Autobiographical Notes

Various people have asked me how someone who grew up on a farm in rural Oklahoma could end up composing operas. Basically, I had musical parents, strong creative urges, and one thing led to another.

My first conscious memory is sitting on the floor listening to my father sing musical theater songs while my mother accompanied him on the piano. My parents were both musical. My mother had majored in voice and piano. My father’s degree was in geology, but he had played violin and trumpet, and he had a fine voice. My mother gave me early piano lessons, but I preferred practicing the trumpet, and then the French horn.

My parents’ had a collection of jazz and classical music recordings, and I developed an early interest in both. As a young instrumentalist and choral singer I performed in a variety of venues—from bars to churches, from private homes to outdoor stages, and from concert halls to theaters. In the process I was exposed to many musical styles—from jazz to madrigals, from chamber music to Sousa marches, and from avant-garde concert music to musicals and operas.

I also inherited my parents love of dance. My parents and my father’s parents loved going dancing, and I grew up dancing to fox trots, swing, and rock and roll. I studied ballroom and folk dancing in college, and later my wife and I studied ballroom dances for a decade for pleasure.

A third thing I inherited from my parents was a love of reading. They had taught me to read before I started school, and I remain a fast and voracious reader. I also learned to read music at an early age. The ability to read and a love of learning allowed me to be self taught as a composer until I started a doctorate in composition at the University of Illinois.

My first musical ambitions involved being a performer. I grew up in southwestern Oklahoma, and I studied French horn at Southwestern Oklahoma State University with Ian Cruickshank, a student of Fred Fox, and then with Fred Fox at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. In 1972 I completed a master’s degree in performance at the University of Colorado with hornist and musicologist William Kearns.

Composing

The first music I remember composing was written for the high school dance band in which I played trumpet. After that I continued to occasionally compose or arrange music for various ensembles I performed in, and to sometimes write music for friends to perform. I kept this up sporadically all the way through my master’s degree.

I finished my master’s degree during the Vietnam War. I considered starting a Ph.D. in musicology, but my draft board told me they would draft me if I started a doctorate. So I auditioned on the horn for the Air Force, and spent four years in the service performing in military bands, first at Langley Air Force base, and then at the Air Force Academy.

Composing More Seriously

While in the service I began composing steadily and more seriously. I composed chamber music for colleagues, who performed them enthusiastically and encouraged me to write more. If the military band was not rehearsing, I could stay home and arrange or compose for them rather than report in. While stationed at the Air Force Academy I also played in the Colorado Springs Symphony, and this gave me more colleagues to compose for, including string players.

By the time I left the service I had composed quite a lot of music, but I didn’t think of myself as a composer. I was accepted into the Ph.D in musicology program at the University of Illinois and moved to Urbana. During my first semester there I missed time spent composing, so I showed some of my music to the composition faculty to see if I could study composition as an elective. Having never studied composition, I was surprised when they offered to let me switch to a D.M.A in composition.

In a hallway a short time later I passed Ben Johnston, whom I had never met, and he said, “I like your music.” Since I greatly admired Johnston’s music, his casual comment made a big impression one me.

Choosing

The musicology faculty were opposed to me dividing my time between their program and studying composition, so I was forced to choose. I couldn't imagine not composing, so I switched to studying composition.

While working on my composition degree, one semester I took the place of the horn teacher while he was on sabbatical. I taught the undergraduate students and played in the faculty woodwind quintet. Subsequently, three universities contacted me asking me to interview for horn or horn/composition positions before I finished my degree, but in each case I declined, wanting to finish the composition doctorate completely in three years.

A Sage Prediction from Ben Johnston

I was fortunate to spend two years studying with Ben Johnston. He had experimented with diverse stylistic materials, and he encouraged me to take a fearless approach to stylistic exploration.

Near the end of my studies, Johnston pointed out that while working on my doctorate I seemed to have moved away from incorporating jazz, popular, or folk music influences, something he had liked about my early works. He suggested I use some jazz influences in the final movement of the work I was composing. I responded to that suggestion with considerable irritation.

Johnston noted the heat of my response. He suggested I still felt strong emotional connections to some of the vernacular materials I had worked with in the past. He felt some of the idiosyncratic interest of my earlier works resulted from using stylistic mixtures related to my diverse experiences as a performer and listener.

He felt someday I might want to reconcile my earlier interests in vernacular styles with my interest in composing art music. He felt my diverse early experiences and interests might prove far more interesting and rewarding to play with than to suppress.

His Prediction Proves Right

At the time, I ignored his advice. But over the following few years his suggestion proved prophetic. Some of my suppressed interests began to reemerge intuitively, and, as they did, I allowed my approach to composition to become more playful. I began mixing stylistic influences as discussed in Headstrong Muses.

As I returned to approaching the composition process more intuitively and spontaneously, I felt the same joyful sense of play and exploration I had felt as a teenager. Thankfully, I still feel that same shaping joy, even while working on passages that are fiery and dark. This feeling keeps me composing.