Recital
Posted: Apr 11th 2005, 6:11 pm
This past weekend I had my senior recital for music composition. It was really fun and exciting! It was a long weekend and I'm pretty tired right now, but it was worth it. A lot of my family was able to travel here to Kansas City to see the recital too, which was awesome. I had six pieces on the program:
1. a piano solo
2. a contrabass trio
3. a saxophone quartet
4. a saxophone solo
5. a cello duet
6. a funk tune
To make this recital happen, I had to compose all the music, create scores, create parts for the performers, find performers, rehearse the performers, secure a venue, contact recording people, and a whole mess load of other teeny tiny details that you can't anticipate. It was a lot of work and took up almost all my free time thus far since January 10th!
The whole recital took about 50 minutes. I was very lucky that all the performers showed up on time and the stage manager & usher showed up too. Sometimes they don't show up. Anyway, everything went very smoothly for the whole day except one little technical difficulty before the last piece - we didn't have extension cords for the bass & guitar amps. Luckily, my composition professor figured out what was going on and had a couple spare cords by chance in his car. Phew!!! My boyfriend played saxophone on three of the pieces (#3, #4, & #7) and he did just wonderfully. After the recital I had a big party at my apartment for my friends, family, and performers - so much fun! My parents brought some of my Wisconsin favorites for the party - certain types of beer & also cheese curds, etc. - and we had some Kansas City fare also: BBQ, of course!
One thing that really bothered me about my recital, though, is that hardly any of my composition peers showed up - I think maybe 3-4 out of around 50 people. It was really an embarrasement for the comp department at the conservatory. I go to EVERY Composers' Guild concert to support my peers, and I rarely have a piece of mine on those concerts. I go to EVERY Musica Nova concert. I go to EVERY New Music Reading for the Conservatory Orchestra or Wind Ensemble. I go to EVERY composition recital (although, there was another comp recital the same day as mine, but that's an exception, I would have been there if mine weren't the same day or I didn't have family in town & a party). I try my best to go to EVERY event involving the composition department to show my support & involvment.
Today I had to give a presentation on the recital process for some of my peers who haven't given their recitals yet. NOT ONE of the people I presented to were at my recital, just 24 hours earlier. I really didn't want to be the "mean teacher" and give a lecture, but I couldn't help it. I told them I was very disappointed in the department and I couldn't believe the lack of support we show our peers. They said to play a cd of the recital during the presentation, but I said, no - you could have heard it all yesterday live. You can't just skip something and expect that you can hear it later on cd. Sorry. One person said, "Some people have jobs." I said that it was no excuse. One of my composition peers took off work to be at my recital. If you are a student, that should be your #1 priority. If I had a part-time job right now, I would certainly plain ahead to have the day of a peer's recital free so I could go. Or at least switch my shift to a different time. Another person admitted he just plain forgot, and added, "I wouldn't have forgotten if you had sent a reminder email on Saturday or Sunday morning." I said, I didn't have the time to even touch my computer in the three days leading up to my recital. And besides, I SHOULD NOT have to beg my colleagues to come out to my recital. I sent an email six days before my recital. I had posters on every floor of both music buildings on campus. I had two posters in the composition lab. I had the date/time/place written on the board in the composition lab since January. I have talked (in person) to almost everyone in the composition department - between classes, after Composers' Guild concerts, etc. this whole semester. I did my part to advertise. I'm sick of having to act nice and like it doesn't bother me that the majority of my peers didn't support me when I do my best to go out of my way to support them. If they let me know before hand and wish me good luck if they won't be there, then I don't mind so much. Then I understand.
ANYWAY!!!! Sorry to rant a little bit, but seriously - I am sort of ashamed of my composition department right now. For you guys - I'm thinking of creating a website and posting a few of the tracks on there... I have to do more investigating about that but I'll post here on this thread again if and when I get that going. Overall, the recital was really great and it was the best weekend I've had all year... so far! Now I can (mostly) relax for the rest of the semester.
1. a piano solo
2. a contrabass trio
3. a saxophone quartet
4. a saxophone solo
5. a cello duet
6. a funk tune
To make this recital happen, I had to compose all the music, create scores, create parts for the performers, find performers, rehearse the performers, secure a venue, contact recording people, and a whole mess load of other teeny tiny details that you can't anticipate. It was a lot of work and took up almost all my free time thus far since January 10th!
The whole recital took about 50 minutes. I was very lucky that all the performers showed up on time and the stage manager & usher showed up too. Sometimes they don't show up. Anyway, everything went very smoothly for the whole day except one little technical difficulty before the last piece - we didn't have extension cords for the bass & guitar amps. Luckily, my composition professor figured out what was going on and had a couple spare cords by chance in his car. Phew!!! My boyfriend played saxophone on three of the pieces (#3, #4, & #7) and he did just wonderfully. After the recital I had a big party at my apartment for my friends, family, and performers - so much fun! My parents brought some of my Wisconsin favorites for the party - certain types of beer & also cheese curds, etc. - and we had some Kansas City fare also: BBQ, of course!
One thing that really bothered me about my recital, though, is that hardly any of my composition peers showed up - I think maybe 3-4 out of around 50 people. It was really an embarrasement for the comp department at the conservatory. I go to EVERY Composers' Guild concert to support my peers, and I rarely have a piece of mine on those concerts. I go to EVERY Musica Nova concert. I go to EVERY New Music Reading for the Conservatory Orchestra or Wind Ensemble. I go to EVERY composition recital (although, there was another comp recital the same day as mine, but that's an exception, I would have been there if mine weren't the same day or I didn't have family in town & a party). I try my best to go to EVERY event involving the composition department to show my support & involvment.
Today I had to give a presentation on the recital process for some of my peers who haven't given their recitals yet. NOT ONE of the people I presented to were at my recital, just 24 hours earlier. I really didn't want to be the "mean teacher" and give a lecture, but I couldn't help it. I told them I was very disappointed in the department and I couldn't believe the lack of support we show our peers. They said to play a cd of the recital during the presentation, but I said, no - you could have heard it all yesterday live. You can't just skip something and expect that you can hear it later on cd. Sorry. One person said, "Some people have jobs." I said that it was no excuse. One of my composition peers took off work to be at my recital. If you are a student, that should be your #1 priority. If I had a part-time job right now, I would certainly plain ahead to have the day of a peer's recital free so I could go. Or at least switch my shift to a different time. Another person admitted he just plain forgot, and added, "I wouldn't have forgotten if you had sent a reminder email on Saturday or Sunday morning." I said, I didn't have the time to even touch my computer in the three days leading up to my recital. And besides, I SHOULD NOT have to beg my colleagues to come out to my recital. I sent an email six days before my recital. I had posters on every floor of both music buildings on campus. I had two posters in the composition lab. I had the date/time/place written on the board in the composition lab since January. I have talked (in person) to almost everyone in the composition department - between classes, after Composers' Guild concerts, etc. this whole semester. I did my part to advertise. I'm sick of having to act nice and like it doesn't bother me that the majority of my peers didn't support me when I do my best to go out of my way to support them. If they let me know before hand and wish me good luck if they won't be there, then I don't mind so much. Then I understand.
ANYWAY!!!! Sorry to rant a little bit, but seriously - I am sort of ashamed of my composition department right now. For you guys - I'm thinking of creating a website and posting a few of the tracks on there... I have to do more investigating about that but I'll post here on this thread again if and when I get that going. Overall, the recital was really great and it was the best weekend I've had all year... so far! Now I can (mostly) relax for the rest of the semester.