Graduate Composition Seminar

Syllabus

MU507, MU607 Composition Seminar 
Fall Semester 2010, Spring Semester 2011 
Credits: 1 per semester 
Prerequisites: none 
Instructor: Andy Vores avores@bostonconservatory.edu 

Course Objectives

This weekly meeting, required of all composition majors, provides student composers with tools to foster a sophisticated awareness of contemporary composition, to facilitate familiarity with a broad range of cultural references, and to become focused and articulate when speaking of one's own and others' music.

A wide range of topics will be touched on, including professional development (program notes, commissions, grants, identifying performance opportunities, etc.); introduction to composers and music not covered in other conservatory courses (recent contemporary music, vernacular and popular music); visiting composers, masterclasses and clinics with conductors and performers; analogies to other art forms; issues of orchestration, instrumentation, structure, and form.

Listening Assignments

Weekly Listening Assignments are given each semester. Students are expected to listen to assigned works with the score two or three times (at the very least) in order to become well acquainted with each piece as well as to read biographical information and program notes relevant to the assignment. 

Scores for each assignment will be on library reserve. Most pieces are available on the Naxos website. CD's will be on reserve for works unavailable on Naxos. 

A midterm and a final examination test familiarity with the assigned works by asking students to identify soundclips and to identify extracts from scores. This exam will also include general questions about the composers of the assigned works and the works themselves.

Instrumental Clinics

In order to better familiarize composers with the specifics of writing for various instruments, Clinics are held each semester, usually spanning three or four weeks with two group meetings. For the first meeting composers write a brief exercise for the featured instrument. This is the springboard for a presentation and discussion given by faculty and students on effective notation, idiomatic writing, extended techniques, and related topics. After this meeting the composers each write a short work which will be workshopped at the next group meeting.

Song Project

Early in the fall semester composers are paired with Voice majors from the Junior Vocal Performance Seminar for whom they compose a work for voice and piano. These songs will be workshopped throughout the year with Kathryn Wright, the instructor of the Junior Vocal Performance Seminar. A spring semester masterclass with a visiting artist is followed by a concert performance.
N.B. this project is Year 1 MM students only in 2010/11 

Song Project 

Concert Reports

Attendance at each concert in the Composer Recital Series and the New Music Festival is a requirement of the Composition Seminar. From time to time students will be asked to provide written or verbal Concert Reports.