Blog

written by Rachel Epperly
2018 GLFCAM Logan Skelton Fellow, Cycle 7

The night before the performance, I feared I was making a huge mistake. I lost my appetite. I was shaking. I was hyper-ventilating. I was scared of putting my body out there in the way being dysfunctional Barbie required of me, especially in front of a mostly male audience. I was afraid that people would think my performance was too weird, disturbing, politically unclear —the list goes on. Although the work was intended to cause the audience some discomfort, I felt apologetic in advance for making them feel such things.

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written by Karalyn Schubring
2018 GLFCAM Leslie and Anita Bassett Fellow, Cycle 7

As I got to know my fellow Cycle 7 composers, I simultaneously fell in love with their work while growing increasingly intimidated by their brilliance. Negativity swirled around in my mind as I told myself that I wasn’t being friendly enough or insightful enough or funny enough or that my artistic voice would never be as clear and powerful as those of my colleagues...

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written by Colin Payne
2018 GLFCAM William Bolcom and Joan Morris Fellow, Cycle 7

My life is one that is constantly scattered and tattered. It is a journey on the beaten and battered fast paced Millennium Falcon, but instead of space it is the big cities of New York, Chicago, and Detroit. Some people don’t like that “fly by the seat of your pants” lifestyle, but I love it. It is where I live. As I grow older and my capacity for sleepless nights, coffee infested breath, and liquor ridden midnight composition sessions become more limited, my philosophy is not necessarily on changing these habits but controlling them.

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written by Marco-Adrián Ramos
2018 GLFCAM National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Fellow, Cycle 7

I’ve become aware of the surreal nature of my current activity: Sitting in my Washington Heights apartment, beginning the sixth year of my conservatory studies at Juilliard, writing a blog post for an academy headed by Gabriela Lena Frank, a person whose name I’ve known ever since twelve-year-old me curiously googled “Latin composers” in a desperate bid to validate my interest in music (to myself).

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written by Timmy Peterson
2018 GLFCAM Béla Bartók Fellow, Cycle 6

In some of my earliest and fondest musical memories, I’m sitting at the piano reveling in those moments in a piece that made me go “ahh.” Whether or not I knew it then – I was in middle school at the time – I think I was hooked on the wonder that music can instill in us.

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written by Dawn Norfleet
2018 GLFCAM Chou Wen-chung Fellow, Cycle 6

When I was a child, grown-ups asked me the typical question: What do you want to be when you grow up? I wanted to be a medical doctor, ballerina, conductor, psychologist, recording engineer, and an entertainment attorney.  I had a voracious imagination, fed by books: My favorites were Alice in Wonderland, the Holy Bible,  and Grimm's Fairy Tales. I loved cookbooks, encyclopedias, and I'd even found my big brother's hidden copy of the scary novel, The Exorcist, which terrorized my dreams and bored moments for the next several years. 

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written by Nick Benavides
2018 GLFCAM Arnold and Babette Salamon Fellow, Cycle 6

When I saw photos of friends of mine smiling and hanging out with Gabriela Lena Frank (and perhaps a few chickens), I knew I had to join them. I’ve long been a fan of Gabriela, but I had a problem: I had never met her, and I was certain I was never meant to.

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written by Akshaya Avril Tucker
GLFCAM 2018 Cynthia Jackson Ford Fellow, Cycle 6

Before I joined Cycle Two in 2017 to work with violinist Johnny Gandelsman and cellist Joshua Roman, I met Gabriela Lena Frank over Skype. It only took her an hour to understand pretty much everything about me — Who I am, what’s important to me, how I write music. We chatted while I was staying at my grandfather’s house in Glassboro, NJ, and Gabriela was wearing her ultimate composer-at-work red hoodie.

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written by Stanton Nelson
2018 GLFCAM Dave and Gunda Hiebert Fellow, Cycle 6

Snippets of music and theology have always rummaged through my heart and mind - most of the time subtly, but on occasion loudly and intensely.  For example, I will find myself singing the Schumann Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54 for weeks or that I dream about justification and sanctification for a while. 

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written by Erika Oba
2018 GLFCAM Gerald Fischer Fellow, Cycle 5

My sister (Hitomi Oba, Cycle 1) called me last year after her week in Boonville, excitedly recounting her week full of creative stimulation, good food, a beautiful environment, and new colleagues and friends. Her account of her residency was like no other residency I’d heard of before.

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written by Steve Juliani
2018 GLFCAM Carleen Hutchins Fellow, Special Guest Auditor

I started writing music in 2016 at age 55 - after spending 25 years first as a professional horn player and then as a music copyist in the motion picture industry. In order to make the time to write, I also set aside a budding criminal defense law practice and changed how I managed my 15-year old music preparation business. But neither the added time nor the changed focus has made me a composer.

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written by Adeliia Faizullina
2018 GLFCAM Cynthia Jackson Ford Fellow, Cycle 6

Gabriela, my new family fellow composers and Boonville gave me a second birth and opened my eyes again.

I started my trip to Boonville with my great wonderful friend Akshaya flying together from Austin, Texas to San Francisco California. Akshaya is extremely talented young composer, who creates one of my favorite music.  We were studying musical composition in the same program at the University of Texas at Austin.  Our friendship is very very important and dear to me!

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written by Aeryn Santillan
2018 GLFCAM Kelly Livingston and Ron Samuels Fellow, Cycle 5

“The world doesn't owe you shit
The universe doesn't know you exist
Stop waiting for things to happen
Only you can make a change”

— Punch, “Do It Yourself” – Nothing Lasts E.P.

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written by Danny Gouker
2018 GLFCAM John and Marie LaBarbera Fellow, Cycle 6

I went for a walk with my wife the other day. It was one of the first nice Sundays of the spring in New York and we wandered around Prospect Park for an hour or so. After chatting for a while about a few trivial things and commenting to each other about some of the people and activities inhabiting the park, we walked in silence for a while. As we continued walking, our pace slowed as I got a little deeper in thought. Finally, I broke the silence.

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written by Antonio Celaya
2018 GLFCAM Chabuca Granda Fellow, Cycle 5

Wherein the author, an aging composer-of- sort, and not very successful 195-pound Mexican-American lawyer, recounts his insecurities, experienced while listening to talented young composers’ works-in-progress.

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written by Sid Richardson
2018 GLFCAM Dana Lyon Fellow, Cycle 5

What is it about music that invites comparisons and collaborations with other art forms? Today, music is often paired with film, dance, visual art, literature, poetry, and various other media. We may even take for granted these unions as they have become ubiquitous in modern culture.

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written by Jessica Hunt
2018 GLFCAM Boontling Community Fellow, Cycle 4

(In which, having recently turned 30, a not-so-young young composer wonders about the difference between Being and Doing, and celebrates the oasis of Boonville.)

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written by Iman Habibi
2018 GLFCAM Lucy and Jacob Frank Fellow, Cycle 4

It may have begun as a search, a quest to find or explore a familiar unknown. Unlike most other children who came to know music through nursery rhymes and dance, my childhood was filled with nationalistic music that celebrated the Islamic revolution and glorified the war.

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written by Anjna Swaminathan
2018 GLFCAM Lucy and Jacob Frank Fellow, Cycle 5

It was the night before December 1st, 2017 and the deadline for the GLFCAM Bahlest Eeble Readings application loomed over me. I’d made my way through the majority of the application, much of which involved questions about musical/compositional process, training, and who and what I would bring to a proverbial desert island.

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