written by Kenyon Duncan
As I sit down to write, I must admit I’m only partially focused on the words I’m typing. Another part of me is listening to the first rains of the season as they graze the rooftops here in Boonville, CA. The air is crisp and sky, dark today, almost as if apologizing for the sweltering, stagnant heatwave that crawled through the Anderson Valley only 2 weeks ago.
Read Morewritten by Jeremy Rosenstock
I’ve been thinking about this blog post almost as long as I spent considering what to compose for GLFCAM.
Given the parallel, I should begin by saying that I usually compose for myself. It’s far easier to create a recording if I’m the performer, producer, and composer. It’s difficult to pick instruments knowing that each addition reduces the possibility that it’ll ever be played again. I’m not an optimist when it comes to these sorts of things. I assume the first performance is the last, unless proven otherwise.
Read Morewritten by Hannah Boissonneault
Whenever my friends and I talk about our childhood dreams, we usually reflect, laugh a little, and ultimately, we shake them off. Some of my friends are doing the very thing they wanted to do since they were five years old, and some followed completely different, ultra-cool paths. Some talk about how they never found one dream that stuck with them, or how they pursued many until they found the right fit. Some tell me that they never found their own “passion.”
Read Morewritten by Clifton Ingram
2019 GLFCAM Julius Eastman Fellow, Cycle 12
Lately, I’ve been noticing more that my work from the last handful of years has grown increasingly apocalyptic. To my ears, musical material is spread thin, technique obscures gestures, and a fragile vulnerability haunts even the most luminous of resonances in a hushed landscape.
Read Morewritten by Kyle Tieman-Strauss
2019 GLFCAM Fortuna Calvo-Roth Fellow, Cycle 11
To me, the best kind of music-making is enveloped in one’s community. No matter where you live—big city or rural town—you can find pockets of wild, outrageous music, and if you can’t, you can mind-trick your friends into creating one with you.
Read Morewritten by Rajna Swaminathan
2019 GLFCAM Florence Price Fellow, Cycle 12
Writing through-composed music for classically trained musicians is new and challenging for me… What feels particularly difficult in this process is transitioning from a social, dialogic workspace — where the resonance of the music-in-process and the presence of the people playing it can spur the imagination forward — to a relatively solitary workspace, where it feels like you have to be your own mirror.
Read Morewritten by Molly Joyce
2019 GLFCAM Chabuca Granda Fellow, Cycle 11
I have an impaired left hand from a previous car accident, and for nearly twenty years, I assumed I wasn’t disabled. I assumed I needed to conform to the norm and hide my inabilities; hide what I couldn’t control, and ultimately hide my disability’s possibility.
Read Morewritten by Adele Faizullina
2019 GLFCAM Cynthia Jackson Ford Fellow, Cycle 11
I was born in Uzbekistan, and when I was six years old, my family and I moved to Tatarstan. When I was seven, my parents did their best and found a music teacher for me: An amazing teacher and fantastic blind musician, Yevgeniy Fralov, who taught me the braille system.
Read Morewritten by Iman Habibi
2019 GLFCAM Lucy and Jacob Frank Fellow, Cycle 9
A few arts organizations around the United States had cancelled or postponed events. Philadelphia had only one known case of coronavirus, and we were barely alarmed. However, as I made my way through the backstage corridors of the Verizon Hall that morning saying hello to several musicians and staff, it was slowly becoming apparent that something was not quite right.
Read Morewritten by Samuel Winnie
2019 GLFCAM Anita and Leslie Bassett Fellow, Cycle 9
If you imagined that my daily time spent consuming media in the years following my undergraduate degree were a pie chart, about ninety percent of that chart would consist of my aforementioned comfort zone. That remaining ten percent, however, would constitute the music and other media that was beyond the confines of my box.
Read Morewritten by Aeryn Santillan
2019 GLFCAM Kelly Livingston and Ron Samuels Fellow, Cycle 11
When I was growing up, my mom never liked cooking, so in time, neither did I. My grandma —She cooked. She often cooked for us as we sat in her kitchen, her small TV playing Univision or Telemundo. I watched her quickly make a meal, and never thought I’d have the skills to handle a knife the way she does. If not for her, I don’t know how many more cut-up hot dogs or McDonald’s I would’ve ended up eating.
Read Morewritten by Grey Grant
2019 GLFCAM Lucy and Jacob Frank Fellow, Cycle 10
In North Carolina, where I once was born, I was surrounded by the foreboding culture of “the south,” full of its own folklore (which is really just mythology, as it is sacred), which is quite fantastic in and of itself. That said, queering southern mythologies is a particular method of occupying a space with the reputation known to be hostile to queer persons. Is an act of revolution. This is a task I have seen many queer Appalachian southerners take ownership of, and one I would like to join in kind.
Read Morewritten by Dawn M. Norfleet
2019 GLFCAM Chou Wen-chung Fellow, Cycle 10
I used to jokingly blame my lateness on my time of birth: I was born at 11:59PM, and I've been doing everything at the last minute ever since.
Read Morewritten by Doug Hertz
2019 GLFCAM Matt Marks Fellow, Cycle 10
Had I been familiar with the risk-embracing mentality that Gabriela nurtures at the Academy, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so shaken when she informed me that I would in fact be writing an Art Song. At the time, however, it felt like being sent on a fool’s errand.
Read Morewritten by Nicky Sohn
2019 GLFCAM Gerald Fischer Fellow, Cycle 10
Contrasting my inner turmoil to personal shortcomings, the Academy/Boonville was the most peaceful place I had ever been... Almost unbelievably, with the support of Gabriela, I even held one of her chickens in my arms. Its grotesque avian features were just a few inches from my face, but I trusted Gabriela and truly believed her when she reassured me that it would be ok.
Read Morewritten by Tanner Porter
2019 GLFCAM Dana Lyon Fellow, Cycle 9
Why does the thought of creating music that sounds like what I was writing ten years ago freak me out?
Read Morewritten by Dustin Carlson
GLFCAM Béla Bartók Fellow, Cycle 9
I realized that my years of improvising and playing music have resulted in some very clear impressions about musical sensations and the various ways of achieving them, and that having done so many things without a method has established some foundational tendencies I can create upon with confidence.
Read Morewritten by Iman Habibi
2019 GLFCAM Lucy and Jacob Frank Fellow, Cycle 9
I was born and raised in Iran, but I spent a significant part of my adult life in Canada, and have also lived in the United States and Turkey. While I certainly belong to some of these cultures more than others, they have each played a role in shaping my identity, and defining myself as belonging to only one, is again, quite restrictive. Seeing the importance of my role as a cultural ambassador, I have come to reconcile with some of these labels.
Read Morewritten by Olivia Davis
GLFCAM Arnold and Babette Salamon Fellow, Cycle 10
My family’s past is my own, vivified through paint, charcoal, manuscript paper, violin, viola, piano. When I sit down to play piano, I pull out the book that once belonged to my grandmother. When I play from this book, I feel her dancing around me as the waves of sound bouncing off of every surface, my skin, hair, clothes included, and I am dancing with her. Every chunk of DNA, molecule of my being, blood cell, protein, neuron, sings my past and my future.
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