of thing,
I rediscovered Dante.
"O human race,
born to fly upward,
wherefore at a little
wind dost thou so fall?"
And I thought, that's perfect.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But then, I basically scoured
Dante's "Divine Comedy"
looking for lines that would
address the fall of man,
but also the way,
after you fall,
you sort of get
back on your feet
and you climb back up again.
[MUSIC - CHRISTOPHER TIN, "SOGNO
 DI VOLARE"]
[END PLAYBACK]
NICK MICELI: "To
Shiver the Sky."
[APPLAUSE]
I love it.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Such
a stirring video.
NICK MICELI: Yeah.
So your first album,
"Calling All Dawns,"
had this cycle of day
into night was the theme.
The second one, "The Drop
That Contained the Sea"
was all about water,
life that it gives.
And now, "To Shiver the Sky,"
what does that mean to you?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: That's a
quote from Kipling actually.
And I think the genesis of this,
like with "Calling All Dawns,"
was I wrote a theme for
"Civilization VI" that
became rather popular.
It's a piece called
"Sogno di Volare,"
and you heard it just a
little bit at the end there.
And I thought, oh,
it's a perfect moment
to do another album that's based
on something that's already
kind of popular
amongst video gamers.
Right?
So I came up with this
concept of an album
that basically charted
mankind's aspiration to fly,
and that means everything from
the engineers like Ferdinand
von Zeppelin who actually
created our flying
machines to the visionaries
like Jules Verne who imagined us
traveling to the moon, to
politicians like JFK who
actually made that happen,
to mystics like Hildegard von
Bingen who explored what flying
meant in the context of being
closer to God, for example.
And you know, we played an
excerpt of the Dante piece.
Part of flight is also
falling as well, right?
And so I wanted to explore
the spiritual aspect of that.
And if you'll allow me
to get sort of musically
theoretical for a second--
NICK MICELI: Please, dive in.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Dante--
I mean, I was asked by one of my
Kickstarter backers last night,
how are you treating Dante?
How does one treat the
descent into hell, right?
And you may have heard a
little of this on the video,
but what I've actually done with
the orchestra in this movement
is I've created a giant
descending Shepard tone.
So, if you don't know
what a Shepard tone is,
it's basically
this audio illusion
where all these
pitches dive downwards.
But as it gets to the bottom,
the bottom note sort of
vanishes and then
reappears on the top,
so you get the sensation
that you're always
drifting downwards.
And I'm scoring this
for a string orchestra
because strings can do
these downward dives,
and that's how I'm
sort of encapsulating
the sense of plunging
into the abyss.
And that's the darkest
moment of the album.
But then after that, we
get to the final words
of Dante's "Inferno"
where he says, you know,
and henceforth, we came
back into the light
to re-behold the stars,
and that leads us back
onto our journey towards flight.
So in this particular
album, I'm getting dark
early and then climbing
back out later on.
NICK MICELI: In the video there.
We got to hear those--
the end was the produced "Sogno
di Volare," but the rest of it
was your work in
progress, right?
Played from your machine?
We had heard Dante.
Was that also the piece
we'd heard at the beginning?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: We
heard a little bit
of Hildegard von Bingen
as well at the beginning,
and Ovid as well.
So we heard clips from
three different movements.
NICK MICELI: And
it's so exciting
to hear your work in progress.
And that's what I think has been
incredible about what you've
been doing through Kickstarter.
So this whole album was
funded via Kickstarter.
It was the highest
funded classical album
ever on Kickstarter,
and you've given
an incredible amount of
transparency to your process
to your viewers.
Isn't that kind of terrifying?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: No.
NICK MICELI: I
mean, this is half--
this is work in progress and
you're showing your sheet
music, you're letting
people listen to it
while it's in flight.
What has that been like for you?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It's fine.
I enjoy it.
I enjoy talking music.
That's the thing.
I like talking with other
composers and arrangers.
I mean, it's great.
It stimulates me.
It makes me think.
It makes me challenge my
own assumptions, you know?
I met some 16-year-old
kid who came last night
to the concert who had already
had a piece played by the New
York Phil.
I'm like, oh, my god.
That's amazing.
I want to hear
this piece, right?
I want to get composition
lessons from this 16-year-old.
If he's getting commissioned
by the New York Phil,
he's doing something great.
No, I love the process.
The creative process--
I don't think you should
be protective about it.
I mean, to an extent.
You know, I don't
necessarily want
a bunch of people
coming and saying,
no, this should go here.
This note's wrong.
Why are you doing this?
I don't want that, but I do like
sharing what I do with people.
And that's the whole
ethos of Kickstarter too.
That's what you-- as
a musician, that's
the contract you make
with your backers.
You're funding my album,
I'm going to show you
how I make an album.
Right?
And that's what I agree to.
That's what they
expect of me, I think.
I just want to give
back to my backers
because they were very generous
and helped me fund this,
so I don't mind it at all.
NICK MICELI: It's
been wonderful getting
to have that insight into
your process as well.
What has the impact of these
different technologies,
like being able
to do Kickstarter
and you've live-streamed
on YouTube and you have
your concept map in Google
Sheets that you've been having
your backers be able to give
you suggestions for texts--
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah, yeah.
NICK MICELI: --and
comment on the--
so, has that impacted
your development?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Oh,
yeah, absolutely.
Well, I mean, part of--
OK, so an album like
this-- highly theoretical,
a lot of research, right?
And in a way, it's easier to
outsource a little of that
to the community.
Early on, we were very
transparent about what
we wanted the album to be, but
we didn't have the particulars
in mind like who the writers
were, who the texts were.
And we sort of opened it up to
my backers, and a lot of them
gave me a lot of
great ideas and made
me think about what mankind's
aspirations to flight
really meant on multiple levels.
I had, for example,
one software engineer
who was working at JPL.
And he told me, as
somebody who basically
works on satellite
technology, one of the things
that we, as these
engineers realized,
is that everything we create
for the benefit of flight
technology will possibly
also be used by the military
to kill people.
And that was one of these
things that I'd never
thought about, right?
And so it's been great.
It's been a great
process because I've
learned a lot through it.
And it's actually
given me a chance
to connect with a
lot of my backers.
There's one guy who
was in the Air Force.
And he actually came and visited
my studio in Santa Monica,
and we talked about
flight and what it feels
like for him to be on these
giant cargo planes and stuff.
And he invited me to
visit the Air Force base
and tour these planes, and
I would love to do that.
NICK MICELI: That's awesome.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: That's
the other benefit
about a Kickstarter
campaign too.
You meet your community.
You meet your fans, and
you make some friends
and you make great connections.
That's the reason
I'm here, right?
Yeah.
It's actually great.
NICK MICELI: An incredibly
passionate, diverse group.
Everybody around me in
the theater last night
spoke a different language.
No two people spoke
the same language.
I had heard French,
German, Swiss, Japanese.
I had heard everything
in that orchestra
there that your music
had brought together.
It's just been very cool.
So have there been any
surprising additions
to the album as a result
of community additions?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I
think, early on--
well, OK.
One of them was, early on,
it was pointed out to me
that it was heavily
male-centric.
NICK MICELI: Hm.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: And this
was one of these things
that I knew was a problem.
And there are some
great pioneers
of aviation, Amelia Earhart
being the most notable one.
But I wanted to try my best
to make it not just like,
you know, one movement
out of an entire album
being a female source
and the rest being men.
So thought back to my
undergraduate humanities
survey classes and I thought,
OK, how do we explore this?
And the solution for me
was Hildegard von Bingen,
this mystic, 11th century
German abbess, and this idea
that flight, back in
the Middle Ages, really
meant being closer to God.
That's why we built
cathedrals, to be closer
to the heavens, which led
me down this whole path
of exploring not
just flight from,
you know, people getting on
planes and things like that,
but what does flight mean on a
deeper level, philosophically,
mystically, religiously?
So that actually did reshape
the thought process quite a bit.
NICK MICELI: That's fantastic.
You've self-described yourself
in previous interviews
as a perfectionist, Yes
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
NICK MICELI: You'll
want to revise a piece
over and over and over until you
really feel it's locked down,
right?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yes
NICK MICELI: So
how do you know--
you could edit
something infinitely.
And since you're in the
middle of this process,
you've got people watching
you who are excited,
who are waiting for it, how
do you know when you're like,
yes, this is good enough.
I'm going to move on.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: You
just run out of time.
That's all it is.
NICK MICELI: Deadlines.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I mean,
I'm sure you all know
what I'm talking about, right?
Deadlines, that's all it is.
I mean, I could fiddle with
something for a long time.
But actually, no,
there does come
a point where I think to myself,
I'm pretty happy with this.
But for me, a lot of the time--
I very much believe in
allowing your subconscious
to vet your ideas for you.
So what will happen is, if
I'm writing a new piece,
I'll maybe spend a day or two
just coming up with themes.
And then I'll set that
aside for a few weeks
and work on something else.
And then, in the course
of those three weeks,
when I'm just kind of
puttering around the house
or taking a shower or whatever,
whatever material I worked on
on those two initial days
just keeps popping back
into my head, that's when
I know that's a keeper.
And the other source of
curation of ideas for me
is actually my wife
because, sometimes, I
will play her something and
just gauge her reaction.
NICK MICELI: Mm.
That's a good
litmus test, right?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Oh, my gosh.
Yes, yes, and she
does not joke around.
She's not the-- oh, hun,
everything you do is wonderful.
She's the opposite.
So very much, a lot
of times, she'll
just be doing something
in the living room
and I'll just kind
of turn up my music.
[LAUGHING]
What's she doing?
I she listening?
Is she just going
about her business?
Dammit.
You know, it's
that sort of thing.
NICK MICELI: What's
the good reaction?
What do you want to get?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Hey.
That sounds good, hun.
NICK MICELI: Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: That's
all I get from her.
[LAUGHING]
NICK MICELI: That's a
Eureka moment right there.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah,
that's pretty much it.
Yeah, I like that.
That sounds good.
Nice.
NICK MICELI: I also
want to invite--
if people have questions, we
have microphones in the aisles
if folks want to
come up at any point.
I'm going to keep talking,
but feel free to come on up
and ask any questions you
have for any of our three
lovely guests here.
So diving a little bit more into
then your music theory process
and your creation
process, you generally
seem to have the
choral be the focus.
They're not just an instrument.
They are the theme around
which the song centers, right?
Like, in the performance,
I was watching you far more
than I was watching this
huge orchestra and choir.
Is that intentional?
Is that just something that you
prefer from your musical style?
What's the thought between--
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It is
for this series of albums
that you've been talking about.
It is very much about the voice.
NICK MICELI: That's
an intentional theme
you want to keep.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It is
an intentional thing.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
The voice is the
original human--
it's the original
instrument after all, right?
But also, because of the
emphasis on different languages
and different cultures and
different singing styles,
it has to be about the voice.
I mean, I love writing
instrumental music as well
and I plan to write
a lot more, but a lot
of what I'm very
interested in now
includes choral works,
oratorios, song cycles, opera,
things like that.
I'm just very into writing
for the human voice.
NICK MICELI: And it shows.
The results are incredible.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
Well, thank you.
I don't know.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
NICK MICELI: We have
a question over here?
AUDIENCE: Hey.
I'm just curious what goes into
producing a classical album
like what you make because
I've known some people who
are in rock bands and,
you know, you just
have four people in a room
with a few hundreds of dollars
in recording equipment.
And you come up with
something, and then
you just record it with the
same people in the room,
and it's done.
Like, you've got orchestras
and choirs and everything.
It just seems like it's a
whole different level of scale
involved entirely
and I'm struggling
to wrap my head around
how you make that happen.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
That's a good question.
It's a lot of preparation
because recording an orchestra
is very, very,
very, very expensive
and you want to maximize
your time with them.
So this whole rock
band process of, oh,
let's book a studio for a
day and come in and just
write some songs as an
ensemble and record them
at the same time, that
seems insane to me
because I'm literally paying
like $20,000 for a four-hour
session with an orchestra.
You know, I don't
want to just kind of--
I mean, there's no way to
just kind of make things up
on the spot.
NICK MICELI: A-one, two.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I know, right?
Here we go.
Play.
No, you really have to
prepare and you have
to nail down all the details.
And that's why this is where a
little bit of the perfectionism
aspect comes into play.
You really want to
know exactly what
the tempos are going to be.
I mock up everything
using computerized samples
so that I can make like a
playlist of the mock-ups
so that I can hear, you
know, does the tempo
of this first movement
flow well into the tempo
of the second movement?
I mean, these are decisions that
I try to make well in advance
so that, when we show
up at the scoring stage,
all these decisions
have already been made
and it can be a
very smooth process.
But there is a lot of--
you know, you write out
the sheet music, and you
saw a little bit of that
in the video.
You print it up, you put it on
the musicians' music stands.
And what's amazing about
these recording sessions is,
when it's a good orchestra
like the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra, they just
show up and they
sight-read the whole thing.
NICK MICELI: Really?
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
They do not practice.
They do not look at
the music in advance.
I mean, some of
the soloists might,
and some of the
instruments that need
a little more preparation,
like harp, for example,
or percussion.
The percussionists need to sort
of know what they're bringing
and where to arrange
it around them so they
can sort of physically get to
all the instruments in time.
NICK MICELI: That's nuts.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Other than
that, they just show up
and
[IMITATES PLAYING INSTRUMENT]..
And usually, believe it or
not, by the second take,
you're done.
Much of "Calling All Dawns"
was either second take
or third take.
You know, they're that good.
Professional musicians are so
good at that sort of thing.
It's amazing.
"Calling All Dawns," the entire
46-minute album, the orchestra
recorded it in seven hours.
NICK MICELI: Wow.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah, which is
crazy, but they're that good.
NICK MICELI: Now,
"Sogno di Volare"
was recorded-- you did
different sections of it
recorded separately and then
had to bring it together, right?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yes.
That was a very different
process because,
"Sogno di Volare," I
had about four weeks
to write and record that
theme for "Civilization VI."
And there was no way to get
an entire orchestra together
in time so we recorded the
strings remotely with a string
orchestra in Macedonia,
which is something
that you can do nowadays because
of the power of the internet.
You can, from the
comfort of your own home,
listen to an orchestra across
the globe, record your music.
Then they send you
the files, and then
you just kind of mix
it in your own studio,
the downside being the
time zone difference.
A lot of times,
you're up at 4:00
AM to listen to some orchestra
that's 10 hours ahead of you
doing something for you.
But then, because of the way
that modern recording works,
you can take that and then you
can add brass to it later on.
And LA has some
great brass players
so I did the brass in LA.
And then you can add
choir to that later on,
and I went up to San
Francisco and recorded a choir
at Skywalker Sound.
And then you just kind of layer
it all and put it together
and you mix it and then
boom, there's your product.
NICK MICELI: That's awesome.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thank you for being here.
I'm a huge fan of your work.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: So you've composed
for various industries,
I would say-- video games,
concept works, and movies,
I believe, also?
In terms of future works, do
you see yourself gravitating
more towards concert
or can I look forward
to hearing your music in
upcoming video games as well,
or movies?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I'm gravitating
more towards concert works
these days.
It's sort of where
my passion is.
I do love scoring
films and games,
and I rarely turn them
down when they come my way.
And honestly, anytime
the "Civilization" people
want to hire me, I'm there.
I'm there.
I love that franchise.
And as game franchises go,
to be associated with that
fits in very well
with my whole ethos.
It's not like I'm writing music
for "Left 4 Dead" or something
random like that.
This is a franchise I'm very
proud to be associated with.
And just everything
that it stands for,
I heavily believe in.
And I love writing for film too.
So I mean, I generally
like to have a full plate
of composition assignments.
But truly, where
my heart is now,
it's writing more
concert works, getting
into things like
opera and ballet,
writing symphonic works.
As an artist and as a
composer, creatively, that's
where I want to go.
But that said, I'm always
open to interesting projects.
Last year, I did a
classical meets EDM album
with an Australian
DJ named tyDi,
and that was a lot of fun too.
And then, last year, I also
did my first big band piece
for the movie "Crazy Rich
Asians," and that was a blast.
Like, I'd never written for big
band before but it's so fun.
And you hire the best players
and you go into a studio in LA,
and they just do their
thing and it's just
the most amazing experience.
And it's completely
different from being
a classical composer.
Like, the way you write for
big band, totally different.
But every experience I have like
that, the weirder, the better,
the more I learn from it.
The more distant it is from what
I do myself, the more I get out
of it, so I'm still
very much about being
a musical tourist in a way.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
NICK MICELI: Thank you.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Thank you.
NICK MICELI: Please.
AUDIENCE: First of
all, I'm so surprised
to hear you say that
you used a Macedonian
orchestra because my
family's from Macedonia.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Oh, wonderful.
AUDIENCE: And as you were
listing off the languages
that you incorporated,
in the back of my mind,
I always go, oh,
there's no way that he's
going to list Macedonian
or anything like that.
So to hear you say
that you used--
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
country is very cool to me.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yea.
AUDIENCE: My question is--
I'm a musician, and
I kind of struggle
with the purpose of music.
And I think the
postmodernism area
that we live in kind of makes
me feel like everyone is just
trying to learn the history
and do the best that they can
to reproduce the music
they've kind of experienced up
until today's time.
And so, I guess I just wonder--
I don't get to talk to composers
of your status very often.
So in your mind, do
you feel like that's
something that you think about,
where music is going, where you
want to push your
music, or are you just
kind of enjoying the
process of writing
and, whatever kind of
brings your creativity out,
you just are happy to do?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I will say,
from my own perspective,
the more I think about what
everyone else is doing,
the more insecure I get about
what I'm doing, in a way.
And you're right.
We are in a postmodern
era where anything goes--
historical referentialism,
high modernity,
completely avant-garde stuff,
completely tonal, completely
accessible,
minimalist, everything.
It's all out there and it's
all finding a home for itself,
and that's kind of the marvel
of modern music consumption
and Spotify and music services.
We can live in an era
where you can kind of do
whatever you want, right?
But that said, I think the
way I avoid going crazy
is just not comparing myself
to what anyone else is doing,
because I think, once
you do that, you're sort
of betraying your own voice.
And the most important
thing as an artist
is to find your own voice
and to cultivate that.
That said, you know, it's
great to study other stuff
and to listen to other stuff
and pick and choose from it
and incorporate it.
Generally, when I listen
to music and I study music
and I read my
orchestral scores and I
try to learn from
other composers,
those composers are
vastly different from me,
very, very different.
But every composer has their
little tool box of skills
and, sometimes, I read
something like a Kaija Saariaho
piece or something
and I think, oh,
that is so cool
what she just did.
I'm going to totally
rip that off.
You know?
But cultivating your own
voice is sort of what
you want to get to, I think.
I mean, there's no
advantage really
to being just a second-rate
replica of someone else,
I say, I think.
But the other thing is,
cultivating your own voice,
it's not something you
can just kind of sit down
and say, oh, this is what my
unique voice is going to be.
It has to come about
through experience, I think,
and honestly, just trying
out a lot of things
and making a lot of mistakes
because you can't just sit down
and soul search about who
you are, I don't think.
I mean, some people do
and some people try,
but I think you're
defined by your reactions
to the experiences and the input
that you get from the world.
And over time, what you
naturally gravitate towards
becomes your own voice,
and that's undeniable.
And the more you
try to deny that,
the bigger disservice you
do to yourself as an artist.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Thank you.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Hi.
AUDIENCE: So former musician,
and I was very curious
about your writing process
in your first album,
"Calling All Dawns," going back
to the interweaving motifs.
So I was curious about
if you could maybe
talk a little about it.
Were you writing these
pieces in parallel
so the motifs would be
inserted kind of like you'd
be knowing what's
going over there
so you do insert it in here,
or were you writing them
in a more sequential
way and then
you would go back into
semi-finished pieces
and insert those motifs?
Because one of the
thoughts that I'm
having is, if you
go the latter way,
how do you make it not sound
like you just inserted it
last moment, versus, if
you do it in parallel,
it's sometimes hard to keep
track of everything that's
happening.
So I would love to hear
a little about that.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Well,
I use Google Sheets
to keep track of everything.
Product placement, a little
plug for the home team.
No, actually, truth be
told, I do it both ways too.
I mean, the biggest example
is what you mentioned before,
Nick.
"Baba Yetu" on the
original game is
different from the
version on the album.
I sort of retrofitted
the version
on the album with themes
from later on in the album.
I just found a nice
moment to insert them,
and you know, there are
usually little spaces
where you can find
ways to tuck things in,
and I just sort of
did that that way.
But a lot of times,
you write a piece,
and you write a little bit
of counterpoint, for example,
for that piece.
And you think to
yourself, oh, my god.
That's a great piece
of counterpoint
and that stands up on its own.
We're going to base an
entire other movement
on that little five-note
phrase or whatever,
and then you just do that.
"To Shiver the Sky" is kind of
unique in that I am writing it
sequentially.
With "Calling All
Dawns," I skipped around.
And there is a lot of
going back and then
just sort of readjusting
this to accommodate this.
There is a fair amount of that.
And you can do that when you set
up your recording schedule so
that you write everything first
and then record it all later.
You can make it
work for yourself,
but it does happen both ways.
AUDIENCE: OK.
Thank you.
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
Yeah, absolutely.
NICK MICELI: I have
a quick question
though that I need to ask you
that you made me think of here.
When you're writing each
of these different pieces,
you're thinking about all these
things in simultaneousness,
the counterpoint and how they
sound relative to other songs,
and you're mixing in
lyrical meaning into that.
How much then does it
matter the placement
of the words translated
into the notes?
So for example, in
an English song,
you wouldn't generally hold out
a big dramatic note on "is."
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
NICK MICELI: Right?
Do you try and keep
that level of--
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yes.
NICK MICELI: And
then, Camille, do
you have to study that
when you're performing it?
Kind of a question to
both of you on that one.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Well,
if I do it right,
she shouldn't have to do
too much work to study it.
NICK MICELI: Nice, right.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Right?
The answer is, I
usually vet everything
from someone who is a native
speaker of the language,
and I have a bit of a
network of collaborators who
help fix my problems basically.
There's an Italian woman,
a longtime friend of mine,
for example, who's been
helping with Dante.
And what I'll do is I'll make a
little mock-up of the movement,
and I'll send her the score and
I'll say, this is how I set it,
and these are the syllables
that got the strong beats
and these are the syllables
that got the weak beats.
And then, she'll come back and
say, no, you did it all wrong.
It should actually be like this.
And then she sings
it for me, and then
I incorporate her notes.
So yeah, you absolutely
have to do that.
Otherwise, somebody
who speaks Italian
is going to be like, what?
That makes absolutely no sense.
NICK MICELI: You
have one language
that died 4,000 years ago,
so that one [INAUDIBLE]
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Honestly, I
write in several languages that
have died thousands and
thousands-- are you talking
about Proto-Indo-European?
OK, so I may be the only
person who's ever written
a piece in Proto-Indo-European.
Guinness should give me another
award for that actually.
NICK MICELI: Come on.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: So
if you don't know,
Proto-Indo-European is
the original root language
of all of our modern
languages, everything
from Sanskrit to English.
And on "The Drop That
Contained the Sea,"
which is my second
album, that whole album
is structured as a theme
and variations around water.
And so, the opening
movement, it's
called the "Water
Prelude," where
I introduce the water theme.
But what I thought
I'd do linguistically
as well, because language is
such a big part of my work,
is I would find the original
linguistic drop that contained
the sea, the original
language that contained
the essence of all
other languages,
and that was
Proto-Indo-European.
Now, nobody speaks
Proto-Indo-European.
NICK MICELI: Really?
CHRISTOPHER TIN: There are
no texts from Proto-Indo--
there's nothing
existing out there,
so we have to get a
little creative, right?
So I'm thinking,
because the theme
of "The Drop That Contained
the Sea"-- which, by the way,
is a Sufi concept.
Inside of every
person is the essence
of all humanity
just the way that,
inside every drop of water
is the essence of the sea,
so "The Drop That
Contained the Sea."
So I found a Proto-Indo-European
scholar, and I asked him,
how do you say the
word "water," and what
are the different conjugations
of "water," and that sort
of thing?
And what I learned in this
process is, the more obscure
the language, the
more likely there
is to find a very
enthusiastic college professor
somewhere who's really excited
to talk to you about his life's
work.
And so this guy out
in Kentucky who's
a scholar of
Proto-Indo-European,
he helped me out with this
and we just kind of came up
with a creative way to set
that language to music.
NICK MICELI: So Camille, when
you get one of these pieces
and it has all sorts
of text and languages
you may not speak, what is
your process to then taking
that and bringing it to life?
CAMILLE BRAULT: Well
sometimes, because of the roots
of languages, you can actually
find some words or little memos
to, you know--
but I had to learn some
Gaelic Irish this time.
Of course, the French was easy
for me because, as you hear,
it's my native language.
And actually, just to
answer your question before,
the [INAUDIBLE]--
you say that pro--
CHRISTOPHER TIN: [INAUDIBLE]?
CAMILLE BRAULT: In
"Rassemblons-Nous,"
it was actually pretty easy
to learn because, in French,
the accent is always at the end,
so "rassemblons-nous au meme
moment."
And it actually fit very
well with the music.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Phew.
[LAUGHING]
CAMILLE BRAULT:
No, It's hard to--
I mean, I don't compose,
but I guess it's hard to--
CHRISTOPHER TIN: It takes--
it's a very slow
and careful process,
which is why, I swear
to god, my next album's
going to be all English.
I kid you not.
NICK MICELI: No, don't do it.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: I kid you not.
NICK MICELI: Don't do it.
CAMILLE BRAULT: But
for Irish, I listened
for this song on
the album so many
times just because,
apparently, even
people who still
speak Gaelic do not
agree about the pronunciation.
You know?
And it's such a-- sometimes
you have like five consonants
and it's just "ku" or something.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Yeah.
CAMILLE BRAULT: I couldn't--
I had absolutely no
clue how to do that,
so I listened to the
album, of course.
And also, it was just like
repetition in my head.
Like, [INAUDIBLE] I have no--
and then I have also the
translation, and once you--
I mean, it's so
important for singers
to know what you are
saying, you know,
like whatever the language is.
It's just so important
just to embody it.
I mean, it's the
most important thing.
So of course, the translation
helped a lot, but also
the way the singers in
the album were doing it.
Also, we were four singers
singing in this Irish language
together, and we
met two days ago.
So we didn't have time to--
you know, maybe on one word,
we had to talk a
little bit, but we had
to have the same pronunciation.
So hopefully, in
both of the texts,
we had some English
way to pronounce it.
Yeah, so it's always a big
challenge, but especially
in Gaelic.
That was the biggest
challenge for me actually.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: There are
some really hard languages
on "Calling All Dawns"--
Farsi, Mandarin, Polish.
Oh, my god.
Polish is such a hard language.
I'm telling you,
next album, English.
NICK MICELI: I think we have
time for one more question.
AUDIENCE: I was just
wondering what type of music
you listen to.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Oh, I
listen to all sorts of stuff.
It's all across the board.
You know, there are some
summers where I'm just
like, I'm just going to
go jogging to pop and EDM
and stuff like that.
I listen to a lot of
classical and jazz primarily.
That's my main sort of--
that's what stimulates me
intellectually in addition
to gets the emotions
going as well.
But you know, I think you can
learn so much from everything
out there.
You should just try
to keep your ears open
and just listen to
as much as you can.
But these days, it tends to
be a lot of classical and jazz
that I listen to.
NICK MICELI: Thank you.
So "To Shiver the Sky"
will be premiered May 30,
2020 in Washington DC.
The show is going
to be totally free,
you just need to
reserve a pass for it.
Details are coming soon at
WashingtonPerformingArts.org.
And where should people go
to find out more information
about the album?
CHRISTOPHER TIN:
ChristopherTin.com, I guess.
NICK MICELI: ChristopherTin.com.
Thank you, everybody,
for coming.
Thank you, Christoper Tin.
CHRISTOPHER TIN: Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
[APPLAUSE]
