Cleveland Orchestra Fellow Allison Loggins-Hull Composing a Symphonic Work for Cleveland

Before her fellowship with the Cleveland Orchestra, Allison Loggins-Hull had never been to Cleveland — but, so far, she says the city has given a good first impression.

Currently, in the first season of her three-season residency, Loggins-Hull is working with the orchestra to develop chamber music concerts, new adaptations of former compositions and, ultimately, a symphonic piece inspired by the city’s dynamic.

Soon, she’ll premiere an expanded version of her piece “Can You See?” with the Cleveland Orchestra on May 4 and 6, alongside selections by Samuel Barber and Sergei Prokofiev. Tickets to the performance are available at clevelandorchestra.com. A couple of weeks later, she’ll be involved in a May 21 Karamu House performance, celebrating Black composers.

When she’s not composing works for classical groups, Loggins-Hull also performs flute with her ensemble Flutronix, along with a variety of artists spanning from film score composer Hans Zimmer to pop star Lizzo.

We caught up with the artist to hear about how her fellowship is going and what to expect from her work.

Cleveland Magazine: How has the fellowship with the Cleveland Orchestra been going?
Allison Loggins-Hull: It’s been really fantastic. I was last there in the fall and, of course, I'll be there this spring. So far, me physically being down there has been very introductory. My residency involves very heavy engagement with community organizations and schools throughout Cleveland — people outside of Severance — just getting to know people, allowing them to get to know me and starting to build what I hope will be lasting relationships through this residency. My goal is to culminate with my final commission: a large symphonic work that represents my time in Cleveland and the people who I’ve met and worked with and the stories that I've learned about here in the things that make Cleveland, Cleveland. 

CM: It sounds like a collaborative process — is that how you approach composition in general? What’s your artistic process like?
AL: I prefer to work collaboratively as much as possible. I've been in an ensemble called Flutronix for 15 years that was founded by myself and Nathalie Joachim who is also a flutist and a composer and a vocalist. I started composing with her years ago and the majority of our repertoire is co-composed, so that was my real first introduction into doing that. We worked so well together that that experience was remarkable because it has been very organic from the beginning. 

As a flutist, I have only preferred to be working in ensemble settings and with other people, and working together diplomatically and democratically. To me, this is the kind of music-making that brings me the most joy, when I get a commission and I have the opportunity to work with the artists. Those are the more exciting commissioning opportunities for me.

For me, collaboration is not only desirable but very much an asset, if you have the time and place to take advantage of it.

CM: As you get to know Cleveland, what are your first impressions?
AL: This is my first visit experience with Cleveland whatsoever. I've never been, I'm originally from Chicago. I left Chicago when I was 10 years old, and I've been living on the East Coast ever since then, but as an adult, I've spent a lot of time in Chicago, and it's still a city that I hold very near and dear to my heart.

The first thing I felt was that kind of Midwestern vibe, which is mellow and warmer than maybe on the East Coast. I don't think I've been in a place where I've met so many people who are from a place and who have stayed there and who are ride-or-die guys. They just love Cleveland, their heart and soul is there, the work that they do, all of that. I’m sure it exists in other places but personally, I’ve never been immersed in a situation where every day I met at least one person, sometimes more than one person, who had that same kind of commitment and adoration to a place. That was very telling.

I was actually a little worried about it because I’m looking to work with different types of organizations and communities — I was worried that there would be a lack of cohesion between them all. They serve different missions, they have different objectives. I went to the Baseball Museum, for example, and, like, what is the connecting thread between the Baseball Museum and Global Cleveland? But it wasn’t a problem at all because as different as some of these places were, what was consistent was this way of life. It seems like the Cleveland way of life, so to speak.

I’m kind of shy to say what it is right now because I’m thinking that this piece that I’m going to write in a couple of years will really be about that and I don’t want to spoil it — but I will say that there is something that I have already felt is so specific to Cleveland and Clevelanders, and I’m just really excited about it and really excited to see it in other ways.

CM: The Cleveland Orchestra is performing one of your pieces soon. Could you tell me about it and what people can expect at the performance?
AL: It’s an arrangement of an existing piece called “Can You See?” The original version is for nine players, and it was commissioned by the New Jersey Symphony for a program that was specifically about exploring responsibility as an American as a citizen, it was during COVID. It was not too long after George Floyd. As you recall, it was a very hectic time — and it's still a hectic time but you know, temperatures were very hot. The ask was to basically explore the meaning of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and I ended up questioning whether or not the lyrics are genuine; specifically this being “the land of the free. This whole idea, especially at the time and still today and historically, just looking around and zooming out, that's not the case for everyone here, and it has never been. The piece itself borrows that line, “Oh say can you see?” from the anthem and I'm kind of doing a play on it. Like, can you see, as if: Are things clear? Are they focused? Are we doing what we say we’re supposed to be doing, what we’re all about? Is that true?

The original version, I used melodic material from the anthem and stretched it out in a somber way between flute and horn and the strings serve to create this cloudy environment. It’s like, if you could hear what unfocused sounds like, that's what I was going for. I did a few nods to some various musical American languages, and there’s a line that’s a little bit borrowed from jazz idioms. In this larger expanded version, I added material that is inspired by Native American flute playing. I took this opportunity as a way to explore the question further, but also do a little bit more of a nod to the people and the diversity of the people in music here in America. There’s a little bit of different musical styles going on; they’re purely American, I feel, and I treat the arrangement as if there were electronic delays. If you can imagine the melodic material from the first piece going through a delay processor — there’s an echo that’s a little different but is sourced from that original material. I orchestrated this delay effect throughout the larger orchestra and that was a way to still pose the question but maybe explore it a little deeper and in a musical way. It ended up sounding much more hopeful than the original version which I thought was really interesting. It’s taken on a little bit of a different tone, though.

CM: Beyond your composition work, you also perform with a wide variety of artists — classical groups and then, on the pop end, with Lizzo. What it’s like to navigate so many worlds of music?
AL: I love it. I really do. I have to say it feels so natural to me because as long as I can remember, I have been exposed to all kinds of music. I grew up in a house where music was just constantly playing. I went to concerts; you name it. A lot of classical music, a lot of rock music, a lot of jazz, a lot of R&B, a lot of electronic, a lot of weird stuff, a lot of acid jazz; you name it, all over the map. I do believe that a lot of that is in my subconscious.

As a result, there are so many things that I listen to that I love and enjoy. I have made a very conscious decision to do music that I love. I don't really care what genre it is, to be honest. I got very, very much into the classical world as a flute player through my flute training, in the effort to become a better flutist. In my eyes that was the best way to get the best training and work with the best players. I love classical music, so I was totally game to study it at that level, and I’m so glad that I did because there are so many skills I learned that just make life easier in a lot of ways, in different musical settings.

But I never wanted to do that exclusively, and I've always had a creative spirit. So when I ended up really getting into composition, I was just coming out of the period where I wasn't really sure where I was going, musically. I just graduated from undergrad. I had this flute performance degree but I didn't want to keep going on that trajectory because, at least back then anyway, when I was in college, it was all very much just like grooming you for an orchestra job or an academic job. Which is fine, but for me it wasn’t what I ever set out to do. I just wanted to be a musician. I never really defined it, but I never wanted to limit myself. If you’re going to be an orchestral player, it’s not to say that you can’t do other things, but it requires so much dedication and time, and you really do have to just be doing that. That never appealed to me.

There was a time where I was really doing any kind of gig I possibly could. I was living in Brooklyn. Most of them were terrible, very unglamorous; some of them were really great. I just wanted to see what I could do; what I was capable of doing if I could bring my musical skills to different environments and where that could go. That eventually led to me doing more improvisation and led to me composing and then once I really got into that, I was like, “Okay, this is cool because I'm creating music that doesn't really exist."