What’s The Matter With Being Academic?  Graduation Caps  I’ll
say it: I am an academic composer. And proudly so. And, if you
are a composer, so—probably, speaking statistically—are you. I
went to school for decades (it seemed), earned the usual passel
of degrees, and through this I not only acquired the necessary
skills to execute my job as a composer, but also many important
colleagues, contacts, and friends to help me through the
professional veil of tears that is part and parcel of building a
career. I got much from my teachers—including the brilliant Lee
Hyla, Margaret Meyer, and Arthur Berger—and continue to hear
those voices in my own head when I am working, not because I
seek approbation or because I am an especially acquiescent
person, but because they taught me amazing things. And this
leaves aside the hard-as-hell orchestration class I had with
Jeremy Haladyna or the amazing sonata form classes Joel Feigin
and Malcolm Peyton taught, as well as history classes with
Michael Beckerman and Helen Greenwa