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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2/27/2007
My place
Let me just say this: I know my place.
I have not been hired for any job based on my compositional prowess. My jobs have usually come from my technical/computer background, which I find very funny. The only reason I have the computer skills that I do (which aren't the computer skills everyone THINKS I have is because of my composition). I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. I think that things are changing though and people will start to notice my music as being, in general, good stuff. Or, at the very least, thoughtful.
I know that I'm not writing music "for the ages." I'm writing pieces right now, sending them off for potential performance, and more often than not they get rejected. This is a fairly typical model, I think. Those of us who claim nothing but artistic success are probably lying.
My music is good. It is the only music I can write. It expresses parts of me that cannot be expressed in any other way. Will it take the world by storm? Will my music be the subject of retrospection when I turn 80? I think not. No music festivals are going to spring up to champion my work. I will compose and die in relative obscurity.
And I'm okay with that.
Sure, my bio lists Things That Should Impress You. I only do that because it is what bios do and, while I'd love to get away with the bio "American Composer" or "Born in Dubuque. Eagle Scout." those bios (or something similar) have already been taken.
I'm not bitching and moaning. Really. I'm perfectly serene about these things. I work hard, try to teach well, and try to write the music that I need to be writing. I'm not a superstar. Nor will I become one.
I get excited when there are successes in my life. Who doesn't? And I post them here to share my joy in things going well. I have this energy and want to share it. I'm not about to post an egotistical rant about how great my music is. My music isn't great. It is just what I need to be doing right now. Honestly, very few people like it.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
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