Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij On Scoring For Broadway's 'This Is Our Youth'
Amid a flurry of buzz and positive reviews, This Is Our Youth, Kenneth Lonergan’s seminal 1996 play, opens this week on Broadway. Directed by Anna D. Shapiro, This Is Our Youth stars actors Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, and Tavi Gevinson -- the influential 18-year-old founder of Rookie magazine, in her first stage role -- as a trio of anxious and aimless post-adolescents in 1982 Manhattan’s Upper West Side.Â
While those marquee names are drawing most of the attention, this new staging also showcases another name many will be familiar with: Rostam Batmanglij. Best known as the multi-instrumentalist and producer of the indie rock band Vampire Weekend, Batmanglij majored in classical music while studying at Columbia University. For This Is Our Youth, he scored five pieces -- one which plays as theatergoers arrive, and four which bookend the two acts of the play.Â
In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Batmanglij explains how he came to the project and how writing for the stage is different than writing pop songs with Vampire Weekend. Plus, hear excerpts from the score, performed live by string quartet in the Soundcheck studio.
Interview Highlights
Rostam Batmanglij, on his first involvement with This Is Our Youth:
I’m a huge fan of Kenny Lonergan’s. I really love the movie Margaret and I think it’s one of the best movies that’s been made in the last decade. Anyone should see it if they have a chance because it’s a really special movie. I was sent the script from producers Eli and Scott. I read it in one sitting on an airplane and when the plane landed I said, ‘I want to be part of this' because I loved it.
On finding inspiration from living in Manhattan:
I think I was more specifically interested in place when making the music. And my connection to the Upper West Side is a personal one because I lived there between the ages of 18 and 22 while I was going to school. I guess I sort of reached back into my memories and thought about the music I was listening to, the music I was studying and the feelings I had at that time in my life when I was living in that part of Manhattan. That’s what I think got me to where I was with the play. I have memories of going to practice rooms and being alone with an upright piano for several hours and sort of being a sad teenager. Being up early in the morning, up late at night.
On the intermission piece that uses baroque influences and LP surface noise:
This is a 20 minute piece. The music that I wrote for the very beginning it was ambient music and I was influenced by Brian Eno and Arthur Russell. He's one of those composers who I think was very interested in the oneness -- the full spectrum. So this piece, I played it for some people who think it sounds like jazz but it also connects with the baroque more classical themes that you hear in other parts of the play. Hopefully it’s at that intersection.
It started to sound a bit naked and I did want to connect with the turntable that’s such a big part of the play. That was the motive to add a sampling of a turntable and adding that as ambiance.
