Mendel’s Newsletter #10 (Nov 26)
I start this newsletter in the wake of the news that Sir Patrick Stewart, one of the most iconic figures in the entertainment industry, has recently passed away.
Patrick Stewart at the 70th Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
photo: Anders Krusberg
There are many tributes to Stewart that would do much more justice to his legacy than anything I would write myself, and I encourage you to find them and read more about who he was and how he carried himself. The primary reason I bring him to this newsletter is how much he credits public arts education as his origin story.
…a scholarship enabled him to attend the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, an opportunity otherwise beyond his family’s means…In later interviews, Stewart repeatedly criticised reductions in public funding for the arts. He understood that a theatrical education could be inaccessible to talented young people without financial assistance. His objections to Conservative arts policy were grounded in his own experience of what publicly supported opportunity could achieve.[1]
This feels particularly poignant in today’s current political climate where support for the arts at the federal and state level continue to shrink despite a decently sized degree of advocacy and sentiment from him and people like him. The journey of a young Patrick Stewart in today’s world could easily be that of a pipe dream of becoming an actor being unrealized because it is financially out of reach. A potential as a legacy maker decades from now may never be known because that talent is never given the opportunity to flourish.
Public arts made Patrick Stewart a household name, and the world is better off because of him.
Stewart’s breakout success in the mainstream entertainment industry gave him a large megaphone to wield on behalf of arts advocacy. The more I read about how he amplified that message, it got me thinking about my own efforts as a new music advocate and ways that they compare and contrast with his. I mean that not just from a notability perspective – in some ways it’s laughable to compare Stewart, an iconic global celebrity, to me, a random small-name New Orleans-based composer – but also in how our end goals, and therefore our approach, differ because of the specific fields for which we are advocating.
Classical music is a niche art form in comparison to mainstream television, and new music is a niche within that niche. My success as a creative practitioner may be influenced and inspired by some of the classical musicians you can find on wikipedia, but the ones who I had or have a direct relationship with who have deeply impacted my life do not and likely will never meet that ‘notability’ criteria (mostly). This is hardly a value judgement – most composers whose practice steers in the avant garde/experimental orbit (myself included) don’t compromise their creative voices in an effort to gain notoriety, and it would be disingenuous to promote the notion that notability and widespread recognition at a Beyoncé-like scale is a pinnacle for our particular slice of our creative field.
That said, the fact that celebritydom is not where I steer my journey has a side effect that there is an upper limit to the size of the arts advocacy megaphone that I will ever be given. That’s compounded by some key elements of my particular creative practice. For example, my music tends to be non-programmatic. Unlike composers who write music as a platform to express explicit positions such as solidarity for the trans community or protest against the Russia-Ukraine War, I generally write music to explore abstract sonic experiences and avoid using it as a platform to express symbolic messaging. A majority of my messaging is simply, “I hope you think this sounds cool.”
So when it comes to my work as a composer, I have a fairly small sphere of influence. I will say that I recognize that this is partially a product of the fact that my pivot to composition as a career is still relatively recent, and that that sphere of influence is continuing to grow. I’m particularly encouraged by the ongoing relationships that I’ve been able to establish in the past few years with more prominent new music ensembles like Mantra Percussion and Missing Piece, and that I’ve been given more publicity thanks to The Spaces Between being on Portland Percussion Group’s album Patterns and Form. Even so, these relationships and others are still growing and do not yet translate to consistently paid work, so more of my personal megaphone has to prioritize “support me!” more than “support new music!”
This is why Versipel New Music is so important to me, because while the success of my compositional career requires me to focus attention directly on me, the success of Versipel New Music requires me to redirect any attention that may fall on me to the mission and the community that the organization is cultivating. Within Versipel, I am just one small megaphone among a strong and growing community of people, each with their own megaphones, and our message is continuing to grow in strength and expand its circumference. Versipel New Music may not be a national household name, but we definitely have notoriety in New Orleans, and we’ve expanded and continue to expand our recognition in the state of Louisiana, the Gulf South, and pocket communities around the globe.
But even beyond that, we are just one small faction of the hundreds of thousands of new music organizations and individuals who are wielding the arts advocacy megaphone everywhere. Not only are there are the composers, performers, ensembles, curators, and culture bearers, but there are also the grantmakers, donors/funders, educators, volunteers, and audience members that feel strongly enough about the arts that they dedicate their time, energy, and money to ensure it is able to thrive. The more I see it, the more I recognize its power. It’s invigorating and inspiring in ways that are impossible to put into words.
Because new music and its community are both one thing and many things. It’s one large group made up of many small groups. Those small groups are made up of even smaller groups. Those smaller groups are made up of passionate individuals. And when we as individuals are raise our collective megaphones together and in even vaguely in the same direction, our advocacy voice is deafening.
So for you, dear newsletter follower, I offer this challenge as we ramp up to the end of 2026: be a megaphone. help other megaphones grow. Find where your local or regional arts makers are and support them. Go to the concerts, the gallery openings, the theater shows, the book readings, the exhibitions. Find and engage with their online content directly to defy the algorithms that punish them. Contribute to their end-of-year fundraising campaigns (you can get an early bird start on ours!), even if it’s a small amount. And reach out and let them know that you see them and that you appreciate them.
Because art is not a luxury, it is an essential ingredient to life and something that belongs to all of us. And for it to continue, for us to usher in the next generation of Patrick Stewarts, we all need to raise our advocacy megaphone and sing.
Upcoming Events!
November 22nd – 7:30pm – New Marigny Theatre – The Versipel Collective presents “Slumber”, a concert featuring a collection of music around sleep and the human condition
December 6th – 4:00pm – Bridgeport Music Collective – Missing Piece with guest violist Michal Hall will be world-premiering my newest work, An Insistence For Something Greater
January 15th – 7:00pm – Kimball Union Academy – The Music of Mendel Lee, an entire evening of my works, including maybe one or two works specifically for the talented Kimball Union Academy staff.
Thanks as always!
As always, a majority of the work that I’m doing for myself and for the organizations I am a part of could always use more direct support. If you want to help me pay the bills, pay my dedicated and passionate Versipel New Music staff and colleagues, and continue what I’m doing:
Donate to me directly:
Donate to Versipel New Music:
Until next month, happy new music making!