Who Is Your Favorite Composer?

Who is your favorite composer? That is obviously a very hard question to answer. I love a lot of different music from music history. When I started my master's degree, I spent a lot of time with the music of Lassus. I also particularly enjoy Stravinsky's music. I really like Debussy's music. I find that my taste in music often differs a lot from what most contemporary composers listen to.

Lately, however, I have been listening to a lot of different film scores. The other day, I found the soundtrack to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. This is one of the better film scores out there, in my opinion. In music, we often talk about the "character" that a piece of music has. I found this video this morning on YouTube where Michael Kamen talks about how the film score enhances the presentation of characters in the movie. 


People may have heard most of Michael Kamen's music, however, most people probably do not know who he is. He's done a lot of film scores and popular music over the years. Perhaps the most moving project he was involved with was Mr. Holland's Opus. Michael Kamen was so moved by working on the film that he started the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation. This organization donates refurbished and new instruments to schools who would not have access to music otherwise. He also had a career in popular music. He worked with Pink Floyd, Queen, Eric Clapton, and Aerosmith. He was also the conductor of the orchestra for the Concert for George, the concert marking the anniversary of George Harrison's death.

Unfortunately, Michael Kamen is no longer with us. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1997 and died of a heart attack in 2003.
 

What Composers Really Do--Fundraising Day #2

Let's talk about what composers really do for a living. Very few of us will ever have the opportunity to write professionally for a living. There are probably 1,000-2,000 composers in the country who write avant-garde music. Of that number, I would be surprised if 100 make any sort of money from their music. Of the 100 who do make any money, I would guess that maybe 3-4 specifically compose for a living. Most of us make our money doing other things. 


Many composers have made a living doing other things. I've taught at the University of Utah for three years and have another two years of teaching at the University of Iowa under my belt. At the U. of Utah, I have taught Theory I, II, III & Musicianship I, II, III, & IV. This semester, I have really tried to make myself into a master teacher. I really enjoy my Musicianship II class. They are a bright section of students and they laugh at all of my lame jokes.


I also have developed my skills as a writer. I work part-time for a company called High Performance Tutoring, LLC. We tutor all age groups. I am our music theory tutor. I also write content for our site, blog, manage our social media, and tutor writing. You can guess that the demand for music theory tutoring is almost zero. 


What else do I do? I offer my services as a freelance writer. I write for a few online companies and offer my support on Craigslist. I have also done iPad programming for the University of Utah Pain Research Center. I made an app that would have been used in a drug study. However, the drug company pulled out at the last minute. I made a good deal of money and learned an exciting new skill set.


You never go into music to do money. You have to be passionate. You have to love people. You have to network with people to get your music played. If it weren't for people, you would never get to hear your music. It's a very special moment when a composer and performer are brought together for a performance of a new piece of music. Sometimes, it only happens once. When you get a chance to have your music played, you should monopolize upon that. 

How I Got To Graduate School

There was a point in my undergraduate career where I was not being a very good student. I had kind of stopped caring about performance and really did not try hard in my voice lessons. As an undergraduate, I was in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. At the start of my senior year, our house dad, an alumni brother in the house, sat me down and had a conversation with me. He asked me what I was doing with my life. My GPA was not horrendous. It was not stellar either. He encouraged me to set goals and apply to graduate school.

That conversation really motivated me into shape. I composed a piece for the Drake Choir that fall. It got recorded onto a CD. I applied to graduate school at the University of Iowa. I finished my degree there, and now I am here at the U., all because someone sat me down and gave me some much needed constructive feedback.

Fund Raising: Day 1

Today, I started the long and arduous process of raising money for the the Waterlights International Music Festival. I thought it might be good to start within the University of Utah. There are a few resources that are exceptionally helpful within my own academic unit and the Graduate School.


I started with the CFA Travel Fund. If you are presenting work at a conference, then this is an ideal source of funding. It's a very generous reward. I used this money back in 2010 when I gave a paper at SEAMUS in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It's a relatively easy application to fill out. You provide an estimate of your expenses and send it and your acceptance letter off to the Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts. 


I am also looking at the University of Utah Graduate School matching funds program. Whatever money your academic unit gives you, the Graduate School matches, up to $400. I believe that with these two funding sources, I could cover most of the cost of a plane ticket. I am estimating that I could earn anywhere from $200-$600.


Meanwhile, I am also considering other fundraising sources, including my social media campaign. I have elected not to use Kickstarter for this plan because Kickstarter will not fund PART of your costs. Your Kickstarter campaign has to be fully funded to get any money. I am using a social media campaign program called ChipIn. ChipIn is a great way to solicit funds because they go straight to your PayPal account and you do not need full funding. 


I will post more later as my funding campaign unfolds. 

A Few Preliminaries

My name is George Marie. I am twenty-nine years old and am in the third year of my doctoral program at the University of Utah. I study music composition and teach undergraduate music theory and musicianship courses. The purpose of this blog is to raise funds for my trip to Zurich, Switzerland in July. I have been accepted into the prestigious Waterlights International Music Festival. At this festival, I get to compose and premiere a new work. In a few weeks, I will know what ensemble I am expected to write for.

These types of experiences are very important. When a person applies for academic jobs, it is expected that they participate in at LEAST one experience such as this. Many people have heard of the famous Aspen Music Festival and Tanglewood. Many composers, conductors, and performers have their professorships at prestigious institutions because of these experiences.

This blog will take you through my journey of raising money and writing a piece of music for this festival. Not a lot of people really appreciate the issues that composers and musicians face and I think it's going to be a good exercise in how the arts are going to have to work in this new economy. Some days, I will discuss the piece I am writing. On other occasions, I will talk about pedagogical issues that are related to music.

To conclude this post, I would like to include a piece of writing I once did on the value of art:

As a composer, people and their reactions to my chosen profession frequently shock me. I imagine that people in the fine arts frequently experience similar reactions. Elizabeth Gilbert's talk from 2009, found on TED, on nurturing creativity helps me negotiate these reactions. Is there a possibility that my next job may involve saying, "Would you like an apple pie with that?" Yes, but reaction to that possibility will find me drinking gin by the bottle at 9 am every morning.

Gilbert raises the notion of the Daemon from Greek epistemology. At times, in our lives, we have little spirits that speak to us and inspire us to do our best. The Roman version of the Daemon was "genius." Gilbert gradually links these to the tradition of shouting "Ole" during Spanish bullfighting or flamenco dancing. I will include the text, which I think is the best part of her lecture:

-- centuries ago in the deserts of North Africa, people used to gather for these moonlight dances of sacred dance and music that would go on for hours and hours, until dawn. And they were always magnificent, because the dancers were professionals and they were terrific, right? But every once in a while, very rarely, something would happen, and one of these performers would actually become transcendent. And I know you know what I'm talking about, because I know you've all seen, at some point in your life, a performance like this. It was like time would stop, and the dancer would sort of step through some kind of portal and he wasn't doing anything different than he had ever done, 1,000 nights before, but everything would align. And all of a sudden, he would no longer appear to be merely human. He would be lit from within, and lit from below and all lit up on fire with divinity.

**N.B. What she is describing here is the same thing that we see when Ravi Shankar sits down and plays. For a minute, he looks young and brilliant, definitely not the ninety-plus years his age.

And when this happened, back then, people knew it for what it was, you know, they called it by its name. They would put their hands together and they would start to chant, "Allah, Allah, Allah, God, God, God." That's God, you know. Curious historical footnote -- when the Moors invaded southern Spain, they took this custom with them and the pronunciation changed over the centuries from "Allah, Allah, Allah," to "Ole, ole, ole," which you still hear in bullfights and in flamenco dances. In Spain, when a performer has done something impossible and magic, "Allah, ole, ole, Allah, magnificent, bravo," incomprehensible, there it is -- a glimpse of God. Which is great, because we need that.

I like that thought. When we experience brilliance, it might not be ours and there is a good possibility that it is on loan from elsewhere. Gilbert, in her talk, is very concerned with the fact that our most brilliant moment might be our only moment of creativity. However, I wonder if there is a greater issue at hand. What if the situation of our livelihoods require us to give that creativity up? Giving something up out of reality is much more daunting, especially while there is still youth to fulfill it, than it is to retire from something because we lived a fulfilling life doing it.

So, yes, the arts are highly relevant. Music, in some cultures, aligns with the science. An example of this can be found with the Greeks and their derivation of the overtone series. Relating to the Pythagorean saying, "What is the Oracle at Delphi?" The answer is "The Tetraktys, the thing which is the Harmony of the Sirens." The arts, in our lifetime, might have a renaissance brought forth through the sciences. In the academy, I already see this happening. The joy of singing is being used to promote eye, nose, and throat awareness. The brilliance of the composer is leading to new and exciting breakthroughs in computer programming and mathematics.

Roger Scruton described music's intrinsic value akin to that of the value of a friendship. He describes this relationship in his book on the aesthetics on music, but I will not quote that here. I found a quote from Scruton in his reader that makes my point much more clearly, one that is not too far away from Gilbert's notion of genius.

The friend commands my special attention: I make an effort on his behalf, and his friendship becomes part of my life, something intrinsically valuable to me. The intrinsic value of 'neighbor' belongs to him as a rational individual. He is valuable for his own sake but not necessarily for me. The value of the friend is a value for me; one of my possessions, and one that has no price. Friendship elevates those who are bound by it; it lifts them above the plateau of agape into an illuminated region which is theirs and which they have no duty to share.

The value of the arts come from within. Our genius, maybe God, even though I am not quite sure about that, speaks to all of us while we are making them. If we listen close enough, we might just hear or maybe even learn something.