Date of Submission

Fall 2022

Academic Program

Music

Project Advisor 1

Kyle Gann

Project Advisor 2

George Tsontakis

Abstract/Artist's Statement

I had a very interesting experience studying composition at Bard. The year that I was supposed to moderate into composition was the year that COVID hit; and because of COVID, I spent the next two of my four years at Bard studying remotely, 15 hours away in Atlanta, Ga. Though I was still able to study composition with Joan Tower through weekly virtual meetings, I never experienced the “rites of passage” that a typical young composer experiences. I never had to search for musicians to play my pieces for a moderation concert; I never had to analyze the different schedules of musicians to be able to find a rehearsal time that works for everyone; I just added all of my scores and their relative MIDI versions to an organized google folder named “MODERATION” and pressed send. And for the next semester, I just continued to study composition with Joan while taking all of my classes online. When I returned to Bard for my fourth year- after studying remotely for 3 semesters and taking a semester off- I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing in the community as a student composer.

This concert, “Things I Never Told You”, is the first project that I have had such a hands-on role in creating since making my return to the real world, or at least the world that is Bard College. The collection of pieces that were performed in my concert are pieces that were either composed during my time studying in Atlanta or during my first semester back at Bard when I may as well have still been studying in Atlanta considering the lack of human interaction I experienced with other people in the music department outside of my weekly meetings with my advisor, Kyle. Because this was the first time I was putting on a concert of my own, I was just hoping to get a group of people to play my pieces at a certain place at a certain time. Studying remotely robbed me of the opportunity of attending or participating in student showcases, so when it was time to organize a showcase of my own, I didn’t know where to start. I just figured that if music was being played, then my job was done.

I eventually settled on the concert title “Things I Never Told You” because a lot of the pieces on the program were never performed live or in a concert where I played an active role since I was so far away; so this “debut” of my music is more of like a catching up of things I never got to put out there, things I never said.

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