Hi! I’m Maggie. I graduated from Drury University in May 2008 with a B.A. in Music and also in History. On the music side of things I studied clarinet, piano, saxophone, and dabbled in composition. I’ve written primarily chamber pieces, however for my music capstone I wrote a string orchestra and double harp theme and variation piece, which we may look at later.
On the history side of things I focused heavily on the Middle Ages and wrote my capstone project on how the lyrics of female composers in medieval France (which wasn’t France at the time, but I digress) reflected their societal limitation. It sounds kind of dry, but you’d be surprised how unguarded and outspoken some of those women could be!
I’m still in the process of deciding on a graduate program (and trying to figure out how to finance it in the current economic situation) and am currently working as a supervisor in the corporate credit office for a national newspaper company. Your folks are right when they tell you that having a degree will get you a job regardless of what your degree is in.
Compositionally I tend to be most heavily influenced by English and American composers, Barber, Vaughn Williams, Copland, Thompsen, Britten, but I also enjoy the music inspired by folk and vernacular music of composers like Grainger and Bartok. I also listen to a lot of jazz so I tend to enjoy extended harmonies. Since you’re probably going to find out about it one way or another I may as well also admit my love, bordering on obsession, of Beethoven. My favorite symphony is his No. 6, Pastorale. With my love of all things English I bet you saw that coming.
Truly I thoroughly enjoy almost any kind of music and I enjoy the overlapping of genres – borrowing of thoughts, traditions and influences to create something new is so exciting! I also believe that score study is by far one of the most important things that a composer can do to develop understanding of their craft.
I hope you find our thoughts and discussions helpful as you study and learn. Welcome!
