Upcoming Performances | Student Blog

“The best thing you can do is get regularly performed by your classmates.”

We recently had a [Alumni and Evening Division-sponsored] lunch with film composer Michael Giacchino (Coco, The Incredibles, Up) and director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, The Iron Giant), and one of my favorite pieces of advice that they gave us was that one of the best things we can do with our time here is to make professional friendships with our contemporaries at the school. They told us that most of the people that they continue to work with today they met during their college years so we should really focus our effort on trying to all grow together as artists instead of trying to skip that step and go straight to the big names which they consider to be a waste of time. This was extremely exciting to me because it made me realize how much potential there is in every single friendship I make at school which has made me more willing to talk to more people and getting them invested in collaborating as well. However, it is not without its challenges.

Talking about musician stereotypes is very entertaining and there are big laughs to be had when we realize how truthful they can be. Composers, on one hand, tend to be placed among the quieter and most “different” of musicians. We are the only ones who don’t really have to be performers and some have a hard time being the center of attention. Also, since many of us won’t play in orchestras or ensembles we are not used to communicating that much about music through words because most of our work is almost exclusively personal and solitary. I have even heard some colleagues of mine say that they chose to be composers partly because they wanted to work alone and not be performers. This kind of attitude has led many of us to a very particular dilemma; we can have a hard time getting people to perform our music, which is a huge part of the life of a developing composer. I am very fortunate to enjoy this process a lot and it is one of the main reasons for which I decided to come to Juilliard: many of my classmates will go on to have wonderful careers as performers and my time as a student is perfect to develop this important skill. As of today, I already have five premieres scheduled before the winter break because I've made really good friends and was quick to suggest working together.

My first premiere at Juilliard has a very funny story and serves as a perfect example of a collaboration that would only be possible in an environment like that of Juilliard. Right after my acceptance into the school, I was invited by Marco Ramos to participate in a concert of Mexican music as a way to celebrate the Day of the Dead, a Mexican tradition. I chose to have my guitar trio played so I sent the parts and the full score. I was very surprised to find out that there were literally not enough classical guitar majors in the school to perform it; there are only two. Stubborn as I am, I decided to simply make a guitar duo arrangement of my piece so that I could have it performed for the concert. Unfortunately, one of the guitarist had to back out from the project, which left me with Michael, my only available guitarist. By this time, I was already at Juilliard and one day I spotted a guy walking around with a guitar case and, not even thinking about it, I decided to invite him to participate. He turned out to be a jazz guitarist named Juan, which was both scary and exciting because jazzers work very differently from classical guitarists. I had to rearrange my piece to incorporate the improvisatory talents of Juan while keeping the virtuoso classical guitar part almost intact. All of this was ideal for this particular piece because it incorporated elements of jazz anyway and the second movement is actually a straight up Bossa Nova. I will admit that it was very difficult at first but the result was fabulous since Juan and Michael are both fantastic musicians, and especially real artists that are more than willing to experiment and do new things. For anyone interested, the piece is entitled Prelude & Bossa #1 “Apaixonado” and it will be available really soon on all of my social media.

This is just a small example of the wonderful things that are possible at Juilliard for those of you who search for opportunities and are not afraid to do unusual things and I am sure that this is just the first of many great experiences that I will have in the following four years.