Today, we focused on the nitty-gritty. The basics in terms of law, our rights, and even more, $$$. Well, maybe only $.

Do we need to have a healthy music program in place in order for composers to work with students?

It was a marathon of various happenings that started this morning. After our breakfast meet-and-greet with Aaron and Beth, the Orchestra’s artistic planning associate, we launched (and lurched) right into our first working meetings: sessions with members of the orchestra to discuss our pieces.

Sean Shepherd is one of eight composers who will have a piece read during the 2006 Minnesota Orchestra Reading Sessions and Composer Institute (the American Music Center is a partner in this project). Sean has just landed in the Twin Cities, and he has agreed to give us a play-by-play of what’s happening up north each day over the next week.

The pay, the prospects, the status—you’d have to be crazy to think that composing is a career. And maybe that explains everything.

After so many failed attempts at orchestral hip-hop, is it even worth trying out other hybrids?

After giving the matter some thought, I realized that many of my teachers have been exemplary in some fashion or other, and although I never framed the evaluation of mentors in terms of inspiration, they’ve provided invaluable models for thinking about composition in particular and life in general. Why not call them inspiring, then?

Is it possible to sell out without having to change musical styles?

Perhaps our institutions could offer graduate students an internship that puts them into the public schools as composers-in-residence.

Lessons on the importance of delegation, sobriety, ingenuity, tolerance, activism, and resourcefulness. Plus: a treasure from the filing cabinet.