CalArts School of Music Admissions Book

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS AINROFILAC ETUTITSNI EHT FO STRA

CAL ARTS

M USIC

School of

PERFORMER– COMPOSER COMPOSITION AND EXPERIMENTAL SOUND PRACTICES JAZZ INSTRUMENTAL ARTS VOICEARTS WORLD MUSIC PERFORMANCE MUSIC TECHNOLOGY EXPERIMENTAL POP

The Ensemble at CalArts performs Composition and Experimental Sound Practices faculty member Wolfgang von Schweinitz’s Cantata, or You are the star in God’s eye.

SCHOOL OF

MUSIC

The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts is qualitatively different from conventional music conservatories. It is designed to empower you as a complete maker of music—in whichever form or style you choose—and give you the broadest possible range of professional possibilities.

The school is fully in tune with the unprecedented stylistic egalitarianism of our time, enabling you to recognize your own authentic voice, and bringing the highest level of musical skills to developing and refining those expressions. The programs help you build a distinctive frame around your creative profile and assert your emerging point of view within a wider, globally aware cultural context.

The school is especially attuned to the fact that you as a music artist, regardless of your individual stylistic trajectory, must now master a wide range of musical literature and theory, both traditional and new, and a very broad array of practical skills.

You must become a resourceful and self-reliant practitioner— a fast learner who can live on the cutting edge while surfing trends with critical acuity and work with speculative ideas. You will need the ability to move among musical cultures and styles and, increasingly, instruments and media; work in a variety of interdisciplinary situations; and develop advanced writing, speaking, playing, teaching, technological, and creative skills.

Our programs are designed to help you cultivate a far-ranging musical acumen while at the same time providing specialized training best suited for meeting your specific goals. They focus on the development of intellectual and critical abilities so that you can best contextualize your distinctive work within broader aesthetic and cultural settings—and effectively project that work out into the world.

Our community of musicmakers represents the highest standards in musical knowledge, skills, creativity, resourcefulness, strong individual initiative, and tenacity. These qualities also spell out a formula for the success of our students: the composers, performers, and producers who will transform the global musical landscapes of tomorrow—creating and re-creating anew.

PERFORMER– ER COMP OS This uniquely structured specialization will call on you to fuse technical performance virtuosity and innovative compositional models into a single continuum of creative music in the course of developing original and distinctive bodies of work. Examples of study concentrations include mastering original systems of improvisation, special methods for notation, nontraditional performance techniques, innovative approaches to interpretation of musical literature, incorporating new music and interactive media technologies, applied intercultural experimentation in music, and interdisciplinary performance design.

You will give recitals and other performances centered on original music and develop professional portfolios to highlight your creative accomplishments. In keeping with the value CalArts places on interdisciplinary art, you will also be encouraged to explore disciplines beyond music.

FOUR-YEAR BFA TWO-YEAR MFA THREE-YEAR DMA

PERIMENTAL X E D N A N IO COMPOSIT ICES SOUND PRACT

Nationally and internationally renowned for its contributions to contemporary music, this specialization is one in which you will develop your artistic voice through the mastery of a broad range of theories, techniques, and creative tools. In recognition of the expanded stylistic breadth of music today, this specialization supports the acquisition of skills and engagement with ideas that will empower you to build and sustain your own profile as an innovative creative artist. You may explore composition in all its meanings: scoring for instrumental ensembles and voices in fixed and open forms; experimental sound practices in performance, interactive systems, and installations; systematic improvisation; the radical branches of contemporary sound art; and new forms yet to be invented. Creative impulses and critical discourses will take you in many directions, with the spirit of collaboration producing a rich environment for sonic experimentation.

FOUR-YEAR BFA TWO-YEAR MFA OPPOSITE PAGE: Chris Ryan Williams (MFA Performer-Composer) recital Mehahn, a performative installation curated by the composer and featuring Film/Video, Dance, and Music students.

MFA student Weilu Ge performing at a Composition and Experimental Sound Practices concert in Roy O. Disney Music Hall.

THIS PAGE:

JAZ Z The Jazz specialization is recognized the world over for its distinguished faculty, professionally successful alumni, and award-winning students. Emphasizing small ensembles, this challenging specialization helps you develop into a highly versatile performer, improviser, and composer who is able to successfully initiate and produce works informed by various jazz styles, often in combination with other musical traditions and the latest innovations in contemporary musicmaking. You will work closely with your mentor within an apprenticeship model as students and faculty rehearse and perform together on a regular basis. Faculty challenge all Jazz students to perform, record, and produce as often as possible, rather than limiting them to the School’s regular calendar of concerts and recitals. In addition, each year you may have the opportunity to enter a juried competition to record original work at the legendary Capitol Records in Hollywood with some of the best recording engineers in the world.

FOUR-YEAR BFA TWO-YEAR MFA

OPPOSITE PAGE: MFA Jazz student Lucas Longaresi captured in a moment of joy during the annual CalArts Jazz CD recording session at Capitol Records.

Students gather outside the Capitol Records building for the Annual Jazz Album recording.

THIS PAGE:

INSTRUMENTA ARTS

L

The InstrumentalArts specialization prepares you for an ever-broadening spectrum of professional practices and career pathways. You will closely study and perform music from many different periods and traditions—from classical to contemporary, post-classical, and interdisciplinary expressions from around the globe—and extend your own musical versatility by mastering diverse performance techniques. This specialization emphasizes maximum performing opportunities in solo recitals and concerts by ensembles of varying configuration as you develop and refine high-level skills, expansive musical knowledge, and the creative agility to excel in any number of professional settings. This same comprehensive skill set is also what enables you to better define your own individual artistic profile and creative vision.

FOUR-YEAR BFA TWO-YEAR MFA

InstrumentalArts Areas: Winds Brass Percussion Guitar Harp Piano/Keyboard Collaborative Keyboard (MFA only) Strings

VOICEARTS

Opening up musical forms and aesthetics beyond conventional categories, this specialization guides you toward finding your own distinctive vocal mechanisms, sounds, performance practices, and artistic point of view. You will focus on developing post-classical vocal technique, which grows out of the Western classical foundations of voice and tone production to cover a wider range of proficiencies—including extended performance techniques, improvisation, non-Western vocal styles, sound art, text-based vocalism, composition for voice, electronically processed singing, and innovative dramatic and interdisciplinary approaches to the presentation of vocal music.

FOUR-YEAR BFA TWO-YEAR MFA

OPPOSITE PAGE: MFA oboist Breanna Gilcher practicing inside The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts.

THIS PAGE:

Kyuyim Lee (MFA VoiceArts) performing Rusalka.

WORLD MUSIC ANCE P E R FO R M Featuring a faculty of world-renowned artists, these areas of specialization offer core studies in African music and dance, Balinese and Javanese music and dance, and North Indian music, augmented with explorations of Persian, Latin, and Japanese music, among other traditions. You will focus your work in one or more of these specializations, with world percussion added to advanced studies in African, Indonesian, and Hindustani performance—in each case encompassing both traditional and contemporary expressions, as well as complex intercultural and stylistic integrations.

FOUR-YEAR BFA TWO-YEAR MFA

World Music Performance Areas: World Music Performance (BFA ONLY) African Music and Dance (MFA ONLY) Balinese and Javanese Music And Dance (MFA ONLY) North Indian Music (MFA ONLY) World Percussion (MFA ONLY)

OPPOSITE PAGE: Javanese Gamelan Ensemble performing at the annual World Music and Dance Festival in the Wild Beast Pavilion.

THIS PAGE: The African Music and Dance Ensemble performing at graduation. Students from all across the Institute may elect to take this ensemble class.

OLOGY: MUSIC TECHN lligence, and Design Interaction, Inte

This one-of-a-kind specialization joins the development of strong musical skills with mastering the most recent advances in music-related systems design and engineering.

Focusing on the creative as much as the technical, the theoretical as much as the practical, this highly interdisciplinary curriculum prepares you for careers in electronic composition and performance, sound design and synthesis, audio recording, post-production, web and multimedia design, audio electronics, software development, interactive audio for gaming, and electro-mechanical design, among other fields.

FOUR-YEAR BFA TWO-YEAR MFA

THIS PAGE: MFA Music Technology student Olivia Hauser with her custom glove MIDI controller used during her bubblegum pop performance as “Dolly Dirtbag” at the Troubadour in West Hollywood.

OPPOSITE PAGE: BFA Musical Arts/Experimental Pop students performing during their annual Soundstream event at the Troubadour in West Hollywood.

EXPERIMENTA

L P OP

With nationally and internationally acclaimed faculty and alumni, this specialization invites artists working in post-genre styles, experimental and yet undiscovered popular music forms to make work in a collaborative environment. You will hone strong and comprehensive musical articulation skills as you explore a wide variety of artistic syntheses and career pathways, covering work in pedagogical, songwriting, performance, production, technical, and interdisciplinary settings. An intense pace generates experience and confidence, and prompts creative experimentation and risk-taking. Your course of study is custom-built and uniquely tailored with the guidance of your faculty mentor. You will be encouraged to perform, record, and produce as often as possible.

FACULTY

Eyvind Kang Marc Lowenstein

FOUR-YEAR BFA

BFA PROGRAM IN MUSIC You may choose to apply to the BFA Program in Music without declaring a specialization. To obtain a specialization upon graduating, you must declare and be accepted into a specialization prior to the third year. You may elect not to proceed with a specialization curriculum through to graduation. In this case, your upper-division course requirements will address a broad set of rigorous studies in generalized music skills and knowledge to support pursuing a wide variety of alternative career pathways after graduation.

FACULTY ADMINISTRATION Volker Straebel, dean Roxane Chenault Bob Clendenden Michele DeJesus Alan Eder Amy Knoles Erin Poulin Lainey Taylor Robert Wannamaker Nicholas Deyoe

PERFORMERCOMPOSER David Rosenboom Vinny Golia Eyvind Kang Ulrich Krieger Steve Lehman Additional faculty drawn from all areas.

COMPOSITION AND EXPERIMENTAL SOUND PRACTICES Ulrich Krieger Clay Chaplin Daniel Corral Nicholas Deyoe Emily Evans Michael Jon Fink Vinny Golia Eyvind Kang Ulrich Krieger Anne LeBaron Steve Lehman Marc Lowenstein Andrew McIntosh Michael Pisaro David Rosenboom Wolfgang von Schweinitz Karen Tanaka Robert Wannamaker

JAZZ

VOICEARTS

David Roitstein Joey DeLeon Ryan Dragon John Fumo Vinny Golia Alphonso Johnson Larry Koonse Steve Lehman Bennie Maupin Paul Novros Darek Oles Marvin Smitty Smith

Paul Berkolds Jacqueline Bobak Carmina Escobar Milena Gilgic Jessika Kenney Micaela Tobin

INSTRUMENTAL ARTS

Andrew Grueschow

Brass

Indonesian Music and Dance

Edward Carroll Matthew Barbier Allen Fogle Luke Storm Doug Tornquist

Conducting Nicholas Deyoe

Guitar Woody Alpanalp Thomas Leeb Miroslav Tadic

Harp Alison Bjorkedal

Percussion Tim Feeney Amy Knoles

Piano/Keyboard Vicki Ray Tisha Mabee-Goldstein Ming Tsu

Strings Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick Oscar Hidalgo Andrew McIntosh

Winds Julie Feves Phil O’Connor Rachel Rudich Allan Vogel

WORLD MUSIC PERFORMANCE African Music and Dance

Djoko Walujo Nanik Wenten I Nyoman Wenten

North Indian Music Swapan Chaudhuri Randy Gloss Aashish Khan

World Percussion Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri Randy Gloss Andrew Grueschow Houman Pourmehdi

MUSICAL ARTS/ EXPERIMENTAL POP Eyvind Kang Meltem Ege Emily Evans Marc Lowenstein Additional faculty drawn from all areas.

CORE CURRICULUM AND OTHER AREAS Robert Wannamaker Alex Buck Bob Clendenen Samuel Crawford Jonathan Dettling Meltem Ege Randy Gloss Andrew Grueschow Amy Knoles Marc Lowenstein Alkis Nicolaides Kathy Pisaro Sarah Belle Reid Ben Richter David Rosenboom Emi Tamura Samuel Wells

MUSIC TECHNOLOGY: INTERACTION, INTELLIGENCE, AND DESIGN (MTIID) Ajay Kapur John Baffa Charlie Burgin Emily Evans Madeline Falcone Jessie Garrison Trey Gilmore Jordan Hochenbaum Marijke Jorritsma Mike Leisz Christine Meinders Dexter Shepherd John Tejada

BACK COVER: BFA harpist Leila Jay performing with her anti-folk collective Love Underwater during the annual Musical Arts/Experimental Pop Soundstream event at the Troubadour in West Hollywood.

For CalArts consumer information, including our Non-Discrimination Policy, visit calarts.edu/consumer-information.