In a Word...Tara Litvack, composer/arranger/musical director

The process is constantly breaking it down to its bare bones and building it up

Tara Litvack, Musical Director, Pianist, Conductor and Vocal Coach has most recently worked on One Song Glory (Acting Up Stage Company), Into the Woods (Bravo Academy), and Set Those Sails – A Night of William Finn. Upcoming productions include Robin Hood: A Legendary Musical Comedy.

CHARPO:  Let's talk about arranging, first. Every time we read that title, we can only imagine a daunting task of note-writing. What happens in your head as you set a score.

LITVACK: I love arranging. I don't really consider myself a composer and find a blank page quite scary. But re-inventing a song with my stamp on it gives me such satisfaction and I think is an important skill for a music director to have nowadays with lower budgets for bands and orchestras. Maintaining the character of the song and not changing it for the sake of just being different is the challenge. It needs to enhance the song or bring out other textures and layers that may have been a bit more hidden before. The instrumentation itself also can't be haphazard. It needs to set a tone as a show and not song by song. I re-arranged Sondheim's Into the Woods about a year and a half ago for string trio and piano. It created an intimate story book setting...more Brothers Grimm than Disney. I could have gotten percussion or trumpet for extra sounds and fanfares, but it wouldn't have been cohesive to the whole concept.

LITVACK: (cont'd) To give an example of my process: I have arranged Infinite Joy for my William Finn concert. It was originally composed for just piano and that gives me a great blank canvas to work from. I always look at the big picture first. Harmonically, what is it saying and how is it saying it? What are the key chords where the emotion kicks in and why does it do that? It's a lot about trying to get into the composer's head of what he intended. For Infinite Joy, (and many of his works) Finn likes sharp keys. It gives it a certain brightness, but in Infinite Joy, I noticed a lot of sus chords (crunchy ones) that give it some melancholy, contrasting with the brightness of the key. Melancholy + brightness = nostalgia (in my mind). I then look at melodic figures that please me or touches me in some way. For Infinite Joy, it is that introduction figure - that minor 7th leap that just fills me with hope. So I know what tone I want to maintain: nostalgic and hopeful. And then I see what I can do with that melody and where it can go. Do I invert it? Do I make it a canon? Do I simply use its harmonic structure? And what colour do I want? What instrument will communicate this and enhance the story without detracting from the singer? 

The process for me is constantly breaking it down to its bare bones and building it up, section by section, verse by verse, continually asking these questions. Then I go back and work out the kinks to make sure it is seamless and works both on small scale and big scale and as a whole. The actual process of notating it isn't hard - more tedious. But once it is in my head, it's in my head. And then I just pray it works when we put it all together. 

I want to just be a good musician and never make excuses.

CHARPO: To us setting music is like math: mysterious. How did you come to crack the mystery? (Tell us about your childhood...)

LITVACK: I started playing piano when I was six. My parents gave me the option of violin or piano and I chose piano (I chose right, sorry violinists). I studied at the McGill Conservatory for most of my childhood and was classically trained. I grew up with all different genres of music around me though - including musical theatre - and my parents were very encouraging to pursue pop, rock, jazz...not just classical and I'm very grateful for that. My family exposed me in particular to The Beatles, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison. I had a very particular taste in music at a young age. It's important to know what you like and what you don't like. To have opinions on music. I then got to study with a teacher at my school who really helped foster my musicality and let me embrace whatever music interested me. I loved classical music and continued with that, but every now and then we would learn some Oscar Peterson. I definitely credit this music education to my career now. It was so important for me to love all music and appreciate each genre. 

I then had to have reconstructive surgery on my left arm when I was 13 due to an illness. Hoping to still pursue music as my career, I had to just learn a new way of playing. I can't feel most of my left arm, bend the tips of my fingers or turn my wrists, so I had to figure out a way. It was definitely a hard part of my life trying to learn something I had become quite skilled at from scratch like a beginner. It took a lot of work, patience (and frustration), and sometimes physical pain. I had occupational therapy multiple times a week for about five years and was in an arm brace for about two. I always make sure though that it is never a crutch. I want to just be a good musician and never make excuses. If I'm having trouble from it, I just need to put that extra work in. There are many days where I can just be infuriated with my arm, believe me. But, it's a reality I have to deal with, but definitely not an excuse.

Some life changing moments that shaped my pursuit in music: seeing Show Boat and Ragtime with my family on Broadway, seeing the New York Philharmonic, my high school music teacher, Jonathan Baird, who really is my model when I teach, and going to Camp Oochigeas as a kid. I would have never gotten the confidence to pursue what I love without going there.

I studied music in university at U of T in the music education stream with my major in piano and from there started music directing university productions and my career grew from there. I started working with Hart House Theatre and then moved on to Toronto Youth Theatre and from each show I met someone new that brought me to my next show. Hopefully it will continue to grow from here. There's a lot I want to pursue.

It's incredibly important for me to approach music directing on an individual level.

CHARPO:  Now tell us about musical direction. That's a lot of working with a lot of people with differing levels of knowledge. Diagram an experience with one show.

LITVACK: Yes! It's so much about working with people. You can be technically the best musician in the world, but if you're not a leader and don't know how to work with people, your work will go nowhere. People skills are equally as important. 

It's incredibly important for me to approach music directing on an individual level. Every person learns differently. Even at professional levels. Figuring out how they tick takes time and is a process of observing from afar for a bit. 

A good example was my first show working with youth theatre. I did RENT with Toronto Youth Theatre and to this day it was my favourite show I have worked on. My first belief with youth is treating them like artists and equals. Setting the bar high without them knowing you are setting the bar high. It's important from the beginning for them to care about their work, their castmates, and the art and throw ego and insecurities away. Figuring out how to do that is a challenge. It comes slowly and then all of a sudden it will hit you that you are working on something special. But I always make sure I do my part by showing how much I care about their success and how much work I will put in for the show to be successful as well. I set an example on how much background work I do - research, working with text, breaking down music and finding meaning in it. For RENT, I did a lot of research on AIDS and Jonathan Larson and made sure that the kids began to respect the work on a different level than just singing it along to their iTunes. That the art is an important piece to be presented and why it was important to be presented by them in particular. As a music director, I had to be honest and open to them. Demand more from them when they weren't quite reaching the potential they could and not make it a personal criticism on them. Say the work deserves more and they deserve to reach that potential I know was there. Say something sucked if it did. But figuring out how to make it better was as much my job as it was theirs. I was a leader, but also on their team. It was my job to keep raising the bar for myself too. Making everyone aware of the music as a whole is also important. I worked on the first half of Christmas Bells with them for six hours so everyone was aware of every single line and how they fit in. My most important goal is to get the cast's ears working. Active listening is crucial.

Then, in terms of different ways of learning and different knowledge, I use a lot of ways of describing music beyond rhythm and pitch. I made sure they were aware how the rhythm fit their speech and how that dictated the emotion - not the other way around. That each pitch has a purpose and a specific intent. If they clarified that, they would never do it wrong. If those ideas weren't in sync, then it would be sloppy. I used a lot of examples of textures and colour and shape and movement. I'm a big believer of Dalcroze - the idea of music being taught through movement. When I music directed Spring Awakening, for example, I would say, "You know when you're outside during winter alone and it's the first snow. I want it to sound like that crunch when you first step on the snow." It sounds bizarre and abstract I know, but man does it work. When I music directed Hair, I made them slide down walls and across the floor to feel the tension in the music of The Flesh Failures. It's pretty magical when the sound changes to exactly the way you want it by taking that leap in teaching. 

And, well, music directing adults and professionals....to me, it's the exact same method.

CHARPO:  What makes the difference between a good and a bad theatre experience for you.

LITVACK: Bad theatre: Performative, non detail-oriented, ego-driven, complicated.

Good theatre: Simplicity, driven by the love of the art, courage, sensitivity, thoughtfulness.

But if I had to break it down to the biggest difference. Good theatre is honest.

Tara Litvack's website