We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zachary Catron. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zachary below.
Zachary, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Since 2021, I have been writing and developing a new musical called “Sati: Goddess Incarnate” with my friend and collaborator, Vaibu Mohan. No other creative process has stretched my muscles in storytelling, collaboration, and cultural knowledge like “Sati.” What began as Vaibu and I’s master’s thesis at NYU has turned into a professional enterprise, leading us to rehearsal rooms and stages across the country—and leading me to meet some of the closest and most important people in my life.
“Sati: Goddess Incarnate” questions how an ancient Hindu myth led to the violent ritual of sati (widow burning) in India. Inspired by the last recorded case of sati in India, “Sati: Goddess Incarnate” explores how a town’s desperation can lead to religious fundamentalism—and the power that ancient stories have over our day-to-day lives. In a time of ever-increasing violence against women across the world, this story shows a universal experience for women of being objectified, put on a pedestal, then attacked for it.
For all its serious overtones, “Sati” contains many moments of humor and joy: mainly between our protagonist Roop and her mother Uma. As members of the lowest caste, Roop and Uma are initially rejected by the town. They rely on each other, and their love keeps them going. It is only after members of the town associate Roop with the goddess Sati during the first night of the Navratri festival that her prospects change. The town suddenly believes that Roop is Sati’s newest incarnation on Earth, and despite Roop’s protests, they worship her. When she cannot solve the town’s drought and disease, and her young husband dies suddenly, thousands are whipped into a frenzy and sacrifice her. From a limbo-like afterlife, Roop, her husband, and Uma discuss what it means to find peace without justice. We hope that audiences will leave the theater feeling empathy for the victims of violence and gaining insight into those who are so desperate that they are driven to violence.
Writing “Sati” was my first exploration into Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam dance: the classical art forms of south India. Vaibu and I share a love for classical art forms, and in our artistic practice, we present them in new ways. As my background is primarily in Western classical music, I love researching a new genre and musical origin, soaking up influences like a sponge, and then letting it go while I write. What results is a sound that pays homage to the original while still sounding like “me.” Thus, “Sati: Goddess Incarnate” is a fusion score unlike any seen in commercial American theatre.
South Asian stories are underrepresented in the Western theatrical canon, and those plays that make it to our stages are often adaptations of Bollywood movies made palatable for American theater-going audiences. “Sati: Goddess Incarnate” is an original story that we hope will pave the way for more original musicals from the South Asian diaspora.
Developing “Sati”—from table reads of the script to concert presentations of songs—has led me to meet dozens of wonderful artists. Our creative team contains both Broadway veterans and Carnatic masters, and many of the actors have been with us since the show’s inception. With every new iteration, we greet our core team of performers like old friends and welcome a new group of artists into the circle. Throughout this process, we have partnered with organizations like South Asians on Broadway, Silambam Phoenix Dance Studio in Arizona, and the Aangan Lit Fest. The only thing as meaningful as the creative process itself is the opportunity to share what I have learned and created with others.
Zachary, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am Zachary Catron, an award-winning composer, lyricist, and performer based in New York City. My original compositions have been performed around the world, like at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, NYC’s premiere cabaret Feinstein’s/54 Below, and in Tokyo, Japan. I pride myself on my collaborative spirit, my expertise in music as a storytelling medium, and my ability to adapt to different styles to meet a project’s needs. I excel at researching new unfamiliar genres to suit a project’s influences. My original scores for stage and screen have been as varied as 1940s Big Band, Carnatic-fusion, American folk, contemporary opera, and J-Pop. I was taught by GRAMMY-nominated and Tony-Award-winning composers at The New School and New York University.
My New York City premieres include: the ballet “Training in Love” (Rovaco Dance Company), incidental music for “Fuente Ovejuna: A Disloyal Adaptation” (The New School for Drama), the chamber operas “Tin Man” and “The Walt Whitmans of Fort Greene Park” (NYU/AOP Opera Labs), and the full-length musical “The Battle, Not the War.” “The Battle, Not the War” received its concert premiere at Feinstein’s/54 Below in June 2019 as part of NYC WorldPride, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
I received my off-off- and off-Broadway songwriting debuts in the Spring of 2022 with “WAR STORIES” at The Tank NYC, and “Village Songs” at the Rattlestick Theater (in collaboration with the Tenement Museum). I have composed for film and TV, including the indie film “La Dame de Monte Carlo” (Arthouse Film Festival 2021 Official Selection) and an unannounced animation pilot.
I released my first J-pop single, “Tokimeki (Heart Pounding)”, as part of the East-Meets-West project, with lyrics by Momo Akashi and vocals by Joo Won Shin (“Squid Game”). Currently in development is my new, Carnatic-Western-fusion musical epic, “Sati: Goddess Incarnate,” with librettist and Bharatanatyam dancer, Vaibu Mohan. I have performed at Lincoln Center, Studio 54, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center; and I was a pianist for Brooklyn Youth Chorus between 2017 and 2022.
I am always looking to meet new collaborators and compose, produce, arrange, and/or orchestrate new music. Please reach out about your next project via my website or social media.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
From choral music to ballets, to opera and musical theater, my first decade of composition focused on narrative stage works. But as I was due to graduate from Mannes School of Music in the spring of 2020, the pandemic hit. Suddenly, live performances were no longer an option, and I had to quickly make the change to recorded music. This meant learning how to better use my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), how to record and mix, and how to release and distribute my work. Understanding the roles that VST instruments and distributors played in this process was vital to the success of my first single, “Tokimeki (Heart Pounding)”.
I met lyricist and playwright Momo Akashi in grad school, and we bonded over our love of animation. For our first song we wrote together, we imagined writing a song that could go over the credits of a Studio Ghibli movie. Thus, our J-Pop song “Tokimeki (Heart Pounding)” was born, and we won a grant to record and release it. However, neither of us had done a commercial release before, and though I was trained in orchestration, I had never produced a pop song before.
To create a full-sounding ensemble on a limited budget, many composers and producers use virtual instruments (VST plugins or “VSTs”) to fill out parts of the arrangement. Sometimes, these are physically modelled synthesizers that replicate the sounds of classic synths from the 1980s, but more often, they are a large collection of samples from acoustic instruments. To create a violin VST plugin, a company will meticulously record each possible sound the instrument can create so that the customer can record and assemble the desired performance from their MIDI controller.
For our single, we used VST instruments for our strings and piano. This was a very different type of composition and recording than I was used to—especially coming from a classical background where I only wrote music for the live musicians I had available to me. Now, producing the track was as much about “programming” the desired performance as it was about playing it. Though the purist in me was initially skeptical (because what can beat the sound of live musicians?), it gave me a level of control over the sound that I would not have otherwise in my budget. The final sound was both professional and gave a fullness to the arrangement.
Learning how these virtual instruments work has become an integral part of my process. When I was hired to score a TV pilot, the demos I sent to the director needed to sound as close to the final product as possible while still being flexible for edits. Using VSTs, I could craft the sound and make changes the director needed with ease. When we all were satisfied, I then had the blueprint to give to live musicians for final recording.
Distributors were the other key to the success of “Tokimeki (Heart Pounding).” The ways musical performances and streams are tracked is a huge part of how songwriters get paid. Performing Rights Organizations (PRO) such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC ensure that songwriters get royalties when their music is played live or on the radio, and becoming a member of one of these organizations is crucial for any professional composer. However, on the whole, they do not oversee royalty distribution for streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music. For that, we needed a distributor (note: there are many different distributors to choose from; my experience is with DistroKid).
Our distributor released our music with album art and sent it to all streaming services for audiences to enjoy. As we worked to promote the song through press releases and radio submissions (with our first radio play in Japan), the distributor helped us keep track of our engagement and eventually paid us out our royalties.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
My favorite part of being a composer is the collaborative process. Collaboration can look different depending on the project, but I find that I do my best work when surrounded by artists who are all in pursuit of one goal: communicating the story to the audience in the clearest and most interesting way.
When working on my first short film, “La Dame de Monte Carlo,” my role was to support the director’s (Jennifer Shadd) vision. She told me what she wanted for a sound palette, and I asked her questions about the emotional trajectory of the protagonist. Every conversation unlocked something new for us, and the more I understood her vision, the clearer and better my score became.
An important part of my collaboration process is to always be writing and revising. For every cue that remains in the final piece, there are many more that were cut. This was especially the case with my first TV pilot, where I was composing music as the script itself was also being revised. When scoring to picture, the addition or removal of a line can completely throw off the original cue, and I have to be flexible throughout each iteration to enable the team’s creative flow.
This does not mean that I do not have a say in how the music functions in the piece. In fact, the directors I work with often rely on my expertise in musical storytelling to help them shape scenes and make decisions on the larger picture. For example, what does it mean when the first music cue is played again over the final credits? How can we use orchestration to express that two characters feel the same about each other, but from their own perspective? These are questions that the director may have never considered until we talked about it. Seeing the final piece and thinking back on all the moments of inspiration we had by bouncing ideas off each other is one of the most gratifying parts of being an artist.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zacharycatron.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachary.f.catron/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@zacharycatron8901
Image Credits
Dominique Shipmon