No matter where Leah Reid goes she’s always listening. That next great sound is out there – just waiting to be heard.
Reid grew up in Jaffrey but now splits her time between Massachusetts and Virginia where she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia teaching courses in music composition and technology. She is also well known in the world of acoustic and electroacoustic composition. Her work has been presented all over the world and it’s her ability to use every day sounds to create something that is truly unique has been years in the making.
Reid was always drawn to music. She began playing the violin at the age of five and it led to an interest in how musical pieces were put together. She began composing at a young age and over her career, has developed a style that must be heard to be appreciated.
“There’s many different types of music,” Reid said. “And for me, it’s composing for each individual theme. Each piece is so different.”
In ‘Sparrow’, Reid uses recordings of the bell in the Jaffrey Meetinghouse to “explore both interactive electronics and the concept of using timbre as a structuring device”. There’s Sk(etch), a piece that examines sounds, gestures, textures, and timbres as it relates to act of sketching, drawing, writing, and composing.
She’s written compositions that explore the sounds and rhythms present inside Gertrude Stein’s poems “Apple” – which she wrote during her fellowship at MacDowell Colony in the Monday Music Studio – and “Single Fish” using constants, vowels and portions of words to present the works in a one-of-a-kind fashion.
“I grew up going to Medal Day, so MacDowell is very special,” Reid said. “I spent time there during a winter break and found that one MacDowell day is equal to multiple days any other time.”
She’s used clocks, doors, typewriters, car engines, chainsaws, zippers – you name it and Reid has found a way to incorporate it into her work.
“I normally start with a theme,” Reid said. “But more often it’s defined by what it isn’t. It just depends on the project.”
Timbre, which is defined as the quality given to a sound by its overtones: such as the resonance by which the ear recognizes and identifies a voiced speech sound; the quality of tone distinctive of a particular singing voice or musical instrument, is a huge part of her research. She looks at the perception, modeling, and compositional applications of timbre, and how it acts as a “catalyst for exploring new soundscapes, time, space, perception, and color”.
“It always comes back to the perception of timbre,” she said.
While Reid is inspired by the most basic of sounds found in everyday life, her work is anything but basic. Her studies and creation of music composition have taken her all over the country and world. She studied at McGill University and then Stanford University, where she also taught. Her style is thought-provoking, and has been refined over the years thanks to the guidance of many great teachers and the drive to create something that has never been heard before.
“My passion comes from the ability to create,” Reid said.
She has put together interactive installations using as little as a handful of speakers to more than 100, as she uses trajectory and space to manifest different sounds. She’s also helped build or augment electrical instruments that can be found in her work.
Reid knew from an early age that her life would include music. And she has found her passion in composing.
“I thought I wanted to play the violin and then be an opera singer, but then I started to compose,” Reid said. “And it’s led me down this path.”
For more, visit www.leahreidmusic.com.