If you have a passion for music and lyrics, there are certain steps that you need to take to become a composer, orchestrator, or arranger in today's music industry. As an orchestrator, your work is performed by singers, bands, and musical groups for every genre. And if you are successful in your career path, your arrangements may be showcased not only by various artists but also on various platforms—from TV and film to theater and a plethora of stages across the globe.
But becoming a successful jazz writer takes more than passion and skill. The students of the Frost Studio Jazz Writing Program are learning those critical steps daily, from project to project and concert to concert. And at this year's homecoming concert at the University of Miami, the most popular event of the school year, they got a chance to show their writing chops while the audience sang along to everybody's favorite Disney tunes celebrating 100 years of Disney!
In a recent interview with Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies and Director of the Frost Studio Jazz Writing Program, Dr. Steve Guerra, and Casey Dickey, who earned a master's degree in Studio Jazz Writing in 2012 and is now in his third and final year of his DMA in jazz composition, they took us inside the writing studio. They shared with us what it takes to become a jazz writer capable of composing, orchestrating, and arranging.
When was this program started at Frost?
Steve Guerra: The Studio Jazz Writing Program was started by Gary Lindsay 40 years ago. His purpose for the program remains: to prepare the students for whatever they want to do in careers as composers and arrangers.
What makes the Frost Studio Jazz Writing Program different from others in the country?
Guerra: Frost Studio Jazz Writing Program is not just a writing program. Two degrees live inside our program and reside in the jazz department. One of them is a master's in studio jazz writing, and the second is a doctorate in jazz composition, which is the degree that I have, and it's also the degree that DMA student Casey Dickey is pursuing.
Casey Dickey: I don't know any other program that gives a writer as many opportunities as this one and in as many different formats, styles, and ensembles. Other programs may focus exclusively on big band or more traditional jazz, and there's certainly a lot of that here at Frost. But here, there are a lot of other opportunities to write for strings, classical woodwinds, vocal ensembles, and many others.
Tell us about the Homecoming Concert. Who were the writers, and what was that process?
Dickey: We had seven writers: Thomas Wenglinski, Gary Wang, Carolina Calvache, Craig Peaslee, Kevin Zapata, Daniel Fiamengo, and me. Part of the decision process was determining what films we would cover. I wrote from the "Goofy Movie." And other writers grew up in the 2000s, so they wrote from movies of this time. After each piece was recognized, it wasn't hard to bring that collection and its final draft to the table.
And who performed these pieces at the concert?
Dickey: The Henry Mancini Institute performed this concert with a group of students from the Jazz Vocal Program. We like to give our Frost students various opportunities to sing with an orchestra.
Guerra: The orchestra is a unique opportunity for students to exercise and display their talent. I don't know of another program like that in the country where you can do jazz-oriented things in some way but also cross over into other genres. And it's a type of workshop that gives classically trained musicians experience in jobs and commercial styles.
So, what is it like to be a jazz writer? For instance, to create a repertoire for UM's Homecoming concert? What inspired the Disney concept? Which was brilliant.
Guerra: I was thinking of how Homecoming is about just that—about coming home—alums and their families. There's no better representation of family than Disney. I've always enjoyed the music of Disney, and it was always one of my dreams to compose with Disney. And I thought it would be an excellent opportunity for our students to work on timeless songs. Songs people love from movies they grew up with. As an arranger and as an orchestrator, one of the skills that you need to have is to be able to connect to people through music. And Disney's music was that conduit. So, we decided to make it a family concert.
To re-arrange a Disney tune, now, that must have been a challenging assignment . . . How did you guide your young writers?
Guerra: Well, first of all, this assignment allowed our composers and arrangers to tell a story, their story, through the music that they presented. Students presented the tune from "Coco," Remember Me. This film is a vibrant tale of family, fun, and adventure about an aspiring young musician named Miguel. He embarks on a magical land where he finds his ancestors. The student who re-arranged this piece had just lost his grandfather this year. So, this piece meant a lot to him, and to be able to tell that story. Another student from Colombia felt connected to Dos Oruguitas from the film "Encanto."
This concert provided a platform for these writers to shine and to do it through that arranging lens—communicating music to a crowd that already knew the music. But they did it in new and refreshing ways—through a new arrangement of those songs.
What was it about the arrangements that made their pieces so unique?
Guerra: It was more than just the arrangements. They did new settings of the music. Some of them took the music out of the box that Disney had them in and presented them a little differently. For instance, Remember Me was done as a jazz waltz. The students took things further than Disney, telling the same story but using different words.
Dickey: We encouraged the writers and the conductor to interact with the audience and make it something younger kids would like to sit through and not fall asleep. So that was a fun challenge.
So, you gave your students creative freedom to turn their favorite Disney songs into "their" pieces using elements of jazz harmony and rhythms. What inspired their compositions?
Guerra: One of our students, Gary Wang, did Beauty and the Beast, and his version was closer to the original movie because he felt, "Hey, that's really good. Why should I change it?"
It's fascinating how all the writers looked at the songs. I'm 49 years old, and to me, Disney is Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Jungle Book . . . Many of my students wanted to do re-arrangements of movies like Beauty and the Beast or Encanto or the Pixar movies. It was amazing to me to realize how generational Disney music is and how this brand has touched the lives of so many people for so long. Even though we grew up in different eras, Disney has been constant in our lives and has taught us moral lessons. And it was interesting to learn how they relate to that music versus how I relate to it.
How did the writers work with the performers?
Dickey: They worked in sync. Each writer wanted to get, of course, attention paid to their pieces. Some writers wrote more extended pieces, making them denser and more challenging for the orchestra. But the orchestra was ready! They had two rehearsals, each four hours long.
How does your program prepare students from any Frost major, not just for concerts like these, but for a career composing and arranging music?
Dickey: Our master's program prepares students to make any music for hire. Whether you are an orchestrator or a composer that writes music for TV or movies, like trailers and music for advertising, gaming, and that kind of thing. When you finish this program, you are prepared to say yes to any of those careers as an orchestrator or arranger.
Guerra: Aside from a full curriculum, undergrads from any major can take two or three composition classes and arrangement classes offered through my program. So even though my degree programs are graduate programs, the undergrads can take jazz arranging courses and vocal jazz arranging courses with me. And those are the classes that, for instance, student vocalists can take as electives to learn how to compose and arrange the songs they perform. But our students are going far beyond that. They're taking the initiative and doing it independently—writing, producing, arranging, and engineering.
I like to think of myself as a guide on this journey. So much of learning music happens outside the classroom for years to come. I remember telling one of my teachers, "Hey, I feel like I'm not getting better while I'm doing all this work." And he said, "Steve, be patient. These are lessons you will learn over the next five to ten years." And still, I'm doing that 20 years after I earned my degree. I want to make the same difference for my students.
One of the great things about Frost School of Music that I love is that all our programs work together. Whether it's jazz voice or the classical program, theory, or HMI—we give our students the best opportunity to prepare them for later on.
