Embracing Humor, Shakespeare, and Ice Skating
written by Aaron Israel Levin
Bahlest Eeble Readings Cycle 18 Fellow
Composing for me is a lot like ice skating.
Or rather, composing is a lot like how I ice skate.
As a Minnesotan, born and raised, one might reasonably assume that ice skating comes as naturally to me as shoveling, sweaters, summers at the lake, and a well-timed “you betcha.” And yet, I am terrible at shoveling, I do not own a single sweater, I have never spent a summer at a lake, and my Minnesotan accent only rarely rears its head for an awkwardly timed “ope.” Unsurprisingly, my presence on an ice rink is characterized by inelegance and a series of very close calls. On top of that, I am deeply afraid of falling (or, worse, being the cause of another skater’s fall), and on a busy rink packed with effortlessly gliding Minnesotans, I become painfully aware of my total lack of skaterly talent.
This sense of comparison is an uncomfortably familiar feeling in my composition process, except that the fear of falling is replaced by a fear of failing. Despite having studied and played music for over two decades, I often feel like an imposter – like a Minnesotan who should be better at skating than they actually are. Either way, a long day of one or the other usually ends with a sore back.
Over time, I began to associate composing (and skating) with discomfort, anxiety, and self-consciousness. I leaned into the idea that my music, following an imagined lineage of “tortured artists,” should reflect these feelings by favoring density and complexity. So, when Gabriela Lena Frank, during a Zoom session where I presented some of my work, remarked that my music had a “great sense of humor” that even made people laugh out loud, I was thoroughly taken aback.
I had, more often than not, operated from the standpoint that composition needed to be strictly serious. A vessel for humanity’s deepest torments and spiritual profundity. If my music was funny, was I somehow doing it wrong? My initial reaction was confusion, followed quickly by embarrassment. Gabriela doubled down. “This is a special ‘Aaron ’ quality,” she said. “You should embrace it.” I sat with that for a while.
I started thinking about some of the artists I love most. I remembered a performance of Kurt Weill songs that left the audience bursting with laughter. I thought of Shostakovich’s peculiar quotation of the William Tell overture in his Fifteenth Symphony, and of Viet Cuong’s hilariously well-timed oboe multiphonics in Extra(ordinarily) Fancy. I even went back to Shakespeare. Hamlet, arguably the most iconic tragic figure in Western literature, is also genuinely funny, cracking morbid jokes right alongside sincere morbid ponderings. Humor, I realized, is not at odds with craft or depth. In many cases, it is the doorway in.
I took Gabriela’s advice to heart in the piece I wrote for the Bahlest Eeble Readings (Cycle 18). Looking to Shakespeare for inspiration, I decided to create musical portraits of famous Shakespearean couples, transplanted into modern American suburbia. Hermia and Lysander are stuck in a cul-de-sac. Romeo and Juliet are catching an early-afternoon showing at their local shopping-mall movie theater. You get the gist.
Luckily, I had three fantastic collaborators eager to explore the comic potential of their instruments: oboist Kyle Bruckman, bassoonist Jamael Smith, and percussionist Chris Froh. As I moved deeper into the composition process, generously guided by my collaborators’ astute musical insights, I found that embracing humor didn’t make the music lighter; it made the process more honest. I noticed myself writing faster, trusting my instincts sooner, and worrying less about whether a gesture was “serious enough.”
Paradoxically, the music grew more emotionally expansive. Humor opened the door to vulnerability, tenderness, and even darkness, not by undercutting them, but by making space for contrast. Once I stopped bracing myself against my musical instincts, the act of composing itself also became less bracing.
There’s a reason I keep returning to both composing and ice skating. There’s a thrill in the sting of cold air against my face, just as there is in crafting a melodic line that finally feels just right. There’s joy in gliding alongside family and friends, or sharing a collective musical moment with collaborators. And there’s deep satisfaction in warming up indoors after a day on the ice, or placing that final double bar line. It takes an intuitive mentor like Gabriela to point out that embracing humor can be a path toward that joy, whether it's comedy in music or clumsiness on the ice. Even if it might mean falling.
I continue to explore these theatrical and comedy-driven impulses in my current projects. In my upcoming one-act chamber opera Trusted (commissioned by Chicago Opera Theater), two adult sisters grapple with the fallout of their business-mogul father’s financial scandal. Trusted engages themes of capitalism, greed, and family loyalty, blending the propulsive rhythmic churn of a bill counter with the sardonic bite of an Adam McKay film. Looking ahead, I hope to continue collaborating with singers and theater companies on new operatic works that confront contemporary themes with similar dramatic immediacy. I’m equally drawn to the narrative and comic potential of instrumental music, and welcome opportunities to work with chamber ensembles and orchestras. I’m especially interested in writing a concerto that explores how the virtuosic interplay between soloist and ensemble can generate intricate and compelling theatrical expression. Ultimately, I thrive on collaborating with musicians who are eager to workshop ideas and uncover new ways to tell stories through music.
Aaron Israel Levin
Aaron Israel Levin is an American composer whose music is guided by the emotional dynamism of storytelling and drama. Drawing from an eclectic range of musical and extra-musical influences––inspired equally by American minimalism and European modernism; Jewish folklore and Italian cinema; urban metropolises and natural landscapes––he creates music that is at once somber and playful, tender and confrontational, lyrical and gestural.
The 2024-26 Vanguard Composer-in-Residence with Chicago Opera Theater, Aaron's music has been performed and commissioned by the Aizuri Quartet, the American Composers Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Bent Frequency Duo, confluss duo, the Chelsea Symphony, Fifth House Ensemble, the Historical Keyboard Society of North America, the Iowa Composers Forum, loop38, the Music Teachers National Association, New European Ensemble, Onix Ensamble, Salastina, Sputter Box, and mezzo-sopranos Kayleigh Butcher and Lisa Neher. Passionate about collaboration, Aaron often works with artists in theater, dance, and film. Past collaborators include playwright Christopher Gabriel Nuñez, choreographer Celeste Miller, and filmmaker Harris Gurny. Along with violist Harris Bernstein and composer Soomin Kim, he is the cofounder of the chamber music project Rattlebox Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota.