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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10/11/2008
The word
This week I was at Southeastern Louisiana University doin' the Guest Composer thing. It was fun. I stayed with my friend Jeremy Sagala, a composer whose life seems to be on a parallel track to my own. We have experienced a lot of similar things in similar ways even though our music bears almost no relationship to each other. It is interesting how much sameness there is even when the music is totally different.
Anyhow, Jeremy said The Word to me. No, nothing religious. Nothing like that. This word was basically the single word summary of my musical language: recontextualization. My music runs on changing relationships between various amounts of material. It could be throwing very different things into a piece and showing how they connect or it could be moving quotations through various levels of ambiguity.
I've been saying for a while that the more I compose the less I really understand what I'm doing. Jeremy's observation was incredibly astute. I don't think I would have seen it, even though it has been starting at me for the last decade or so.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
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