Studio Class Notes 5 Feb 2010

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Feb 052010
 

Upcoming concert: Thursday, Feb. 11, 7:30 at Wharton Center. Wind Symphony will be playing (among other things) Jennifer Higdon’s Oboe Concerto. Please attend if you can to support our colleagues in the band department who support us. Higdon (whom Kevin presented last week) also won a Grammy award last week.

No studio class next week. We will return to the regular meetings on Feb. 19 with a presentation by Mark Sullivan.

The salsa band (including Nate Bliton), Feb. 18 in Hart Recital Hall.

Deadlines are approaching for participation in the Premieres concerts: Feb. 8 – Premilinary deadline for grad students. Feb. 15 – Program information deadline for undergraduates.

Discussion of SCENE&heard: we should all be better “entrepreneurs,” make performance opportunities for ourselves. The performance was successful. [Thanks to all involved and all who attended. -Dave]

Discussion of the DSO readings: it was a great experience for everyone. Thanks to the 5 composers whose works were read for accepting the criticisms in front of the group. Slatkin and the orchestra were quite generous with their time. It was great to have the two composers there. Cindy McTee in particular sent individual comments to the composers.

Corigliano discussion: Corigliano’s music is based on simple, large-scale structures. On a smaller scale, complexity is evident. Large scale dictates the smaller structures. “The oboe concerto, I think is the piece that finally pushed me into another world of composing. From then on, I have used this method of composing. I have made the big decisions first instead of the small ones…to me the idea of the bigger shape being governed by the smaller shape just seems backwards. I have come to realize that what the piece is about is the larger shape, from beginning to end.” In the last movement of the oboe concerto, Corigliano uses a special technique to imitate the sound of the “rheita,” a traditional Middle Eastern double-reed instrument.

Listening:
Corigliano: Oboe Concerto (1975)
perf. Humbert Lucarelli, oboe, with the American Symphony Orchestra, c. Kazuyoshi Akuyama
album: John Corigliano: Poem in October/Oboe Concerto/Three Irish Folk Settings (on Amazon)
[This recording appears to be out of print.]

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Michigan Radio Reports on the DSO readings

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Jan 292010
 

This afternoon, Michigan Radio reported on tomorrow’s reading session with MSU composers and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The piece included a short interview with Kevin Wilt. Check it out right here.

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DSO Plays Music by MSU Student Composers
Jennifer Guerra (2010-01-29)

ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) – Kevin Wilt admits he’s excited and a little nervous to have his piece not only played by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, but critiqued by it as well.

Wilt’s piece is called “Song of the Phoenix.” It’s about urban renewal and revitalization, and it was inspired by his time spent in Detroit as an undergrad at Wayne State.

Wilt says the collaboration between the DSO and MSU not only helps the orchestra build up its audience base, “but also it gives [the DSO] the chance to see what local musicians are doing, what local composers are working on; to kind of see what’s out there from some younger composers.”

The DSO will critique and run through each student’s piece Saturday morning from 10am to 12:30pm. The performance at Orchestra Hall is open to the public.

In addition to Wilt, Do Hi Moon, Won Suk Choi, Phillip Sink and Evan Bushman will also have their pieces performed by the orchestra.

Contact Jennifer Guerra at guerraj@umich.edu

© Copyright 2010, Michigan Radio

Thanks to Jennifer Guerra and Michigan Radio for the story.

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Studio Class Notes 29 Jan 2010

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Jan 292010
 

Reminder: DSO readings are this coming Saturday (tomorrow). VANS LEAVING AT 7:30AM NOW. DON’T BE LATE!!! If you want to get breakfast before we leave, some composers are getting together at Hannah’s Koney Island in Hannah Plaza on Hagadorn at 6:30am.

Upcoming special presentations in studio class:

Feb. 19: Dr. Sullivan
March. 5: Dr. Jason Price
March 19: Dr. Hutcheson
March 26: Dr. Ruggiero

(no class Feb. 26, Apr. 30)

Dr. Lorenz’s Top Ten List of ways to tell you are a composer of concert music:

10. You feel like you are a bit different than everybody else, like you have something unique to offer the world if only you could get people to hear it.

9. You also have a sexy, valuable commodity to sell but, unlike multinational corporations, you do not have the unlimited manpower and capital they have to market their product.  In short, you have to go at it alone.

8. A teaching job, or any other kind of job, is simply an excuse to allow you to continue composing.

7. You struggle understanding the paradox that classical music has lost its hegemonic status over contemporary culture even though everything about your music education seems to deny this current reality.

6. You feel that life gets in the way of composing, and not being able to solve a compositional problem because of dealing with life feels like suffering from a bad case of constipation.

5. The differences between you and a fifteen-year old is that you volunteered to go public with your life journal, you have not matured the need for approval, and you still desperately seek idle, playtime.

4. You accept that composing is a way of life in which attitude is more important that style.

3.  You admittedly suffer from Dr. Frankenstein’s syndrome:  right off the bat, you think your works are abominations, even though there is no real evidence of that being the case.

2.  As much as you like them, dead composers are not your peers or your role models.  In fact, they are your greatest competitors.  You are better off sticking with your living peer composers, especially the ones you know personally.

1. You surrender to the fact that composing is a very long-term investment, one in which satisfaction and recognition arrives in geological time.

We will continue to discuss and refine this top ten list in studio class. Please drop some knowledge (or opinion) in the comments to this post (click the post title).

Kevin Wilt presented on Jennifer Higdon:

Higdon teaches at Curtis. She is, however, a very active composer. “Blue Cathedral” has been performed over 200 times in less than ten years since it was written.

Listening:
Higdon: Blue Cathedral
perf. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, c. Robert Spano
album: Rainbow Body (on Amazon, iTunes)

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Three Things I learned from Leonard Slatkin

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Jan 262010
 
A great revelation has been visited upon me due to Leonard Slatkin’s lecture on Monday January 25th.  The main thing that he was trying to get across was that orchestras such as  the Detroit Symphony Orchestra are important cultural institutions that should be supported.  According to him, the generation of our parents and grandparents have dropped the ball.  They did not know how important it would be to us to have these orchestras.  Now the parent and current generation must spring into action and make sure that all these hundreds of musicians that are graduating from our numerous educational institutions will have jobs. Their dreams of being musicians should not be crushed due to lack of the cultural support for orchestras. He also said that the private sector has the responsibility to care for the arts.  He mentioned something about the orchestra being like a time machine that recreates the past.  I wonder whose past he meant.  The 95% white (mostly middle aged and older) audience and rest made up from the international students belonging to upwardly mobile asian and south-american families responded with enthusiasm.
“Change is a good thing, but in the arts, not so much”, said Leonard Slatkin.  Thus we must hold on to the values passed down to us from the dead western european cultural establishment and accept them as the American culture and preserve them and propagate them through education and donations to the orchestra. Before this lecture, I did not know who the participants were in the American Culture.  I think I have a better understanding now.   Don’t worry, its not the immigrants.  Most of them are upwardly mobile and can be uplifted through the education at schools to participate in the culture in power for at least one or two generations. But, it was interesting to hear about Mr.Slatkin’s hobnobbing with Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan.  Whether the Orchestra serves a vibrant and culturally relevant role in the modern American Society comprising of so many different cultures is a question whose answer we did not learn yesterday.
The major revelation came when Mr. Slatkin said,
” Public doesn’t like composers whose names it can’t pronounce.”
And apparently, he himself would rather be spared the difficulty of mumbling someone’s name at the orchestra rehearsal, because he could not be bothered to have to learn how to pronounce it.   The audience chuckled complacently with his comments.
My dear friends, colleagues, professors and general public at large,   I SEE THE LIGHT.   I have been doing you a disservice. Art may be about individuality and creativity as Mr. Slatkin says, but it is not about having weird difficult foreign names. I feel sorry for all those eastern European, dutch, danish, scandanavians and others from asia that my new American name is going to put out of business.  By the way if you are an African with a click in your name, you might as well take the boat back.  Boy, I wish there was an ellis island like old-time situation for immigrants, so that they can be assigned popular American names, to guarantee success in the American Culture.
I have raked my brains all night yesterday to come up with a name that Mr.Slatkin and his culturally elevated public could pronounce.   I almost went with O.  I think people just about everywhere  can pronounce it. But then how would the people at one place have the satisfaction of branding me as one of them, as distinct from the others.
But this is a hard task.  What if the culture of power changes towards hispanic people in the near future.   I am thinking of getting a different name for each culture that I encounter. I might also have to learn shape and skin shifting.
But, for now I think I will change it to John Washington. Its easy for Mr. Slatkin to pronounce and the public will come crashing in to hear the music.  It might become un-American to not do so.
I look forward to plying the DSO with hundreds of scores in the near future.
Change is indeed a good thing as long as it toes the line.
THANK YOU LEONARD SLATKIN.
-Artist formerly known as Navjot Sandhu
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Studio Class Notes 22 Jan 2010

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Jan 222010
 

Disclaimer: These are just my notes. It’s possible (probable) that I left some things out or got some things wrong. Feel free to make any additions or corrections in the comments.

Announcements:

We are taking two vans to Detroit on Saturday, Jan 30 for the reading session. Those taking the vans should meet at school at 8:00am that morning. If you want to take the vans, make sure your name is on the list. Email Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Lorenz if you missed the list sent around in class today.

Please set up your composer profile by mid-February.

April 10 will be the Sparta Winds recital featuring MSU composers.

Feb. 4, 7:30pm will be the first Scene&Heard concert at SCENE Metrospace. $3 for students, $5 general public. Future Scene&Heard concerts will involve calls for works. Listen for those in the next few weeks.

Victor Marquez‘s recital will be March 3, 6pm, Hart Recital Hall.

Evan Bushman’s recital will be Feb. 13, 8pm, Hart Recital Hall.

Phillip Sink‘s recital will be March 29, 8pm, Hart Recital Hall.

Discussion: John Corigliano: Symphony No. 1

This is the piece that started Corigliano’s career on it’s current trajectory. He used it to place himself in a context in time and in his musical network. Many Corigliano pieces have been written for a specific occasion, including this one. Symphony no. 1 is was a commission that he nearly turned down. He wrote the piece to honor his friends and others who had died of AIDS. Specifically, he uses the AIDS Quilt as a source of inspiration.

Corigliano grew up around the NY Philharmonic (his father was concertmaster). He understands the medium very well and uses the orchestra to maximum effect.

Listening:
Corigliano:  Symphony No. 1, mvt. I
perf. National Symphony Orchestra, c. Leonard Slatkin
album: Of Rage and Rememberance (on Amazon.com)

By 1988, the President had never spoken the name of the disease. Corigliano was angry about this. Corigliano says he stopped counting the number of friends and acquaintances who had died of AIDS when he reached one hundred. This epic tragedy allowed him to get past his self-conciousness about the symphony as a form.

Daniel Tressel presented a bit about Pierre Jalbert:

Jalbert teaches at Rice. Rice has 7 theory/comp faculty. Grew up in New Hampshire. Bachelors at Oberlin. Ph.D. at University of Pennsylvania under George Crumb. Started teaching at Rice in 1996 (b. 1967). Currently working on a commission for the Emerson String Quartet and another for the piano duo “Quatro Mani.”

Listening:
Jalbert: Trio for violin, cello, and piano (1988), mvt. I
perf. Lincoln Trio
album: Composers in the Loft (on Amazon.com)
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