[Intro Music]
Dr. Park: We provide an environment that allows a
student to explore all kinds of different, uh, genres
including film scoring, musical theatre, songwriting,
electroacoustic music, more traditional classical music,
jazz, concert music, and so on and
so forth.
Students in our program also engage quite
a bit in research. There's a lot of, uh, exploration,
learning and, uh, studying instruments, and extended
techniques, background study in order to gain
a better understanding of maybe the historical
background, the musicological background, the,
the cultural backgrounds that support a musical
narrative as a composer writes music.
The program has numerous events that happen
throughout the year.
The Interactive Arts Performance series focuses on electroacoustic computer music with interactivity.
Then we have First Stages that focuses on voice.
[Humming and Music Playing]
Pulsing and Shaking is a newer one that revolves
around ideas form a minimalistic point of view.
[Music Playing]
We have the Contemporary Music Ensemble;
[Music Playing]
and clearly we have student recitals that happen
at the end of every semester.
[Music Playing]
As part of the Composition program, each student
takes a private composition lesson every semester.
We have many world renowned instructors, for
example, in concert music we have
Justin Dello Joio, Michael Gordon, Julia
Wolfe who recently won the Pulitzer Prize,
and electronic electroacoustic music, we have one of the pioneers of electronic music Morton Subotnick,
Joan La Barbara, Dafna Naphtali.
Also in Songwriting, we have Phil Galdston,
and Film Scoring Mark Suozzo, and many, many
more instructors.
The Composition program and its curriculum
is designed to address the fundamentals,
the theory, the history, and also the practical
aspects of composition, uh, in becoming a composer.
Also, as part of the curriculum, we have what
we call the Composers Forum, and in this context,
in this class, we invite renowned composers
from all over the world to talk to the students,
which entails a Q and A session after the speaker, uh,
talks about his or her experiences as a
professional composer.
Uh, we've had composers like Steven Mackey, Louis
Andriessen, Steve Reich, um, Paul Lansky.
After the talk, uh, the composers, uh, almost always
stay behind and, and answer any questions that
the students may have.
The Composition program has many components
and we try to address the research components,
the purely compositional components, the musicological
components, the practical, and the theory.
So we combine all those things and provide
a platform where the student can pursue his
or her own style, whatever that may be, and
we support that idea very strongly.
[Music Continues]
