Max Richter has no issues falling asleep. None. He just puts his head on the pillow and it’s lights out.
“Sleep is probably my favorite activity,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter, a statement that is not shocking, considering how easily it happens for him. On July 27–28, he’s hoping that it comes just as seamlessly for hundreds of Angelenos. Richter, a composer known for his work on HBO’s The Leftovers, is bringing his 8-hour-long “Sleep” concert piece to Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles in what will mark the traveling show’s first-ever outdoor performance following outings in New York and Austin, Texas, during SXSW.
Related Stories
Presented by The Music Center, the show will begin at 10:30 p.m. and finish at 6:30 a.m., with audience members lying flat during the performance on strategically placed twin beds. THR spoke to Richter on the phone from London to find out how he adjusts his own sleeping patterns prior to the show, where “Sleep” goes from here and why sushi is so important to the production.
This piece of music has been a part of your life for years. How has your passion for “Sleep” changed as you’ve lived with it?
When you write a piece, in a way you’re proposing a theory. What if this…? When you record, perform and put it in front of an audience, you get information, responses, data and thoughts, and that tells you a lot about what you’ve made. Sitting at that piano for eight straight hours is quite the trip. I guess my experience has gone from a theoretical one to a very physical, practical and almost extreme sports understanding of that journey. It’s weird, because, obviously, I wrote the piece and hundreds of pages of manuscript with little marks on it, but to experience something in real time is very different.
You have said that music is your first language and that’s what you reach for when you want to convey something. What are you saying with “Sleep”?
Like all creative work, really, we’re talking about how is that we live. How do we get through days, why do we get out of bed in the mornings? It’s an inquiry into our incessant activity. We’re on a hamster wheel of digital consumption. I wanted to make a piece that serves a function — as a place to rest. It’s a pause button. Step off the treadmill for a moment and reflect. I started to think about sleeping as almost like a political statement, or as an act of resistance. I wanted to make a piece that looked at those themes and, again, offered a space to rest.
You did a lot of research about sleep to compose this piece. What have you learned since performing it live with people who are actually sleeping?
Sleep research has really exploded over the last couple of years, with new researchers as well as connections to apps and health monitoring. That has blown up. It’s interesting that some of the things are sort of based in research, though they feel like they’re quite present in the piece for me. Other things have receded into the background. The big one, which is really fundamental, has to do with the spectrum of the piece. Basically, it involves the unborn child in the womb. The baby has the mother’s body all around it, which filters out high frequency. What I did for “Sleep” is filter out high frequency for the first seven hours, and then it brightens up toward the end. That seems to have a profound effect on listeners. It triggers almost our first acoustic memories, which are our really our very first memories. That is scientific research that yielded poetic research.
Tell me about your own sleep. How do you sleep before and after the shows to make sure you get enough rest to prepare and to recuperate?
I shift my sleep patterns in the days beforehand. When I walk on stage, it’s just after breakfast for me. I’ve stretched, had my oatmeal and watched a breakfast show. It’s like morning for me, and I do all kinds of things to fool myself that it’s morning. When I sit down, there are 250 pages of piano music I’ve got to play through — it’s a lot — and physically, that’s a big deal. All the musicians get some breaks, and I get little breaks. That’s very practical stuff, but I also get stiff and, weirdly, very hungry. Normally you don’t think about those things during a gig, but in this, you do. Sushi is a big thing. “Sleep” basically runs on sushi. It’s the perfect thing: lots of protein, and you can eat it very quickly.
What’s your go-to sushi?
Everything, really. California is sushi heaven, so we’re looking forward to that.
As a group of musicians, what is the experience like — performing for a group of people who are either sleeping or sort of just experiencing the music, but not necessarily watching you?
It’s really wonderful, but it’s a completely different way to be on the stage. Normally when you’re playing a gig, what you’re trying to do is convey and transmit material as powerfully as you can. Connect to people really directly and tell a story in a direct way. This is almost like an anti-performance. We’re just accompanying what is going on. If “Sleep” has a subject matter, the experience is the sleeping listener.
This will be the first one that is outdoors, correct? Will that change the audience’s experience, or how do you hope it will?
I’m really excited about it because when you’re inside, you can do beautiful lighting, but ultimately, you’re in a building. This will be about what the sky is doing, what the weather is doing and the way the light changes overnight. That’s a magical thing. We’ve set the performance times so they are calibrated to sunrise. That’s hugely exciting, to be able to do it as an interactive piece with the sky.
You told the New York Times that “our lives are very data saturated now,” with people on their screens all the time, yet many people have used the “Sleep” experience to post on social media and stay on their phones for a bit of it. How do you feel about that?
I don’t want to prescribe how people should experience the piece. In a way, part of the point of piece is to go beyond ordinary music performance rituals. We’re not in concert hall where you have to sit quietly. We’re in another space; everyone is lying in bed, and they’re free to wander around. Come and listen, sleep, don’t sleep, post on social media and chat with friends. I would encourage a conscious engagement with the music. That’s hard to do on Facebook or Twitter, but people find their own ways to interact with music and artwork. That’s what’s interesting with creativity, is that it allows a personal response.
A couple got engaged at the event in New York. Have you heard of any other exciting experiences your audience members have had, or how would you top that in L.A.?
The piece is a big space, which you kind of dream into, and it blocks out everything else. When people do that and they’re listening, it stops the chatter in our brains and allows us to look at the big things in our lives that we’re too busy to look at or that we don’t want to look at. We’ve had engagements, letters saying, “I’m here with my friend with a terminal disease” or “I have a baby inside me.” All kinds of stuff. People respond to it in a way that allows them to go back to the big things that matter, which is one of the wonderful things creativity can do. It’s an opportunity.
Where does “Sleep” go from here?
We’re going to keep doing performances. There are always lots of inquiries about playing the piece. There will continue to be a series of a few performances a year. Only a handful. We’ve also been filming all the shows — we’re putting together a film of sleep performances featuring the journey and people of “Sleep.”
How do you sleep normally?
In a way, sleep is probably my favorite activity. When I thought about why I made this piece, I realized that I am incredibly lucky. I just lie down to fall asleep, and that’s it. I never wake up until the morning, and I’ve had a good night’s sleep. That’s just what happens. It’s quite rare these days. That’s why I wrote it — I love sleeping. Maybe we can make a piece that encourages and supports it so that other people can do it.
