ITEA Journal Volume 49 Number 1 (Fall 2021)
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ITEA CHAPTERS GRANT
by Zach Bixler
Texas Tech Student Chapter Report
Throughout the spring semester of 2021, we were privileged to receive the support of ITEA, the Texas Tech University School of Music, and our local ITEA chapter, Tech Tuba Euphonium Association, in order to fund a series of masterclasses. Throughout this series, we met with Hiram Diaz, Derek Fenstermacher, Carol Jantsch, and Demondrae Thurman.
We began our master class series with an engaging and energetic session with Hiram Diaz. With Hiram, we had opportunities for excellent musical feedback as well as plenty of time for questions. One question that was asked was "How has your job changed during the pandemic?" Hiram shared with us that The President's Own had not met as a full ensemble since March, but that they were doing plenty of chamber music, recording projects, and outreach at local schools. He also told us about his journey with performance anxiety, highlighting that the most important part is feeling supremely confident when it comes time to play.
Next in the series we had the opportunity to hear from Derek Fenstermacher who discussed his audition process, talking about controlling the "peak" in your preparation to time it with the audition. Another key point he mentioned was playing to the room you want to perform in, not the room you are in. He called auditioning a lifestyle, sharing some tips he has for staying in that mindset. Throughout the masterclass, Derek focused on getting in touch with the emotional side of the music we played for him. Derek inspired us to practice in ways we had not thought about before, and he gave excellent tips to those of us preparing auditions, pushing us forward in the semester.
Following our time with Derek, we had the opportunity to meet with Carol Jantsch of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She talked about how to shape phrases to serve the music and increase drama, highlighting the importance of contrast. To go along with that, she talked about the importance of finding your personal style in terms of how you shape the music you play. When asked about transcriptions, Carol said the first step is to pick a piece that's possible to perform for whatever group or instrument the transcription is for. Carol spoke about her experiences in music in general. She mentioned how in the past she had been annoyed that people simply viewed her as a woman in music, rather than someone doing excellent work in music. Over the course of the past year, she realized that becoming an active role model was more important than just being a woman doing excellent things in music. She told us about her podcast called Rising Stars where she interviews minorities in music in order to raise awareness and visibility of underrepresented demographics in music.
For the final masterclass in our series, we had the opportunity to learn from Demondrae Thurman. The Matador Brass tuba euphonium quartet played first and Demondrae talked about checking more soloistic elements of individual playing at the door in an ensemble setting, using vibrato as an example. He additionally talked about preparing for a performance with the amount of detail you would listen for in a performance, planning even the smallest details during practice. He shared his thoughts about grouping fast notes together in order to serve the music, breaking longer runs into manageable chunks in order to leave room for the music to grow while still hearing every note clearly. He then talked about using musical ideas and phrasing in order to accentuate the form of the piece, allowing a listener to be a part of the music. Demondrae talked about how to perform vocal transcriptions, focusing on how singers almost always sing longer note values than we would play. For example, if a staccato is marked, it would be performed as more of a lift or bounce, rather than actually putting space between notes. Our time with Demondrae was a fantastic way to wrap up our masterclass series, and the advice we received and conversations we had with all four amazing musicians we met with will surely shape our futures as tuba and euphonium performers.
Throughout our masterclass series, we were fortunate to share our time with potential incoming freshmen, other members of the broader tuba and euphonium world, and members of other brass studios at Texas Tech University. This unique opportunity would not have been possible without the support of ITEA's Guest Artist Grant, and TTEA would like to extend our gratitude to ITEA for selecting our application to receive the grant.
If you are interested in starting or updating your student chapter of ITEA, please visit this site to get started:
Each year ITEA awards up to two guest artist grants to support fantastic opportunities like this. If you would like to have ITEA help enable great guest artist visits such as this, simply complete the steps to create or update your student chapter and apply for the guest artist grant.
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