{"id":208423,"date":"2024-01-11T07:31:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T12:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=208423"},"modified":"2024-01-09T14:43:05","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T19:43:05","slug":"uconn-music-makers-spotlight-composers-outside-traditional-repertoire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/01\/uconn-music-makers-spotlight-composers-outside-traditional-repertoire\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Music Makers Spotlight Composers Outside Traditional Repertoire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janet Song Kim leans back in their chair, sweatshirt draped over their shoulders, and questions what\u2019s just been asked of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean by \u2018quality,\u2019\u201d they query. \u201cIn the band world and in music in general, when we talk about new compositions, specifically those by people of color, people always ask the question, \u2018Is it quality?\u2019 And I always respond, \u2018What do you mean by that?\u2019 It feels like an incomplete question.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the last four decades of the 20th century, during the booming years of band music, works from majority population composers, comprising mostly white and mostly male musicians, became the gold-standard for so-called \u201cquality\u201d music, explains Kim, an assistant music professor and director of UConn\u2019s wind bands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept of quality is changeable just by nature,\u201d Kim says. \u201cWhat is the quality of your skin? What is the quality of this fabric? What is the quality of this color white – and if it fades into a different color, when does it stop being white and how do you qualify it as being not white anymore? This philosophical conversation about quality and about what constitutes quality music is an interesting one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Janet
\u201cWe meet any composer through the act of music making but meeting them in person, too, is just a magical thing. It\u2019s working with art in real time,” Kim says. (Contributed photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, when asked about the new music they\u2019re purchasing this year for UConn\u2019s music department<\/a> Ensemble Library, they might take the opportunity to probe what\u2019s really been asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re choosing this music, it\u2019s because we believe in the merits of it,\u201d Kim says.<\/p>\n

With a School of Fine Arts<\/a> anti-racism grant, Kim has added to the library works from Black composer Henry Dorn, Japanese Canadian composer Cait Nishimura, and Mexican American composer Salvador Jacobo, among other living music makers.<\/p>\n

In late November, the Symphonic Band<\/a> titled its concert Lovely Day, performing composer Kevin Day\u2019s pieces \u201cRiver Memoria\u201d and \u201cEcstatic Samba.\u201d The concert came thanks to a partnership between Day and UConn\u2019s Ricardo Brown, an associate professor-in-residence who directs the Symphonic Band.<\/p>\n

About two weeks prior, Kim\u2019s Wind Ensemble<\/a> featured in its concert DANCE, music by composer Giovanni Santos, who was in the audience when the group performed his piece \u201c3 Latin American Dances.\u201d He later joined the group for a second performance in East Hartford Public Schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just diversifying our library, but we\u2019re also using the grant to bring in these composers to work with our students and then taking them to schools in places like East Hartford and New London,\u201d Kim says. \u201cFor young students who don\u2019t have access to this kind of performance, this is a great experience. Failing to expose them to live music just adds to the educational divide in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

In higher education, the push is on at music schools to diversify libraries and introduce composers of different races, ethnicities, and gender, closing a similar divide that\u2019s existed in the music world for generations. It\u2019s something that Kim says would have made a difference for them as a young musician.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember growing up and not ever seeing any composers\u2019 names that looked like my own,\u201d they say. \u201cIt\u2019s important for all students to see it\u2019s possible for them to succeed and to see themselves in places of power and success, to see there are composers who look like them.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that November concert featuring Santos, Kim says a UConn student approached them with tears in their eyes, saying they\u2019d never seen someone of the same heritage achieve such musical success and hoped they, too, could be an inspiration for Latino musicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying music by living composers is really impactful for our students because ensembles are so used to playing music by people we can\u2019t meet,\u201d Kim says. \u201cWe meet any composer through the act of music making but meeting them in person, too, is just a magical thing. It\u2019s working with art in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Less famous, no less meaningful\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pianist JingCi Liu \u201924 DMA says there are times when she\u2019s playing a piece and can just tell it was written by a female composer \u2013 not always, she says, but sometimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cClara Schumann, for example, wrote her Opus 6 around 16 years old,\u201d Liu explains. \u201cIt\u2019s full of different ideas and, frankly, some daring and challenging thoughts in music. With female composers, the style and the way they express musical ideas through different techniques, tonalities, and modulations sometimes deviate from their male contemporaries and you can just feel the beauty in their works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liu says she started playing piano at 4 years old, studying the standard repertoire from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and others. Now a professional musician with a long list of awards and accolades, she says it\u2019s important for her to step outside tradition and explore what else was happening around the time Haydn wrote his sonatas and Chopin wrote his nocturnes.<\/p>\n

As a female musician, if not her then who?<\/p>\n

\u201cPortrait of Beauty,\u201d<\/a> Liu\u2019s debut piano album from KNS Classical, pays tribute to seven female composers, including Schumann, from the classical, romantic, early 20th century, and contemporary styles. Liu says she specifically sought piano works from some who are well-known in music catalogs and some who are rarely played.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a project that started when Liu was studying at the Mannes School of Music at The New School\u2019s College of Performing Arts in New York City and a professor suggested that all artists should seek to explore, study, and honor those who are lesser known.<\/p>\n

\"JingCi
\u201cJust as Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn deserve to be performed, music from lesser-known composers, especially female composers, also deserves to be performed,\u201d Liu says. (Contributed photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With that kernel of an idea and in the midst of the pandemic, Liu says she consulted with her two piano teachers – Angelina Gadeliya from UConn and Pavlina Dokovska from Mannes – for advice on how to get started and who best to feature.<\/p>\n

She then spent a year meeting virtually with Gadeliya to learn the repertoire, later performing the pieces in various festivals and masterclasses with many renowned artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an online catalog of female composers, and as I looked through it, I started to regret that I hadn\u2019t performed and hadn\u2019t heard of many of these works in a public performance,\u201d Liu says.<\/p>\n

Much of the music by female composers even from 200 years ago was preserved, she says – the question is whether it was recognized in the first place. The earliest female composer that Liu found in her research lived during the 9th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn deserve to be performed, music from lesser-known composers, especially female composers, also deserves to be performed,\u201d Liu says. \u201cTheir music might be less famous but no less meaningful. In some ways, it shows the historical environment and how the time periods in which they lived affected their ability as musicians and performers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout her schooling, Liu says she wasn\u2019t exposed to many of the underperformed composers she\u2019s discovered over the last few years and now that she has, she wants student musicians to learn about them, their body of work, their influences, how they differ from their more famous contemporaries, and the new techniques they used.<\/p>\n

People like Marianne von Martinez, Cecile Chaminade, Amy Beach, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, and Caroline Shaw, all featured on \u201cPortrait of Beauty,\u201d have something to offer, Liu says.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just what Kim aims to do with a better-rounded Ensemble Library at UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking music is about reflecting life,\u201d Kim says. \u201cIf we only represent one side of humanity, we\u2019re being dishonest about the experience that is human because it comes in so many varieties. If we\u2019re going to share human experiences, we should be including all voices, including compositional ones.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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