Blog 2020
Featured
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written by Kai Ono
2019 GLFCAM Dave and Gunda Hiebert, Cycle 9
“Music is basically a few great moments and really clever wasting of time in between.” One of my great music composition mentors told me this years ago.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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.
written 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?