CalArts
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Andrew Tholl (below) and Milen Kirov (right), the first two doctoral candidates in the PerformerComposer Program.
New Academic Programs and Initiatives
“The program includes plenty of research and writing,” says Milen Kirov, “but I especially like the practical aspect of it—of writing and performing my music, and involving faculty and students in my concerts. Everyone is very supportive and responsive. CalArts welcomed pianist-composer Milen Kirov (Music bfa 02) and violinist-composer Andrew Tholl (Music mfa 09) as its first two doctoral candidates last fall when The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts launched the new Doctor of Musical Arts (dma) track of its flagship Performer-Composer Program. The dma is not only the first doctoral degree to be offered by the Institute; it is also the first doctoral program nationwide to focus on the integration of performance and composition into a single continuum of creative practice. “Intensive while also highly individualized, the dma Performer-Composer Program is designed expressly for advanced music artists who are able to fuse technical performance virtuosity and innovative composition models in the course of developing an original and distinctive body of creative music,” says Music Dean David Rosenboom, holder of the school’s Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music and coordinator of the Performer-Composer Program. “The program is not a double major; each area, performance and composition, depends on the other in order to be fully realized.” The three-year program, which culminates with the completion of a doctoral project, further encompasses scholarly and pedagogical work. dma candidates may work with any member of the school’s Performance and Composition faculties.
“In the 21st century, the world is a much smaller place and boundaries are not what they used to be. I’m interested in mixing and mashing up things, and finding the common threads that connect the origins of dance and theater and music. Being an improviser, I’m looking to cross the divides between the written and the improvised—the created-in-the-spur of the moment. And it involves movement and speech and so forth, pulling them together in a sort of balance. “CalArts is at the forefront of music, with very talented faculty and students to work with for your projects. And the school is very supportive of new endeavors and ideas.” Rosenboom notes that the dma Performer-Composer Program draws on “all areas in the matrix of music education,” including research in new materials, preservation and history, theories of musical languages, global cultural investigations, and critical thinking about musicmaking. “Our dma performer-composers will be prepared to bring demonstrably unique and cogent artistic visions to bear in a variety of professional careers, as leaders in both public and private cultural sectors, in education, and in individual artistic entrepreneurship.”