InClassica’s composer-in-residence Alexey Shor speaks to Lara Zammit about his progression into music and his connection with the Maltese islands.

LZ: You emerged on to the music scene later in life, having been discovered by David Aaron Carpenter at the age of 40. How would you describe your development in the field and practice of composition till now? What drew you to it and what are you trying to explore through it?

AS: Leaving mathematics for music was a very gradual process. I had been doing mathematics since I was a little child and I started writing music much later in life. There was a period when I was just writing music for myself and my friends and then it started being played, first a little bit and then more and more.

There was a long stretch of time when I was doing mathematics during the day and writing music in the evening and then, eventually, I had the opportunity to write a ballet on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Malta and Russia; everyone involved in that ballet was from Bolshoi and they wanted my music.

It was too much pressure to handle having two jobs so at that point I had to make a choice. From that point, I decided that I would be writing music.

Alexey Shor

LZ: Given your movement from mathematics to composition, was there anything you found dissatisfying with mathematics that led you to music, or did you perhaps have questions that mathematics could not answer which you thought music could?

AS: Not really, I loved mathematics all my life, but in the end I thought I only have one life, and after having done mathematics for 35 years I may as well try something else.

The Great Siege of Malta is also one of the most underappreciated moments in history

LZ: So, it was not an escape into music?

AS: I love mathematics, I still miss it, but I’m enjoying my musical adventure.

LZ: Do you have a specific guiding principle that belies your creative process?

AS: I guess the main guiding principle is that I image myselfas an audience member and I constantly ask myself ‘would I enjoy listening to this; would I enjoy listening to this more than once?’ So, basically, I am writing for myself as an audience member – that’s my main trick of trade.

LZ: I would imagine the translation of a composition into the one ultimately played by the orchestra to not be a seamless transition. How close is the real-world manifestation of the composition to the one in your head, so to speak?

AS: It’s a pretty long process from my head to the actual performance. In my head I probably have a melody, a rhythm, maybe some snippets of harmony, and then it’s like filling out a puzzle.

Pieces fall in one by one and eventually you have a score. Then you hear it performed on live instruments and it sounds very different from what you had in your head, so you make more adjustments and, eventually, it takes the final shape.

LZ: Do you make adjustments to the piece based on the orchestra’s or conductor’s reception of it?

AS: Sometimes I get comments and suggestions from the conductor or the members of the orchestra. More often I just listen to how things sound – perhaps I don’t hear the melody very well in parts, for example – that sort of thing.

LZ: My next question relates to your musical connection with Malta. Not only are you a Maltese citizen but you also have works that directly relate to Maltese history such as your orchestral suite Images from the Great Siege. How would you characterise your connection to Malta? What led you to this place?

AS: What led me to Malta is chance. Then once I discovered Malta, I really fell in love with it – it’s such a beautiful place, so underappreciated touristically.

Everybody knows that Taormina is the place to visit, but once you get to Taormina, you look one way and it’s a sea; you look the other way and it’s a Roman ruin and you’re done. Malta has some 300 views comparable to that and they’re not like any other views. Malta is really one of a kind, so I just love spending time there.

The Great Siege of Malta is also one of the most underappreciated moments in history not only because it saved Europe and who knows what would have happened if Malta hadn’t, but also because it is an amazing story. It is a David and Goliath story in real life where David actually wins, when he usually loses.

The Siege of Malta: Attack on the Post of the Castilian Knights, 21 August 1565 by Matteo Pérez de Alesio. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

LZ: Are we underappreciated musically as well?

AS: Musically it is also an amazing place. For a place whose population is the size of a Russian neighbourhood in New York, there is a world-class philharmonic orchestra, a bunch of different festivals, not to mention this one which is enormous and probably would have been the biggest in the world even if it weren’t for COVID.

Alexey Shor is the composer-in-residence for the tenth anniversary edition of the InClassica International Music Festival held this year in Dubai.

LZ: When the composer Iannis Xenakis was once asked what the role of the composer is in society, he responded by saying: “I can’t see myself as having any role. […] I think that whatever one does can be taken for granted or rejected.” Posing the same question to you, what would you say is the role of the composer in society, if any?  

AS: I’m pretty close to agreeing with Xenakis. I write music because I love it and I don’t concern myself with more weighty questions.

LZ: Funnily enough my final question is rather weighty… Friedrich Nietzsche famously said: “Without music, life would be a mistake”. What would you say is the significance of music in our lives? 

AS: Music is part of human nature. It has probably been with us for as long as we’d had fire and probably longer than the wheel. 

The InClassica International Music Festival was presented in Dubai by the European Foundation for Support of Culture and SAMIT Event. More information about the festival is available at inclassica.com.