Writing Music Among Friends: An Interview with Composer Chan Ka Nin

By Nicky Swett

Composer Chan Ka Nin discusses the fun of writing for people he knows well in relation to his 1989 trio Among Friends, which will be performed on the Sonic Spectrum concert on November 14, 2024.

Nicky Swett: This piece was composed for friends and colleagues at the University of Toronto. How did your knowledge of the specific styles of the musicians you were writing for impact the choices you made in the piece?

Chan Ka Nin: I wrote it for the group Amici. They consisted of clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas, cellist David Hetherington, and pianist Patricia Parr. They, of course, have their own personalities and different functions in the group. It’s their personalities that I was concentrating on in translating and choosing ideas for their instruments. Joaquin is a brilliant player. He will play anything and he can be aggressive and very animated. David plays in the Toronto Symphony and he’s the section leader. He tends to be holding the group together and making sure everything is right. He also seems to be the spokesperson for the group, and he can be funny! Patricia Parr’s approach is very classical and very calm, so she is a stabilizing force in the group.

NS: You mentioned that the cellist is funny. How do you integrate humor into the cello line?

CKN: One simple thing would be to use pizzicato. It’s kind of humorous in my mind. The lighter, short notes are humorous: a pointillistic, staccato sound. There’s a little bit of a jazz element in the piece. It’s based on one simple pattern, and they just keep repeating it and they try to do different things with it, showing off, so it shows some humor in that direction. 

NS: Close to the start of the piece, the instruments break out into soloistic cadenzas. What function do these moments serve in the overall narrative?

CKN: It was an introduction to their personalities. There are three different people and they try to establish themselves. You start with the cello, and it has the pizzicato sound. Then the piano cadenza has a kind of flourish, followed by the clarinet part that is like a cadenza but with some light accompaniment. The function is to separate the different styles and to display how different the three instruments are idiomatically: the string instrument, the woodwind, and the keyboard. Normally you put a cadenza at the end, but here they let everybody know who they are as an introduction.

NS: In your program note, you mention that the work reflects the highs and lows of friendships. What are some of those positive and negative parts of relationships and how are they represented musically?

CKN: The piece is a bit more positive than negative, but there is a slow, sad section. It could symbolize the setbacks that the three of them have had in their careers, or it might express disappointment in things they encounter in their personal lives. This is followed by an uplifting section, where, as friends, they uplift each other and comfort each other.

NS: There’s a wonderful moment when you ask the players to sing in unison, right before the final gestures of the piece. Why did you bring the human voice in just for this closing passage?

CKN: There are a couple of aspects. Because you have been hearing these three instruments and now, all of a sudden, there’s a different sound, a different timbre, it creates some interest in the piece near the end. And the fact that they are singing in unison symbolizes that they are together as friends, hopefully lasting a long time.

NS: There have been quite a lot of performances of this piece. Do any stick out in your mind as bringing something new to it?

CKN: This morning, I happened to pick one just to refresh myself. And in this particular one, I notice that they didn’t seem to have many technical difficulties. When the piece was first written, the group's original players told me that there were some passages that were very difficult. Then years later, they told me, “you know, we are playing faster than you wrote,” because they somehow got used to it. On this recording I heard this morning, they did play it very, very fast and very effectively. I’m enchanted that now players do not think it is so difficult of a piece.

NS: What are other aspects of Among Friends that you would like to point out to the audience?

CKN: One part of the piece, in terms of the symbolism of friends in my mind, would be when they all play the same melody, but each plays the same note in their own way. The piano keeps repeating it, and then clarinet plays one eighth note, and then the cello plays another eighth note. So as friends they gel together. I thought it would be good symbolically that they are in sync. How they all contribute to one section to create the melody requires some ensemble sensitivity. This idea of give and take in performance and in real life—it’s essential for friendship and for building up trust.