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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4/10/2008
I do love teaching
I had a really good energizing day today. My comp students invaded Music Forum, our twice-a-week performance venue. I wrangled an entire forum last semester for the Comp 1 class so the whole class could take a piece from idea through performance. It worked well. This semester I had fewer students but they each had 2 short pieces or 1 longer piece. The whole thing was well attended and well put together. I'm very proud of them all.
Also, in my freshman theory class, I gave a composition project assignment. Some students have stopped by with their pieces and I'm really pumped about what they are doing! I love looking at their scores, seeing potential, and offering my own humble suggestions. I tend to shotgun out a lot of options, often contradictory ones, to get the students thinking of their own ways to navigate their pieces.
For some sadistic reason it is much easier to see potential in my students' works than it is to see in my own. I have several short marimba pieces to complete in the next month and I'm just stuck. I know what I want to do but it just isn't happening. Maybe I need to ask my students for help. Come to think of it, that is EXACTLY what I am going to do!
posted by Jay C. Batzner
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