Jay C. Batzner is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida where he teaches theory, composition, and technology courses as well as coordinates the composition program. He holds degrees in composition and/or theory from the University of Missouri – Kansas City, the University of Louisville, and the University of Kansas.
Jay's music is primarily focused around instrumental chamber works as well as electroacoustic composition. His music has been recorded on the Capstone, Vox Novus, and Beauport Classical labels and is published by Unsafe Bull Music.
Jay is a sci-fi geek, an amateur banjoist, a home brewer, and juggler.
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2/02/2007
Random Rules
I get a kick out of reading the Random Rules portion of the Onion AV Club so I thought I would take unfair advantage of a Friday afternoon lull and post mine. Sadly, my iPod died last February so this is a simple shuffle of tracks on my laptop.
1. Sunny Days and Nights, episode 9.
My good friend David McIntire turned me on to this radio show, a spinoff of The Great Eastern. Imagine a Canadian version of Prairie Home Companion, but really funny. It was taken off the CBC for being "too foreground." Excellent, excellent work.
2. Ancient's Ritual from Rite of Spring.
I have maybe 6 different recordings of this piece on my laptop. This one is the remastered Ozawa with Chicago. My favorite.
3. Well Tuned Piano (excerpt from Sudol's MP3 blog).
Whenever I need an hour of acoustic goodness, this is where I go.
4. Sequenza XII for bassoon.
Holy shit! That's a bassoon? After a few listenings I became fascinated at the spectrum of sound above the notes being played. A masterful work and surreal performance.
5. Zipangu, again from Sudol's blog.
I don't know this piece well, but I'm certainly glad that Jacob introduced me to the music of Claude Vivier.
6. Example 5-5 from Adler's Study of Orchestration.
I taught orchestration last semester. It was easier to have the examples on my laptop than shuffle through the CDs. It was my first dealings with the Adler book, which I like. His recompositions of things are the types of orchestration excerpts we need more of. Ok, that was a bad sentence from a grammatical point of view. Sue me. It is Friday.
7. Piano Piece 33B by Schoenberg.
Can't go wrong here. I find nothing gets students interested in atonal exploration than Schoenberg piano pieces.
8. Revenge of the Repressed, resonance 2 by Paul Dolden.
I like the whirling and dense sounds that this guy makes. And this piece is like heavy metal meets Stockhausen. What could be better?
9. Nugget by Cake.
What can I say? I like Cake. They rock AND they have a trumpet player. That means they rock more than usual.
10. The Cat with Two Heads by the Aquabats.
This is a superhero ska band that my old high school chum recommended to me. You simply MUST get yourself to the iTunes store and buy Fury of the Aquabats. Right. Now.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
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