Jay C. Batzner (b. 1974) is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida where he teaches music composition and technology courses as well as coordinates the composition program. In his first year, Jay received two prestigious grants: one to create collaborative works with visual artist Carla Poindexter and the second to initiate electroacoustic music concerts in Orlando. Prior to this position, Jay was an active adjunct professor at several colleges in the Kansas City area while he completed his D.M.A. in Composition at the University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory. While at UMKC, Jay received honors including a Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship and a Dean's Doctoral Scholar Fellowship.
Jay's music ranges from instrumental chamber works to electroacoustic compositions. He has participated in numerous national and international festivals including the Wellesley Composers Conference and the International Young Composers' Meeting in the Netherlands. His music is published by Unsafe Bull Music and has been recorded on the Capstone and Vox Novus labels. Jay is a frequent contributor to the new music website Sequenza21.com and a founding member of the composers organization The Collected.
Jay is a sci-fi geek, an amateur banjoist, a home brewer, and juggler.
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1/14/2006
The 15th Listening
I had a lesson yesterday. On the one hand, I'm ready to stop having lessons. The sooner I can ditch the adjective "student" from my official-state-of-being, the better. On the other, I enjoy having open discourse about music with others. Of course I'll always be a student, of one form or another, but I'm sick of the moniker "student composer." That is another topic.
Dr. Mobberley (James Mobberley, my dissertation advisor) referred to the "15th Listening" of a piece. Stuff in my composition that seems surface at first but then structural after hearing it a bunch of times. I've always thought about the balance between surface and structures. Who doesn't? I always have some underlying structure that is not immediately perceivable. But thinking that someone is going to listen ANY piece of mine over a dozen times is a foreign concept.
Am I alone in this? In this world, I seem lucky to hear a piece at all much less have it performed twice. But fifteen times? Am I ever going to write something that gets played that much? One semester I had three performances of the same piece and I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
I've never thought of composing my music "for the ages." I've always figured that I'm headed towards obscurity. I think my compositional process reflects that mindset. I write for right now. I obsess about the relationships of things, but never put words to it. Hearing the idea spoken yesterday afternoon was jarring.
I almost responded with "Who is going to hear this piece more than once?" But I didn't. I think I've taken a step into the larger world of "positive thinking."
posted by Jay C. Batzner
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