October’s member of the month is our favorite musical genius Trevor Bača!
Occupation:
Composer of classical music
What motivates you?
Sounds. And time. I’ve been obsessed by the ways that sounds work my entire life. When do we first notice quiet sounds entering our hearing (and our imagination) in a piece of music? Or when we’re walking through the our everyday world? What are the circumstances that cause us to perceive harmony, to feel a combination of sounds that feels “just right”? When do we feel something in our lives has happened suddenly? Incredibly slowly? At just the right time? I sit around and think about these things all the time. And, then, sometimes those thoughts make it into whatever music I’m writing at the moment.
Why do you work out of a coworking space? And more importantly, why 100state?
100state’s been perfect because of the PEOPLE we have here. Everyone’s serious AF in the projects they’re pursuing, but also incredibly relaxed about letting everyone else do whatever they need to do to get their own stuff done. That’s pretty much what a shared workspace is supposed to be. Also I like the color printer.
Who do you look at as a role model and why?
It’s a great question. In the traditions of the arts we have all the previous examples of people who’ve put something genuinely new into the world — somehow — and maybe left us a bit of an example for how we can do the same thing. But artists also make for kinda dangerous role models, too, depending on what sort of behaviors we’re talking about. I’ve had to cobble together behaviors from different figures at different times, customizing them to my own work. Steve Jobs’s decision to limit his wardrobe choice to the same black turtleneck every morning works for me too (which is why my time at 100state is colored, always, by a black tshirt in summer or the same black sweater once the weather changes), though there’s not much else I think I’d take from Jobs. (And of course Jobs wasn’t the first. “Be neat and orderly in your daily life, so that your art may overflow with recklessness.” That was Gustave Flaubert.)
What is your favorite 100state memory?
Quigley trying to explain why he would not take on a side hustle as an exotic male dancer.
What inspires you to keep pursuing your dream?
No other choice. If I could’ve walked away from writing music I would’ve done it years ago. It just wasn’t possible. And so I found myself chained to writing into our world a weird art that society can very easily get by without. But as long as I can’t escape the compulsion, then I’m sure AF going to do it intensely as I can.
When you’re not at 100state, where can you be found?
In a broom-closet of an office on the 5th floor of the music building on the UW campus. And, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 11 am – 11:50 am, lecturing to 166 college undergrads on the 2nd floor of the Humanities Building on the UW campus. I’m teaching this semester’s version of Music 101, and 100state members are all welcome to drop in on any lecture. Room 2650 right off the mall.
