Interview by Nell Whittaker
Photos by Victor Robyn

NW In ancient Greek, both bodily organs and the instrument of the organ have the same linguistic root, “ὄργανον”, meaning tool or instrument.  What’s the nature of the link between the body and the organ?

KM Like a body, the organ is composed of many intelligent systems that coexist to form its whole. I love creative restraints, and in my practice, I don’t make use of all of the systems available in the organ. My working palette is mostly limited to eight-foot flue pipes in the lower midrange register. I see my compositions as formulas, and if done correctly, they produce beating patterns and complex phasing. This acoustic phenomenon, paired with the emotiveness of melodic phrasing, can create a profound listening experience. I want the listener to feel completely embodied in the sound, to lose expectation of time and narration, to feel wonder in pattern recognition, to focus, soften and turn inward. When I’m preparing the organ for a concert – deciding which pipes and timbres to use – I listen completely with my body to achieve the optimal balance and blend of saturation, density, and breath for each piece. 

NW When I came to your concert at Saint Martin’s in the Field, it felt like being inside sound was another form of being inside time. What is your relationship to time when playing?

KM Every instrument has its own metabolic time. For the organ, with its continuous air supply and consistent pitch, time is more forgiving and can be easily stretched without exhausting the instrument. For voices and brass, there are natural durational limits built in. I found that a piece works best within those limitations, phrased around breathing and comfortably posed for the body. Sometimes shortening a piece even emphasises the miraculous phenomena of live acoustic music in the present. The macro structure of the concert also has its own temporal shifts that the audience becomes attuned to. Generally, the concert alternates between canonical patterns and held chords. The pattern segments generate a rhythmic entrainment that the listeners can participate in, gradually learning the cycles and keystone moments. There is a fine line – how many pattern repetitions can one make before the discovery becomes overstated? When we are close to reaching this threshold, we stop the pattern and hold the last chord for an undefined, extended period. There is a great shift of perception now, as the mind detaches from the impressions of the pattern and adapts to the held chord. With time, we start to hear all of the fine harmonics and layers that make up the chord, the intervals within, the phase cycles and beatings that move throughout the room. This final held chord isn’t always the most harmonically conclusive one – usually it’s the more dissonant and texturally dense chords from the pattern. Once extracted, the chord’s personality is liberated from the context of melodic phrasing and can take on new complexities of character. 

NW How do you approach the problem of language, inside a music which is broadly non-vocal?

KM On my song “Passage Through The Spheres”, I started composing the piece with words, so the poetic intention and the rhythm of the syllables were always connected to the music. However, this was a challenge for the pieces “All Life Long” and “Slow of Faith”, where I had composed the music before the words. It took some reflection and close listening to decipher the message of the music, and then to find the words that could illuminate and communicate that message. Then I remembered some poems I memorised as a teenager. The meaning resonated strongly with the music, and the syllables  happened to rhythmically match. It all felt meant to be, like a gift from my younger self.

NW How do you feel about being in the role of performer?

KM As a performer, there’s a responsibility to pilot the experience, to be a good leader and communicator. Admittedly, I am not the most outwardly charismatic performer. Most of the time I’m hidden behind the organ, or my back is to the audience, so I rely on a telepathic connection. The moment of the bow is important because it’s the one time the audience and I see each other, and it’s also the audience’s time to conclude the whole show with their applause. In that moment, there’s so much energetic exchange, gratitude and friendliness that it can be overwhelming. We have all gone through this deep and long experience, with the audience committing themselves to the music through concentration and deep listening. It reminds me that this is exactly what I should be doing. .

NW The opening lines to your album All Life Long (2024), in Italian, are, “There is a profane contagion, a touch that disenchants and returns to use what the sacred had separated and petrified.” How do you define the sacred?

KM Throughout my life I have been attracted to places I don’t inherently belong, learning the codes and bending them to be able to make my music, like a shapeshifting fox. Those lyrics are taken from Giorgio Agamben’s 2007 essay “In Praise of Profanation”. He defines profanation as the act of bringing back to communal use what has been removed through sacred jurisdiction. Through the act of play, we can bring objects and activities previously confined to the sacred sphere back to the use of humanity. The pipe organ is perhaps the most gatekept instrument, and playing secular contemporary music in a church and using the organ outside of mass might be an artistic act of profanation. It opens the instrument to artistic exploration beyond religious ritual and liturgical agenda, bringing a broad range of listeners into the church for the sole purpose of music.

NW Do you think of yourself as a producer, a channeller, or something in between?

KM Lately, I’ve been asking my musician friends if they sing in their minds. If they have an idea of a melody, do they first hear it in their mind, or do they have to sound it aloud? I always assumed this was everyone’s experience, but it’s not as common as I thought. Most of the time, you’ll catch me singing in my mind. There is a constant, abundant flow of singing. Though some melodies force me to sit down and write a piece, I considered it a different internal musical voice than the musical voice I embody when I’m deliberately composing. I’m not writing as frequently as I used to, maybe it’s the constant touring. I also haven’t had a studio in many years. Perhaps the studio is in my mind now.