This is not at all fun to talk about, but sometimes, having a platform means using it for good. I'll round this out with a quote from one of my former professors, Emily Frey Giansiracusa (you may know her from her run on _Jeopardy!_ a few years back): “Despite the fact that [President Ron Liebowitz] has a background in economics, the administration makes this recommendation contrary to all economic sense; comparatively speaking, the PhD programs in Music are dirt cheap to run, and they produce among the best results at Brandeis. This decision is based, rather, on values: the Brandeis administration does not believe that the arts and humanities are worthy of study at the graduate level. It’s an attitude that smacks of the techno-utopianism of 15 years ago - before Silicon Valley realized that it might have to think about the ethical and historical questions in which artists and humanists are expert, before ChatGPT and generative AI pushed questions about the nature of human creation to the front page of every newspaper. This is an exceptionally strange time to declare so confidently that the arts and humanities don’t matter, but here we are.”
The “discipline” of economics itself makes no economic sense, nor is it necessarily supposed to. Its primary functions are to normalize the perception of whatever social forces, however predatory they may or may not be, currently shape the economic landscape. Making executive decisions based on what is the greater good for an educational institution doesn’t remotely fall within the purview of that field, so it’s no surprise that these results merely reflect corporate cultural assumptions, which are false and counterproductive as applied in this instance.
It is a sad day indeed. You will be amused to know that when I graduated from college in 1962 I got a full-tuition scholarship to Brandeis but decided to go to Harvard instead where I studied with Leon Kirchner and Pierre Boulez. The Road Not Taken. Afterwards I taught theory and composition at CCNY for 56 years. That music department has decided to abandon its classical music studies and grant a BA degree in popular music studies. I was glad not to be a part of that plan and am happily retired.
I’m not a PhD from Brandeis but I’m professional Composer of whom I would like to lecture at some point in the United States, and I particularly would have chose to go to this place where Bernstein was there. This is simply devastating to read, and to listen about cutting back the PhD program for no reason, I think it’s downright shortsighted. I don’t know the background for this decision, but it is devastating to hear about since similar cases around the world is happening like this, in my own country Sweden is going through some really harsh cutbacks on culture and education! We must do everything to stop this madness going through and fight for our own right to culture to us, and to the people at large. And I have signed my name on this open letter that has been published at Google Drive . And Thomas, you are by far the greatest educator and lecture about classical music and would love to hear your music one day.
Music education at the collegiate level is already so small, underfunded, and discouraged that things like this very much have the potential to ripple to other music colleges. Thank you for bringing this to people’s attention.
I've been complaining about the lack of support of the arts at Brandeis for the last 25 years. It's been clear they've put no money or energy or passion into any of the arts since the 1970's. The school is vastly different from when I went there in the late 60's. I learned a huge amount about both music and theater while there. Alvin Lucier was one of my mentors. I've since had a successful career as a film composer in part because of the opportunities I had at Brandeis.
I graduated from Brandeis in '99 as a music major. This recent news is both shocking and infuriating. The music education I received as an undergrad there was second to none! The legacy of former and current professors and PHD students there made the music school what it. Cutting the PHD program is cutting the heart and soul out of the music school. Cutting the PHD program in the name of focusing on bettering the undergraduate program is such a farce! And like you said, using Bernstein's image and legacy to promote Brandeis while making these cuts is despicable. It's a sad day when the top administration at such a prestigious school promotes lies to further their own agenda, which, with this move obviously shows no respect for the Music Department and all they have accomplished. Justice Brandeis is rolling over in his grave right now. I truly hope the administration takes this petition and all the feedback they are receiving to heart because to continue down this road means cutting the heart out of this wonderful liberal "arts" college.
Not surprised in the least, unfortunately. The arts and humanities are first to go, canaries in the coalmine so to speak, but dismantling and commercializing “higher education” more broadly is quietly pursued as a political objective ever since Reagan. If left unaddressed, this will have longterm catastrophic consequences for democracy. “Overeducated workers” are seen in much the same light as the assets of a corporation under hostile takeover. Universities are increasingly about advanced job training, not education. Thank you for doing this video.
Thank you for sharing the open letter!! We are not going down silently!!!
7 месяцев назад
A world wide trend, and indeed an up hill struggle to fight against... art becomes more devalued each day and with the rise of AI, it seems impossible to combat... deeply worried about the future. Keep up the good work Thomas, we all stand in solidarity with you
I strongly agree with your framing of the precedent these actions are setting. It's not only that these programs operate on high profit margins for the institutions, the arts as a whole drive a great deal of economic activity (~ 1 trillion dollars/yr or 4.5% of GDP; with that trend only rising). Furthermore, the arts have immeasurable positive effects at the societal level. Everything from increased academic performance, to better cognitive function in aging populations, to fostering a sense of community and belonging, can all be attributed to involvement in the arts. These types of actions from institutions like Brandeis et al. only further the misconception that the arts are just a hobby.
It's all about money. Someone has sold the idea that the money allocated for the MusDoc programme is better invested in STEM because it will draw in far more paying students in one year than the PhD in Music Composition can ever hope to enroll in decades. Chalk one up for the new Philistines. I wish you luck in your efforts to convince the powers that be to reconsider selling their souls for profit.
A huge chunk of their advertising revolves around Bernstein's name and image. His childhood piano is displayed prominently in the music building lobby.
Thomas, I've been an experimental sound artist for years. I've not been educated in the collegiate system yet I see what a travesty this is for anyone wanting to have higher education in the arts of music. What is this crappy world coming to? I guess the auto-tune wins again. What a shame
The U.S. is so financialy and tech driven anymore, as is most of the world which simply doesn't lend itself to the creative arts. Soon, AI will be heading up composition dept. every where. I recently heard Cameron Carpenter lamenting the "bother" of building pipe organs which he said were only marginally better than electronic ones. Let's face it, those Cavaille-Coll organs in France are such overkill! And how about those digital violins which could spare our forest the indignity of lending themselves to the making of those stuffy stradivarious and soon student composers will need only to look at a piece of manuscript paper and imagine their creative genius the same way Donald Trump declasifies documents, telepathically. I wonder if Trump University has a composition dept.? Seriously, i share your concern over this very depressing trend. Students bust their asses learning these ancient musical skills and the demise of these traditions will bring us one step closer to emotional indifference in every other aspect of our lives.
tell me about it its all about bottom line, not fighting for noble tradition or preserving living history, few kids can use manual machineing machines anymore, or few are going into stuff like metal shaping for custom cars and carrying on a 100 year tradition, my neighbor lays floor hes nearly 50 and hes the young guy there are not enough comming up in the more hands on things to keep the arts alive, or things that robots cant do it takes feel and descretion, just like playing an orchestration machines cant feel ai cant feel or show compassion or emotion, few want to get their hands dirty doing things hands on and using that creative part of their brain, too many want to just be influancers, and we have few that are willing to make shoes anymore or repair we live in such a throwaway society and dance shoes I tell you we have more places that can built a steam loco then we have places that can make pointe shoes, and I assure you there are more dancers and athleats then there are places to run steam locos even on excursions and parks, the creative arts have taken a backseat in education for at least since the late 90's even though its know to be more helpful overall in math then learning computers in music or performing arts but the arts are the first thing thats cut cuz its not a tangable high money making industry even though the benefits of learning one has other things it helps with and teaches, like fine motor control and patiance, and fitness such as dance. why is it we can be so good as to be able to 3d print space ships, and vehicles but we can even make our own clothes or pointe shoes or the rarity of the one that did for over 100 years capezio,and was the oldest continual manufacture of danceware in the usa and world really, got hit with the pandemic and instead of keeping that pride and advantage of the usa made custom lable and fight to bring it back they just stop production and just give it up without a fight, are we that apathetic as a society as to not keep last vestages alive, or we let our very best just go extinct for no reason at all just cuz we dont feel like taking care of it an maintaining it, no other nations do do that they take pride in their landmark things and specialazations. and dont get me started on the railroads, cutting off their nose and advantage to spite their face, to the point that they no longer can ebb and flow with the demands of traffic, and its not like you can just train someone off the street to maintain such things overnight, railcars and locomotives arnt' just like repairing normal sheet metal cars or regular diesles, menwhile their customer service suffers and they loose more and more freight to trucking, which clogs up the roads and damages them even more, we used to be able to move more stuff by rail and keep it flowing faster then before we had all the fancy computer tech we have today and automated processing that can do it faster, getting freight from point a to b and switching for another railroad was not a problem back then but today oh its said to be as painful as pulling teeth
This makes me angry, and I’m in Australia. I’m a mature age female student doing composition studies at University here in Australia, I would be devastated if the program was cut here. F&@%#$ STEM.
Please excuse the “language “ in my initial response to this video. I should clarify, it’s not that STEM is necessarily a bad thing, but why couldn’t they have called it “STEAM”…so that Arts could be included/recognised , or as my Professor of Composition recently said, what about “STEMM”…which includes/recognises Music…
Because this push to get higher ed to be hyper-stem focused isn’t about elevating academic enrichment of any of these fields, it’s about getting universities to spit out drives of technicians for the “tech” companies. If the labor market is flooded with them, then that drives down labor costs for the Amazons and Alphabets and Apples. This is a specific problem for music and arts departments, but it’s part of a broader problem of academia becoming subservient to corporate desires.
The university I attended got rid of their graduate Arts programs 40 years ago to shift resources to the MBA program and the Business School. My department was downgraded to "undergraduate liberal arts electives"-only the year after I graduated. I've never gone back and I cut all ties....
with the state of higher education at the moment, you're much better off NOT going anywhere to learn music but your workroom. You got the scores, you got the recordings, you got history at your fingertips now. music has always been a self-taught thing, because nobody can tell you how to be you. Only you know what you like to hear, it's a matter of discovering what that is through trial and error. It's like meditation; you are discovering, by discernment, what you like versus what you don't like...kind of like the way a sculptor chips away at a block of marble till a statue starts to stand out. Let's say you're entranced by a particular section, a passage, a chord or the like. This is what I do. I either transcribe the passage or find the score (IMSLP); I immerse myself in the minutia, the intricacies; maybe slow it down with Audacity if I have to (though I'm kinda old, so just starting with that, lol). I try to work out WHY it sounds good...usually (always?) it's because of how it fits with what has gone before and what's coming, so I'll check out the whole score, to see where he's written the same thing in another way, which might give me clues; I read up on it - everything I can lay my hands on: biographies (delve into the guy's personal life, WHY he wrote a certain way, emotionally, intellectually); place the composition in a timeframe of the composer's work (eg written right at the beginning of his career); how other composers think about it; what they said at the time, what they say now. I tend to go in phases of discovery, like for like six months I was on Ravel's piano concerto, 2nd movement; that is a gold mine of beautiful ideas. Lately it's been Art Tatum, but that is a life-long study that ebbs and flows. I call these phases 'threads', because in the midst of studying something, it often will take you to other places you didn't expect and you find yourself in a whole new area of study. And i mean outside of music, into science, philosophy, et al. I presume you play an instrument; do not neglect practice on it because that gives you vital information you'll use when writing for others to play. If you want to write for orchestra, great if you have familiarity with the different families of instruments, eg a wind instrument, piano, strings, drums. A good composer/arranger will develop a feel for what will work on a given instrument. That can also come with just observing and noticing from reading scores; start collecting as many scores as you can while they're still around...I've seen a lot less become available as the years go by. The best parts of colleges are undoubtedly the playing with other people and arranging/composing for them, hearing your work back and all that...but you can always find ways to get that experience without going into (massive) debt...especially if you can play well. Music and money don't mix. You can sometimes learn more in a coffee shop conversation than a legit 'lesson'. In fact as far as actual 'education' goes, I can honestly say I learnt ZERO musically at the two places I studied at, that I didn't figure out on my own (probably the greatest lesson I got was what NOT to do, by observing others. But then, I'm from a kind of artistic backwater). Hey sorry for the essay but I bemoan the current state of music education and this is my way of getting back at them, the bureaucrats that have taken over--if YT will even let it be shown 😎 (--coming from someone who went to music school as a student, then later, as a teacher.)
@@alexeisavrasov888Very good advice, I've been studying sheet music on IMSLP so I could write medieval and Renaissance style music. When it comes to the medieval pieces, I transcribe the whole piece first, then make a new piece based on a chorale tune. I look for note patterns in the tenor that match those in the chorale melody, transcribe the counterpoint that Machaut wrote in the upper voices, and make some adjustments according to harmonic, rhythmic and textual considerations.
thank you both for being so kind and so well informed, i thank you both for the wonderful info. Fortunatly after half a year of studing and working in the composition department in my uni, i feel comfortable with using both of your advice in incorporating it into my study method. Cause for now i understood that Uni is not to teach you "how" to compose but more to build you character and resiliance to you style. i thank you both again
Indeed, I agree wholeheartedly with your video. Sadly, this is an all too familiar pattern in education generally and music education specifically. In a way, one could argue that dismantling high school music programs has nothing to do with graduate programs at Brandeis. But wait! It’s a cancerous mindset that has destroyed music programs in high schools nationwide. Now it has poisoned a prestigious institution regardless of their offering undergraduate study. If PhDs teach and mentor after their degree, why not study with the best of the best. That would be my choice. If I were deciding where to study, it wouldn’t be with just the institution, but with professors who studied at Brandeis, wherever they taught.
This is sad news on many levels, and I signed the letter. I got my MA from Brandeis 25 years ago, from a masters program that itself has since been scrapped....
I'm going to swim against the stream of comments here and ask the question, "How relevant is a PhD in composition?" I've been active in new music as a composer and performer my entire life, and what I've witnessed in academia is the stubborn insistence on an extremely narrow aesthetic. Most of the composition technique taught and encouraged at colleges and universities is some variation of the "avant-garde" style of the 1950's and 60's, in which the music is utterly denuded of all melody, rhythm, and harmony. The pieces are little more than bags of tricks. This type of music is a dead end, and that's not merely a personal opinion. Audiences worldwide have passed judgement on the "avant-garde" and deemed it elitist and even worse, boring. Music in this genre rarely gets a second performance. It might be noted that all art music is elitist to some degree, which is true. A deep appreciation of great music requires deep study. But even lifelong performers of new music mostly reject this style. I won't touch a score that even looks like Berio or Stockhausen et al. It's just not satisfying to perform music that doesn't fully engage my technique and expressive palette. Poking and banging at the piano like a three-year-old doesn't appeal to me, no matter how intellectually erudite a piece might be in its inner workings. But this is exactly the sort of thing that gets done ad nauseam in academia. (There are exceptions of course - I know a few college teachers that are writing in a more traditional vein.) I'm not sure if any of this applies to the Brandeis faculty, but judging from the few pieces I listened to on RU-vid, I suspect it does. Why is this sort of tunnel vision tolerated in universities? Imagine if you were in a graduate program as a pianist, and you were only allowed and encouraged to play music by Mozart. Would that make any sense at all? And yet that sort of tight constraint is precisely what you find in most composition degree programs, even at the baccalaureate level. Take a drive across the Charles River to the Berkelee School of Music, now merged with the Boston Conservatory, and you'll find a program which teaches an extremely wide variety compositional idioms, from jazz to world music, to serialism. It's a real melting-pot, and at least in my opinion, far more relevant than most insular college composition programs. Can a program really be called successful if all it does is feed graduates into tenured teaching positions? Surely new music must have a broader influence. That being said, Brandeis absolutely should offer PhD's in composition and I'll be happy to sign the petition. But this sort of thing is happening all over the country, and composers of art music need to ask the question, "Why aren't we relevant?" There's no simple answer to that, and the answers will undoubtedly vary from one individual to another. But it's not enough to rest on one's laurels. It is not enough that Bernstein once graced the halls of Brandeis. That was then, this is now. As my college piano teacher once said, "An artist's reputation is only as good as his last gig." Maybe it's time for some soul-searching.
@@LouisWaltersSouthAfrica no its not your imagination, the education is not as well rounded, and they dont teach how to think as well as they used to, they are more worried about politics and worried about starting fights with people they disagree with, or teaching kids to do standardized tests, they dont even teach the old way even a little in many places anymore, which is cheating them of the fundamentals and base of knowing when tech isn't avaiable or at least know how they arrive at an answere or solution
@@bazookaman1353 oh yeah that's very true but I mean in terms of people actually self learning and participating in operas, real orchestras, playing classical music. that's all down the drain
@@shadmium3471 I'd blame it on the economy and culture. Very few people can afford orchestra instruments and very few want them since they're rather in popular music. The crossover between those two aspects is that the high-class demographic that can afford the instruments isn't connected to classical music anymore. Furthermore, modern operas tend to either be experimental borefests and/or instead have garbage concepts since many modern composers know they barely have an audience so make much more music about themselves so people are stuck with the old ones that they may be bored of.
