Despite their age differences and varied stylistic persuasions, artists ranging from Beethoven to Jack White to a select number of Tufts students have one thing in common: they write music.
For both graduate and undergraduate students interested in composing, there is one class that offers a unique opportunity. Music 113 seminar in composition, taught by Associate Professor John McDonald, serves to encourage students' creative processes. Indicative of this purpose are its very few requirements, something relatively unusual for a high-level seminar.
During a class, students might discuss their work, listen to guest composers or talk about a specific topic. Outside of class, students are expected to take at least four lessons with Professor McDonald. The only other requirements besides going to class and taking lessons are to write and perform a piece by the end of the semester.
"Students have the experience of creating a piece from the bottom up. It gives you an appreciation of how real music is and ever was, and shows you that composers make mistakes," McDonald said. "Suddenly we learn that music by some dead person who we think doesn't touch us can actually affect our lives."
Since the course's inception around 1995, five years after Professor McDonald's arrival at Tufts, the performances that students are required to give have grown into the yearlong Tufts Composers Series.
While having strict guidelines might make the course slightly easier, relatively loose requirements foster student exploration, and Professor McDonald facilitates this independence even in lessons.
"The whole point of this endeavor is to bring out who [the students] think that they want to be compositionally," McDonald said. "I think teaching ends up ... helping students decide what direction to keep moving in and giving them techniques to get them from the point where they are to the point where they want to be."
The point where many students want to be lies outside the world of academia. A lot of students who take the class aspire to compose professionally, and many of their performances at the end of the semester include their thesis work.
Today, Beau Kenyon will perform in Distler Hall at 8 p.m. A graduate student enrolled in Music 113, this will be Kenyon's graduate thesis recital.
Kenyon became interested in composing in high school, and graduated from Berkeley College of Music, where one of his teachers encouraged him to pursue music further and recommended that he go to Tufts.
"You spend a lot of time fine-tuning music theory, but you learn that you don't have to follow the rules unless you want to. The rules are there to guide you, but you have freedom in composition," Kenyon said.
The musical program at Tufts has been well-suited to Kenyon's learning style, as it affords its students a great amount of freedom.
"The program here is really heavy on self-motivation, which I deal really well with," he said.
Tonight is the climax of Kenyon's years at Tufts. The performance will include 10 to 20 minutes of prose written by Kenyon to give insight into his creative process, a piece he wrote for trombone, and several piano compositions.
His thesis work for recorder quartet and mixed ensemble, "Tree of Aureliano," will be the focal point of the recital. Kenyon drew on imagery from "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez while composing the piece.
"It's music to represent the human process of life. It tries to understand the process of time, or light and energy and how they can be transferred to matter," Kenyon said.
Though he writes for many instruments, some elements of Kenyon's style remain constant throughout his work.
"I always have an extra-musical purpose," Kenyon said. "Music is the language I'm best able to articulate myself in. It's difficult to express myself in words without sounding trite, so I use music to help understand myself."
Though speaking in music may encourage introspection, Kenyon said that though they may enjoy his compositions, his audience probably won't perfectly understand his reasons for writing music.
"It's all very subjective, very personal," he said, "But just listening and hearing things you may not have heard before is important. Even if someone comes to my concert and hates it, that's still a reaction."
