Meet the Composer
Over the next week or two you’ll be meeting our new team members, today I’d like to introduce a new voice covering music in Cincinnati. Jenn will be looking at aspects of the Cincy audioscape that I feel escape notice far too often. So, without further ado, meet the composer! -Loki
You’re probably wondering what I do. I could tell you that I’m grad student at CCM and I teach music theory and orchestration on the side, but those are my day jobs. Ultimately, I’m a composer.
What I do is simple enough—I write music. Of course, the next thing you will probably ask me is what type of music I write, and this is where I start stammering.
I have a hard time describing my musical style because I don’t want you to think that I write stodgy old-fashioned music performed in concert halls. I do write music that can be performed in concert halls, but my music isn’t two hundred years old, and thankfully I’m not dead yet.
Instead of initially sharing what type of music I write, I should probably tell you how I stumbled upon writing music.
I began my piano studies when I was six due to my fascination with the instrument, and when I was in high school I took my piano studies seriously. At the time I learned and memorized standard piano repertoire, which included classics like Beethoven sonatas and Chopin études. Unfortunately I did not have the discipline to become a concert pianist; instead of practicing what I was supposed to, I changed what Beethoven and friends wrote on the page. In other words, I improvised ditties based on music I should have been practicing.
At the time I didn’t know that improvisation is a form of composing: I believed all musical compositions were completely original and didn’t stem from doodling on the piano. But after I realized that composing was the creative outlet I was looking for, I thought it would be the coolest thing to write music for films. I thought, “I can write music like that!” and decided that my music would be best heard on Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound.
And now, over ten years later, I still write music. I don’t write music for films (although I’m still open to the idea), but I’ve been mainly writing music for the concert hall, art gallery, or whomever wants to play and listen to my music.
Here’s a sample of what I’ve been writing lately.
concert:nova asked me to write a response to a movement from Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals; I wrote a response to “The Aquarium.” (With Annunziata Tomoro conducting.)
The Silent World (2010) by jenniferjolley
A couple years ago I wrote a piece for nine violas. Nine! As one of my professors mentioned, the next time nine of his viola friends get together, they have something to play besides baseball. (With Vince Lee conducting.)
And here’s a piece I wrote for a solo percussionist and narration. I used text from the poem “How to be a Deep Thinker in Los Angeles” written by my librettist Kendall A. (Tyler Niemeyer, percussionist)
JennJolley, a composer from Los Angeles, moved out to Cincinnati in 2007 to attend the College-Conservatory of Music. When not composing music like she should be doing, she’s probably at the CSO, the Cincinnati Ballet, the CAC, or a Reds game. She blogs at Why Compose When You Can Blog? to further her procrastination.
Image by WilliSlim on Flickr, Creative Commons License v. 2.0
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