Key Tenets about the Composition Process
Key in the online discussion process of the Vermont MIDI Project are the professional composers who are hired to review student work online in a password protected website. These mentors are paid a small stipend to comment on student work and offer suggestions. Most spend two and a half hours weekly, although at times, particularly when students are working on compositions for the Opus events, some double their time online. Some of the artists are available as artists-in-residence. They also present workshops, and prepare resource materials for teachers and students. Other composer mentors combine full or part time jobs teaching in the schools and mentoring on the site. |
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Erik Nielsen has been composing for 30 years and his catalog includes works for chorus, orchestra, solo instruments, chamber music of many configurations and electronic music. His works have been performed in Canada, Europe and Australia as well as many locations in the United States. Visit Erik Nielsen's website to learn more. |
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Michael Close is the music teacher at Moretown Elementary School in Vermont. He also teaches cello at the Monteverdi Monteverdi Music School and the Vermont Strings School. He Graduated from Bennington College in 2003 with a Bachelor's degree in music composition and a Master of Arts in Teaching. He has been a mentor with the Vermont MIDI Project since 2004. |
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Matt Podd Matt Podd is a composer and pianist currently pursuing a Master's degree in Jazz Composition at the Eastman School of Music. He has had original compositions performed around the world by both professional and amateur musicians. As a keyboard player, Matt performs regularly as a jazz pianist, vocal accompanist, and church organist. Matt composes and plays various types of music, including jazz, classical, contemporary, theatre, and popular. Matt is a dedicated music educator through his work mentoring young composers with the Vermont MIDI Project, teaching at music camps and children’s theater groups as well as teaching privately. His website link is www.podability.com/matt |
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Composer, oboist and professor Patricia Morehead holds a B. M in oboe from the New England Conservatory of Music and a PhD in composition from the University of Chicago, the city which she also calls home. She is leader of the Composers Forum at the Merit School of Music, where she teaches composition and theory. She has served as Artistic Director of CUBE Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Chicago for 20 seasons and continues as founder and an ensemble member. Her many compositions, commissions and grants have led to an extensive roster of international world premieres and audio recordings. Dr. Morehead has performed extensively in Brazil, Canada, China, Europe and the United States. She has also served in senior board positions with New Music Chicago, New European Music Overseas, American Women Composers, Midwest and the International Alliance of Women in Music. |
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The music of Alexandra Fol has been performed by ensembles such as the Montréal Symphony Orchestra the Sofia Symphony Orchestra, the orkest de ereprijs, the McGill symphony, and the New York Miniaturist Ensemble among others. She is finalist for the 2006 Gaudeamus Prize, winner of the 2007 Leonard Bernstein Tanglewood fellowship, and recipient of two grants by the Canada Council for the Arts. As organist and conductor she has commissioned and performed more than twenty works for organ from composers from Europe and the Americas. Fol works as organist in Sainte-Angèle Catholic Church and is completing her dissertation in composition at McGill University in Montréal. |
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Dominique Gagne is a freelance composer, jazz flutist and pianist. She has a Bachelors Degree in Music Education from Oberlin Conservatory and a Masters in Jazz Composition and Arranging from UMass Amherst. Having recently relocated to Brooklyn, NY, she is teaching early childhood music and also playing and composing for the newly-formed Brazilian/Roots ensemble called the Brooklyn Fife Revival. She is currently working on an original piece for the National Flute Association’s Jazz Flute Big Band, to be premiered this summer at their conference in NYC. |
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Carolyn Keck was a music composition major at Bennington College. She also studied composition in London with Thea Musgrave and did graduate work in composition at Claremont Graduate School, studying with Karl Kohn at Pomona. Carolyn recently began teaching at Marion Cross School in Norwich, Vermont.
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| Jeff Perrin has been teaching and performing professionally since 1986. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Music from Berklee College of Music, and has authored several nationally published guitar instructional books. His song transcriptions and instructional columns can be found regularly in Guitar World and Maximum Guitar magazines
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