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HCC's Music Department continues their Guest Artist series this year. Angela Phillips has
more. The series features prominent guest musicians
who perform concerts and also work one-on-one with HCC music students. Dr. Wei-Der Huang
coordinates the series. We started the Guest Artist two years ago.
Actually before that we uh h-have a-a project for the uh uh invite the uh.. Anne Koscielny
to play the 32 piano sonatas here for whole year in c- in a concert and after that we
think that it be great to start a Guest Artist Series.
The opening artist this season, Tom Benjamin, is the first composer invited to take part
in the series. We selected Tom Benjamin uh because in the
past two years we invite the uh.. uh.. mezzo soprano pianist and jazz musicians and this
the first time we think its good to bring a composer to let our students to have the
chance to look at this different field in music.
HCC's music department is dedicated to providing educational opportun ities for students in
and out of the.
I think this give them very good chance to really know the uh very well known performer;
how they present- how they perform on-stage and get the chance to talk to those musicians
after the concert or uh hear them to give the lesson during the uh Master Class and
know thats how they learn the music and put.. kind of make themselves kind of well-rounded
to become a great musician.
Benjamin's own interest in music began at an early age.
Earliest that I could remember is that I discovered an old saxophone in our attic, in our farmer
house in Vermont when I was oh 5 or 6 and brought it downstairs and asked my dad...
what is this. And he said it's the saxophone he played in the 1920's uh saxophone and banjo.
And so I thought it would be fun to play and started playing it then and there.
After a few years of clarinet and saxophone lessons, Benjamin found himself playing in
local dance and jazz bands in his small hometown in Vermont. He soon began arranging pieces
for the bands, which naturally led to composition.
I started doing some writing on my own by the time I was 11 or 12. It just turned out
that in our little Vermont town lived a person who I think is the greatest of all American
composers; Carl Ruggles. ...Uh and so Carl asked me if I would come over and show him
the pieces that I had written and I was very glad to and he was elaborately polite.. I'm
sure he was much more polite then he needed to be about these fledgling efforts. But that
was encouraging and got me going on the composing racket.
Benjamin seamlessly entered the world of music education after grad school, taking a position
at the University of Houston. In 1987, he was recruited by the Peabody Institute. He
recently retired from his long-time position, but remains a teacher for life.
There's something about teaching that's very engaging for me.. I love doing it. Uh I would
miss it if I weren't teaching at all.. I've always arranged to do some teaching. It's..
It keeps the mind alive uh every time I go into a classroom or teach a lesson uh I assume
I'm going to learn something. If I'm not learning something then I'm doing something wrong um
so I make sure that whatever happens.. either I'm learning something about an individual
student or something about music. Benjamin has enjoyed working with HCC students
this season. HCC students uh are on the whole kind of new
to the whole game and they're exploring and seeing what they have in themselves to bring
to the table.. the musical table. Um and I just think they're-they're a lot of fun to
work with.. because they don't have an overlay of sophistication uh they bring uh a certain
directness and excitement uh to the enterprise which I find really engaging and fun; I really
like working with them.
Guest artists this season include cellist Amit Peled, vocal and piano duo Joan Morris
and William Bolcom and returning pianist, Anne Koscielny. For more information on the
Guest Artist series, visit www.howardcc.edu/concerts.