Andrew Rodriguez visits friends and family often in Nebraska but this visit to the Cornhusker State is for a “fantastic opportunity.”
Rodriguez is in Lincoln for the Chamber Music Institute, a weeklong camp for college students, recent college students and international students with lessons in performance, composition and entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music.
“I heard about CMI from my previous composition instructor,” Rodriguez said. “He always kept us up-to-date on upcoming opportunities for young composers, and CMI just happened to be one that he was aware of. I visit Nebraska often for friends and family, and the program seemed like a fantastic opportunity to work intensely with dedicated musicians from all over the world. The focus on entrepreneurship is also a major bonus to the CMI program. It is difficult to make a career out of being a musician, and any bit of guidance is so extremely valuable to a young person who just feels lost in their choice of career path.”
In May of last year, Rodriguez graduated with a Bachelors of Music in Music Theory & Composition from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, TX. He will be starting his Master's degree in composition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this fall.
“I've had a career in music since I was a teenager,” Rodriguez said. “I started playing guitar in high school, and shortly after, I was in a hardcore/punk band signed to a record label and touring the country. Since high school, I've never considered any other career other than music, the difficulty was just figuring out how to make this dream a viable reality. Since graduating college, I've gotten smarter about how I approach the long term.”
Rodriguez isn’t in a band anymore, however he will still gig as a guitarist when opportunities arise, and he freelances as a composer as much as he can.
“Another outlet I have is as a music producer,” Rodriguez said. “I hesitate to bring it up much, because most people don't understand what that means, or they think you're some sort of DJ. I've had the opportunity to produce three records so far, and it is a path I am eager to pursue.”
Composition, Rodriguez admitted, will always be his life's focus, but he knows how difficult/impossible it is to make a living solely as a composer.
“I'm ready and willing to make sacrifices and do what it takes to keep composition in the forefront of my life,” he said. “While here at CMI, I'll be working on two other commissions. One is a piece for the flute and percussion duo, A/B Duo, and another is for a friend and collaborator, Jonathan Thompson, for oboe and marimba. Mutual collaboration is such an important part of my process, and I hope that my time here at CMI will open up possibilities for future collaborations with great people.”
As part of CMI, composers are challenged with writing a piece and then having a formed group perform it at the UNL Chamber Music Institute.
“The piece I have written for CMI is a brass quintet entitled, ‘Face to Face’,” Rodriguez said. “I was assigned to write this piece for the Faust Brass Quintet, who just so happens to hail from Texas Tech University, only a few hours away from my home. Given the short amount of time I had to write this piece (one month), I wasn't able to come up with a formal concept as I do for much of my music. Instead, having to create this piece of music so quickly invoked a more reactionary approach to creation.
“The music is a direct reflection of my mental and emotional state at the time of writing this. I was stressed, overwhelmed, confused, lost, and at times just unhappy during the process. I make it sound a lot worse than it actually was, but in retrospect, all of these emotions played a very important role in the outcome of this piece. It has a visceral quality to it. It is very "in-your-face" and brutal at times. The opening section is marked With a subtle tension, and I think that says a lot about the character of the piece as a whole. I actually didn't finish the piece until this past Sunday (June 5), and we had to deliver the music to our ensembles on Monday! That's how difficult it was for me to get this piece out. However, overall, I'm very pleased with the end result, and the Faust Quintet is doing an excellent job of interpreting the score and bringing the music to life.
And so the CMI experience has begun for Rodriguez with master classes, entrepreneurship lectures and activities, free time, lunches and group activities.
“The experience has been extremely enjoyable so far,” Rodriguez said mid-week of CMI and working with the Faust Quintet (Pierce Ellison, trumpet; Clark Preston, trumpet; Cassandra Saucedo, horn; Patrick Perry, trombone and Corey Anderson, tuba). “I've only known these people for a short amount of time, but it feels like I have been working with them for years. Everyone is eager to collaborate and very open about their experiences or lack-of. It feels like a very special and safe place to be-- outside of the pressure of the academic world.”
The piece will be premiered during the Composers Concert on Friday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the Westbrook Recital Hall on the UNL campus. It’s open to the public. The concert will also be live streamed: http://netnebraska.org/interactive-multimedia/television/glenn-korff-school-music-cmi-composers-concert-westbrook-music