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.
Karel Husa is coming to town next week for a music festival and, while he is getting up in years, the title of my blog entry doesn't directly relate to him. I remember when I had a lesson with Karel in the late 90s at the University of Louisville. I showed him a short sonatina for clarinet and piano. He liked it, or at least didn't actively dislike it, and I have since tossed the piece into the thresher. No Finale files, no score, just an old cassette of the premiere which is buried under a big pile of magnets.
Ah, my big pile of magnets. Where would I be without you?
Anyhow, I found a score to the piece recently. I like it. It still has some charm and interest even though it is definitely a "young" piece of mine. So I've decided to restore it and add it to the small pantheon of "supported" compositions. I must admit, I have written a lot more music than I claim. LOTS of stuff gets composed, usually performed, and then tossed. I don't revise much. I just take whatever I learned from one piece on to the next.
As far as this piece goes, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. I've been reentering it into Finale and making it fit with my "house style" for publication. I'll fix some funky notational things but what do I do with the piece itself? How much should I change and edit? Should I just leave it as is, warts and all? I originally intended the piece to be for soprano sax and piano. Should I keep it that way or should I open up the range to make it more of a clarinet piece? Do I still keep the title as Sonatina?
I know that there are no right and wrong answers here. I've just never really dealt with these issues before. Remember my plans to revise Ashamed/Unabashed? I've decided not to. I'll just write a new piece. It will be better that way. Remember my plans to revise Illuminations? I need to change 4 instrumentation choices and I STILL haven't gotten around to doing it. I don't put a lot of energy towards revisiting old things. If any of you revisers/revisitors out there have $0.02 to share, I'll listen.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/27/2007
Out there
I remember sitting in an audience at a new music festival where I struck up conversation with one of the other guest composers. We were talking about self-publishing and I mentioned that I just needed to sit down and finalize the pdfs of my scores so I could get them up on the website. The other composer was a bit shocked that I would put entire scores up on the web for free.
"You don't want your music just 'out there,' do you?" he asked.
"Why not?" I responded.
"You have to have some kind of control over your stuff," was his reply.
That was about 4 years ago. I'm still not sure what that guy meant. Why wouldn't I want my music 'out there?' What is the benefit to keeping my music "in here?" Granted, Unsafe Bull Music does not have the best distribution network in the world. And, as 50% of their clientele, I get a lot of personal attention. And since I make all of the decisions I have no objections to their practices. I recently changed the copyright statement to read: Unauthorized Photocopying and Distribution is Highly Encouraged.
So sure, if someone wants to download my score for free, print it themselves, and (gasp) perform it, I am not going to charge them. If they want printed materials, I will charge an amount for time, materials and handling. That seems fair. Otherwise, royalties are enough for me. It was more than I was making otherwise...
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/17/2007
The Law of Averages
Whoo! I am psyched today. I just found out that ANOTHER grant thingy that I applied for came through. Remember that artist who cried when she heard my piece Near Burning? We wrote a grant to do some collaborative work. She is taking my piece and creating some visual art. I'll take those pieces and make more electroacoustic pieces. Then maybe she'll make some more art and I'll lather, rinse, repeat.
Always repeat.
Once we have enough visual materials and audio samples put together, we are going to make an animation of the whole shebang. Should be cool. And then, as the final cherry on the icing on the cake, we are going to send the whole megillah to the poet Kathleen Peirce whose poem Near Burning inspired my piece in the first place.
This is super neato. Can you tell that I'm pumped?
Anyhow, this is why I get so much adrenaline when I send out scores. I know that if I use a carpet bombing strategy in sending out materials that something will get picked up. One of my majors tasks for the rest of January is refining my bombs so I can lay more devastation throughout the verdant countryside. In other words, write for ensembles that maximize the notion of getting performances.
Anyhow, I now get to write a boatload of electroacoustic pieces. I'll post progress as it happens.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/12/2007
As I was saying...
On the payola side, I had to pay $230 to be a presenter at a major conference yesterday. I found out 4 hours before the gig and I almost packed my stuff and left. The political repercussions of such an action would have been a bit on the catastrophic side for me, so I ponied up the dough. I shan't return to that conference, though.
But, in other news, I just got my first faculty research grant! I'm going to start a concert series of electroacoustic music here at UCF. I'll post a call for works sometime in the near future. I think I've got my first concert already programmed but I'll let you all know the grizzly details as they emerge.
On to the weekend!
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/09/2007
Electronic Instrument Resources
I don't know if many of you know these sites, but I've become quite fond of them. These are especially useful to those working in/with/around electronic music.
http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/ contains a great list of electronic instruments from the 1890s up to the 1990s. It includes sound clips whenver possible. A great source for your trautonium needs.
http://www.sonus.ca/index.html, the Sonus Jukebox of electroacoustic music. Very hip search tool lets you find music based on a wide array of variables. Want to know what electroacoustic composers are doing in, say, Brazil? They have stuff for you to listen to.
On a somewhat related note, I just got a rejection letter from a festival over a month after I got an acceptance letter. I've already purchased plane tickets to go and present my stuff. Clearly one of the letters in a mistake. Could I get a ruling from the learned community on how to proceed?
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/08/2007
Payola-ing your dues
I've been thinking a lot about money recently. With the holidays and all it is hard to not think about money. When you live in an expensive place, especially when you moved from a rather inexpensive place, you think about money.
The money I'm thinking about now is the money that it takes for me to do some of the basic things that I am expected to do. In a tenure-track gig, I am supposed to get performances of my works and present my research. But these things all come with significant out-of-pocket expenses. I get some funding from my department, but not nearly enough to cover the cost of my successes.
I think that is the main oxymoronic aspect that has stuck in my proverbial craw. When I am rewarded with having my music selected for a festival or am asked to present my research at a conference, I end up paying the price in a very real way. I develop professionally for it but my credit card bill rarely gets any smaller. I make a point to not send scores to calls with submission fees. Some of them might be worth it but, at this point, food comes first. And I do make use of the free postage through my department. But I am using all my own materials to generate the mailings, so I end up breaking even.
I am reminded of the whole "payola" scene. Yes, I've paid for recording costs to put get my music "out there." I know others have done the same and will continue to do so. The main goal is to get enough commissions and royalties to cover these kinds of professional expenses but I don't foresee that happening too soon. My last commission paid for my TV and futon and I thought that was pretty sweet.
It is nice that I have a "day job" to cover these kinds of expenses and, when possible, help fund them. I just wish that my success at my day job didn't depend on this kind of financial outpouring. Maybe some of those grants I wrote will come through. That would be sweet.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
