Hello again, this will be brief. I passed my defense, and now I wait. I have updated the site, which basically entailed providing additional information in some places. But there are a couple of things to which I wanted to draw your attention at present, before I turn in:

1. Added a recording of Urbs sine finibus urbium as performed by the City Limits Brass Quintet. They were phenomenal.
2. Recently presented my dissertation and invited some wonderful guest speakers. I am hoping that this project will find some ongoing life, as the event went well and it is something different and potentially valuable for the community. Please explore …That the Children May Learn.
3. The Contact page now actually allows people to contact me. Shocking, I know.
4. The Links page now exists. I apologize for any omissions. At some point I will try to find a better way to organize it so that there will be less scrolling, but this will get you started.
5. The Bio page has begun the painful transition to a more “professional” accounting of my travails. A short-form bio is now there as a placeholder and a longer one will be forthcoming.

That’s 40 minutes of music newly uploaded today for your listening pleasure, or to use as the basis of aural voodoo. Please enjoy, comment, link, share, and whatever you wish. The music doesn’t matter if nobody hears it.

More soon, hopefully.

Apart from a few minor aesthetic things, like the design of a title page for the score, and another round of proofreading, …That the Children May Learn, including the analytical paper, has been completed. There has been one rehearsal of the piece, and apart from the embarrassment of a few copying errors (which I suspect are somewhat inevitable in a project of this size, but no less unacceptable) and the contrapuntal complexity of the work, I think it went very well. As things wind up, I’ll be writing more here, and sharing any recordings that fall my way. I’m especially looking forward to sharing the recording from the City Limits Brass Quintet’s recital performance of the piece I wrote for them. They knocked it out of the park, and it was a lot of fun to listen to.

All that having been said, since the calendar appears to be hellbent on giving up days and falling forward to the end of my education, I’m struck with pangs of uncertainty about the future. What I do know is that my academic life as a student is drawing to inexorable closure. As part of the dissertation, one has the option of writing Acknowledgements in order to reflect on and commit to posterity a modest accounting of the dissertator or dissertatrix’s circumstances and gratitudes. Since nobody except for those who are obligated by committee membership is likely to ever read my dissertation, I wanted to share the Acknowledgements here, so that others might have a chance to note the sheer number of people it takes to carry someone through literally decades of musical life. As always, there are accidental omissions, spatial and temporal limitations, and the like, but this is what we’re rolling with.

Acknowledgements

Professor Dan Welcher has, in the specific, helped me to bring a massive, amorphous, and unconventional dissertation project into focus, with the result being a piece of music and engine for motivating public discussion about which I am tremendously proud. In the general, he has helped me to sharpen my clarity of musical thought and competency as a composer, frequently by drawing attention to flaws that pride, a misunderstanding of sunk costs, and poor oversight had allowed to remain on the written musical page. I offer abundant gratitude for these lessons, and the ones when I fell short and learned the importance of strict personal standards and accountability.

The members of my committee have each contributed substantially to my time at the University of Texas. Dr. Pinkston has stoked my interest in electronic and electroacoustic music and quite literally taught me everything that I know of them; Dr. Drott has gamely tolerated my incessant questioning of music-theoretical applications and interpretations, letting me play Theorist for a semester; Dr. Tusa taught perhaps the most engaging and intellectually stimulating course that I took during my studies; and Dr. O’Hare has been a warm and invigorating presence, being, as I, a man of diverse interests and experiences who is armed with an absolute distaste for the abuse of the written word. I thank you all kindly for your participation in this terminal exercise.

How I got here is another important matter. The musicians from whom I have learned are all a part of my make-up. Some played a more definable role than others. Were it not for Paul Shaghoian, I would likely have abandoned musical life long ago. If Gerald Levinson had not, in a brief moment in the weeks after my undergraduate recital, called me into his office to tell me that he thought I had enough of the unteachable gifts to justify being a composer, I would probably be shackled to my desk working unforgiving hours at a law firm. In no particular order, let it be known that the following hold a piece of my musical identity in their own: Virko Baley, Jorge Villavicencio-Grossmann, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Daniel Catán, Key Poulan, Lex Rozin, Joel Friedman, John Alston, Dave Loeb, Bruce Paulson, Larry Honda, Linda Berg, David Alvarado, Marshall Hawkins, Dan Gailey, Steve Owen, Erica Muhl, Ian Krouse, Jose Diaz, Rachel Aldrich, Kevin Gorman, Mykola Suk, Ed Hull, Jeff Hellmer, Brandon Fields, and many others.

Without the support and encouragement of my parents, I never would have known that music was a thing one could give the world, rather than simply taking it. The willingness to drive to lessons, auditions, and concerts; to put up with early morning drop-offs or late night pickups; to fundraise, sacrifice, or barter so that I could participate in camps and grand adventures throughout the United States and Europe…all of these are the things that a child took for granted and expected, but that an adult now appreciates for their full value. And, I have been blessed by other parents, who met me already a musician, and thereafter insisted upon enthusiastically embracing all the bizarre peculiarities that such a poor life choice produces. Mom, Dad, Mum, Dad, and Cindy: thank you.

Even the most intensely introverted and control-obsessed musician could not possibly develop without interacting with and benefiting from the input and generosity of others. So, I would like to express my appreciation for those with whom I have had the pleasure of sharing my musical experiences. Ethan, Hermes, Ian, Steve, Zacks, Lane, Pierce, Beth, Diana, Jack, City Limits Brass Quintet, Joe, Jessica, Julia, Danny, Frank, Cynthia, Nick, Todd, Brendon, Felipe, Jon, Francois, Chad, Ryan, Amy, Andrew, Mac, Mark, Megan, Phillip, Zoë, and more: y’all are the best.

Though I will be the one upon whom a degree is conferred when the dust settles, the honor really ought to be shared and transferable to those who have had to endure the past several years living with a sort of phantom me. A husband late to bed, out to a concert, or too exhausted to bear an adequate amount of domestic responsibility; a father too busy trying to meet a deadline to allow for something as simple as a trip to the park, or absent to complete this or that duty in a world from which children are barred. I have tried my best to avoid misrepresenting my allegiances and priorities, and my family has always been first in my heart. But intentions are sometimes as impotent as a prayer against time, and there is no way to know how our lives might have been transformed were I a better juggler. Emma Louise, Zoë Louise, and Ashby Jane Taylor Capps have all of my love and thanks, and they hold all of my hope. Having poured all into this, I look forward to giving all of me back to them, so that we might chase the wind, being blown by it no more.

There has sprung forth in the past week or so a renewed desire to examine the state of affairs for women composers. I haven’t had time to trace it to its original instigation, nor have I had a chance to read all of the thoughtful and compelling responses it has stirred in people. However, I would recommend the entries of Amy Beth Kirsten, Lisa Hirsch, and Rob Deemer as useful starting points. There are, of course, many others.

My interest was piqued, in part, due to the use of statistics as definitive arbiters of truth regarding gender equality in the field of music composition. This is far too complicated an issue for me to pretend that I could offer a weighty and meaningful statement on it. But the maths, and the statistics, and their contexts and meanings, those things are not outside of my hubristic grasp. So, I submitted the following, with some gross misunderstanding of how to use the html tagging, as a comment on Dr. Kirsten’s NewMusicBox opinion piece, and I hope that it illustrates some of the problems that arise when anything at all is stripped down to untethered statistics.

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As a composer who happens to be male, I wouldn’t presume to make any comment on the experience of my female colleagues. The porcupine is too prickly. However, there are a couple of issues that have been raised that make me concerned about the way we regard these matters.

Firstly: There are certainly individuals in positions of power – whether they are highly lauded composers who teach at festivals, long-standing academic faculty, or judges for various prize competitions – who may hold offensive and sexist views, some even being so callous and insensitive as to openly express them. It is important to remember that many of the people in such positions are advanced in their careers, older, and rose to prominence in a time when such attitudes were standard form, even encouraged. Because these generations have not yet retired or been roundly penalized, they linger with the capacity to continue thoughtlessly regurgitating unfounded gender-based diatribes. That does not mean, however, that the situation isn’t improving. I hope that younger composers, poised to join faculties or to ascend the ranks, will bring an unbiased new order, and none of the young composers that I know has ever uttered such nonsense in my vicinity, so I have faith for the future. And though I would not dare to discount the trauma and violation suffered by those who have endured sexual harassment, it seems worthwhile to avoid letting the experiences of these composers and musicians stand as a damning commentary on the state of the entire field, just as such incidents when they occur in public schools do not reflect the condition everywhere else. The offenders should be called to account, as possible, and then we can help to motivate the macro-level turnover that will continue to displace these outmoded beliefs.

Secondly: Statistics are trouble. Always trouble. Wonderful music by living composers should be heard, and it often isn’t. If we view the matter as one in flux, with an increasing number of women choosing to pursue composition, then this implies that there is of necessity a certain lag time that will be borne out by a variety of statistical analyses. According to Lisa Hersch’s excellently written “Lend Me a Pick Ax”, as of 2008, approximately “30 percent of composition students in American colleges and conservatories” were women. For the 2006-2007 season, members of the League of American Orchestras programmed 160 works written from 1982-2007, and 19 were written by women (11.875 %).

• Re: counter)induction – 13/80 (16.25 %);
• Other Minds – 29/115 (25.2 %);
• Bang on a Can – 8/36 (22.2 %);
• Pulitzer Prize – 4/29 (updated to include Jennifer Higdon’s award: 13.8 %);
• Guggenheim Fellowships for Music Composition – 68/596 (updated to include 2009-2011, which happens to be the period when Dr. Kirsten herself received one: 11.4 %, with 10/34, or 29.4 % going to women in that window); also, since these awards are frequently given to jazz composers as well, there is further gender distortion related to the underrepresentation of females in jazz, which is not explicitly reflective of the “art music” world’s own travails.

It would seem that the rate of honoring female composers or taking on their works is catching up to their proportional representation in academic programs. Additionally, since the Pulitzer Prize is effectively a mid-late career honor, and the Guggenheim count extends back to 1925, these figures are heavily swayed by a disappointingly sexist past, but not indicative of an overwhelmingly ongoing anti-“woman composer” agenda. The same is true of orchestral programming. These groups are drawing on a repertoire that is hundreds of years old, and throughout most of that time, there were no women whose voices were heard. With such a preference for the “music of the dead”, as I like to call it, even if we were to grant living composers an absurdly inflated 40 % of the programming spots, taking the 30 % figure, that would translate to 12 % of orchestral programming for living female composers, in a perfectly gender-balanced, quality unconsidered world. Is that the goal? Things are changing, and change takes time. But it’s happening.

IV. Postlude – …That the Children May Learn

The piece was “finished” but flawed, so I’m in the process of trimming it down. I’ve cut 5’30″ so far, and will probably see if I can find another 2-3′ to extract. It’s difficult and painful, but maybe necessary. Who knows? We’ll see if I can figure out how to smooth and restructure the places where the wounds are left. Hopefully on the way and wrapped up over the weekend.

In other, exciting news, I’m looking forward to getting started soon on my work for Truffle Fallout, and animated short film that I have the privilege of composing for in collaboration with a good friend who wrote the screenplay. The website is going to chronicle the film’s progress, and it will probably be worth checking in on from time to time. These people are very talented. If you’re so inclined, you can also Zuckerberg-Approve us here.

More updates coming soon!

Just a brief revista here before getting back to the note-making. This morning I plowed through While Father is Away: The Civil War Letters of William H. Bradbury (Ed. Jennifer Cain Bohrnstedt; Comp. Kassandra R. Chaney). Bradbury was an Englishman who had moved to America and served in the Union army during the Civil War. He served through nearly the entire war, and his time overlapped with the end of the conflict. Prior to the Presidential election of 1864, he had this to say:

The presidential campaign will show which way the winds blows as regards peace. (pg. 172)

It’s another one of those things that seem equally apt today. It would also appear that Bradbury experienced firsthand the “liberalizing” effect that accompanies time spent with people of different backgrounds and ethnic groups. Earlier in his service, letters home which mentioned the “Negroes” he encountered reflected more than a fair amount of ignorance. Genuine ignorance, indicated by the crass and shallow nature of his assessment. However, later, he writes the following:

In conclusion, I may safely say that there is quite as much difference in every respect – physical, moral, and mental – between any one Negro and another, as there is between any white man and another. By “Negro,” I mean a person of African descent. (pg. 215)

Though these are conclusions that we are inclined to regard as absolute and obvious, for the time in which that was written, and given the background of the man who wrote it, it demonstrates something valuable about the importance of eliminating imagined barriers between social groups.

The last thing I wanted share from this is an account (possibly somewhat embellished, but it would be difficult to determine) that Bradbury sent to the Manchester Guardian (in England; he was paid a small fee for letters offering insight into the course of the Civil War) which was published in early May 1865:

The war is so nearly over that I imagine nothing but the exciting news of the concluding scenes will be interesting. (written the day of the assassination in a letter to his wife)

In the midst of all this grief, the malignant animus of secession could not conceal its gratification. A man on Church street was so indiscreet as to think aloud in reference to the shocking event, and say he was ‘glad the d-d abolition son of a b-h was dead; he ought to have died long ago.’ Before the words had fairly left his lips a soldier shot him through the heart, and, plunging his bayonet into the falling body, pinned him to the ground. So far from his being arrested, a by-stander immediately offered to give him $100 towards a testimonial to the avenger of a national insult. In another part of the city, a man of Copperhead or Democratic proclivities expressed his satisfaction at the calamity, and said that ‘Lincoln was the cause of the war.’ He was instantly felled to the ground and, after a severe mauling, left for dead on the side walk….A reign of terror now prevails. (pg. 257-258)

What has to be wrong with the moral make-up of people, of our society, that such things come about? The anti-Lincoln remarks represent one kind of darkness, but the violent response – which may or may not have happened but is entirely believable – is surely another. The apparently enthusiastic support of this violence suggests the most sable spirit of all. Yet here we are, in the midst of another election cycle, engaged in ongoing wars, fighting about whether it’s appropriate to apologize for the burning of a Quran. Yes, of course it is.

Hello!

I have not been posting much, in part because I’ve been working very desperately to complete this piece and to do it justice. I don’t know how that effort’s going, but I wanted to share an excerpt of poorly balanced MIDI. If you’re willing, I’d love for you to take a listen and let me know what you think. This is the emotional climax of the piece, setting a letter from a Japanese Tokkotai pilot to his young daughter.

This leads into a section which will deal with national anthems, beginning with the Japanese national anthem.

Here is the text:

Motoko,

Often, you looked at my face and smiled. You slept in my arms. [W]e took baths together [1]. When you grow up and want to know me, ask your mother and Aunt Kayo.

I have left my photo album at home for you. I gave you the name Motoko, hoping you would be a gentle, tender-hearted, and caring person.

I wish for you to be happy when you grow up and become a splendid bride, and though I die without you knowing me, you must never feel sad.

When you grow up and want to meet me, please come to Kudan Hill[2]. [I]f you pray deeply, surely your father’s face will appear within your heart. Even if something should happen to me, you must certainly not think of yourself as a fatherless child. I am always protecting you. Please be a person who takes loving care of others.

When you grow up and begin to think of me, please read this letter.

Father

P.S. I keep your doll in my plane as a charm. All will know Motoko was together with Father. I say this because being here without your knowing makes my heart ache.

The P.S. is to be spoken, except for “makes my heart ache”, which concludes the song.

You can hear the (again, let me remind you, unprepared MIDI) here.

Ok. So, a friend posted a link to a column from the Daily Texan, the student newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin. The author of the column views arts education in the university setting as a pointless indulgence for the less-talented artists in the world. There is a host of offensive assumptions, insinuations, and obvious ignorance in the original column, but I will let you respond as you will, if you care to read it here.

I could have quoted Churchill, or spoken of the immeasurable ways that the arts transform ours from a society into a culture, but instead, I chose something that I feel is in my sweet spot: satire. Borrowed satire, courtesy of Thomas Swift. I am fairly certain that if my response is published, there will be an equally impassioned response in defense of athletic programs. Hopefully people will “get” it, so that can be avoided.

A Modest Proposal for Quazians: The Questionable Value of Athletic Programs

There is no question that the recent economic downturn has caused state and federal legislatures, as well as the public universities dependent upon funding from those bodies, to reevaluate the allocation of taxpayer money within institutions of higher learning. This has led to a spate of productivity studies, departmental cuts, and presumably the declaration of loyalty oaths. In this environment of uncertainty, I would strongly encourage UT administrators to take a hard look at our athletic programs. Students should also ask themselves whether such programs can lead to stable careers or if they are frivolous gambits with no bearing on the real economy.

(At this point, I would cite the words of some luminary in the field that I am attacking, attempting to insinuate that this somehow constitutes the construction of a logical, persuasive argument, but I have a long and well-documented aversion to quotation and won’t sully that here, as I consider it part of my accursed creative mind that I am not reliant upon the bon mots of others to communicate my thoughts. This desire for independence is surely the shame of my arts education made manifest.) Parents of school children often adamantly defend school athletic programs. These athletic supporters argue that such activities encourage social development, the ability to work with others toward a common goal, the mastery of physical skills, and a sense of collective identity. And I agree with that, though it may verge on communistic ideals.

These aims, however, ought no longer to be the concern of a university. An undergraduate student who has completed his or her high school education has already developed those skills and habits as well as the necessary submissiveness to peer pressure and group dynamics. If they have not, they have no place here because they are not one of us, likely a sociopath, and ripe for dispatch upon an ice floe. UT attempts to provide students with an education, regardless of their major or sport. It should be noted that athleticism isn’t the sole province of team and individual sports. Prodigies in law, computer science, medicine, and other fields likely to elicit great pride from one’s parents alike have made time to participate in sports on a competitive or casual basis, to say nothing of the countless sea of “runners”, “cyclists”, and “unicorns” who also sacrifice their time and energy for the sake of physical health. By the way, even mediocre non-athletes have been reported to engage in these activities.

(This is the point at which I would make sweeping claims about what options are available to elite student-athletes, though I have no idea what I am talking about. I would argue that they are expensive alternatives to the hyper-affordability of a UT education, and that the best of these athletes really ought to be there instead of sapping the marrow from the already wizened bones of the university budget. Again, let me reiterate that I would make all of these points without bothering to consider my own lack of knowledge in this field.)

I recognize that proposing the elimination of athletics programs might come across as harsh – even unfair – as it would leave affluent season ticketholders and corporate sponsors with a much freer social calendar. But sports have traditionally been the domain of the poorer classes anyway. Clearly, our current handling of the situation is cultivating an ongoing athlete mill that does not pay heed to the absence of employment opportunities post-graduation. In short: although athletic competition enriches our national culture, it makes not material contribution to the nation’s economy.

This anxiety is not my own, as it is expressed clearly by the most esteemed governing body of student-athletes. According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association:

1.2 percent of NCAA male senior basketball players will be drafted by a team in the NBA

0.9 percent of NCAA female senior basketball players will be drafted by a team in the WNBA

1.7 percent of NCAA senior football players will be drafted by a team in the NFL

8.9 percent of NCAA senior male baseball players will be drafted by a team in MLB

(I could go on to note the lack of durability in any of these careers, the rate at which drafted players are cut, or the virtual poverty that baseball players endure in the minor leagues as they pursue their dream, but I won’t.)

But facts are pesky and only get in the way of the deeper truths. It would be a tragedy if talented and highly motivated athletes stopped throwing themselves wholeheartedly into their dreams simply due to the nearly comic futility of pursuing them to their logical conclusion.

Only the most devout ostriches among us could continue to proceed unaware of the cost of a college education. A practical, sensible student (such as we should all aspire to be) must tailor (though not actual tailoring, because that is too artsy) his or her studies to maximize ROI. (Remember, there is nothing in life more important than money, and all of our efforts should be in pursuit of more money. Praise money.) If a student cannot be shaken from the inexplicable desire to travel across the country to compete in the midst of their academic studies, let them take heart that they are absolutely entitled to the misallocation of their own resources. Despite this, as an institution funded by taxpayer dollars and the support of donors interested only in the promotion of broader economic success for the university and its students, UT should inquire as to whether Texans feel that their hard-earned (not inherited, gained through good fortune, or acquired through questionable business practices – never, never, never) should continue to support these misbegotten student journeys.

The Longhorn Network notwithstanding, the University of Texas at Austin and other public universities are deeply committed to the greater good. Their principal responsibility, though, is to foster academic success and to guide students toward immediate and unerring integration into the job market so as to facilitate economic productivity. As they consider whether the budgets of athletic programs should be cut, UT must assess the extent to which these programs are helping students achieve their career goals.

Updates:

My friend Lane Harder has written this forceful and on point response, including a challenge to public debate. He does, it appears, demand satisfaction.

Progress is being made on the dissertation. Slowly, surely. I’ve developed a much clearer sense of the overall form, as well as the structure of subsections within each larger portion of the work, and today I’ve begun to chip away at the narration. It’s an interesting challenge, because I’m not really crafting a concrete narrative of a particular character or group of characters. Instead, the narrative function of the piece is that of a meta-narrative, effectively insinuating myth or folklore, except without the benefit of a buffer created by implausibility, royalty, and other -ty. That may be a harsh way to characterize it, but I don’t know too many people who would swear by the historical accuracy of The Ring (Wagner, not horror).

This is still an early draft, and I’m still a long way from having a keen idea of what will or won’t work within this context, but the following comes at the conclusion of the children’s war games, the first macro section of the piece. The bolded portion will be sung, and there will be a lullaby along with/underneath the narration. This subsection is currently allotted about one minute.

“Children! Children! Come home, it’s getting dark!”

And with that, the soldiers were made boys again. Each stared at his enemy, and, after a silent, ocular negotiation of armistice, burst into a giddy sort of laughter – the kind of laughter that follows a fight the origin of which has been forgotten somewhere on the distant side of dawn. They sprinted homeward, for they had been called by love, frantically hoping to remain ahead of the darkness that tightened its grip on the land with each stride.

 

I should just like to mention the fact that I visited the very old church. It is most beautiful and must be most aged, perhaps the 13^th century. Its tower is massive and very thick standing close on 200 feet off the ground I should judge. I wonder that the Germans have not shelled it. It is a great landmark on this flat country and a great observation post. I think it proves that the Germans do not make a habit of bombarding churches, and that perhaps the papers exaggerate too much when they talk of the Germans’ so-called “atrocities.” After all it is very easy for a shell to strike a church by mistake and to cause so much damage as to lead one to expect many shells had fallen.

A healthy suspicion of information received through the filter of the state and affiliated media interests seems like a sensible choice at all times, though it may lead one to conclusions rooted more in a desired structure of things than in their actual unfolding in time. Here is a picture of the church, in 1918.

Bethune church tower