Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

NewMusicBox talks to three composition competition judges about the inner workings of the awards process.

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NewMusicBox Staff

In your opinion, what is the ultimate value of the award process?Informant A: The value of the award process is first the honor and prestige. And often it’s monetary, so it’s very helpful in that capacity.Informant B: The obvious is to increase recognition of artistic achievement by singling out works that seem to be or are interesting, provocative, moving, amusing, whatever. It’s also, of course, to encourage people to continue doing what they’re doing and to give them a little spending money, which is not a bad thing.Informant C: Hopefully it brings attention to people whose music wouldn’t reach audiences without people saying, at least for a little while, “This person won an award, maybe there’s a reason for it that’s worth celebrating.” I don’t think there are a lot of ways to get ahead in this business and anything that even temporarily provides some kind of sanctification for what people do that gets the attention of presenters and performers has a value. And there’s often cash. A lot of people who win these awards are graduate students and unlike graduate students in computer science, they have no lucrative summer weekend employment—they’re just writing pieces. In some basic ways, these awards give people the money they need to sit around and write some more pieces and the value of affirming, in the judges’ view, a good piece or a good composer, means a lot to that composer himself or herself. There is a level of insecurity in what we do which is pretty high and it’s nice to be confident about what one does. When someone on the outside says this is good, that helps you in a fundamental way at times.

Are there any other styles/approaches that are under-represented or
not represented at all in the applicant pool?
Informant A: I don’t think there’s enough attention given or competitions that would invite those particular applications that involve a more creative approach to representing music, and by that I mean alternative ways of notation. Improvisation, because that’s such a difficult thing to describe, you have to have a product to represent it—there has to be a recording. People who are involved in improvisational music can have a sense from the page of what it’s going to be like, but more often than not with improvisation, it’s the performer’s participation and interpretation that makes it what it’s going to be. If it’s supposed to be about composition then it should be about composition. If it’s about performance, then call it a performance award! In certain panels, it’s more about the performance than the composition. And there’s nothing more annoying than that.

Informant B: Yes, probably there are. But, as I said before, it’s a self-selecting pool. It’s really up to those people. I feel that the sort of Bang on a Can school, that particular school of harder-edged writing wasn’t particularly well represented in some of the orchestral things that I’ve looked at but maybe those people don’t write much orchestral music, I don’t know. The sort of music that springs from the post-Cage tradition is also not particularly well represented.

Informant C: I think there’s a definite lack of a particular kind of collaboration: music and dance collaborations. Those collaborations often seem hastily thrown together, the product of not enough composers and choreographers knowing each other’s work. Beyond that, it’s very difficult to say what seems under-represented as things are more removed from what years ago was thought of as traditional concert music are the subject of applications you kind of evaluate it as they come; it’s difficult for me to say otherwise.

Are there any other aesthetic criteria that you use to determine whether something is a winner?Informant A: It all goes into what makes good art. It could be creativity, spontaneity, excellent structure, anything involved with the elements of music—or not—any combination of those things. I’m not trying to be vague. I really don’t think it can be answered. There’ve been many situations where people haven’t received grants or awards because people on the panel did not like them [personally] or because the applicant was on another panel that did not give the panelist an award. It does happen and more frequently than people want to say.

Informant B: What I’m looking for in a work is risk taking, and that can be in any direction. It can describe any kind of compositional technical aspect. I certainly have felt that pieces I have been in a position to pick have been of that technical level whether I like the music or not.

Informant C: I go out of my way to try to evaluate and support music that in my view is at the edges of the genre: music that is not notated but is inherently concert music. I am interested in being inclusive, because not just on panels but in the field, music on the edges gets dismissed in certain circles. At times I feel I lack the resources to evaluate the music, a problem which in more recent panels seems to have been addressed by getting an even wider diversity of panelists.

Generally, what do you think the most important element to a proposal or application is?Informant A: This is so individually based, but generally everything should be legible and clear and really reflect what you do as an artist. That’s as common as I can be without being specific to any competition.

Informant B: If a score is in bad shape, or if it’s been printed out in a poor way, it can affect your judgment. But a lot of us, the older ones who remember hand copying, sometimes we enjoy seeing a hand copied score for a change because it does reveal personality and because we know that a lot of the computer-generated notation programs, especially Sibelius and Finale, cover up a multitude of sins by filling in gaps in a composer’s knowledge about how a score is supposed to be presented. So if you’re looking at an orchestral score with incredibly tiny staves with a separate line for every string instrument but then the bar lines don’t go through every system, you know you’re dealing with somebody who really doesn’t have a clue. Even so, Beethoven’s manuscripts didn’t look particularly impressive either. So I do feel, and this is my personal feeling, you have to try to get past those issues because you might be dealing with someone who didn’t have the chance or who doesn’t have the eye or the capacity to do that sort of thing. I know that some people have groused at competitions like BMI that neatness counts. In my experience, that wasn’t really the case.

Informant C: One question that comes up frequently is: How will a grant for this piece or this residency help you? I think that thoughtful responses to this can be extremely helpful because the applications are read—it’s not just the samples. This is important for established composers too, for whom particular commissions or residencies can be helpful, who don’t have a particular type of work in their catalog are who are looking to do something in that vein. Shirking that question is a mistake and responding generically is a mistake. Thinking about why what you’re applying
for is unique for your development is really important.

How long do you typically spend on each proposal?Informant A: That’s also very specific to each competition. Each one of them, generally speaking, has an amount of time that’s supposed to be given to each application. Within their process it’s established, whether it’s one or two or three rounds or more, or whether you’re given materials ahead of time or you have to go somewhere specific to spend that time. Anywhere between five and ten minutes. With scores, I read every page of every manuscript. I probably spend more time than most. Some don’t think they need to review them ahead of time even when they’re told to.

There are situations where materials are played; they’re played for just a certain amount of time so you don’t have the opportunity to hear the whole piece. I would particularly like to see that abolished. I know it would take forever to go through all the applications in certain cases, but I would rather have the opportunity to listen to an entire piece of music.

Informant B: It depends on the nature of the award and the number of submissions. Certainly, on the Pulitzer panel, you have to give every piece a fair share no matter what, and that can be anything from a huge opera to a patriotic song by a postal worker which we got one year. You give everything a try and then you have to narrow it down. If it was a piece that seemed compelling enough and had a shot, how can you judge it if you don’t take in its totality? When I was judging 150 scores that were sent to my house in boxes, I tried to go through each score twice. I’d pick up every score a second time. Then the ones that seemed the most intriguing, and there’d be quite a number, I would actually sit and play.

Informant C: Only once have I gotten listening examples in advance of a panel meeting. I usually spend about five to ten minutes on an application if I’ve received materials before hand. When I come in, I find that the panel knows pretty well most of the applications. Sometimes panelists are assigned to present specific applications to the other people who nevertheless have also looked at the materials. I think the amount of listening time has boiled down to five minutes max per application, sometimes a lot less.

Have you ever been deeply upset with the final decisions?Informant A: Never. That’s because I’m a fighter.

Informant B: No, I’ve been puzzled, but I’m not the only arbiter of taste on the planet. Sometimes there are competitions that have a pre-screening like BMI. I’ve never been involved in that but rumor has it that the pre-screening in competitions of that sort is really the most critical juncture because that’s where stylistic bias can pop up and then it restricts what the finalist judges get to see. You do sometimes wonder when you get an emphasis in one stylistic direction, what’s going on. Another competition that I was involved in, there was an outside panel who made recommendations but there was a central person who made the final pick, and the final pick seemed to be skewed more toward the taste of that overarching judge than to my taste and the taste of one of my colleagues on that panel and we talked about it. “Do you remember that piece? Did you like that piece? Whatever happened to that piece that was like such-and-such?”

Informant C: I never thought a travesty won. There were things I would have preferred at times to have gotten a green light that didn’t in favor of other things, but I don’t think I’m embarrassed by anything that won.

How difficult has it been for you to come to a consensus of opinion with the other people on the panels?Informant A: It can be very difficult. I’ve worked with some great groups, great panelists. Most often I’ve been pleased.

Informant B: It hasn’t been difficult, in my limited experience. I’ve been fortunate in that it’s always a collegial atmosphere and we’ve had serious, frank discussions about the pieces and we’ve shifted around and reached a consensus that was satisfactory to everybody.

Informant C: It’s been remarkably easy. There are things that you know you disagree with, but you know the fault lines and they’ve been easy to work out. There are times at which I’m willing to recognize that my opinion is a matter of taste. And there have been panels where I felt my view was in the minority, but never where my opinions were ignored.

Have you ever felt pressured to bend your opinion by a fellow panelist?Informant A: No.

Informant B: No.

Informant C: No.

Has there ever been any pressure from the grantmaking organization, the sponsoring organization?Informant A: No, not in a certain way about a certain application, but maybe in a certain way by the process and in those cases I’ve worked to change the process.

Informant B: No.

Informant C: No, never.

Have you ever suspected foul play in any of the determinations? Have you ever made a decision in a panel and have seen that decision not be followed through after convening in the final awarding process?Informant A: Never.

Informant B: It’s hard to imagine what the foul play would have been. I once felt that there was a little bit of an intrusion of taste. I felt a score was a little bit soft and there was some gnarly stuff that would have been interesting to consider as well and it seems to have disappeared. But I didn’t see anything, for example, like too many people affiliated with the same school.

Informant C: No, not in any panel I’ve been on. But there are panels—these are commissioning panels and awards panels both—where the people serving on the committees are mostly academics and the award winners are, in an unu
sual number, graduates of the program where the panelists are serving.

Have you personally received awards from panel-judged competitions over the years?Informant A: Yes, I have.

Informant B: Sure.

Informant C: I have.

Did those awards help you overall in your career?Informant A: Yes, without question.

Informant B: There’s no question that it’s been very helpful, and sometimes it’s made the difference between being able to carry on and not. I remember once when I sent in a portfolio for something and I had forgotten all about it. Afterwards I was worried about how I was going to survive during the summer and along came this grant. It wasn’t a huge prize, but it was enough to pay the rent for a few months. I think it’s one of the things that brings work to people’s attention but it’s the work that should get the attention not the award. Maybe this sounds a little bit contradictory. The awards are helpful but they’re not the sole means by which works gets out there. I do think there are composers who try too hard in that particular direction and rely too much on it. I’ve been very selective about what I’ve applied for.

Informant C: Some awards in the last two years have provided more financial support than I have gotten from commissions because the money I get from commissions is still so low that it’s hard to make a living on it. And I think because some of them have come in a row, a lot of people are suddenly wondering what my music is like when they wouldn’t even have known my name a couple of years ago.

Do you feel that the process is fair?Informant A: There needs to be a lot of work done on process no matter what the competition is. The fairest competitions I’ve worked with are the ones that are anonymous, to be honest with you. Also when it comes to listening to performances, there are people who have the opportunity to have or to pay for professional performances and have the finest recording available of their work. It comes off better regardless of its artistic quality and makes it very uneven no matter how you cut it. I would prefer for it to be anonymous and to have the opportunity to listen, but I can’t have the opportunity to listen without putting that financial burden on who’s applying.

Informant B: If it isn’t, I can’t think of another one.

Informant C: Given available resources and the alternatives, yes I do.

If you could change the process in anyway, what would you change?Informant A: It should only be about the art that’s presented in front of you. That should be made clear to every single panelist. This person might have an unbelievable reputation but that doesn’t mean that the piece that’s in front of you is deserving of an award; it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t deserve an award. The guidelines should be submitted and that’s what the panelists should be dealing with.

Informant B: The geographical issue… Trying to break the stranglehold of the Boston-New York axis and get a little bit more [panelist] participation from the rest of the country. You know, there are cheap airfares. And, like I said, I do wonder sometimes about the preliminary screening, but it’s probably not a bad thing.

Informant C: In an ideal world, we’d have more time to look at these things. More time would be helpful. It would also be helpful if there were some kind of preliminary round. Applications that were poorly made or disqualified themselves and could be redone are not always caught in advance of the panel meeting. But, at some point, panelists have to get back to their lives.