Writing
Articles
“Reflections on Teaching Composition for Confidence, Equity, and Community.” TEMPO. Vol. 76, No. 302, October 2022. <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/tempo/article/reflections-on-teaching-composition-for-confidence-equity-and-community/4DA2BD17734A880AB946DE4C991E9708>
It is here where the mechanism of the post-modernization of new music meets that of its decolonization. If the dissolution of the avant-garde pushed composers into individualized factions, the decolonization of the avant-garde necessitates recognizing academic new music as a discrete genre rather than an open area of experimentation, and thus the admittance of marginalized genres into the academic music realm alongside it. As I plan curricula for general music courses, for specialized seminars, and for composition training itself, this is the challenge set before me: How can we be teachers who cultivate specialization and expertise, while teaching musicians in varying genres–even genres in which have little expertise–in order to maintain an inclusive practice in our departments, whatever form they may take, within or beyond our control?
“The New Musical Imaginary: Description as Distraction in Contemporary Classical Music." TEMPO. Vol. 73, No. 289, July, 2019.
<https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298219000068>
Programme notes establish the authority of the composer, while placing what is at stake in the work at some remove from the composer's musical actions, thus stymying any judgment of the work's success on formal terms. These notes, however, also appear in social spheres such as competitions and grant applications in which pieces can indeed succeed or fail, with consequences both cultural and monetary. They indicate to insiders (whose judgment has institutional consequences) that they are superfluous to critque but to outsiders that they are complementary to and legitimizing of the work.
More writing on masochism, syncopation, politics, and local music scenes at https://medium.com/@ianpowerOMG.