Sitting in a moment: Introducing Raindrop New Music

The composer collective–Lisa Neher, Carolyn Quick and Drew Swatosh–will be featured on Fear No Music’s next “Locally Sourced Sounds” concerts this weekend.
Raindrop New Music (L to R: Carolyn Quick, Drew Swatosh, Lisa Neher). Photo courtesy of the artists.
Raindrop New Music (L to R: Carolyn Quick, Drew Swatosh, Lisa Neher). Photo courtesy of the artists.

Raindrop New Music is a publishing collective consisting of a trio of young composers: Lisa Neher, Carolyn Quick and Drew Swatosh. Their focus is on vocal music, though they have also published solo and chamber music on their site. In the wake of the recent conversations here in Oregon ArtsWatch (read those here and here), we’ve raised the point that we need publishing collectives and record labels in the state, to act as a one-stop spot for people who want to hear and perform music by Oregonian composers. Raindrop Music is a step in the right direction in this regard. 

The three composers all met at a FearNoMusic back in early 2020, and began their collaboration a few months later with Quick’s group Persisting Sound. Raindrop New Music began upon the suggestion of Swatosh, as a means for them to collectively support each other’s work. Neher, Quick and Swatosh split the work evenly between them, taking turns managing their newsletter, social media and website. Right now the group is a tight-knit trio, and while they are open to adding new members they aren’t actively looking to expand. If you want to hear more about the formation of the collective, check out their appearance on the Moveable Do podcast. 

Although I spoke to each of the three separately, they held many perspectives in common; it seems as if all three were destined to work together. They share an interest in communal music-making and the shared experience of live music. All three believed that in the coming decade music–especially opera–will move towards a focus on smaller chamber productions and supporting local artists. Two of them also mentioned pop singer Chappell Roan as an inspiration, for her vocal prowess and intricate arranging techniques. 

At Scenes from Adolescence, FearNoMusic will perform three works by Raindrop composers: Quick’s Pieces for Soprano, flute and piano, Swatosh’s Saudade and Neher’s She Conjures. I spoke to each of the composers separately to get to know their thoughts on music, balancing being a composer and performer, and where they think music is heading. 

Lisa Neher

Born outside Seattle, Lisa Neher began singing at a young age. Her first musical passions were movie soundtracks and musicals, which influenced her current interest in musical narrative and theatrical performance. As a young adult she attended Lewis and Clark College, the University of Kansas, and the University of Iowa, where she began writing music for voice, harp and piano. Her favorite scale is the octatonic scale, her favorite chord is major add 2, and her favorite odd time signature is 7/8. 

Like the other Raindrop New Music members, Neher lives out multiple musical lives simultaneously. She’s a composer, a mezzo-soprano, a teacher and career coach, and founding member of both RNM and New Wave Opera. She’s even dipping her toes back into the theater world. She believes that music is a way for people to hold space for moods and feelings, as we are “sitting in a moment” while we listen. Through this broad perspective she writes music that is politically and socially conscious, though she’s not interested in giving any sort of easy answers to our society’s issues with gender equality and environmental destruction. She’s more interested in providing a space for us to think about how these issues permeate our lives. Both of these themes can be heard in her large song cycle, No One Saves the Earth from Us But Us

I’ve written about She Conjures before, when it was performed by New Wave Opera back in October. In She Conjures, Neher weaves together Scottish waulking songs and other Gaelic folk music with creeping drones, jigs and chromatic harmonies. The operetta exists in multiple versions, and FearNoMusic will be performing the version featuring Amelia Lukas on alto flute and Arwen Meyers singing. The Celtic themes of She Conjures complement one of David Schiff’s works on the program, Joycesketch II

Sponsor

Orchestra Nova Reynolds High School Troutdale Oregon and The Reser Beaverton Oregon

Carolyn Quick

Carolyn Quick grew up in Portland and started singing in choir in fifth grade. Her first full composition to be performed was an eleven-part percussion piece titled The Odyssey, at the behest of her parents and high school band director. This encouraged her to study music at the University of Oregon and University of British Columbia, and returned to Portland in the late 2010s. Her favorite scale is the acoustic scale, and her favorite odd time signature is 5/8. Quick says that she does not have a favorite chord, since she tends to think more in terms of counterpoint than vertical harmonies. 

In this context we know Quick the composer, but she has a wide breadth of musical experience. She is also a percussionist, playing the marching glockenspiel in the University of Oregon marching band, where she would fight with the other “pit” players for the purple tambourine when in the stands at football games. She also sings with In Medio, one of Portland’s many great contemporary choir groups. Thanks to her dual experience as a percussionist and a soprano, Carolyn Quick has a deft touch at crafting melodies and textures. Her music combines flowing modal melodies, evocative text painting and a refreshing levity to its rhythms. If you want to hear some of her percussion music, check out her quartet So She Dreamed, which the Portland Percussion Group recently released. 

Quick wrote Pieces for Soprano, flute and piano in the spring of 2019. She returned to Portland after receiving her master’s degree in composition from University of British Columbia, and like many young composers had no clear direction forward. Once back, she reconnected with an old friend, flutist Savannah Gentry, and wrote Pieces for her to perform as part of their new music collective, Persisting Sound. 

Pieces sets a text Quick wrote herself about overcoming external pressures and asserting oneself. She also described it to me as an expression of “feminine rage,” apropos of the themes of discovering one’s own strength and power even if it conflicts with societal standards. The music combines singing and spoken passages, with some nice interplay between the flute and piano parts and the flute adding an extra color to the vocal melody, almost like a running commentary. She believes that the music is already within the text and opts to choose between multiple readings of the same text for different effects. When given choices for how to interpret the text, she often opts to do both. 

Drew Swatosh

Drew Swatosh grew up in Vancouver, Washington and began composing in ninth grade. While attending an interdisciplinary arts high school, Swatosh wrote a piece of music inspired by the waterfront park on the Columbia River in Vancouver. They also began singing in seventh grade choir. Their favorite scale is the Lydian mode, their favorite chord is major 7, and their favorite odd time signature is 7/8.

Swatosh then studied music at Western Oregon University, where they refined their interest in writing vocal and chamber music. When I asked about what inspires them musically, they said they like playing with inversions and overlapping multiple ideas. They approach music from a thematic rather than a formal perspective. As such, their music flows very well, progressing from one texture to another in a way that mirrors the shifts in tone and perspective one finds in great poetry. 

Drew is a programmatic composer at heart, stemming from their background in an integrated arts education. They hope to reflect the diversity of the world through their music, and take pride in collaboration and working within a larger community. Working with the Seattle Opera Creation Lab, Swatosh composed their largest work, the half-hour chamber opera If Only I Could Give You the Sun, with voice parts cleverly written to be amenable to many voice types and gender expressions. If Only is a re-telling of the Icarus and Daedalus myth that reframes the story as a metaphor for personal acceptance of one’s gender identity.  

Sponsor

CMNW Hagen Quartet

The upcoming FearNoMusic program features Swatosh’s Saudade for solo piano. “Saudade” is a Portuguese word with no direct translation, meaning something like “nostalgia” or “longing.” The music leaves just enough room for contemplation between the unresolved chords, and would work extraordinarily well soundtracking the most heartbreaking scene yet to be filmed.

Coming Up

FearNoMusic performs music by Raindrop New Music on Friday the 24th and Monday the 27th at Eliot Chapel at Reed College, and the Old Church Concert hall respectively. Their music rounds out the program that also includes Temenos: Sacred Space by Deena T. Grossman and two works by David Schiff, the aforementioned Joycesketch II and Scenes from Adolescence.

Charles Rose is a composer, writer and sound engineer born and raised in Portland, Oregon. In 2023 he received a masters degree in music from Portland State University. During his tenure there he served as the school's theory and musicology graduate teaching assistant and the lead editor of the student-run journal Subito. His piano trio Contradanza was the 2018 winner of the Chamber Music Northwest’s Young Composers Competition. He also releases music on BandCamp under various aliases. You can find his writing at CharlesRoseMusic.com.

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