Another Composer Symposium in the Rear-View Mirror

I am just home from another exhausting but terrific week at Pine Lake Music (Atlanta) for the Joseph Martin Composer Symposium. This was my 10th or 11th year to teach at the event, and the improvement in the quality of the registrant’s work over the past decade is quantifiable. When surveyed, we found that some 50% of the registrants had a piece published in the last year! Amazing.

Kudos to all the registrants who bravely presented their work this year. It requires real nerve to get up in front of fifty musicians and show your latest composition.  And congrats to the dozen or so who will see their latest work get into print in the near future. We had some wonderful presentations of choral music, piano arrangements, and songs. I can’t decide if the sweetest moment of the week was hearing Bill Greer’s beautiful ten year-old granddaughter sing his song (via YouTube, no less), or watching Bill get all weepy as we all enjoyed his granddaughter’s performance.

This event has become an annual highlight for me and this year was no exception. My thanks to Joe Martin for including me on the faculty, and to Dawn Young and the staff and owners of Pine Lake Music for being such great hosts. It was a pleasure to work alongside my fellow faculty members this year: Brad Nix (Shawnee Press), Larry Shackley (Lorenz Music), Rick Nichols, and Steven Bock (both of Fred Bock Music). I’m confident the insights they shared will have a lasting, positive effect on the students and their work.

I hope to see you all there again next year!