Bias
written by Jung Yoon Wie
GLFCAM Francis Richard Fellow, Cycle 8
I believe that our inclination to categorize others and assume who they are come from the bias toward ourselves. We diminish the value of what we do and love, and we do the same for others by making unfair judgements about who they are and having to prove our worth at the expense of other’s. Yet, all of us were once children who would dance and not think of whether the dance was good or bad, would soak our sneakers in water because the consequences were small, and when nothing was boring.
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The most Ellen of Ellen sounds
written by Angela Morris
2019 GLFCAM Ruth Crawford Seeger Fellow, Cycle 8
On Gabriela’s deck, I waited with the wave, observing the moment’s emotions together with the garden and forest and hills spread out below. Huck and Beau, dogs who’ve been through some stuff themselves, kept me company at a respectful distance. Jeremy, Gabriela’s husband, approached as gently as the dogs. Their presence said: You are safe. However you are is ok.
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Mental Health As A Resistant Female Composer
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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Believing I Belong (in Boonville)
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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Scatter and tattered… and loving it.
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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Leave the labyrinth
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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Peopling your creative process
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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Slow-burning
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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Going to New Mexico by way of Boonville
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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Connection When Humanity Fragments
written by Bonnie McLarty
2018 GLFCAM Marion Terwilliger Webster Fellow, Cycle 4
Though writing is a solitary activity, the hum and gurgle of the dishwasher, the buzz of the fat fly on the window, the deep sigh of my dog Jemma under the table as she shifts position, the voices of my sister-in-law and her children in the next room — These sounds keep me company, the vibrations of the other lives and processes around me. I am not alone. I am here. I am part of the larger world. And for me, the sensory connection to others provided by sound is beautiful thing.
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"Akshaya Spice"
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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Magnificus: An artist ministering to a broken and hurting world
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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Striving Towards a Well-Balanced Life
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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An Expansive World Within
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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A Tatar Woman Speaks Boontling
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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D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself)
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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Do You Know What You’re Doing?
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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Fear and Self-Loathing in Boonville
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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Son of Librarians
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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On the Importance of Finding Joy
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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