It is impossible to imagine Azerbaijani culture without the name of one the greatest composers of the 20th century, and the founder of Azerbaijani classical music, Uzeyir Hajibeyli.
His immortal works have forever glorified his native city of Shusha, since he was the first composer who merged mugham, a unique style of Azerbaijani music, with elements of classical opera, and transferred folk singing to an orchestral score. He is also the author of the first opera of the East “Leyli and Majnun”.
The influence of Uzeyir Hajibeyli on the further development of musical art in Azerbaijan is difficult to overestimate. His innovative and, at times, revolutionary decisions for that time changed the perception of operatic performance.
“Uzeyir Hajibeyli’s favorite composer was Mozart. He adored him and even composed a fantasy inspired by Mozart’s C major sonata. He wrote a fantasy for the orchestra of Azerbaijani ethnic instruments. ” Explains Farhad Badalbeyli, the Rector of the Baku Academy of Music.
Satirical and romantic, glorifying love for the Motherland and freedom, Hajibeyli’s works have become rare jewels in the collection of world classical music.
There is a piece of music called “Without you” or “Sensiz” in Azerbaijani, and it was inspired by the poems of the Persian poet Nizami and dedicated to his 800th anniversary.
“When you listen to the piece you clearly hear the strong influence of mugham.” Explains Joshgun Gadashov, a piano student at the Baku Academy of Music.
In many ways, it’s thanks to these works that the world first learned about the existence of the mugham, which is today on the Intangible Cultural Heritage List of UNESCO.
The aftermath of COVID-19 continues to be felt in the world of academia, and its impact has extended to The Hollywood Reporter‘s annual list of the world’s best music schools. Some programs, like the Sundance Institute Film Scoring Program, have shut down, while others have managed to launch and survive during the pandemic. The Film Scoring Academy of Europe makes its debut on this list, and another new program, at Brooklyn College/CUNY’s Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, offers a master of fine arts degree in media scoring. The past year also has upended THR‘s top rankings a bit as ascendant Columbia College Chicago moves into the top spot, overtaking perennial leaders USC Los Angeles Thornton School of Music and The Juilliard School.
To achieve the rankings this year, THR reached out to insiders in the film and television music community and polled members of Hollywood’s Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Composers Diversity Collective, the Alliance of Women Film Composers and the music branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy.
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1. Columbia College
Chicago
Columbia has been trending steadily upward on THR‘s survey for the past few years and in 2022 finally hits the top of the list. The Illinois-based school offers a two-year master of fine arts program in music composition for the screen, headed by Kubilay Uner, focusing on film, television, advertising, video games and other interactive media. Students attend a five-week semester in Los Angeles, interning with professional composers and employing professional musicians and engineers in studio recording and mixing sessions. Says Uner: “The goal of this program is for everything that we do to enable and facilitate the direct employment of our graduates in media music.”
Some of the program’s graduates include DeAndre James Allen-Toole (God’s Country, starring Thandiwe Newton); Jesi Nelson, who wrote the music for Star Wars Biomes as the first female and first person of color to serve as a composer on a Star Wars property; and Batu Sener, who wrote the music for TheIce AgeAdventures of Buck Wild.
One seasoned Hollywood composer impressed by Columbia College alumni and by Uner himself is Harry Gregson-Williams (House of Gucci, The Last Duel), who first met Uner at the Sundance composer lab. “He’s so passionate, and he’s a very accomplished composer himself,” Gregson-Williams says. “I was supposed to be mentoring him, and I could tell that he was hugely talented. I’ve noticed that, more so than any students I usually interact with, the Columbia students impress me with their razor-sharp attitude toward film music.”
TUITION $29,270
NOTABLE ALUMNI Paul Broucek (Warner Bros. Pictures president of music, in charge of three Lord of the Rings films); Liz Mandeville (blues musician)
Berklee’s screen scoring program, chaired by Sean McMahon, offers bachelor’s degrees in film and media scoring and game and interactive media scoring as well as options to minor in screen scoring or take a specialization in the video game scoring course. Berklee alumni and Stranger Things music editor Lena Glikson helped create one of the year’s most talked-about visual music moments when she incorporated Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” into fourth-season episodes of the Netflix horror series and won an Emmy in the process. Composer Joe Kraemer (Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation) credits his time at Berklee in the ’90s with giving him the tools to excel as a composer. “I was a sort of self-trained wannabe Paul McCartney when I went in, [and] when I left, I felt like I could conduct an orchestra and write a score.”
International students can take advantage of Berklee’s scoring program and facilities at Berklee’s campus in Valencia, Spain.
TUITION $46,950
NOTABLE ALUMNI Ramin Djawadi (House of the Dragon composer), Alan Silvestri (Ready Player One composer)
USC’s 20-student master’s degree program in screen scoring is now run by Jeanine Cowen, the previous assistant chair at Berklee College, succeeding interim director Patrick Kirst. Cowen and Kirst point out that USC’s faculty and student body has grown substantially more diverse this year, with Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Bleeding Fingers Music specifically sponsoring African American students each school year. “We are hoping to change the face of the industry, and I think we have the ability to do so,” Cowen says. “Not only did Sony/ATV continue their support for the scholarship, but they doubled it. So we now have two Bleeding Fingers Sony grants — full rides, including housing, living expenses and technology budgets so that they can make sure that they’re up and running when they start the program.”
TUITION $51,442
NOTABLE ALUMNI Michael Abels (Nope composer), Jerry Goldsmith (Chinatown composer)
4. The Juilliard School
New York
As one of the world’s most renowned conservatories, Juilliard has been known more for pure music education, with even some graduates acknowledging that the school hasn’t dipped its toes in media scoring until the past few years. Its Center for Innovation in the Arts originally promoted interdisciplinary work and experimental art projects that incorporated new technology, but under program director Edward Bilous, Juilliard has developed impressive media scoring classes, including composing for visual media, an independent study in emerging and collaborative arts and a scoring-to-picture workshop. “We kind of got into doing the traditional film scoring route through the back door,” Bilous says. “Juilliard doesn’t have filmmakers. So it’s not like USC or UCLA or NYU or any of these other big universities where they just walk across the hall and there’s a whole film department. So instead, we reached out and developed a partnership with film schools all around the country. And we pair our composers with filmmakers in Australia and London and, this year, Iceland, Hong Kong and Korea.”
TUITION $52,250
NOTABLE ALUMNI Bill Conti (Rocky composer), John Williams (Star Wars composer)
5. UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
Los Angeles
While the Herb Alpert School is a more traditional conservatory, its master’s and Ph.D. programs offer a specialization in either composition or composition for visual media.
“[Students are] being fully trained as composers in the big picture,” says Peter Golub, who teaches film scoring at UCLA and USC. “I work with the ones who are interested in music for visual media, master’s and doctoral students, occasionally undergrads. The classes are fairly small, so it’s pretty in-depth work. There are typically about eight in the class, and then as they go on, they also do work with me privately. I connect them to filmmakers at UCLA, both live-action and animation. So I create mixers where composers and filmmakers get to meet and share each other’s work.”
The conservatory-style learning environment also features an abundance of state-of-the-art recording and performance facilities. “There is a full complement of all the orchestral instruments and singers, plus the jazz program,” says Golub. “So there are a lot of people around that they can tap into to record their stuff.”
TUITION $13,239 (in-state)
NOTABLE ALUMNI Randy Newman (songwriter, Toy Story composer), Nancy Sinatra (singer)
6. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music
SFCM composition chair David Conte teaches a music for film class, and the school also partners with the San Francisco International Film Festival to allow students to work directly with filmmakers. A one-year professional studies diploma provides studies in workflow technologies, including composing at the keyboard; sound recording and sound design; production techniques in Apple Logic Pro X; and others. SFCM’s Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) program boasts a “mothership” recording studio so sophisticated that the Recording Academy hosted listening sessions for its annual Grammy Awards competition at the venue. But it’s the school’s location in Silicon Valley that fuels the TAC program with talent, technology and funding from the video game industry, and boasts a direct path for students into the world of scoring for games. TAC students get firsthand experience scoring in-development games and the opportunity to record their music at Skywalker Sound.
TUITION $51,300
NOTABLE ALUMNI George Duke (composer and songwriter), John Adams (composer/conductor)
7. Eastman School of Music
Rochester, New York
Founded by composer Jeff Beal (House of Cards) and directed for the past two years by composer Mark Watters, Eastman’s Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media offers a two-year master’s program that accepts no more than six students a year. The school boasts a strong working relationship with the Rochester Institute of Technology and its film, animation and video game schools and hosts a biannual “Artist Call,” in which composers are teamed with filmmakers to collaborate on projects.
Watters says the program’s number of applicants doubled this year. “I suspect the lessening of COVID-related issues contributed to this, but I’d like to think that word is getting out about the program,” he says.
TUITION $60,550
NOTABLE ALUMNI Chuck Mangione (flugelhorn player), Laurence Rosenthal (Man of La Mancha composer)
8. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Oberlin, Ohio
Chaired by Tom Lopez, Oberlin’s bachelor of music: technology in music and related arts degree trains students for graduate study in electroacoustic music, interdisciplinary performance and digital media. The program combines music technology studies with conservatory classes in music theory, aural skills and musicology as well as extracurricular projects like dance and theater performance. The student-to-teacher ratio is a generous six-to-one, and the school offers financial aid through grants, loans and student employment intended to meet the financial needs of all its students. The school recently partnered with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the Global Foundation for the Performing Arts to expand access to international students.
TUITION $61,106
NOTABLE ALUMNI David Amram (composer of 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate), James McBride (novelist/musician)
9. New England Conservatory of Music
Boston
NEC celebrates its 255th year as one of the nation’s most venerable and prestigious music schools. Located a block from Boston’s Symphony Hall, NEC boasts long-established working relationships with the Boston Symphony, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Emmanuel Music and the Boston Chamber Music Society. The school’s Robert Ceely Electronic Music Studio is an electronic music composition suite that includes mixing hardware and software and a collection of hardware synthesizers that range from the newest designs available back to fascinating and iconic relics of the 1960s.
TUITION $54,210
NOTABLE ALUMNI Conrad Pope (My Week With Marilyn composer-arranger), Ralph Burns (All Dogs Go to Heaven composer)
10. Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
Bloomington, Indiana
Jacobs’ music scoring for visual media program director is associate professor Larry Groupé, who modified the program in 2019 to include a master’s degree, undergraduate and doctoral minors and two certificate degrees. Students engage in recording sessions at the Joshi Studio, work with the Media School and IU’s film program on film projects, attend special presentations with film industry guests and collaborate with the student body of trained instrumentalists who perform their music. “The scoring program here has yet again doubled its enrollment this fall, with 23 new master’s students here for their scoring degree,” Groupé says.
TUITION $36,932
NOTABLE ALUMNI Joshua Bell (violinist/conductor), Leonard Slatkin (conductor)
11. Film Scoring Academy of Europe
Sofia, Bulgaria
The school, which was launched by former Disney music executive Andy Hill in fall 2019, managed to survive the pandemic that decimated others — particularly music programs — worldwide. Hill has made it his mission to grant students access to the kind of large-scale symphonic orchestras that only major film productions can afford. “Economically, Bulgaria’s still emerging from the Soviet shadow of three decades ago — their economy has never quite found its proper footing,” he says. “They’re part of the European Union, but they aren’t on the currency yet. And for the moment, at least, that makes the services of people like recording musicians, engineers in studios very, very economical.” That’s not all that’s economical — tuition and living expenses are also reasonable.
TUITION $33,892
12. New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
Steinhardt offers bachelor of music and master of music degrees in music theory and composition: screen scoring — co-directed by Dr. Ron Sadoff and Mark Suozzo — where students get the opportunity to work on 25 recording sessions per year involving orchestras in what Suozzo describes as “a laboratory for the professional world.” The school also brings in professionals like Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings) and Sean Callery (Jessica Jones) to critique student compositions and recordings.
TUITION $26,885
NOTABLE ALUMNI Gavin Brivik (How to Blow Up a Pipeline composer), Ariel Marx (Sanctuary composer)
13. Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program — Seattle Film Institute
Seattle
The Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program offers a master of music in film composition run by Hummie Mann. Students work on 10 scoring projects, conduct live recording sessions, work on remote sessions, produce electronic and synth scores, learn to handle all the major industry-used software and collaborate with student directors. The program also offers instruction in mixing; songwriting; business and networking; and composition and sound design for interactive video games. Students can earn a master’s degree in 40 weeks and leave with a professional skill set and demo reel.
TUITION $40,040
NOTABLE ALUMNI Brendon Williams (League of Legends video game composer); Bobby Brader (Trolls orchestral assistant)
14. University of North Carolina School of the Arts
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
UNCSA offers a two-year master of fine arts in film music composition degree as part of its School of Filmmaking. Alumnus Chris Heckman is chair of the film music composition program. His credits include Shifting Gears (composer), Red Dead Redemption (additional composer), Abundant Acreage Available (music editor) and The Arbors (contractor/engineer). Film music composition students collaborate with undergraduate directors, producers and editors and graduate producers and are provided opportunities to score more short films than any comparable program in the world. Students collectively score 30 or more visual media projects each year in a range of styles including live-action, animation, video games, virtual/augmented reality, documentaries and commercials and advertising. The small program (16 students) ensures one-on-one mentorship and training.
In an era when even Juilliard has begun to offer media scoring classes, Yale remains a stubborn conservatory holdout still dedicated to the study of pure (read: acoustic) music. But with its intimidating faculty that includes two Pulitzer Prize winners (David Lang and Aaron Jay Kernis, professors adjunct of composition), the school doesn’t need to worry about attracting students. The institution prides itself on its collegiate and collaborative atmosphere, with students choosing the teachers with whom they want to study.
TUITION $36,800
NOTABLE ALUMNI Marco Beltrami (Ford v Ferrari composer), Quincy Porter (classical composer)
16. Columbia University in the City of New York
Columbia CNY’s sound arts MFA program offers a curriculum of individual or collaborative research projects that focus on integration of sound in media, but the program admits just a handful of students each year, so competition to enter is fierce. Students work in the studio with visiting artists and spend a full week engaging with a visiting artist each semester. Columbia CNY’s music performance program offers concentrations in composition, ethnomusicology, historical musicology and music theory.
TUITION $61,216
NOTABLE ALUMNI Wendy Carlos (The Shining composer), Alicia Keys (singer)
17. Musicians Institute
Los Angeles
While the school promotes its affordability with a tuition less than $30,000 for its music master’s degree, the cost for its composition degree, including a bachelor’s degree program in music composition for visual media, is substantially higher at a little less than $90,000. Its composition for visual media program provides instruction in arranging, scoring, orchestration, music theory, ear training and music history, with online classes as well as in-person teaching available. Students couldn’t ask for a more convenient location to break into the industry since the “campus” is located in a facility in the heart of Hollywood. And while plenty of students at the school may want to be rock stars, with so many rockers going into film scoring these days, that could be a major plus.
TUITION $29,700
NOTABLE ALUMNI David Becker (jazz guitarist), Kevin Fowler (songwriter)
18. Royal College of Music
London
RCM’s two-year postgraduate level master of composition — composition for screen offers students face time with production pros from film and television as well as students from the distinguished film schools also located in London, such as London Film School and the Met Film School. The British capital is a pretty good place to network, boasting more than 113,000 creative media companies, including motion picture, television and advertising production hubs, while the venerable RCM conservatory teams composition students with student instrumentalists and professional ensembles visiting and in residence at the school. RCM’s Creative Careers Centre partners with consultants, arts organizations and communities to deliver networking and career-building opportunities and a direct line into the music industry, affording students working experience, teaching them how to work with music as a business and building a professional portfolio. Recent visiting artists include Michael Giacchino (Thor: Love and Thunder), Rachel Portman (Chocolat) and Hans Zimmer (Dune).
TUITION $29,000
NOTABLE ALUMNI Andrew Lloyd Webber (Cats composer), James Horner (Avatar composer)
19. University of Miami Frost School of Music
Coral Gables, Florida
UMF’s media scoring and production major is a four-year, 121-credit program that allows students flexibility in focusing on their preferred areas of expertise to reach the career they want. Students must provide examples of “outstanding writing and production creativity” and music notation abilities to qualify for the program. By sophomore year, students can branch out into other areas of the music school or the university in general to broaden their education.
TUITION $55,440
NOTABLE ALUMNI Ben Folds (pianist/performer), Joel McNeely (The Orville composer)
20. University of North Texas
Denton, Texas
UNT’s College of Music boasts a strong composition program with about 70 students taught by nine faculty members, with regular guest composer residencies, including Bruce Broughton (Silverado). The Center for Experimental Music & Intermedia (CEMI) focuses on the integration of electroacoustic music, live performance, video and film, with students exploring projects in CEMI’s six production studios and the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater. Graduates of the school’s composition program are prepared for work as orchestrators, arrangers, music copyists (who prepare written music for musicians), audio engineers, conductors and teachers, with opportunities at advertising firms, recording companies, symphony orchestras and in academia. Tuition is extremely affordable, even for out-of-state students. (Texas residents pay $5,496).
TUITION $11,497 (out-of-state)
NOTABLE ALUMNI Christopher Young (Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities composer), Meat Loaf (singer)
This story first appeared in the Nov. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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I was reminded recently of a television show from the 1950s by the name of “The Early Show.” It aired around 4 p.m. daily during the week in Washington. It featured very distinctive theme music at the start and end. My next oldest brother would sit and just listen to the music then go about his other business. He was truly hypnotized by it. It was a very catchy tune. I’d love to know the name.
— Greg Denevan, Berwyn, Md.
The instrumental was called “The Syncopated Clock” and it was written in 1945 in Arlington, Va., by a composer (and onetime Army intelligence officer) named Leroy Anderson. But before we get to that, let’s explore television in the 1950s.
Television then was a medium hungry for content. TV stations needed flickering images they could broadcast into viewers’ homes. Plenty of this content was piled up in a magical place called Hollywood: old movies.
But executives at major studios weren’t sure they wanted their old films shown on television. They felt TV was a competitor, siphoning viewers from movie theaters. And so, many TV stations had to pad their schedules with foreign films, films from smaller U.S. studios or films produced by the U.S. government.
Eventually, an arrangement was struck between the Hollywood studios and the TV networks enabling broadcasters to buy and transmit films made before 1948. The cinematic floodgates were opened.
CBS took the lead. In 1951, its flagship station, WCBS in New York City, debuted a nightly film offering, showing an old movie every night at 11:10 p.m. Richard K. Doan was the program manager at the time and he claimed to have named the program — “The Late Show” — and to have picked its theme music: “The Syncopated Clock” by Anderson.
Anderson was a pops powerhouse. Not pop, as in pop music, but pops, as in the light orchestral music popularized (popsularized?) by Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Pops. In fact, Fiedler was among those who encouraged Anderson to devote his life to music.
Anderson was born in 1908 to Swedish immigrants who were both very musical. He grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and studied music at Harvard. The musical arrangements he wrote there brought him to Fiedler’s attention. Soon, Anderson was arranging music for the Boston Pops.
Anderson was drafted in April 1942. When the Army learned Anderson had studied Swedish, Danish, German, Icelandic and Norwegian at Harvard, it assigned him to the Counter Intelligence Corps and sent him to Iceland, where he served as a translator and interpreter.
In 1943, Anderson was sent to Officer Candidate School and then posted to the Pentagon as chief of the Scandinavian Department of Military Intelligence. He moved his young family to Arlington. When Fiedler learned Anderson was back stateside, he invited him to be the guest conductor at the Boston Pops Harvard Night concert.
It was while Anderson was living in Arlington that a title had lodged itself in his mind. Many composers had incorporated the steady, rhythmic ticking of a clock into their works. But, Anderson later wrote, “No one had described a ‘syncopated’ clock and this seemed to present the opportunity to write something different.”
The result was “The Syncopated Clock,” a charming piece punctuated by a wood block. On May 28, 1945, Anderson, dressed in his Army uniform, conducted its premiere at Boston’s Symphony Hall.
Anderson recorded “The Syncopated Clock” with his own orchestra in 1950. The record came to the attention of WCBS programmers, who made it the theme song of “The Late Show.” It also graced other CBS movie programs: “The Late, Late Show” and “The Early Show,” the latter of which was broadcast weekdays at 4:30 p.m. on Washington’s Channel 9. (Old Westerns were common.)
Wrote Anderson: “From the very first show, CBS was flooded with telephone inquiries for the name of the theme and both CBS and I found ourselves with a hit on our hands: theirs the show, mine the theme music.”
Anderson was on a roll. In 1952, his “Blue Tango” sold 2 million copies. His “Sleigh Ride” (with lyrics by Mitchell Parish) is a seasonal staple. Answer Man’s favorite Anderson composition must be “The Typewriter,” which uses an actual manual typewriter to percussive effect.
TV stations continued to mine the mother lode of old movies. When Baltimore’s WBFF Channel 45 launched in the early 1970s, its call letters stood for “Baltimore’s Finest Features,” said local TV historian Tom Buckley. But over time, the networks developed their own made-for-TV movies. CBS has a “Late Show” and a “Late Late Show,” but they’re talk shows, not film programs.
Leroy Anderson died in 1975. Though he’d had plenty of hits, he insisted he never set out to write one.
“All a composer can do is to write what he feels and do it as best he can,” Anderson once said. “Whether it’s popular is up to the public.”
Conservatory of Music show features harps and saxophones.
North Steinbacher//CHIMES
Music composition major Alexander Reams, music major Jason Rhue and worship arts major Caleb Britt serenade the audience with saxophone melodies.
On Wednesday Nov. 3, family and friends gathered in the Lansing Recital Hall to support musicians in the Conservatory of Music. Students composed a wide array of pieces for a variety of instruments and themes.
As the audience sat in anticipation for the concert, Dr. Robert Denham, associate professor and interim chair for the Conservatory of Music, introduced the schedule for the evening and explained the significance of the occasion. For this second composition concert of the year, each student composed a piece to be accompanied by a harp.
Four of the musicians were selected to win the A Piacere award and record their piece after the concert. Harpist Grethen Sheetz joined the performance to play “Fantasy for Harp” composed by senior music major Michael Fausett, “Piercing Shadows” by music composition major Heidi Voth, “Chased: Play it Cool” by music composition major Caleb Bilti and “Starlight” by music composition major Kayla Fermanian.
PERFORMANCES
Each of the pieces displayed substantial talent and personality in both the stories and compositions. Music composition major Jaden Knighton’s “Tumultu” utilized both the piano keys and strings in his piece as he worked through feelings of being overwhelmed in a state of chaos. The event program states, “Tumultu resolves with a glissando in the lowest register of the piano. The notes ring out and blend together and leave the listener with a sense of motionless uncertainty.”
Another notable song arranged by music composition majors Jason Rhue, Noah Peterson and Devan Watanabe, titled “Level 7,” incorporated video game elements with various selections from games such as Mario, Wii, Minecraft, Pokemon and more. This unique style demonstrated the seven musicians’ skill as they successfully passed each level to reach level seven within the different movements.
“Bats at Midnight” by Anita Taylor, first-year media composition major, told the story of the bats that she saw in her neighborhood in Texas. The fluttering notes within the song represent the creatures in flight. Taylor explains that the key was specifically set in F Sharp Major since she has synesthesia — meaning, she sees various colors as she plays or listens to music. With this in mind, she specifically chose a key which represented the color purple before writing the composition. With this being her first concert at Biola, her family joined her for the evening to celebrate a piece she wrote three years ago as a high school student.
“It’s cold outside, so you know, [I was] blowing on my fingers to get them warmed up … I [was] a little nervous, but I knew my family was here so that was good,” said Taylor.
After each performance — including a bow and tribute to the composer — the crowd applauded fervently for the impressive collection of pieces. The Conservatory of Music will host two additional performances in the spring 2023 semester to display their students’ accomplishments.
Classical music concerts are laid out on paper or in programme booklets. The music is usually familiar, if not famous, the order is pre-determined — it’s right there in print — and there’s very little room for surprises. That predictability often seems to be the point. It’s safe and satisfying.
But when Conrad Tao is on the bill, as pianist or even composer, something surprising is in store. The American’s playing has an exciting sense of spontaneity, but that’s the least of it. For an encore, maybe he’ll play something everyone knows, like a Rachmaninoff Prelude or a jazz standard, or even an indie pop song. Lately, he’s likely to do something that once seemed inappropriate: improvise his way through a Mozart piano concerto.
“It’s an invitation to illustrate what I think is eternal about the music,” says Tao, 28, over Zoom of taking up the historic practice of improvising. “I think I’m a little bit old-fashioned, a little bit formalist in the sense that there are certain principles [in the way music functions].” He talks about ways to tap into “why the piece feels the way it does . . . to show that while leaving my trace on it.”
Tao, the child of Chinese-born parents, grew up in Urbana, Illinois, and was a traditional prodigy: at the age of eight he made his concerto debut with the Utah Chamber Music Festival Orchestra, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major. He also performed professionally on violin through his teens, and has received awards as a pianist, recorded for major labels, and been commissioned as a composer — including by the New York Philharmonic — since he was 15. Composing, he says, “always seemed like a completely organic aspect of being a musician”.
That is the old tradition of the great composer-pianists who were also supreme improvisers, like Mozart and Beethoven, now slowly returning. This practice was vital and widespread throughout the 19th century but was sub rosa for a stretch of the 20th, still simmering but enveloped by the prominence of recordings and a new emphasis on strict adherence to the written score.
For Tao, the “trace” he leaves on music through improvisation combines intellect, fiery passion and disarming personal feelings. “I really love improvisation, period,” Tao says. “I have improvised in some capacity all my life, and it’s been a part of my composition process.”
At his Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2019, Tao’s main programme was Bach’s Toccata in F-sharp and Schumann’s Kriesleriana, with several modern works. He was expressive, intense, impetuous, exciting, and even a touch exhausting: things familiar from his recordings and concerts. Once again, though, the surprise was in the encore: “True Love Will Find You In The End” by outsider pop musician Daniel Johnston. Tao played the simple theme and chords, improvised with them, and then sang the lyrics along with his playing. “I’d never done it before, and I haven’t really done it a lot since, although I think it does fit into my larger approach with encores in general.”
“Johnston had recently passed away,” he explains, “it was simply in my ears. And I think it just mapped on to how I was feeling. I feel encores are best when they’re kind of a reflection of how I’m feeling in the moment. Maybe it’s just I hear something, and it moves me so deeply that I’m like, we’ve got to do this. I think I have that muscle.”
This past July in Lincoln Center, that muscle brought out Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” as an encore following Tao’s performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and conductor Louis Langrée. He improvised on that song as well, and in the main part of the concert improvised the cadenzas in the Mozart Piano Concerto. In the final cadenza-like passage in Rhapsody, the music carried him along until he broke free of it and bashed out clusters on the keyboard with his forearms.
Some of this development was “pandemic specific”. In those first lockdown months, he says, “I wasn’t all that motivated to compose, improvising kept me present in a way that was valuable, and I ended up spending a lot of time developing my toolkit at the piano.” He describes how doing live streaming performances from his home “was this nice middle ground where I could get used to the kind of immediacy and pressure of improvising for people without the actual pressure of an in-person audience”.
Beyond improvisation, another old tradition that can surprise in the classical world is using dance as part of a performance. Tao has been performing with dancer Caleb Teicher since 2013, and in 2018 the pair began developing new performances. “It turns out to be one the most joyous, lightest, most fun things that either of us do,” Tao says. “We show up and play together. Caleb is a percussive dancer, there’s a shared musical background, we are both making music.”
Tao clearly values this as something beyond the classical world, another reflection of the prism. “So many of my peers are out there doing serious and exciting work in all sorts of fields . . . there’s great value working with people who have a different vocabulary, it’s enormously powerful. It forces me to think about what a performance, or an idea, really is.” And brings some surprising answers.
Conrad Tao performs with the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the David H Koch Theater, New York, on November 6 and 8 and tours with Junction Trio from November 28-December 11, conradtao.com
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Bucks Music Group has appointed music publishing executive Howard Price as its new head of media.
Reporting directly to Bucks MD Simon Platz, Price will be responsible for maintaining and developing the company’s relationships with composers, broadcasters and production companies, as well as managing publishing interests in music composed for film, TV and media.
Price has over 25 years of music publishing experience, starting his career in the EMI Music Publishing copyright team, before specialising in media relationship management. Price remained with EMI Music Publishing after it became part of Sony Music Publishing, ultimately progressing to SVP, visual & media rights at the company.
During his career, Price has secured and led business relationships with some of the broadcast world’s biggest companies, including ITV, Discovery, Mattel, Endemol Shine, Entertainment One, Hartswood Films and Bauer Media. He also played an instrumental role in both EMI’s and Sony’s production music businesses.
Price lectures at the Royal College of Music on their Composition For Screen course.
Bucks Music Group Director A&R Sarah Liversedge Platz said: “We are super excited that Howard will be joining the Bucks team to head up the Media department. We have known Howard for a long time as our competitor – it will be amazing to have him on our side of the fence at last. His commercial drive and judgement is exceptional and he’s vastly experienced in the media field.”
Price said: “I feel extremely welcomed by Simon, Sarah and the team. I’m greatly looking forward to this opportunity, developing Bucks Music’s media interests and working in the independent sector.”
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Kevin Chen of Canada on Thursday won top prize in the piano division of an international competition for young musicians in Switzerland, with Japanese Kaoruko Igarashi coming third.
The 17-year-old Canadian was awarded 20,000 Swiss francs ($20,000) for winning first prize at the Geneva International Music Competition. Sergey Belyavsky of Russia came second, while Igarashi and Zijian Wei of China shared third place.
Kevin Chen (2nd from L) of Canada celebrates winning top prize in the piano division of the Geneva International Music Competition on Nov. 3, 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. Seen on his right is Kaoruko Igarashi of Japan, who came third.
Although 28-year-old Igarashi was disappointed not to win top prize, “I was happy and thankful to the orchestra and the audience,” she said. “I think it was rather good,” she added about her performance.
Kaoruko Igarashi of Japan performs in the piano division final at the Geneva International Music Competition in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 3, 2022.
A graduate of the Toho Gakuen Music School in Tokyo, Igarashi is a professional pianist. She played Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Prokofiev in the final.
Chen, who performed a Chopin concerto, said, “I am very happy and so glad that people enjoyed my music and that I could have transmitted my passion for music to everyone.”
Chen is also a composer and has written about 100 pieces so far, including symphonies and a piano concerto.
The Geneva competition, founded in 1939 to promote young talented musicians, is considered a springboard to an international career. Japan’s Michiaki Ueno won top prize in the cello division last year.
Related coverage:
South Korean composer wins Geneva music competition, Japanese 2nd
Japanese cellist Michiaki Ueno wins Geneva music competition
Canadian Liu wins, Japan’s Sorita 2nd in Chopin piano contest
Stylie Music Studio, 808 High St., Suites B, C and most recently D, is celebrating its 12th anniversary this fall.
Owner and instructor Matt “Stylie” Steidle said he fell in love with music when he was very young.
“I believe, in this life, I’ve been tasked with giving music to people in some way, whether it’s performing, teaching, writing a song for someone or helping people finish their songs,” he said. “I hold a lot of hats, but I’ve been blessed to touch so many people in music.”
Steidle said that 12 years ago, Stylie Music Studio was opened in one studio suite in downtown Worthington next to the Old Worthington Library, beside Huntington Bank.
“Thanks to the Worthington community, we’ve been able to grow not only musically but physically with this recent expansion to three studio suites,” he said. “I’m excited for people to discover how we can help them and for them to join the Stylie family.”
Steidle and instructors Nick Purcell and Mark Rhodes offer lessons for all ages ‒ one-on-one or with others ‒ for acoustic and electric guitar, piano, ukulele, vocal lessons, drum, electric bass, mandolin, songwriting, composition and music production, technology and theory.
Erin Strouse said she discovered Steidle from a local moms Facebook group and researched online to see if he might be a good fit for her sons, who were 6 and 8 at the time, to learn to play drums.
“They had taken some piano lessons but found Mr. Matt’s style to be altogether different ‒ laid back and winsome,” she said. “He has invited them to play all the instruments in his studio, which they find fascinating, and they have cultivated a love for learning music. It’s been a great fit for our family.”
“While his music appeals to all, he really is a musician’s musician,” said Eric Ross, a student. “As a friend and teacher, he inspires me to keep working at my craft, and his nuanced playing is a constant reminder that there is always something new to learn and explore.”
Steidle is not only an active Worthington community member (local husband, father, small-business owner and member of the Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce and Worthington Partnership); he also is a frequent performer for such Worthington events as the chamber’s Market Day, Picnic with the Partnership and Experience Worthington Sunday Fundays.
He also plays original rock, funk and soul music and crowd-pleasing favorites at Zaftig Brewery and other venues around Columbus and across Ohio, either as a solo acoustic act or with drummer Doug Schwarzwalder in the That’s The Breaks band.
For more information, go to styliestudio.com or call 614-668-2558.
Farm market on the move
The Worthington Farmers Market kicks off its winter market season at 9 a.m. Nov. 5 inside the Shops at Worthington Place, 7227 N. High St.
The winter season operates from 9 a.m. to noon through March.
A map for the layout of the indoor market is online at worthingtonfarmersmarket.com/market-map.
The winter market will be closed Nov. 26, Dec. 24, Dec. 31 and Jan. 7, 2023.
Christine Hawks, market manager, said market gift certificates are available for holiday gifting and proceeds from the redeemed gift certificates benefit the market producers.
“This is a convenient way to continue to support small and local businesses during the winter months,” she said.
The Worthington Farmers Market is an event of the Worthington Partnership, a Worthington-based, volunteer-supported nonprofit organization.
mkuhlman@thisweeknews.com
@ThisWeekMarla
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Stylie Music Studio notes expansion after 12 years in business
The Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen joined San Francisco Symphony as music director in 2021, following tenures with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Cody Pickens
From an early age, Esa-Pekka Salonen knew music was his destiny. Yet he never dreamed that one day he’d be an internationally renowned composer and conductor.
Born in Helsinki, Finland, to a businessman father and homemaker mother, Salonen took up the French horn, studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and began conducting when his band of young musicians was in need of one. He clearly had a knack for it.
Salonen’s big break came in 1983 when he stepped in, with just a few days’ notice, for Michael Tilson Thomas to conduct Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Philharmonia in London. Salonen was only 25 years old at the time, but it was evident from that performance that the young Finn with the long hair was destined for greatness.
In 1992, Salonen moved his family to Los Angeles, where he became music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. During his tenure, which lasted until 2009, he was instrumental in opening the Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry. In 2008, Salonen returned to Europe and the Philharmonia, serving as its principal conductor and artistic advisor before becoming music director of the San Francisco Symphony in the 2020–21 season, succeeding Tilson Thomas.
On a recent afternoon, Salonen and I sat in his stark office at Davies Symphony Hall, where we talked about conducting, composing and the relational nature of music.
So, what exactly does a conductor do? The conductor has multiple functions. On some level, he or she is like a team coach, who gives his or her players — musicians — certain strategies, certain methods, certain concepts and hopefully inspires them. I think that’s 90 percent of it really.
In many cases the musicians have played these pieces many times before, but knowing is not the same thing as having a concept. A conductor has a concept and then he or she, during the rehearsals, realizes that concept. In some cases it can be a very precise, rigid concept. In some cases it can be more like, “OK, let’s have a creative dialogue about things.”
Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and architect Frank Gehry, who worked together in Los Angeles during the construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, attended the opening of San Francisco Symphony’s 2022–2023 season at Davies Symphony Hall.
Devlin Shand for Drew Altizer Photography
Has your style of conducting evolved over the years? The whole process of conducting, the mechanics of conducting, is about optimizing. Trying to create a gestural vocabulary that very clearly conveys what goes on in my mind, musically. So over the years, partly consciously, partly intuitively, I’ve learned how to do it simply. How to keep things together and how to give people enough flexibility and freedom, and yet steer it. And that balance is very hard to find, also because orchestras are different. That’s why, personally, I like the idea of working with the same group for a long time and intensely, hundreds and thousands of hours, and then you get to a point where things seem to be happening by osmosis, which to me is the ideal leadership. So you’re not controlling, it’s more like you create a flow and everybody becomes part of it.
How would you describe your relationship with the players? When I speak to young conductors about conducting, often the very first thing I say is, “Don’t forget that you’re conducting people. You’re not conducting the second clarinet. You’re not conducting the first trombone. You’re conducting a person who plays that instrument.” Very hard to explain this, but sometimes when people, young people, want to become conductors, they think that this is some kind of a mythological thing, this maestro thing and the images of Herbert von Karajan with the silver hair staring into the horizon and being godlike. None of that is necessary and even true.
How did you begin conducting? When I started studying conducting, we had a group of young composers at the time called Ears Open. Many of those then-young composers are now very well known, some internationally even. We felt that no “real” conductors were interested in our music, so we decided to start an association that would perform new music by young composers. And we needed a conductor, and I had maybe the most experience of performing music, because I was a French horn player and I played in the Helsinki orchestras as a sub. So I became the conductor of the group. …
My pal played the violin, and another pal played piano, percussion, and I conducted, because somebody had to do it. I grew up in an environment where conducting was just one activity among other musical activities. No better, no worse. I, not for a second, thought of myself as being more important than, say, a friend who played the viola or the flute. It was just a different function. I’m deeply grateful for that experience because it has helped me later in life in terms of how I communicate with musicians, because my function is to keep things going. Not dictate, but enable, give them tools to achieve a certain result.
That takes a certain leadership skill. Leadership, absolutely, but my starting point is still the same as it was then. … Everybody is an integral part of this rather reckless thing that a symphony orchestra can be. I don’t like formality particularly. I think if people want to call me maestro, that’s OK, because my name is so difficult to pronounce for non-Finnish speakers. Basically “maestro” is a teacher. That’s the original meaning of the word.
It sounds like your initial experience conducting has kept you grounded. It’s hard to say from within how grounded I am, but the very fact that I’ve gotten this far without major catastrophe, I must be doing something right. Which is not to say that there wouldn’t be room for improvement, and that’s the fun part actually, because I’m nearing an age where many other people are planning their retirement and slowing down and enjoying life. My feeling is, I’m just starting. We have opened the [2022–23] season, which is the first real season after the lockdown with my new orchestra. We’re finally in business, and we’re finally playing all this repertoire that we were supposed to be playing two and a half years ago.
Salonen conducts Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with SF Symphony during its 2022 Opening Night Gala Concert.
Drew Altizer
Where did your love of music come from? I have no idea. I don’t come from a musical family. My dad was a businessman and my mom was mostly at home. [My mom] claims that when I was very little, I reacted strongly to music. She wanted me to start taking piano lessons when I was 4 years old, and I refused. She was wise enough not to force it. Then, a few years went by and I just heard something on the radio and became aware of this thing called music, and all of a sudden it just hit me. I cannot really remember what happened, because we create these narratives later on in life that fit the bigger narrative. But nevertheless, I moved from primary school to an experimental school where they had a lot of emphasis on the arts. Almost every kid played something, so it was just normal, like breathing. I started playing instruments, started with the recorder.
As they all do. That’s the real test. If you still love music after a semester in the plastic recorder group, then something’s going on. Then I played the trumpet, and I changed to the French horn, which became my main instrument. Then I started taking the piano lessons that I should’ve been taking several years earlier. When I was about 11, I kind of knew that this was it. There was nothing else in the world that would excite me as much. I had an idea then — which I’m happy to say was correct — that it’s endless. It’s like you are never finished. You are never ready. There are always things to learn.
And that appealed to you? I just remember this sense of vastness. … You’re hiking and all of a sudden you come to this amazing vista like a canyon and mountains, and it seems endless and limitless and totally fascinating. And also, in a positive way, beyond your grasp, uncontainable, which of course is a good thing for something that becomes your life’s work. There’s never a moment when you think, “OK, done.”
That’s a very profound thought for a little boy. Obviously I wouldn’t have been able to verbalize it, but it was just a sense I’m never going to get tired of this. There were lots of things I got bored with, but not this.
You are also a composer. When did you start writing music? Composing came very naturally. I heard some contemporary classical pieces randomly on the radio when I was maybe 11 and I thought, “OK, if music can sound like this, then I have to be able to write it myself.” So I started studying music theory, but I had no career thoughts.
Salonen presenting at the Apple Distinguished Educators conference in Amsterdam in July 2015.
Courtesy of Esa-Pekka Salonen
I’ve heard you say when you left Europe and came to the States, you experienced a new freedom in your writing, that you were liberated. How so? After [World War II], there was a movement in European classical music, the very strict modernist movement led by people like [Karlheinz] Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez. It became mainstream in a funny way. The rules were very strict, and the list of things that were taboo was long. I had this dichotomy. Obviously I went with the way I was taught and trained, but the music that I loved to conduct was this very rich, sonorous, powerful music with pulse and sweeping melodies, like Stravinsky, Mahler, Bruckner. Somehow I couldn’t combine the two. They were two different worlds. Composing became very difficult, because I felt I wasn’t expressing the true me, whatever that is. Then when I moved to L.A. back in the early ’90s, all of a sudden I felt, “OK, I’m far enough away from Europe and all these gurus and rigid aesthetics.”
Wow. So you really did find yourself in California? Yes, I did. I mean, positively. I came with the weight of the European tradition. … Shakespeare’s the greatest dramatist, Beethoven’s the greatest symphonist, Michelangelo is the greatest sculptor. And I’m going to this country and sharing all this. To my credit, I was smart enough to figure out in California that, “OK, as a matter of fact, I have a lot to learn from these people.” And the questions! When I spoke about the complexities and construction and the theory behind a piece of music, people said, “Yeah, that’s all great, but what am I supposed to be feeling? What does it tell me?” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?”
Was that an issue with your orchestra when you were with the Los Angeles Philharmonic? I was very young to be in that position to start with. I had very little experience of the U.S. culture and ways and habits and so on. I was very afraid of being somehow tarnished in this whole Hollywood thing, which now I would be happy to be tarnished a little more.
I heard, in the ’90s, you turned down being named one ofPeoplemagazine’s 50 sexiest people on earth. Yeah, but now if somebody asked the same question, I would say, “Yeah, happy to be in.” Maybe it was the right thing to do, because I was very worried about my integrity, especially in L.A. I mean, it would’ve been easier here [in San Francisco] for a young person, but L.A. … This entertainment business is so omnipresent, and it’s also ruthless. You’re riding the wave for a while and then nothing. Emptiness and so on. I think I did find a way to navigate all that.
You were instrumental in helping open Frank Gehry’s iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and I know that was no easy feat. The initial gift from Lillian Disney came, I think, in ’86 or ’87. I was a music director designate from ’89, so I was part of the process from then. I would say there were at least 10 times when we all thought that the project was dead in the water. And, of course, the riots happened and it seemed to be a completely wrong time to be discussing a new concert hall in downtown L.A. But then the critical mass was reached at some point. There were enough influential, enthusiastic people who saw the potential and the importance, and then it really got going again.
Esa-Pekka Salonen on a summer 2019 respite and at the grill in Aix-En-Provence, France.
Courtesy of Esa-Pekka Salonen
What was it like when it opened? I had a few moments before the actual opening, when I knew that something extraordinary was about to happen. There was the very first time Frank [Gehry] and I listened to music in the hall, played by the concertmaster of the L.A. Philharmonic, just one violin. And there was no stage yet. It was just a gaping hole. It was a hard-hat area still, so Frank and I, we sat in the balcony, far back. We were so nervous, we had a couple vodkas before the moment, and then the sound of violin started kind of floating in the space and we knew, “OK, it works.”
Let me take you back to another performance. By all accounts, you stepped onto the international stage when you were called upon to take over for an indisposed Michael Tilson Thomas at the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1983. Correct.
You’re in London and 25 years old. Tell me about that performance. First of all, I’m quite a rational guy, but I think that there’s some kind of beautiful fate that I replaced Michael, and then several decades later, I end up being his successor [at SF Symphony]. He said the same thing himself — things seem to be intertwined.
I certainly believe in destiny. That was still a time when I wasn’t planning to have any kind of conducting career. I was conducting because I liked it and conducting was needed and it seemed to come fairly naturally to me. Not that I felt that I was a master conductor by any means. It just felt like a natural way to interact with other musicians. I had a manager at the time who calls me, and it was kind of early, and says, “So how about Mahler’s Three with the Philharmonia Orchestra?” I thought he was joking, and I used language that I will not repeat here. He called again two hours later and said, “I wasn’t joking, and maybe you feel a little better about it and this is a serious question. So do you want to do it?” So I called the manager of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and they sent the score from the Finnish radio library for me to look at, and I leafed through it and I thought, “OK, well, nothing to lose, I’ll do it.”
That’s amazing. I had three days to prepare or something like that. I didn’t sleep much. Then I flew to London, did one day of rehearsal and then the concert. So it was all very compact. But I wasn’t nervous because I thought, there are two possible outcomes: Either it goes well or it doesn’t. If it goes well, fine. If it doesn’t, at least I could tell my grandchildren that I conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra once and I’ll just carry on. The orchestra was wonderful; they were super-supportive and good-natured and warm. And then it’s a cliché, but my life did change overnight. All of a sudden, telexes were ticking away.
Years later, you became the principal conductor and artistic advisor of that very orchestra. What was your proudest accomplishment there? Very hard to say, because there’s no concrete monument like the Disney Hall. I tried to reimagine the season because the sheer volume of cultural life in London is insane. Every night there are at least 15 concerts happening and five symphony orchestras. So the white-noise level is so strong that you need ways to cut through it rather than just put on a concert with some kind of normal program. I tried to create themes that would focus on either a composer or a certain historic period or a place, such as Paris. I found that method quite successful in London, in terms of creating a profound identity.
What brought you to San Francisco? First of all, I had already decided to step down in London because I thought the Philharmonia is a great orchestra, London is a super-exciting city and all that, but the schedule of a London orchestra is very tough. Constantly on the road, and for years I had the feeling that I wasn’t living anywhere. My marriage fell apart, and I was really, I wouldn’t say drifting, but I didn’t feel I had an anchor.
So I decided to maybe just spend more time in Finland or something like that, and then the [San Francisco] Symphony came calling. We started talking and I thought, “OK, this is a very, very good orchestra conducted by a friend of mine and a colleague I admire a lot.” Michael was one of my heroes since the very beginning. So there was that. And it’s back to California. … I thought this is a place where ideas have been born, and some of the most astonishing success stories in terms of innovation happen. And I thought maybe if a symphony orchestra would be the equivalent of some of these other innovative aspects of this town, it would be deeply satisfying and also super-exciting. And I would be closer to my kids.
Did you come in with a grand vision, or were you willing to just let things unfold? We had quite extensive plans, and then the pandemic happened. So, my last season in London and my first season here didn’t happen, which was the weirdest thing. No proper send-off, but also no proper welcome.
It’s unfortunate on both sides. We went back to the drawing board, obviously. And last season, which was the first season of public concerts, was still a bit like a hybrid. The audiences were not completely back, and also the programming was hybrid. We all feel that now these [recent] weeks have been the real opening, and we are finally getting going, and there are all kinds of exciting plans in the pipeline.
It’s inevitable that people will make comparisons between MTT and you. How will things be different under your direction? It’s very hard to say, because obviously we are very different people, and we are very different musicians, and yet there’s a lot that unites us. I mean, if I were to choose one conductor from the older generation with whom I share many ideas, it would be Michael, and also I’ve learned a lot from him. So, we’re very similar in spirit, I think; very different in execution.
If you weren’t conducting and composing, what would you be doing with your life? I have no idea. I really don’t. I mean, I like the arts generally. I read a lot. I like the visual arts. I love theater, cinema and basically everything. So maybe I would be doing something else. Film maybe.
What inspires you to create? That’s a very hard question because there’s no one thing that it can be. Nature, for sure, especially the sea. It can be something I read. It can be something I see, like a painting, and sometimes it’s this thing which is very difficult to define, like [an] encounter with otherness. Like getting a glimpse to another culture or a completely different way of thinking or something that is completely unexpected and intense, and that encounter sets some things in motion, maybe long afterwards.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Huntsville Festival of the Arts is pleased to announce the “Huntsville Festival of Music” which will take place on March 2-5, 2023.
This program is modeled on the Kiwanis Music Festival’s mission to “encourage young and all age groups to know and love the arts and foster the values of self-discipline, teamwork and excellence”.
The Festival is under the direction of Alana Nuedling, Carol Gibson, Gerri Mar and Kyung-A Lee. After a two-year postponement due to the COVID Pandemic, the organizing committee is thrilled to finally share this event with the community.
The goals are simple: celebrate the great talents, build stronger communities and provide the tools to create a better future for those who participate. The festival will consist of competitive and non-competitive classes taking place on March 2 & 3. Participants will perform and receive coaching led by qualified adjudicators/teachers and will be awarded with a participation certificate or an award certificate for the top three marks.
There will be an opportunity to perform on the stage of Algonquin Theatre at the end of the Festival, for the gala concert ‘Concert of the Stars’. Participants for this event will be chosen on merit (winner of each class) and special consideration. The Concert of the Stars will be held on March 5, 2023.
The Festival classes will take place on March 2nd – 3th, 2023 in 3 locations within downtown Huntsville:
