Tag: education

Waking Up From The Dream Job

Posted on August 29, 2023 by Frank J. Oteri - Articles, Commentary, NewMusicBox

A three-dimensional rendering of a tesseract.

This is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to write in my life. After nearly a quarter century of continuous work (more than half my adult life) as the Editor of NewMusicBox and also eventually as Composer Advocate for what was originally the American Music Center and which in 2011 became New Music USA, I am resigning from my full time work here to devote more of my energies to being an educator. I have accepted a full time faculty position as Assistant Professor of Musicology at The New School’s College of Performing Arts (which includes The Mannes School of Music).

Back in the 1990s, I was one of the myriad aspiring composers in New York City (where I grew up) and, after getting a Master’s Degree in Ethnomusicology at Columbia University (which I did after teaching English as a Second Language in NYC public high schools for several years, my first job after my undergrad studies at Columbia), I balanced my compositional activities with a four-day-a-week day job at a music publicity office in order to pay bills. The roster of clients there included Meet The Composer (whose founding director John Duffy became something of a mentor to me and who at one point gave me his entire LP collection) and the Finnish recording label Ondine (which frequently collaborated with an organization called the Finnish Music Information Centre, which is how I learned about the International Association of Music Centres [IAMIC], before I even knew there was an American Music Center, even though it was then just four blocks away from where I had been living for most of my life). But the American Music Center (AMC) would soon become the most important place in the world for me.

While working for that PR firm, I had written a handful of articles for various publications and created repertoire lists of contemporary music that I distributed to programmers at NPR-affiliated radio stations, a personal project for which I was not paid but for which I was written up in Billboard magazine at one point. As a result of some AMC board members knowing about me through some of these activities and the more official ones that were part of my “day job,” I got on the radar of Richard Kessler, a visionary who had been recently appointed AMC’s Executive Director and who wanted to completely transform the organization from a passive library to an active advocate for new music in the United States. Central to his vision was for AMC to host a newly created web magazine exclusively for American new music and he wanted to bring on someone to come up with a format for this thing and to then serve as its “Editor and Publisher.”

I met with him even though I had absolutely no experience in publishing, had only written that handful of articles, and did not know all that much about this relatively new thing called the internet other than using AOL and surfing UserNet comments about contemporary music. (It was the ’90s afterall.) But it must have been clear how passionate I was about contemporary music and how willing I was to always defend it and evangelize for it. He ultimately offered me–and I unhesitatingly accepted–a full-time job (5 days a week, often much more than that) at a lower salary, put my own music on the back burner to some extent, and began work at the American Music Center on November 16, 1998. For most of the last nearly 25 years, I considered it a dream job–a vital role in the ecosystem of contemporary music in the U.S.A. and something that could raise the profiles of all the extraordinary people involved in making this music in all its wild varieties, which was far more important to me than focusing just on my own music.

I believed strongly, and still do, that practitioners should be the people who speak and write about this music since they have the most intimate knowledge of it, the greatest passion for it, and need their own outlet to disseminate information about it. I also believe that the strength and significance of NewMusicBox in our field is because by design it is a collaborative project and, for most of the time I have served as its titular Editor, I was thankfully mostly not alone in my endeavors, always working non-hierarchically with others who frequently had more strength than I did proofreading, juggling various pieces of content to always maintain a balance, keeping us on track with deadlines, and on and on. This first quarter century of NewMusicBox would never have been possible without the efforts of Nathan Michel, Jennifer Undercofler, Molly Sheridan, Amanda MacBlane, the late Randy Nordschow, Trevor Hunter, and Alexandra Gardner who were as devoted to NewMusicBox while they were part of it as I have remained all these years. There were also a great many interns, some of whom I have still stayed in touch with and not all of whom I can remember (for which I apologize). But I want to at least give a shout out to Sam Birmaher, Anna Reguero, Aurelian Balan, Jonathan Murphy, and Daniel Kushner for the high level of work they did while involved with NewMusicBox as well as to Johanna Keller, founder of the Goldring Arts Journalism program, the first master’s program of its kind to teach journalists to cover the arts, who sent interns our way every summer until she retired. I almost forgot to mention some of the web design artisans I realize in retrospect that I frequently frustrated with my often not very practical ideas, among them Stacie Johnston, Lisa Taliano, and Eugene Takahashi who once during a phone call with me at 2 A.M. claimed that he would have to invent a four-dimensional internet to do some crazy thing I’d asked him to do. NewMusicBox has been at its most effective when a small team of people worked on it together, brainstorming (and sometimes even passionately arguing about) who and what to feature and why, as well as getting in the weeds and carefully copyediting and coding every word, photo, audio, or video file that was then disseminated to the general public.

And it’s been quite a ride as anyone who has ever ventured into our quadranscentennial content stream would hopefully agree. I’ve been proud of so much of what we’ve published from artist/writers based all over the country and am grateful to everyone who has ever written for us. I’m also glad that all this material is still available for people to read online now and hopefully in perpetuity. And I hope that this content will continue to be constantly refreshed with new content curated by future NewMusicBox editors who will also always insist on pushing the envelop. Of course, since they’ve been a hallmark of NewMusicBox since its inception and I have been intimately involved with most of them, I’m proudest of our in-depth conversations with significant members of our community which were originally called “In The First Person,” subsequently rebranded as “NewMusicBox Covers,” and which have continued to this day, now as SoundLives podcasts. I treasure every one of them and hope that others will continue to do so as well. What many people may not realize is that the back stories of these one-of-a-kind encounters were sometimes as intense as the edited talks we published. I’ll never forget Randy and I showing up at Ornette Coleman’s Midtown loft, entering his unlocked apartment, and waiting for him to appear there nearly half an hour later, but then immediately plunging into a heady conversation about sound being a way to express emotions more than being a vibration. Or Glenn Branca refusing to put out his cigarette directly underneath a no smoking sign, despite Alex’s and my own visible discomfort in the rehearsal studio where we were recording which had no ventilation. (He had refused to let us come to his home.) Or Maryanne Amacher wanting to take a sample of my blood and mix it with hers for an audio project. (You can’t make this stuff up.) Or, to give a more recent example, Pamela Z describing putting a trunk full of bones through airport security (it was a prop for a performance) and my worrying the whole time that the internet was going to suddenly drop during our Zoom before the punchline (since it’s frequently spotty in my neighborhood and kept going in and out that day); thankfully it didn’t!

However, last year when I was asked to develop my own curriculum for an undergraduate contemporary music history class I would then teach at The New School as an adjunct and told that I could and should cover all genres of music, it was an offer–like the offer to create a web magazine for contemporary American music and then be responsible for maintaining it–I couldn’t refuse. As luck would have it, I was asked if I’d be interested in teaching that class by someone who had already changed the course of my life once and was inadvertently about to do so again, Richard Kessler, who is now the Executive Dean of The New School’s College of Performing Arts and the Dean of the Mannes School of Music. We had had some contact with each other over the many years since he left AMC, but I truly had only a glimmer of awareness about the range of activities going on there. I was wowed by a 2017 performance of Robert Ashley’s Dust by Mannes students just three years after Ashley died. The following year’s Mannes Orchestra world premiere of Julius Eastman’s only recently rediscovered second symphony in Alice Tully Hall was a watershed event. I’d hear from time to time that someone significant in our community was teaching a class there which made me more curious. After doing some deeper digging I realized that many of my personal musical heroes from the past also had ties to either Mannes or The New School, or both, either as faculty or students, or both–e.g. Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger, Henry Cowell, Johanna Magdalena Beyer, John Cage, Bohuslav Martinů, and salsa pioneer Larry Harlow (who got an M.A. in philosophy there!), to name just a few of the music folks. Needless to say I wanted to be a part of it too somehow, though it was incredibly humbling, so I again said yes.

Thus far I’ve taught three sections of that music history class and last semester I was additionally assigned a graduate seminar on minimalism and postminimalism which I also developed from scratch, talk about deep dives. It’s been hard work, though it has been completely worth it because I feel I’ve had a really huge impact on many students and the students I’ve taught there thus far have been a constant source of inspiration to me as well. But leading such a double life was ultimately not sustainable. So when I learned from an email message sent to all the part-time faculty at The New School that there were nine full time faculty positions that were open, I interviewed for a position (something I hadn’t done in 25 years!) with representatives from all the divisions in the College of Performing Arts. I learned earlier this month that they hired me. Having a full-time faculty position will hopefully give me even more opportunities to develop curricula for which my goal, just like at NewMusicBox, is for it to always be as broad as possible.

But that doesn’t mean I’m retiring from the contemporary music scene. Far from it. I still plan to be heavily involved both in the United States and abroad, wearing nearly as many different kinds of hats in it as I always have (even though I will always refuse to wear corporeal hats). I will still serve as Vice President of the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) and, in late November, will be attending the ISCM’s first-ever World New Music Days festival on the African continent, which has been in the works for several years. And in late December, I will be at The Midwest Clinic International Band, Orchestra, and Music Conference in Chicago and then at the Chamber Music America conference in New York City in January, as per always, and will also attend as many new music concerts as time allows wherever I am. I plan to explore other avenues for writing about music whenever and wherever as well. And I also plan to write some more of my own music, something I managed to do a fair bit of again during the worst phase of the pandemic, but which, because of all the other stuff I’ve been doing, has become harder to find time for during our current seemingly (let’s hope) post-pandemic era.

I gave this essay the title “Waking Up From a Dream Job” which might be interpreted by some as tragic or, at the very least, terribly melodramatic. That is not my intent. Partly I just love a catchy title, and so I couldn’t resist coming up with one (that I hope is) for one last time on this site. (Actually there are few other pieces of content by other writers I’m editing that are still in process, so it’s not exactly the last time; stay tuned for those.) Admittedly it does feel like waking up after an extremely long and amazing dream. But even though I rarely get a full night’s sleep and don’t plan to anytime soon, I still have many other dreams to dream and hope to continue to dream along with others about this crazy thing that for a lack of a better term we still and will probably always call new music. May it never be boxed in.

Back in the 1990s, I was one of the myriad aspiring composers in New York City ... and I balanced my compositional activities with a four-day-a-week day job in order to pay bills.

Frank J. Oteri

I learned about the International Association of Music Information Centres [IAMIC], before I even knew there was an American Music Center, even though it was then just four blocks away from where I had been living for most of my life.

Frank J. Oteri

I had absolutely no experience in publishing, had only written that handful of articles, and did not know all that much about this relatively new thing called the internet other than using AOL and surfing UserNet comments about contemporary music. (It was the '90s afterall.)

Frank J. Oteri

I believed strongly, and still do, that practitioners should be the people who speak and write about this music since they have the most intimate knowledge of it, the greatest passion for it, and need their own outlet to disseminate information about it.

Frank J. Oteri

The strength and significance of NewMusicBox in our field is because by design it is a collaborative project.

Frank J. Oteri

NewMusicBox was at its most effective when a small team of people worked on it together, brainstorming (and sometimes even passionately arguing about) who and what to feature and why, as well as getting in the weeds and carefully copyediting and coding every word, photo, audio, or video file that was then disseminated to the general public.

Frank J. Oteri

When I was asked to develop my own curriculum for an undergraduate contemporary music history class I would then teach and told that I could and should cover all genres of music, it was an offer--like the offer to create a web magazine for contemporary American music and then be responsible for maintaining it--I couldn’t refuse.

Frank J. Oteri

I still plan to be heavily involved in the contemporary music scene both here and abroad, wearing as many different kinds of hats in it as I always have (even though I will always refuse to wear corporeal hats).

Frank J. Oteri

Even though I rarely get a full night's sleep and don't plan to anytime soon, I still have many other dreams to dream and hope to continue to dream along with others about this crazy thing that for a lack of a better term we still and will probably always call new music. May it never be boxed in.

Frank J. Oteri

Oteri holding a three-dimensional simulacrum of a tesseract.

Oteri is still mesmerized by the tesseract which was the original logo of NewMusicBox. (Photo by Trudy Chan.)

Finding Myself in an Alternate Reality, or 12 months on Sand Hill Road

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Josh Armenta - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

If you drive north from San Jose on I-280 towards San Francisco, you eventually pass the unassuming Exit 24 which takes you towards Sand Hill Road. Just past the Stanford Particle Acceleration Laboratory, Sand Hill Road is home to some of the most expensive corporate real estate in the world. (I was told a single 20×20 sq. ft. office in the same business park would rent for over $15,000 a month.) Here is the casino-laboratory where Silicon Valley’s unicorns are created: Apple, Uber, AirBnB, Lime Scooter. Some of the most ubiquitous names in our modern lexicon started on this road with funding.

During the process of my divorce, the assault trials, and the ensuing litigation which lasted approximately 20 months, I had decided for safety and financial reasons to move in with family in the Bay Area and had found a day job as a systems administrator for a local IT company. The job paid well enough that I was able to cover my bills, clear up some debt, and generally keep my head above water and start to save—something that I had never been able to do during my five-year-long partnership.

I was assigned to provide technical support three days a week to the largest and most successful venture firm in the business park. I was responsible for end-user support of computer and tablet devices used by some of the most elite of Silicon Valley’s elite.

In the beginning, I hated this world. It was everything I had grown to despise about Silicon Valley and the Bay Area: wealth in excess of anything one could possibly spend in a lifetime, a complete lack of creativity in my tasks, a boring routine, a lousy commute, and people who, on good days, were simply unpleasant, and on bad days were downright rude. Plus it had no connection to the arts and for the first time in my life I truly felt completely disconnected from my field and craft.

I hated this world until someone in my family reminded me of several things:

Nothing is permanent, including this job.
You are taking care of what you need to do so you can live the life you want to.
Try to learn something from this job. You never know what might help you in the future.

So I opened up my mind to try to learn.

I took away three things from this place that would become incredibly important to moving my music career forward.

I knew I would never want to be a financial analyst or investor within about 30 seconds of working there, and that feeling continued. However, I did take away three things from this place that would become incredibly important to moving my music career forward, as I learned in the coming months.

Something that had always eluded me in the pursuit of music as a career was how to sell myself and my work, and now here I was standing in an office the entire purpose of which was to watch people sell themselves and then decide whether to invest in them or not.

“Sales is sales,” an old boss used to say to me when I worked for an audio firm, “and art, or audio, is nothing but sales,” and I took that to heart.

Because of the nature of my job, I sometimes had to sit in pitch meetings and provide whatever technical assistance was needed, and I came to love watching these investors in meetings. It gave me the unique opportunity to see what technical critics used to refer to as the “Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field” and allowed me to learn three valuable lessons:

Time (and Money) is Limited

Even in the world of Silicon Valley business where it seems money is endless, the reality is that time and money are in short supply. I noticed that these fund managers only invested in products or projects that spoke to them on some level. I decided to do the same, by only accepting commissions and only pursuing personal projects that I felt a true connection to in some way.

How to Construct an Elevator Pitch

I had the experience of chatting with a major investor for a few minutes. He had taken a liking to me, and we were chatting about what my life was like outside of my day job. He asked me what I did outside of work, and I had mentioned that I had gone to conservatory. Knowing this person had an interest in the Bay Area arts scene, I was hoping to chat about this for a time. Instead, he looked bored and changed the topic. It was another reminder to me how I had lost passion in my own work, and it showed. I decided to learn all I could about pitching and marketing my own work. If I didn’t believe in it myself, or show passion about what I had created, no one else would.

Passion is More Important

Time after time, I saw these products come in that (in my opinion) were not something I could see anyone in their right mind paying for, but the passion that these engineers, developers, and CEO’s brought to the table was what eventually caused the firm to, if not invest outright, advance them to the next round of decision making. It was the passion that got them continued meetings with higher and higher level employees.

My parents had hoped that by living surrounded by family I would be able to get more work done. What they believed I had come to Silicon Valley to do, make art, was not to be, but what I learned from what Silicon Valley does best—innovate—affected my work Sonetos del amor oscuro beyond what I had thought was possible.

This project, originally started after the mass shooting at Pulse, became an obsession for me. Creating something that I was passionate about was the breathing room I needed outside of my day job. By day I fixed tablet computers and by night I buried myself in this work. Building on what I had learned in my previous work Remember the Things They Told Us, I again wrote from the heart. I relied exclusively on craft and intuition without attempting to devise contrapuntal contraptions or other gimmicks to create some heady work of art as I used to do.

I lived the text that García Lorca had set down on those pages. I soaked them up, and it was in those words that I could come to terms with myself as queer. Though I had come out at the age of 22, I had not truly admitted it to myself until I began to devour this work. I always had this belief that I was more than my queer-ness and in order to fulfill that, I had always attempted to avoid trying to come off as “too queer” (whatever that meant) in my writing. The effect, however, was more like cutting my writing off at the knees. To quote the great Bill Watterson, it was almost as though I was saying to myself “you need a lobotomy, I’ll get the saw.”

Hearing this work performed live became extremely important for me because hearing the work live meant that for the first time, I would publicly acknowledge an aspect of myself that I never felt previously was important or relevant, but had come to understand in rediscovering myself that it was more integral to who I am as a composer than I realized. A recent trip to South Asia had also reminded me that it is not necessarily normal in the world to not go unpunished (if not be validated) as a queer artistic voice, and conversations with other queer friends in Mexico City reminded me that most Latinos, especially queer Latinos, do not even have a platform to bear witness in this way.

When I approached the Great Noise Ensemble with a concept recording and a partial score, Armando Bayolo graciously agreed to do the work on their “Four Freedoms” series, a series of four concerts each of which recalled one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Essential Freedoms”: freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Freedom of Expression was truly the epitome of what this work meant to me, and would begin to drive a need for me to become more of an activist citizen-artist then I had ever been before.

Playing My Hand: How I Learned to Trust My Composition Teacher

Posted on July 16, 2019 by Olivia Kieffer - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

Last week, I shared the story of my first year in graduate school as a composition major, and the many transitions I went through during that time, including discovering a new identity as a musician. This post is all about my second year of graduate school, and how I learned to trust my composition teacher and become a better teacher myself. But first: the summer!

I spent most of the summer between my first and second years alone, in the dorms, in my bathrobe, writing a song cycle and a band piece. I was broke, but I slept eight to ten hours a night with regularity. I walked on the beach of Lake Michigan on sunny days, visited family up north and friends in Chicago, took my time learning a lovely and very difficult vibraphone solo in order to premiere it, and watched a ton of movies with my wonderful and hilarious roommate (a fellow grad student in the music school). Overall it was a time of resting, and it went by really fast. I gained confidence in my ability to make it through this degree and graduate, all while still maintaining a professional career and applying to doctoral programs.

Being a student made me want to teach again more than anything I’ve ever wanted.

And yet, I wondered if my new composition teacher (my third teacher of the degree) would just try to make me sound like them, as a teacher during my first year had done. Being pushed to completely depart from my own voice had given me existential anxiety, and I was afraid I’d be asked to do that again, for my thesis. A few days before classes started, I happened across the professor who was supposed to be my main composition teacher for the year ahead, and he told me that he wasn’t taking on any new students and that I had been placed in another studio. When he told me who my new teacher would be, I was surprised and excited, and thought, “Great! I don’t really know him personally at all, but I do know based on his work that there are so many things I can learn from this man.” Taking the advice of a composer who had also gone back to school in her 30s, I registered and interviewed with the Accessibility Resources Center, to get time accommodations for the Theory Comprehensive Exams and discuss other possibly needed accommodations. I have a learning disability and mental illness, which is a great cocktail for extreme heartburn and anxiety during tests that determine whether I graduate or not, in subjects that are eye-bleedingly difficult for me. I figured having a history with the ARC would be helpful for my time in a doctoral program as well, where I will certainly be in several high-pressure test situations, and where I will encounter a lot of stress.

Once the school year started, I still played in band and percussion ensemble (but less), and I took conducting lessons on top of my very full class schedule, which included Digital Synthesis, Music History Seminar, a theory class, and lessons. I was busting my butt with college applications, I had a big trip to San Francisco coming up for a world premiere, doctoral applications were all due at the same time, I had a commission due, and I needed to keep knocking out my thesis. Four weeks into the semester, I got sick and disappeared for a week. I had to withdraw from History Seminar (it was the most stressful, busy-work class) for mental health reasons, which included filling out a bunch of papers. The second semester was a breeze in comparison. My heart stopped cracking like a walnut every time I thought of teaching at my old college or heard from my students. I was ADJUSTING. My grad band staff comrades were lifesavers. We had an office all together: Percussion TA, Band Librarian, Conductor, Tech Guy, etc. We had a blast, partied together, and practiced together.

And I loved composition lessons with my new teacher. I was given some great advice from a mentor, which I kept in mind: “Keep your cards to your chest. Never let them see your whole hand.” I had plenty of practice doing this during my first year, so it was easy this time around.

There I was, age 38, second year of my master’s degree, finding out for the first time what it was like to have weekly lessons with a supportive, enthusiastic, encouraging teacher that I trusted.

Right from the beginning, I could tell my teacher and I would get along: he was a drummer too, and had been everywhere and done everything. He was one of these modest people, where you keep opening doors with them and a thousand more doors are behind those. He was very fun and funny, enthusiastic, full of ideas, and our lessons went until somebody had to leave—sometimes two hours. I checked out my hand, laid down a single card…and nothing bad happened. We kept working on music, and I decided to write a percussion trio for my thesis. I laid down another card, and asked if he would write recommendation letters for my college applications. He said yes, so I sent him my C.V. and he read it. Something new clicked; it was like suddenly he “got” the amount and variety of experience I had had in music so far. Finally! Someone took the time to get to know me and my history. So I started to trust the guy. He came up with lists of music for me to listen to and scores to read and pieces to try out or exercises to do. He saw my strengths and weaknesses and helped develop both, pushing me the appropriate amount if I needed pushing, helping me expand my sound universe. My thesis started to come together! He came to some rehearsals of the piece and was incredibly supportive at my graduate composition recital. My lessons were the highlight of the week, all year long. So there I was, age 38, second year of my master’s degree, finding out for the first time what it was like to have weekly lessons with a supportive, enthusiastic, encouraging teacher that I trusted.

Entering my master’s degree, it never crossed my mind that I would learn anything new about teaching. I had a good handle on being a teacher! It turns out there was still a lot to learn. Being back behind a student desk after eight years in front of the classroom was an eye-opener. I observed the hell out of each of my teachers. I understood everything the professors said from both a teacher’s perspective and from my own perspective as a student. The new percussion instructor became a friend, and I watched him handle the percussion studio extremely well, but in a very different way than I did when I was teaching. I had an analysis teacher who transformed material I was disinterested in into something incredibly interesting. Thinking back to when I was a teacher, I felt like this: a student’s enthusiasm is life, and a student’s apathy is death. So I did everything I could to create an atmosphere of challenging, joyful, fun learning. I knew a good teacher when I saw one. There were many here. There were also some who made the material, and the class, all about themselves. I gave unsolicited feedback to professors more than once, when I saw they were talking over the students and not listening to us. Perhaps this ruffled some feathers but I absolutely did not care, because I found out exactly how passionate I was about the joys of learning from a great teacher. It must be an enormous joy to watch a student’s music develop and blossom over time, and I discovered just how much I’d love to become someone’s composition teacher. Being a student made me want to teach again more than anything I’ve ever wanted.

Playing the Changes: The Transition from Professor to Student (My First Year as a Composition Major)

Posted on July 9, 2019 by Olivia Kieffer - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

A photo taken of a person's legs in heans ad sneakers, holding a black backpack

Imagine you have a master’s degree in music performance from a long time ago and, alongside many exciting musical adventures since, you’ve taught at the college level for eight years (adjunct with full-time hours—you know the drill, you absolutely adore teaching and the students but the money is miserable). Looking at this situation, you … decide to quit teaching and go back to school across the country for a master’s degree in music composition!

It’s hard to imagine, right? You’d have to be completely bonkers to make that kind of a decision.

“I could never go back to school after teaching,” said many wonderful professors who used to be my colleagues.

So why did I do it?

Reinhardt University Percussion Ensemble, 2012

I started writing music when I was 30, and by the age of 36, my composing career was soaring. I loved writing music just as much as I loved performing and teaching. I knew I would never be bumped up to full-time at my university, and even after eight years, my pay couldn’t go up because I only had a master’s degree. Despite working as a freelance percussionist, curating concerts, writing music, and teaching, I still was hardly making enough money to get by. I was wonderfully happy in the Atlanta music scene and had established amazing friendships there, especially with the members of my chamber rock band. I had developed a life there, but it was time to leave. I was ready to take a step down in order to take a step up. I had to do something to make a better and brighter future for myself. The goal was to earn a master’s in composition to get my skills up to par, and then continue on to a DMA in composition so I would have The Piece of Paper that would allow me to teach at a college again—at a higher salary level. It’s a completely risky endeavor with no guarantees, but it’s the choice I made. And I’m happy I did. I now hold a master’s degree in composition and will be starting a DMA in composition at the University of Miami next month. I’m looking forward to the journey, no matter where it takes me.

First, though, allow me to back up two years. There I was, beginning my first semester as a new student, living in the graduate dorms with roommates—two 21-year-old German exchange students, who were hilarious and noisy and wild. Right away I embraced everything about student life, and that part of college made me very happy. My classmates became my dear friends, even though most of my new friends were the age of the students I used to teach. I learned all the cool millennial slang words. I had FUN. I took free bus rides to Brewers games, ate tons of free pizza, played in percussion ensemble and band, taught part of an online music theory class, fixed bongos and organized the percussion studio, took classes in theory and analysis and writing, studied with two different composition faculty members, heard the University Band play one of my pieces, and wrote a ton of music—including my first piece with electronics in it. I was much more focused in my classes than I was during my first master’s degree; I wanted to soak up all the new knowledge and experience that I could. I remembered what it was like to be completely bored in class, and how invigorating it was to be in the classroom with an enthusiastic teacher who made the subject matter come alive.

UWM Band Rehearses …and then the Universe exploded

I juggled a professional composing career on top of everything. My assistantship was split in half; I was both a theory TA and the percussion TA. The percussion majors were kind to me from the very first day. They brought me right into the fold and never treated me like I was “old.” Everybody thought I was in my twenties, until I told them otherwise. They were fun, talented people, and playing music with them was a joy. The performance majors in general were absolutely delightful and played my music with enthusiasm. Some of these folks will be lifelong friends and musical collaborators.

So that’s some of the FUN STUFF, but here’s the kicker. The transition from professor to student, from mostly-performer to mostly-composer, from professional in my field to student in my field (while remaining a professional) was difficult and awkward that whole first year, and especially the first semester. Five months prior, my music professors would have been my colleagues. But once I started school, I would rarely be treated like a colleague again. A few of my professors took the time to talk with me early on, and learned about my background and treated me with respect, just as I treated them, and we have great relationships. I’m so thankful for them! But most professors saw that I played in band and assumed I was a new graduate percussion major. There was a lot of assuming.

My friends and mentors were lifesavers to me during this time. A few friends from Atlanta, who were passing through town at different times, came to visit me. I was recharging myself in Chicago once a month, taking composition lessons with one of my dearest friends and favorite composers. I brought him all the music I was writing professionally, outside of school. His joyful spirit and the fact that he loved my music really lifted me up. He introduced me to one of his composition students, who saved my sanity and became a very close friend. I wouldn’t have made it through that first year without the both of them.

I was accustomed to being loved, to being known and knowing others, in my old life. There was so much mutual admiration in the Atlanta music scene. I really tried to be graceful about existing in Milwaukee, a brand new space where most people didn’t know or care about my previous 15 years as a professional musician. “They’ll figure out I’m a pro percussionist by listening to me play,” I thought. “They’ll figure out I’m a legitimate composer once they hear my music.” Still, I confess that there were days when I wanted to wear a bright green t-shirt with flashing Christmas lights on it that said in red lettering I’M 37 AND I TAUGHT COLLEGE FOR EIGHT YEARS AND WAS CO-FOUNDER AND CO-DIRECTOR OF TWO CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVALS AMONG MANY OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS on the front and GO TO MY (SWEAR WORD) WEBSITE AND YOU’LL SEE MY MUSIC IS PERFORMED REGULARLY ALL OVER THE COUNTRY SO STOP TREATING ME LIKE I’M AN INEXPERIENCED 22 YEAR OLD on the back, but I didn’t. I felt incredibly childish about my inner reaction. I wanted to be cool about it, on the inside and the outside. Well-meaning friends said things to me like, “Your identity is no different. You’re just in a new environment.” Easy to say when you’re living in the same environment you’ve lived in for a decade or more. The truth is, the only other time I’ve had an identity shift that intense was when I got divorced. It was hard, and weird, and very isolating.

Yet there were so many good parts to the weirdness. After performing with only professionals for ages, I got to play in a college percussion ensemble again, which was wonderful fun and so much easier than directing a college percussion ensemble! All I had to do was learn my music and show up to rehearsal to play. In rehearsals, I learned to disengage (as best I could) from Teacher Mode. I instead just sat back and enjoyed playing music with my classmates. Since I knew I’d most likely only be in the city for two years, I chose not to get my feet wet in the Milwaukee music scene outside of school, but I met some area musicians who became friends. I desperately missed playing music with proper professionals, and that was difficult. I felt isolated from the performance faculty; I felt like they were my colleagues, but not many of them felt the same way. I learned to accept that I’d be playing less because I was composing more, and that I would probably lose some of my chops. I developed some extra long-term patience, figuring out that these two major transitions: professor to student, performer-composer to composer-performer, would take time. Thankfully I had another year of grad school ahead!

Teaching the Music of Now: A Mission, a Project, and a Conference

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Esther Morgan-Ellis - Analysis, Articles, NewMusicBox

Research on Contemporary Composition Conference

Most of us who teach music history at the college level want to develop a curriculum that brings students right up to the present day. We know that the story of Western art music doesn’t end with the last chapter of the textbook, and we worry about accidentally teaching students that innovation and creativity in the field of composition are things of the past.

Many of us also seek to resist the canon. As historians, we are aware that the “important” composers enshrined in our textbooks are less significant than the diverse and complex musical landscapes in which they flourished. We are also increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that those “important” composers are almost all white men whose work was facilitated by their ability to take advantage of socioeconomic structures (and, in many cases, the invisible labor of their wives).

Finally, some of us are actively committed to introducing our students to the work of living composers. We are interested in expanding and challenging our students’ tastes, bringing new audiences to contemporary music, and helping students to understand how the art music economy works today.

The last chapter of the textbook was no particular help. I concluded the semester with the nagging concern that I had just taught my students about the end of art music.

These goals and concerns certainly occupied my thoughts the first time that I taught 20th- and 21st-century music history. It was 2013, and I was in my first semester as an instructor at the University of North Georgia. I taught a fairly conventional class that traced the emergence of major stylistic movements and focused on new ideas about how and why to write music. When I arrived at the end of the 20th century, however, I faltered. Where was this story going? The last chapter of the textbook—a scattershot survey of composers and works up to the early 2000s—was no particular help. I concluded the semester with the nagging concern that I had just taught my students about the end of art music.

In 2014, I set out to remedy this error. I designed a new research project for my students to complete over the course of the semester. Instead of asking students to research and write about music from the past, I paired each with a living composer. (I started with a roster of my own friends and acquaintances, although this project has since grown to incorporate a large number of composers whom I have never met.) Each student interviewed their composer and studied one of their compositions. At the end of the semester, students gave in-class presentations in which they introduced their colleagues to the composer and work, examined the economic and creative contexts of the composer’s labor, and positioned the work within the current musical landscape.

I was very pleased with the initial round of presentations. I saw my students doing their best work and making deep personal connections with the music they had studied. The next year produced similar outcomes. In 2016, therefore, I scheduled a Saturday symposium, put up posters, and invited the entire department to come see the talks. Although attendance was hardly overwhelming, the event sparked the imagination of my colleague, composer Dr. David Peoples. Why not develop a real conference around the topic of research on living composers and their work?

In November of 2017, the first annual Research on Contemporary Composition Conference (ROCC) took place on our Dahlonega campus. The one-day event brought scholars and composers from across the country and from abroad to present their work alongside my students. In addition, afternoon and evening concerts featured new compositions by members of the NACUSA Southeast chapter. In 2018, ROCC was expanded to two days and the event included an invitation for composers to submit electronic compositions or scores for performance. Participants enjoyed hearing about each other’s work and discussing their research, but they were particularly enthusiastic about the conference’s pedagogical component.

In 2019, therefore, we hope to include presentations by undergraduate students from other institutions, and I would like to strongly encourage music history educators to become involved with this endeavor. If you want to assign my research project in class, you can access the assignment here. However, we welcome undergraduate submissions on any topic related to contemporary composition, whether the work is completed independently, as a summer project, or as a senior thesis. We also continue to welcome submissions from scholars and composers. This year, ROCC will take place on October 26 and 27. The call for submissions can be found here.

Pursuing undergraduate research is a recognized High-Impact Practice—a pedagogical approach that has been proven to boost graduation rates and increase student success. I have demonstrated that this particular project has a positive impact on students’ knowledge of and personal investment in the work of living composers. Yet perhaps most importantly, my students tell me that participating in ROCC is a transformative experience. It changes the way that they think about themselves as musicians and scholars.

By completing original research and sharing it with the broader community, students don’t just learn music history—they help to write it.

By completing original research and sharing it with the broader community, students don’t just learn music history—they help to write it. Each develops a unique perspective and knowledge base that empowers them to shape the conversation taking place around contemporary composition. This is a thrilling experience. Too often, music history students are expected to memorize and regurgitate narratives that have been uncovered and enshrined by “real” scholars. When they become scholars themselves, they don’t just learn about the subject under investigation. They learn about the role of the historian and analyst. They learn that scholarship is subjective, contentious, slippery, and incomplete.

Researching contemporary music also teaches students something important about history. A survey course can easily convey the impression that “great” music is a finite resource generated by a handful of genius composers, each of whom built upon the achievements of the last, and that the composers who have been forgotten failed to earn a place in the repertoire due to their own shortcomings. Concert programming, performance curricula, and popular discourse all serve to reinforce this message. When students become researchers, however, the picture changes.

First, they encounter the extraordinary diversity of ideas, styles, values, objectives, and careers pursued by composers. If there is so much variety today, how can the past have been as monotonous as they are led to believe? They immediately understand that music has always been created from diverse perspectives.

Second, they gain first-hand experience with the vagaries of permanence. They see how a lucky break can thrust one artist into the limelight, while others of equal merit continue to work in the shadows. Where is the guarantee that the “great” composers of today will be remembered? The notion that permanence must be equated with genius becomes ludicrous.

Finally, by leading students to engage with contemporary music, educators can easily begin to address the diversity problems that plague the music history curriculum. There are plenty of non-male and non-white composers creating all kinds of music today, and it is not difficult to bring their voices and sounds into the classroom. Of course, this does not free us from our responsibility to address historical inequalities and to incorporate the contributions of sidelined composers from all eras. It is, however, an excellent place to start.

The Importance of Women Role Models in This Industry

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Danielle Ferrari - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

Two women posing on an orchestra stage together

Recently, I overheard a conversation between two educators about the lack of young girls interested in playing jazz music. One asked the other why it seemed like there weren’t as many girls as boys interested in playing instrumental jazz. The other person replied, “Well, where are the women jazz mentors?” Together, they concluded that it wasn’t that men aren’t able to properly mentor young female jazz instrumentalists, it just seemed that because of the lack of apparent women role models, young girls might get the idea that “maybe playing jazz music isn’t for me.” Overhearing this conversation led me to question why this seems like the case. And if this is the case, where are the women mentors in jazz, or—looking more broadly—in most genres of music? For me, having amazing female mentors and role models was and still is crucial to my growth as an artist.

Having amazing female mentors and role models was and still is crucial to my growth as an artist.

An Unsuspected Mentor

In the fall semester of my sophomore year, I took a composition class called “Tools, Techniques, and Analysis” taught by our school’s game audio composition guru Lennie Moore. Our first few assignments had been uniquely challenging, including tasks such as building templates, creating sound logos, and composing short exercises in different modes. As the semester progressed, I started to get nervous. I had looked ahead at the syllabus before the semester began and foresaw the heavy scoring-to-picture assignments coming up, something I attempted to do in the past and had fell flat on my face in failure. I knew my demise was approaching. Then the day came when our next assignment was to re-score a 35-second commercial for Ace Combat 5, a flight combat video game. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Thirty-five seconds, how hard could that be? Just fake it or something.” But I was practically immobilized with anxiety by the thought of having to score even a second of music to picture. That’s when I booked a tutoring session with Daria Novoliantceva, who was the official TAC department tutor at that time. That single tutoring session completely changed the trajectory of my path. I walked in with only three or four sketch tracks and a poor description of a concept written down. I explained to her what I wanted the music to be like and how frustrated I was with my inability to translate that into sound. She heard me out and replied, “Oh, that’s easy, here’s how you do it,” and proceeded to create the sounds I had envisioned in my mind. I remember thinking, “Is it that? Is this really that easy or is she just a musical genius?”

After that session, I religiously booked an appointment with her every week. Her insight was incredible; I was perplexed by how easily music came to her. I was amazed by how she could sit down at a piano and her fingers could effortlessly find the right keys to fit the emotion. She showed me her favorite production tricks as well as different ways to smoothly blend electronic elements into my orchestral writing. Any sort of sound or emotion that I wanted to express, she could say, “Oh you can do this!” and show me. Each lesson would consist of us excitedly ping-ponging ideas back and forth, in a never-ending cycle of inspiration. My idea would inspire a solution from her, which would spark another idea from me, and so on. Our lessons felt magical. Above all, I was impressed by her knowledge of and passion for music, her deep dedication to teaching, and her humility on top of everything else that came so naturally to her. Throughout our tutoring sessions, Daria helped me crawl out of my own cave of fears and into the light of my own compositional voice. She taught me the language of creating sound in a way that I’d never thought about before. Daria was, is, and always will be one of my biggest role models. I am eternally grateful for her teachings.

My Role Models

Another kind of mentor I’ve had the luxury of meeting on this journey was Penka Kouneva, my mentor for the Game Audio Network Guild Scholars program. She illustrates the picture-perfect image of a working professional who is deeply submerged in a successful career as a game music composer, and at the same time is willing to share her rich knowledge with a younger generation. She instilled in me the importance of being an enduring player in this industry and to keep my head in the game if this is something I’m truly serious about. She also invited me to a fancy networking breakfast meet-up with other established women in the game audio industry, a memory I won’t soon forget.

And of course, there is my beloved advisor, teacher, and spirit guide MaryClare Brzytwa.

With her patience like that of a wise sage, she somehow always knows just the right amount of force to push with and just the right things to say to nurture. Amidst my confusion phase, when I started heavily contemplating different career paths, instead of jumping in to stop me, she simply stepped back and let me figure it out by myself. She is always operating for the highest good of her students. By constantly creating a flow of new opportunities for her students, she stretches our minds while simultaneously being the role model of a brilliant, creative, and entrepreneurial-minded woman that we all could only strive to be like in the future.

Inspired By Successful Women

On April 23, the women of the TAC program organized a concert entitled “The Future is Female.” This concert was fully produced, engineered, composed, conducted, and performed by women in the program. I had the opportunity to produce a series of video interviews with accomplished women in the industry, such as audio directors, business owners, and mixing and mastering engineers. In an interview with Piper Payne, owner and chief mastering engineer at Neato Mastering, she points out:

There are all these social media posts that go out that are like, ‘Where are all the women? There aren’t enough women in the industry,’ and ‘They’re not very active on the forums or the social stuff.’ Well, guess what? We’re working! We’re busy. We’re here in our studios making records. We’re not spouting off about how we’re better than somebody else on the internet.

When I first started on this path, there was a small part of me that felt like maybe I didn’t belong here. That small part of me was immediately shut down and proven wrong when I opened my eyes to all of the extraordinary women around me in this industry. People may think that there aren’t working female mentors and industry professionals, but I’m here to tell you from first-hand experience that they’re everywhere – and they’re probably busy working in the studio or the office. If not there, then they’re out kicking some ass or conquering the world. We need to spread awareness that there are indeed women working full-time in this industry, and success in this field is achievable. Meeting these women has significantly altered my perspective on my own reality: what is possible for me and where I see myself in the future. Without them, I wouldn’t be anything like who I am today.

The Impossible Dream: Scoring My First Documentary

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Danielle Ferrari - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

A smoky, black and white perspective shot of a man in a beanie

I didn’t grow up watching movies. I never liked sitcoms or reality shows. Ever since I was little, I always had a strong aversion towards watching TV because I always felt it to be meaningless mind poison. Playing, learning, and listening to new music have always been my favorite forms of entertainment and my main sources of enjoyment. Gradually, as I continued to explore different worlds of music, I found myself more and more fascinated by soundtracks. The more I listened to them, the more intrigued I became by the story, characters, and context of the movies themselves. I needed to know what was driving all of the passion behind the scores. I gradually came to see how music has the power to transform stories and make characters feel larger than life. Since this realization, it has been my mission to create music that supports the narrative of humanity’s beautiful stories. It’s incredibly fulfilling to create music that supports a theme or character by playing up aspects of the situation or personality that might not be so obvious to the audience. It was only a few months ago when I scored music for my very first documentary, The Impossible Dream, that I realized this was my path. This was the first opportunity I had to do what I want to spend my career doing.

The Impossible Dream, directed by Javid Soriano, is a documentary that portrays creativity, poverty, and addiction in San Francisco, as experienced by Tim Blevins, a homeless opera singer and Juilliard graduate living in the Tenderloin. The film, intimately capturing Tim’s journey of survival and redemption on the streets, has received support from The Sundance Institute, the Independent Filmmaking Project (IFP), and Skywalker Sound and Music Labs, among other film institutes/foundations around the country. The moment I heard about this project, I could not contain my excitement. I, along with other third-year TAC students, had the opportunity to collaborate with the director to not only score the documentary but also to arrange, perform, and record unique accompaniments for the classical repertoire that Tim sings in the film. When I found out that we could “try out” for as many scenes as we wanted to, I immediately attempted to write for all 13 scenes in one sitting. After about an hour, I stepped back and recognized that I was only human, so I settled on focusing all my energy and efforts on a select few scenes that really spoke to me. I ended up scoring three scenes, one of them being the “Comeback Scene.”

The Comeback

In the “Comeback Scene,” Tim goes through a hero’s monologue, explaining how real heros aren’t beyond getting their asses kicked every once in a while. He describes how, when it looks like they’re at the end of their ropes, they get back up and start working harder to make a comeback. Through sweat and blood, real heroes are reborn. I felt moved by Tim’s confidence, and wanted to highlight both the struggle of Tim’s daily routine and his unyielding determination. I decided that a bouncy staccato string bed with a striving legato violin line climbing up to the highest register of the instrument would work best to play up Tim’s perseverance. The director came back and noted that he’d like to hear a tinge of darkness to emphasize the sense of painful struggle that Tim will have to endure to overcome. I agreed with him; I had made the music a bit too positive and had missed the humanizing element in the story. I then altered the harmony to better fit the spirit in his monologue and the scene was instantly brought to life.

The Finale

Another scene I scored was “The Finale.” It’s the last and one of the more emotionally intense scenes in the documentary. This one was especially unique because in the very final cue of the scene Tim goes into singing Colline’s “Coat Aria” from La Bohème. On top of composing the music to accompany Tim’s singing, the director had also asked me to write in the style of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. These tricky notes combined with the pressure of scoring the grand finale scene caused me to experience a massive mental block. After days of trying different compositional techniques for this cue, I completely ran dry of ideas. Feeling defeated, I sat down in the studio and pulled the session up on the monitors. I watched the picture playback a few times, still trying to come up with any form of solution my mind could muster up at this point. I then decided to try a different route. Instead of thinking anything at all, I let out a deep breath, closed my eyes, placed my hands on the MIDI keyboard, and let my intuition take over. I completely surrendered, leaving whatever would happen next to be purely instinctual. I felt the weight of Tim’s story and his rich voice flow through me. I felt his pain, bravery, and heroism. I felt music that represented both Tim’s charismatic nature and hardship. For the first time in my life, I composed from the heart instead of through some learned technique. The next day, the director reviewed my work and wrote back that it was “chilling at the end.”

The entire experience of composing for The Impossible Dream was a transformative one. Never had I thought that a film project could come into my life and completely change the way I think about composition. Through this process, one of the many things I learned was that sometimes thinking less and trusting more is the best way to go. I see media like TV and film in a different light now. I see it as a medium to explore the narrative of our humanity. It’s this process of sharing our stories, our lives, and our dreams that makes it so compelling, and music can participate by highlighting these aspects. Music may be just a series of tones and pitches at different intervals, but when constructed in a thoughtful way, it can evoke even the subtlest of feelings, sometimes indescribable ones. Composing music for this story confirmed that this is what I see myself doing for the rest of my life.

Do you need a doctorate in composition?

Posted on April 17, 2019 by Jason Eckardt - Articles, Commentary, NewMusicBox

A person taking notes, with a white mug in the background

Do you need a doctorate in composition? No, you don’t. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value.

In the nearly twenty years that I have been teaching composition at universities and conservatories, the most common question I am asked by students not already in doctoral programs is which ones they should apply to. The assumption of these young composers is that the next logical or expected step in the progression of their musical development is to seek an advanced degree in a field where the degree itself is becoming both more ubiquitous and less powerful.

When I ask young composers why they want to earn a doctorate, the almost inevitable response is, “Because I want to teach.” That is indeed an admirable reason to do so. Additional issues such as performance and networking opportunities and some abstract sense of the recognition and approval that a doctorate will bestow are also often mentioned. While there is some merit to these expectations, I believe they are mostly misguided.

For decades, the availability of full-time, tenure-track composition jobs has been dwindling, with the decrease greatly exacerbated by the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. During this time, administrators in higher education facing smaller budgets due to reduced state funding, shrinking endowments, and less generous alumni donors sought to make up the difference. They did so by employing larger pools of part-time adjunct faculty who could be paid far less than their full-time counterparts with few or no benefits and no job security. As the financial markets later soared to record levels of growth, the number of full-time professorships did not follow. Consequently, the majority of my colleagues who teach composition or related music courses do so in the precarious conditions described above. These teachers are extremely qualified and dedicated; their students are lucky to work with them. But for anyone trying to eek out a living on the wages earned as an adjunct or short-term contract instructor (particularly in an expensive metropolitan area where new music activity is concentrated) struggles significantly. These exploitative teaching positions are often spread out over multiple campuses requiring travel and the time spent counseling students, correcting homework and papers, and dealing with university bureaucracy steals precious time needed to compose. Anyone considering a doctorate for the reason that they want to teach should be aware of these realities and that the competition for the few stable jobs that are offered is extremely fierce.

Image: Vlad Kutepov

A more immediate financial consideration for young composers seeking a doctorate is the cost of the degree and the means needed to live during the years that it takes to complete the classwork, exams, and dissertation. While many universities and conservatories offer composer fellowships that waive tuition and offer a modest stipend, usually in exchange for teaching, these are limited, often to just a couple a year. Of course, these cannot accommodate the hundreds of qualified students who apply for composition doctorates every year and many students are faced with the possibility of large debts after completing their studies. No student should be put in this position and I strongly advise against paying for these degrees. While it is not uncommon for young professionals to leave graduate school with substantial debt, the fields outside the humanities more consistently offer starting salaries beyond living wages in addition to health and retirement benefits. Because there are very few such opportunities available to recent composition graduates, it makes no sense to accrue a large debt that may take decades to repay.

There are also some young composers who feel that they have not received sufficient preparation in order to enter the field. They believe that an advanced degree will provide the training and knowledge that they lack. A graduate program in composition would serve these students well but not at the expense of crushing debt that would be shouldered if the student needed to pay for tuition. In these cases, I recommend that students seek out individuals for private lessons. Because there are so many highly-qualified musicians that do not have full-time academic jobs, many are willing to teach privately. The cost of these lessons is a fraction of graduate tuition and offers much more flexibility with regard to teachers and scheduling.

What does substantially help composers, perhaps more than anything, is making personal connections with members of the musical community.

In my experience, no ensemble, soloist, or presenter has ever reconsidered a commission or programming opportunity for a composer due to a lack of academic credentials. It seems true that certain prizes and fellowships give some limited weight to one’s academic background, but it is always subsidiary to the music under consideration.

What does substantially help composers, perhaps more than anything, is making personal connections with members of the musical community. By interacting and collaborating with fellow musicians, pooled talents and resources sum to much more than individual parts. I always encourage young composers to attend as many concerts as possible and politely and humbly engage the performers and audience members during and after the show. Chance and sought out connections can yield deep, meaningful, and even lifetime relationships that can have profound creative and intellectual impact.

I understand that for many the access to such communities may be limited due to geographical or financial constraints. Additionally, it can be socially and professionally daunting for some to join circles to which they do not already belong. In these circumstances the communities may be created from within, as has often been the case in the past. Some examples include the artists that formed Der Blaue Reiter, the Scratch Orchestra, and the San Francisco Tape Music Center.

There are positive attributes of academic programs, to be sure. Especially when coming from a place where interactions with like-minded musicians are limited, enrolling in a music program can provide incredible stimulation and camaraderie with peers and mentors. Opportunities to work with fellow students and guests in performances and presentations are extremely valuable, as is the teaching experience that comes with fellowships. The positive impact that access to a dedicated music library can have on a developing composer is undeniable. And hopefully the courses and private instruction will enlighten and expand one’s own musical outlook.

So while there is value in attending a graduate program in composition, it is not a panacea for career advancement and future job security. It is wise to consider what one wants and realistically what a composition doctorate can offer before assuming that it is the only path forward.

Teamwork in the Conservatory: In the Game of Music, We Can All Win

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Danielle Ferrari - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

Three people at the mixing desk of a recording studio

My yoga teacher once said something that really stuck with me: What helps “we” also helps “me.” Time after time, my experiences have verified this to be true. The occasions in which I have grown the most have all involved collaborating with my peers and coworkers. I strongly believe that no collective growth can occur without there first being individual growth, but that when an individual grows, so does the group. This is also a key component of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s (SFCM) Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) program, where there is a large emphasis on collaboration and teamwork. I want to see my peers succeed, so I’m constantly asking myself how I can contribute to their success. Through collaboration, we grow together.

One Friday night during my freshman year, a group of students and I got free tickets to see the San Francisco Opera. I arrived at the opera house and found my seat next to another TAC student, Thomas Soto. We began chatting about music and other career-related things. He offhandedly mentioned that there was a really cool professional development program for college students pursuing a career in music called GRAMMY U. He told me how the program hosts “SoundChecks” with big-name artists like Jason Mraz, The Weeknd, and Khalid, which include a Q&A session and a photo with the artist. I was intrigued. After the opera, I went home and immediately applied for a GRAMMY U membership. Fast forward one and a half years and I’m sitting in a corporate office interviewing to be the next GRAMMY U Representative for the San Francisco Chapter of the Recording Academy. Now, after having the job for nearly a year and four months, one of my many roles is to pair 10 to 15 high-achieving GRAMMY U members with a mentor in their field of study each semester. It all came back around this semester when I paired Thomas, the same person who told me about the program, with an awesome mentor who has been teaching him audio engineering, mixing, and arranging. Looking back at that night in the opera house, Thomas had no idea what wheels he had set in motion at that time. He was simply sharing a really cool opportunity with me and ended up benefiting greatly from it himself some three years later.

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A few weeks ago, after hearing a decent number of my peers in the TAC program complain about how difficult it is to find an artist manager, I decided it was time to use my rep position to make some magic happen. Through GRAMMY U, I organized an Industry Insights event on the relationship between artists and managers. I knew some GRAMMY U members at UC Berkeley studying artist management, and of course I knew members in my own TAC program who were in great need of management, so I thought it to be a perfect fit. I called up the music director of the Berkeley Careers in Entertainment Club (BCEC) to see if they wanted to co-host this event with us. They agreed, so I sent an invitation out to all of the GRAMMY U members in the Bay Area. We invited a guest speaker, Joe Barham, artist manager for the Stone Foxes and creator partnerships lead at Patreon, for a Q&A. During the event, I asked Joe about the roles and expectations of artist managers, how these relationships are built, and the red flags to look out for when searching for your perfect match. Following the Q&A, we gave out colored name tags and mock-business cards with each student’s info for them to hand out during the networking session. At first, when we announced that the networking session had officially begun, nobody moved from their seat. Only after an inspiring pep talk about seizing the moment from Michael Winger, the executive director of The Recording Academy SF Chapter, did students begin to shuffle around the room. Surprisingly, the networking session lasted longer than we expected, resulting in us having to move the event next door to a pizza joint.

The feedback I got was very inspiring. Some students admitted, “At first, I was scared to walk up to someone new, but after the fourth and fifth time it became surprisingly easy,” and, “I didn’t realize how cool everyone in the room was until I started talking to them.” This is a much smaller industry than we realize, and many students we sit next to in class will be the working professionals of tomorrow. Every day is an opportunity to make these connections and long-lasting friendships. These relationships will serve you for the rest of your life. Due to the huge success of this event, I’m now in the process of planning another Industry Insights session for production and engineering students in May.

Teamwork in the Conservatory

I didn’t know what I was in for when I signed up for a winter term class called Synesthesia and Microtonality this past January. There were only three of us in the class: Jonathan Herman, Jessica Mao, and myself. We showed up to our first class meeting to have the professor tell us that we had one week to figure out a solution to his dilemma. Our task was to program a keyboard to play microtones and another one to trigger specific colors on a screen for a live performance. The three of us, not yet knowing each other very well, had no idea how to go about accomplishing this on our own. It was only when we started to communicate our different skills that we realized where one person lacked, the other made up for. I knew just enough about the program Max/MSP to start building a color organ, Jessica started mapping out the different color combinations and how they would correspond to specific keys, and Jonathan, who is well-versed in Ableton, began on the microtonal tunings. The collaborative process was so seamless it felt like we were a machine. After only three days we had worked out a brilliant solution, something I never thought would happen when we began. The piece is scheduled to be performed at SFCM in May. Due to its unique curriculum, the TAC program at SFCM is collaborative by nature. Not only did I accomplish a goal I previously thought impossible, I also developed great friendships in the process. I learned a valuable lesson in trusting others’ abilities. That’s what a team is for.

There’s a place for everyone to succeed in this game. We come from different backgrounds with varying life experiences that contribute to our own unique skill sets. If I could do anything right now, I would want to encourage students to not treat work life as a competition, but more so like a game with only one team. Rather than competing against each other, we can utilize our individual knowledge to work together and create immensely beautiful things. Before entering the TAC program, I had not realized the mighty power of collaboration, nor thought about how my unique skill set could support the needs of others. Both the TAC program and my work with The Recording Academy have helped me see the tremendous value in teamwork. Life’s
much more fun when you work with others!

I Came Here With Nothing: 21st-Century Paths in Music Education

Posted on April 4, 2019 by Danielle Ferrari - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

I applied to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) program as a very lost graphic design major transferring from the University of San Francisco. While I didn’t come from a strict classical background, I was a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and a passionate electronic music maker. Thankfully, SFCM saw a certain sense of originality and talent in my art, and I got accepted into one of the newest and most groundbreaking music technology programs that a conservatory has ever seen.

Why should a conservatory have a technology composition program? Music is always evolving, and conservatories should be the place where we can explore and pioneer this evolution. For 98 years, in general at SFCM you’d hear music from the 17th to the 20th centuries radiating out of its practice rooms and into the hallways. The game changed with the birth of TAC, founded by Executive Director MaryClare Brzytwa. With programs like TAC, students get the best of both worlds—the opportunity to study foundational classical music as well as the ability to explore new cutting-edge music technology. Coming from a graphic design background, using the latest tools and software had always been second nature to me. What I deeply hungered for was access to knowledge of the classical music world, something which most other music technology programs severely lacked. Every conservatory should offer an integral technology and applied composition program as a bachelor’s degree course.

The TAC program is designed to push students out of their comfort zones and into the realm of growth, experience, and discovery. From building musical applications in Max/MSP to cranking out a fully orchestrated score for a five-minute film cue, students are constantly challenged to learn more and perform better.

As freshmen, we are thrown immediately into the fire as one of our first tasks is to compose a one-minute suite for a fictitious video game. Only the work of a select few will be chosen to be recorded by professional musicians at Sony PlayStation’s studio in San Mateo. This assignment is especially challenging because most of us are scrambling to learn how to use a digital audio workstation for the first time.

It’s a fun ride to be on, when we walk into the classroom not knowing what to expect then suddenly have a ton of opportunities thrown at us. Last semester we worked with a local filmmaker on his documentary. The filmmaker himself had contacted the school looking to see if any composition students were interested in scoring his film, as the film had a heavy opera theme throughout. This became one of TAC’s main semester projects and, like every project, we poured everything we had into it. I ended up scoring 20 minutes of music for this project, and it became my first real professional credit.

Recently, TAC students have been working in collaboration with the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) on scoring their student film. The students at SFAI are creating a modern Macbeth, and our scores will be recorded at Skywalker Ranch. Opportunities like these are continually laid out on the table for us, and we are responsible for grasping as many as we can and then running with them.

These are just some of the experiences we get, on top of having the traditional conservatory experience of studying music theory, orchestration, and harmony, as well as history and other general education classes.

If I were to offer advice to other conservatories based on my experiences in the TAC program, I’d say there are a few core ideas that will need to be implemented:

Recording Department
It’s important to teach students the most foundational recording studio skills. Recording, mixing, and editing know-how are invaluable for a lifelong career in music. Every live performance at the conservatory needs to be recorded, so teaching and allowing students to run this process achieves both goals at the same time. The recording department at SFCM is now almost completely student-run, with the head audio engineer being third-year TAC student Seira McCarthy.

Special Projects
Find outside projects that people in the community are passionate about and see if they would like to collaborate, or have students put together a seasonal concert of live electronic and avant-garde music. It’s important to be open and allow students to explore their creativity in a program like this. There is no straight path to achieving music nirvana, so it’s important to have an accepting and open program for students to show off their performance and composition skills.

A Badass Executive Director
My director and mentor MaryClare Brzytwa has pushed me further than I ever dreamed of going, and has never let me get away with cutting any corners. As an example, when I applied for a job to be a department assistant, she assigned me to be a recording engineer because during my freshman year, when other students were setting up audio equipment, she saw me hiding because I didn’t know how to do it. She wanted to be sure I would do the work I ran away from. And it worked. By forcing me to break down those barriers, I’m no longer afraid of setting up mics or running Pro Tools sessions.

Photo by Carlin Ma

After four years of TAC, when you look around the conservatory, classical music is still radiating out of practice rooms. But now, there are also students playing synthesizers, building MIDI instruments, and collaborating as creators and musicians as well.

As that lost graphic design major, TAC was the gold mine I found that allowed me to learn everything I needed and more to be happy as a music creator.

Back in the 1990s, I was one of the myriad aspiring composers in New York City ... and I balanced my compositional activities with a four-day-a-week day job in order to pay bills.

Frank J. Oteri

I learned about the International Association of Music Information Centres [IAMIC], before I even knew there was an American Music Center, even though it was then just four blocks away from where I had been living for most of my life.

Frank J. Oteri

I had absolutely no experience in publishing, had only written that handful of articles, and did not know all that much about this relatively new thing called the internet other than using AOL and surfing UserNet comments about contemporary music. (It was the '90s afterall.)

Frank J. Oteri

I believed strongly, and still do, that practitioners should be the people who speak and write about this music since they have the most intimate knowledge of it, the greatest passion for it, and need their own outlet to disseminate information about it.

Frank J. Oteri

The strength and significance of NewMusicBox in our field is because by design it is a collaborative project.

Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri

I still plan to be heavily involved in the contemporary music scene both here and abroad, wearing as many different kinds of hats in it as I always have (even though I will always refuse to wear corporeal hats).

Frank J. Oteri

Even though I rarely get a full night's sleep and don't plan to anytime soon, I still have many other dreams to dream and hope to continue to dream along with others about this crazy thing that for a lack of a better term we still and will probably always call new music. May it never be boxed in.

Frank J. Oteri

Danielle Ferrari

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