Composition
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Larry Bell, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"One of my teachers told me that you can always get more money, but you cannot always get more time, an idea that emphasizes the importance of time management, particularly for musicians. If 80 percent of life is showing up, the other 20 percent is being on time. It is no longer true that an artist is given much latitude because of his or her talent. The aspiring composer's capacity to deliver on deadline is part and parcel of that person's ambition to succeed."
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Marti Epstein, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"To graduate, students have to have a portfolio of pieces and-very important-they have to have a certain number of these pieces performed. Because one of the aspects of a composer's training is, how do you get people to play your music? So we try to get them to start doing that right away."
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Armand Qualliotine, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"Berklee is a really practical college. Most of the students come in and they know what they want, and so they're motivated to go after that particular field. It's a mission of the college to provide not just an abstract learning experience, but a practical learning experience as well. There is a success rate here. I've had students go to Tufts and Yale and all kinds of really high-end schools for graduate school. Or they graduate and they get a job in whatever field it is they're interested in."
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Tibor Pusztai, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition DepartmentWhen one teaches, one is not teaching subjects, but people. The things that I teach—primarily conducting and composition—are pretty esoteric and have to do very much with the development of self-confidence in the student. I bring the kids out of themselves, so that they can explore their own inner poetry. My task is to make my students understand that conducting, for instance, is the synthesis of all the various things that we study, such as history and harmony, and that the conductor is the galvanizer of all of this information when interpreting a score and seeing what the vision of a composer is. It's essential to teach this even if the student never conducts at all. For a business major, for instance, or a drummer, it might not be of great utility from a technical perspective, but from a conceptual perspective, certainly, it's very important."
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"When I teach, I connect concepts to real, live musical moments. I draw listening examples from a range of styles and encourage students to find their own examples and bring them into class. I incorporate my professional experience into the class through my own composition and performance on the violin and piano. By discovering your personal connection to a concept, you turn theory into practice—you make an abstraction come alive through your own musical experience."
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Julius Williams, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"Here at Berklee, we have one of the strongest Composition departments in the country. We've got over 37 composers on the faculty, and really 118 composers in the whole Writing Division. No other place has this many people who write music in one area. The attitude around here is laid back, but serious at the same time, because most of the composers are very active, writing everything from performance works to film scores. And that's what makes Berklee different. It's a very exciting, creative atmosphere."
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Carmen Moral, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"A good conductor must be able to transmit with body language. In order to transmit, you need technique. You have to convey your intentions not with long speeches, but mainly with your gestures. I conducted an orchestra in China, and I do not speak Chinese. But I can communicate what I want, musically."
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"Nobody would have written so much music if they had waited for divine inspiration. It is technique. It is logic. Making music is the same as making spacecraft or a pair of shoes or a washing machine. The same human brain that creates music and art also makes all these diverse things. So in music it's not just about having an inspiration; it's coherence in how to put things together."
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James Smith, Assistant Chair
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"The courses in our department give students the nuts and bolts that will give them a real leg up. When they walk out of Berklee, they can also do arranging, orchestration, transcription—a world of things to keep them in the business while they're still waiting for that one song that becomes the big one. The more tools they've got, the more ways they have of staying in the profession."
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Louis Stewart, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"The technique Attilio Poto taught me is what I teach my students. It is essentially Italian opera conducting, and it is not hard; a person with some musical background can learn enough in six weeks to conduct an ensemble. It's just a matter of learning to use gravity so that the beat is predictable and doesn't look choppy. I tell my students, 'If you come to class, retain what I teach you, and practice 10 to 15 minutes a day, seven days a week, you will learn the technique.'"
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