Ted Hearne

Introduction
Ted Hearne is an American composer, singer, and conductor born May 2nd, 1982 in Chicago Illinois. He attended the Manhattan School of Music and Yale School of Music when he moved to New York in 2000. His music is known for being politically influenced and emotionally engaging. Hearne has earned a multitude of awards including the Charles Ives Prize (2009, 2013). Music Alive Residency Award (2013), and the New Voices Residency for Composers (2014). He is currently a member of the composition faculty at the University of Southern Calfornia and currently lives in Los Angelas, California.

Work Analysis
The work that I will be analyzing is Ted Hearne's "Ripple". "Ripple" is an SATB choir piece that was premiered in 2012 and was commissioned by the Peninsula Women's Choir. Hearne's program notes say that the piece uses text from one sentence of one of the 400,000 internal military cables known as the Iraq War Logs. This part of the cable describes an event on July 22nd, 2005 where an American military officer opened fire on an unidentified vehicle that was driving towards a checkpoint. The occupants turned out to be Iraqi civilians. A mother was killed while her husband and two children were left badly injured. The text reads "The marine that engaged from Post 7 was unable to determine the occupants of the vehicle due to the reflection of the sun coming off the windshield." This piece has an eerie feeling to it by not having the sentence sang all at once instead, having awkward pauses in between certain words. After that, the piece opens up and has a church choir feeling to it before entering into this stuttering sound that sounds as though it is mimicking the sound of a broken record or radio. This piece ranges in dynamics from pp to FF suddenly. The phrase is repeated throughout the ten minutes of the piece but never in a round.

Comparisons
Ted Hearne has many rock and roll influences that are shown in his use of the electric guitar and drums in some of his other works like Sound from the Bench. He has a long time love for Baroque music and Bach and most of his earlier works show signs of baroque influences. In most of his contemporary pieces have social and political influences.

Observations
I have read numerous interviews with Ted Hearne and can say that his words are fascinating. He has a great standpoint on the idea that the greatest music is timeless. He feels that the idea of timeless music isolates a composer and it gives off the idea that music will resonate with people forever. This was one of the ideas we discussed in class, the idea that the music we are listening to in class may or may not be relevant in the future. After reading this interview I'm convinced that music might only be relevant if the social or political views are still active.