4. I have also graduated with a degree in music. Have you ever ran by any
“naysayers” who questioned your choice to go into the music field as a career?
No. I really haven’t.
5. We understand you took up clarinet in school. Did you study any other
instruments at that time?
In undergrad school, I majored in music education, so I took the required
piano, violin, percussion, trombone, trumpet, and voice lessons, but, no, I’ve
never seriously studied anything but clarinet.
6. What advice would you give, as a teacher and a composer, to students
who are training in music performance and theory looking to make a fulltime career of it?
Get a music education degree. Even if you’re really, really, really good, the
odds are you’ll make a living doing something other than composing or performing.
7. Where are some of the places (geographically) that you and Hardwick
Chamber Ensemble have performed?
We’ve played in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Princeton, and a few
other places around the country, but, for the most part, we play on college
campuses and in churches here in Virginia and North Carolina.
8. What have you learned from teaching music to others that you may not
have learned from just performing?
Uh, hmmm. Good question... I don’t recall actually learning anything specific about music from my students - although it’s been a long time since I’ve
taught. However, deciding exactly what to teach did force me to reflect
seriously on what concepts are most important to emphasize.
9. From a professional perspective, what are your thoughts on mainstream
popular music, in terms of it’s style, content, and the direction that it’s going? (Cont’d)
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