"How I Work": Composer Virginia Pike

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I'm fascinated by how artists work so today I'm focusing on Virginia Hart Pike and her creative process. Virginia is a composer, piano teacher, and musical director living in New York City. She is cofounder and Artistic Director of Music for Skylight Dance Theatre.

LeAnne: What is your composing process like?

Virginia: Well, it always starts with prayer. In fact, the process is similar to praying, because I start out trying to listen to God's still, small voice. From there it depends on what stage of the process I'm at. If I'm just starting a piece, I first have to decide what I'm writing exactly and what I'm trying to convey through each movement, or section.

For instance, in the song cycle I wrote entitled First and Fairest, I knew the overall work was about the journey of a woman who had just come off of a painful rejection by the man she loved, and finds herself in the arms of God by the end. It was told through a setting of six poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, set for women's choir. Each movement was a different stage of the woman's healing process. So in beginning writing for a particular movement, once I'd established what the movement's role was in the overall piece, then I'd start out by exploring different sounds on the piano, accompaniment patterns, musical phrases, etc. that might convey the particular emotion I'm after at the start of the movement. Or I might start out by finding a melody first (which is always easier when there are words to set - I prefer writing music for voice for this reason), which I generally do by saying the words out loud to myself and listening to their cadence. This gives me an idea of the shape of the lyric, or poem in this case. 'll often find a part of the poem where I feel like the whole song kind of lands or leads up to, and I'll shape the rest of the melody around that moment.

From there I'll establish a form for the piece - deciding where the music should be repeated, where it should change, and about how often I want the harmony to change. Then I'll start putting together melody and accompaniment patterns and harmonic colors and do a section at a time. In the case of First and Fairest, some movements took a couple of months, and others took a couple of weeks.

To find out more about Virginia Pike, Skylight Dance Theatre, and First and Fairest, click here.

Virginia Pike, Part 2: From Office Temp to Broadway

Today I'm continuing my interview with Virginia Hart Pike a composer, piano teacher, and musical director living in New York City. She is cofounder and artistic director of music for Skylight Dance Theatre  She has written two musicals, many choral works, and many more art songs, which have been heard at various venues throughout New York City and beyond. She has also worked as a musical director and piano/keyboards player on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in regional theater. For three years she also held the title of Choir Director at St. George's Episcopal Church. She holds an M.F.A. from NYU and a B.S. from Duke University.

LeAnne: What was it like to take Skylight from your vision of what it could be through to its debut production?

Virginia: It was very exciting to see the whole thing come together, one step at a time, from watching the money come in, to hiring the dancers, assembling the choir and hiring the musicians. It was all a little surreal, because there was always a part of me that wasn't sure it would really happen. It was also disappointing that the show was over so quickly (it only ran for one weekend) because we spent months and months pouring ourselves into it and then poof--it was gone in a moment. It felt like we'd been through all the labor pains but didn't have the baby. It made us that much more determined to do the show again.

LM: You've worked as a musician on Broadway. What were some of the highlights of that experience?

VP: I played the keyboards for James Joyce's The Dead. It was very exciting. The moment that sticks out in my memory is the day my friend, Deborah Abramson, the Associate Musical Director for the show, called me and asked, "What are you doing the next few months?" We had graduated from NYU just a few months prior, and I had pretty much spent the summer doing office temp work. My answer to her question was "Nothing at all. Why might you ask?" She asked if I could come to rehearsal that day, and in one day I went from thinking I might be a temp for the rest of my life to working in a room with Christopher Walken, Stephen Spinella, and Marni Nixon. I was beside myself. It was a gift from God, truly. I had just handed my life over to God a few weeks prior, and I basically said to Him, "Even if you want me to be an office temp the rest of my life, I'll trust you and let You have Your way." In fact, that was when I became a Christian. I truly didn't expect the Lord to give me a Broadway show. 

Another moment that sticks out was when I got to rehearse with Faith Prince to help her learn her music when she was taking over the lead role. Truth be told, I didn't even do a very good job, because the night before I found out that one of my best friends (my Christian friend who helped lead me to Christ) was leaving New York City. I was up almost the whole night crying. Then when I got to rehearsal I found that the score Deborah had left me was incomplete and not always in the right key. Deborah usually just played by ear and assumed I could do the same, which I couldn't. Although that was a little embarrassing, Faith Prince was so sweet. From the time she saw me, she could tell something was wrong and tried to comfort me when I told her about my friend.

The cast on the whole was one of the most brilliant ensembles I've ever seen together on stage. Just getting to watch them together so many times was truly a privilege.

LM: What are you working on now?

VP: Now Amanda and I are working on two pieces for Skylight that are linked together by the theme of sacrificial love. One is an abstract dance piece about three couples, each of which is in a different stage of their relationship and each of which must undergo some sort of sacrifice in order for the relationship to move forward. The other piece is really a musical but with dance playing a prominent role in the storytelling. It is about a married couple in which the husband is a soldier in the war in Iraq and about the effect his deployment has on their marriage.

Virginia Pike: Composing with Prayer

Virginia Hart Pike is a composer, piano teacher, and musical director living in New York City. She is cofounder and Artistic Director of Music for Skylight Dance Theatre. She has written two musicals, many choral works, and many more art songs, which have been heard at various venues throughout New York City and beyond. She has also worked as a musical director and piano/keyboards player on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in regional theatre. For three years she has held the title of Choir Director at St. George's Episcopal Church. She holds an M.F.A. from NYU and a B. S. from Duke University.

LeAnne: What role did music play in your childhood? When did you start composing?

Virginia: I actually didn't come from a musical family, and I started taking piano lessons at the age of 7, just because I was into trying everything when I was a kid. I stuck with piano probably for two reasons: 1) I was afraid of my piano teacher, and 2) I liked to show off. In junior high school I was addicted to Billy Joel and learned to play every Billy Joel song I could get my hands on, and for some strange reason would often get up in front of my math class and sing a Billy Joel song (at the request of my teacher!?!), even though I couldn't sing very well. When I was in high school I switched to a new piano teacher who opened my ears and my heart to the beauty of classical music. I was kind of a depressed a lot as a teenager, and so it was a breakthrough for me when I discovered Brahms, because his music has this deep longing that I found I could relate to. Before that, I didn't know other people felt those things.

LM: What is your composing process like?

VP: Well, it always starts with prayer. In fact, the process is similar to praying, because I start out trying to listen to God's still, small voice. From there it depends on what stage of the process I'm at. If I'm just starting a piece, I first have to decide what I'm writing exactly and what I'm trying to convey through each movement, or section.

For instance, in the song cycle I wrote entitled First and Fairest, I knew the overall work was about the journey of a woman who had just come off of a painful rejection by the man she loved, and finds herself in the arms of God by the end. It was told through a setting of six poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, set for women's choir. Each movement was a different stage of the woman's healing process. So in beginning writing for a particular movement, once I'd established what the movement's role was in the overall piece, then I'd start out by exploring different sounds on the piano, accompaniment patterns, musical phrases, etc. that might convey the particular emotion I'm after at the start of the movement. Or I might start out by finding a melody first (which is always easier when there are words to set - I prefer writing music for voice for this reason), which I generally do by saying the words out loud to myself and listening to their cadence. This gives me an idea of the shape of the lyric, or poem in this case. 'll often find a part of the poem where I feel like the whole song kind of lands or leads up to, and I'll shape the rest of the melody around that moment.

From there I'll establish a form for the piece - deciding where the music should be repeated, where it should change, and about how often I want the harmony to change. Then I'll start putting together melody and accompaniment patterns and harmonic colors and do a section at a time. In the case of First and Fairest, some movements took a couple of months, and others took a couple of weeks.

LM: You are the Artistic Director of Music for Skylight Dance Theatre. Why did you and Amanda Brewster, Artistic Director of Dance, start Skylight? Where did the name come from?

VP: I never thought I'd start a dance company, my background being in musical theater. It came about because for several years I had been mulling over ideas for a piece I wanted to write that would incorporate some Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems I had discovered. I didn't know if the piece should be an artsy musical, or a song cycle, or what. Then I saw a piece at Lincoln Center that inspired me. It was a telling of Orpheus and Euridice using poetry, set for soprano, clarinet and piano, and also for modern dancers who integrated the musicians into the choreography. Seeing that production made me realize that I was limiting myself by thinking the piece had to fit into a form that was more established, and I was finally able to see that the piece swimming around in my brain wanted to be a song cycle for women's choir and set to dance.

Amanda and I had met at St. George's Church, where I was musical director, and Amanda was in the choir. She had choreographed and danced a beautiful piece to a reading of St. Mark's passion on Palm Sunday, and it was the first time I remember really being moved by dance. Soon after I saw the Orpheus piece, Amanda and I were at a retreat together, and she was giving a talk, and as I was watching and listening to her it dawned on me that we needed to do this piece together. When I proposed the idea to her, she nearly jumped on me she was so excited. I suggested we find people to produce it for us, and she said that she always wanted to start a dance company. So I figured, what the heck, let's do it.

Amanda suggested the name Sklight, and I knew it was right because my image of the company name was like light coming from a window in the sky.

More from Virginia Pike on Thursday.