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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5/24/2006
Uncomfortable
Life has been busy with non-musical stuff lately. I'm hip-deep in a move to Orlando but now I'm finding time to do some musical things.
Yesterday I sent out a copy of my piano trio for a recording session. I've become part of a composer group called the Collected. Our motto: record first, perform later. We are just getting started so I don't really have too much else to share about them now. Anyhow, I wrote my trio last summer. It is a single movement about 9 minutes long. Nobody has seen it. Now it is getting recorded.
The piece makes me very uncomfortable. I believe that it works but I also think it might fail completely. It is a departure for me, as most of my pieces are. Very thin and sparse. Very slow but I'm starting to think that it isn't slow enough. I'm not sure that the piece should have any sort of public life. Maybe I should have thrown it away instead of getting it recorded.
But part of me revels in my discomfort. That is the true joy in composition. I don't know if it is going to work or not. Some people I know write music that they know is going to work. That is fine, I guess, but where is the exploration? Are they pushing themselves at all? Are they trying new things and growing? Usually not. So, while it might sound like I'm not prepared for this recording session, I think I'm more prepared than ever.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
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