Blog

Spring 2019 Recap

2019-07-01 by Kyle

It’s already July!? It’s already halfway through the summer semester!

The spring semester has been my busiest semester as a professor. Let’s recap:

At NDSU:

• I had a studio of 6 composers, 4 undergrads and 2 grads.
• I mentored the Freshman Theory II Composition Projects.
• I oversaw the Sophomore Theory IV Composition Projects.
• I taught the bassoon part of Woodwind Methods II.
• I taught Music Entrepreneurship (and wrote a course pack)
• I oversaw Grad Theory Pedagogy Practicum.
• We took the wind symphony to Budapest, Bratislava, and Prague.
• And I was asked to join the NDSU Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship (NICE) Faculty Fellowship.

At VCSU:

• I had a studio of 3 students in Comp II and 2 students in Comp III.
• I had one capstone advisee.
• I taught Advanced Scoring and Arranging.
• I turned Comp I into a lecture-based class, with 15 students.
• I organized the 18th annual VCSU Composers Concert.

At NoteForge/As a Composer

• I recorded and produced an album.
• I wrote one and a half pieces.
• I did some massive upgrades to Liszt.
• I solved a lot of issues with NDSU’s livestreaming.

Some of these things were successful due to my hard work. Some of these things were successful due to my dumb luck. Some of these things could be greatly improved.

Turning Comp I at VCSU into a lecture class was a ton of work. It was fun, and I learned a great deal about video editing, but it took up way more time than I was expecting. Luckily, with those videos in “maintenance mode” now, I’ll have some tweaks but most of it can stand.

I built that class around my ideas about the creative process, which I’m beginning to codify into something tangible. I’m presenting a poster about the process at this year’s ATMI conference.

I didn’t do a bunch of conferences/festivals this year, mostly due to a focus on teaching since VCSU was a new thing. I’m ramping up those things this summer, with a piece at NYCEMF/ICMC last week and a presentation at the VU 3 Symposium in Park City, UT next week.

I wrote a piece for bass clarinet duet + piano, and I started on a tuba sonata that I’m really enjoying, though it’s taking a while trying to find time to write. Which reminds me–This semester I started booking dedicated creative time, so that I’m in the studio working on composition-related things every morning until 10. This worked…most of the time.

I picked up a faculty fellowship in Entrepreneurship, and as a part of that I’ve spent a bunch of time thinking about how to update NDSU’s Music Entrepreneurship class. That’ll be it’s own separate post I’m sure.