Let me back up. I have applied to school. At long last, I have applied to college(read, university). 8 years later. The schools to which I have applied are, in no particular order: The Royal Conservatory of Scotland in Glasgow; the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England; the Royal College of Music in London; and the Royal Academy of Music, also in London. These four are some of the most prestigious conservatories in the UK for sure, and possibly also in the world. The Royal Academy's entrance paperwork required me to date my education back 15 years. As a result, the last month or so have been a flurry of paperwork, composition, keyboard skills, and stress. Also in this mix has been no small amount of excitement. I am going to England. I'm not sure how to get there or what I'm going to do once I'm there, but I am going. Big ol' bucket list check.
Right, so that said, my first interview this morning. It started off terrifically. I had my computer all set up, my notebook out, my pencil sharp, my mind ready. I had an appointment for 16.30 GMT, so naturally, I didn't check the time difference. "Yeah, it's what, 6 hours?" So I get my things together and sit down and check on the Googles. It's a 5 hour difference, so I had to ice my kicker. I sat down in my room trying to make myself not go nuts, while still waiting for an entire hour.
I received an email at 10:30 EST with a six-note tonerow to be used as the basis for a duet for any two instruments and ten 50-second long sample tracks to which I was supposed to listen and make "notes", according to the instructions. Since I am a fan of the "Guess the Composer" game already, I sat down with the tonerow and began writing, considering myself to be pretty good at identifying music by ear. It turned into a pretty basic 4-phrase duet for horn and oboe, based loosely on A. Ish. It took about 20 minutes of floundering around before the key and the progression made any sense, but once I got my thoughts together, it flowed together pretty well. I left myself 15 minutes or so to listen to the samples and do some quick identifying/note-taking. Every indication I had received had led me to believe that they were less concerned with the right answer and more concerned with my perspective.
The interview itself was less awkward than I thought it'd be. There were three men crowded around the computer hoping to get a better view and be able to hear. We "dispensed with the necessary pleasantries" to borrow a colloquialism, and began working through the samples. I will say that, in my opinion, I did quite well. There were two samples that I was, apparently, the first on the day to correctly identify (Sibelius' Symphony No. 5, final movement; and something for clarinet, strings, and harpsichord by Giorgyi Ligeti). Brag complete. We briefly discussed the duet I had written and the began talking about my own music and the goals I have as a composer. It was, all in all, a very positive experience. They were relaxed and laughed at a few of the things I had said, and were very understanding about my limitations currently because of my military experience.
All this is to say, that I have interview for the Royal Academy of Music. I'll take a certain amount of self-satisfaction in that. They usually send out results within a few weeks, hopefully before Christmas. We will see. Now it's on to the rest of the day for me. Our Christmas concert is tonight, so I've got to get moving. Check back on here as I'll be trying to use this to update all of you who care about me and what I'm doing. I assume that, since you're reading this, you care. Unless you don't care, in which case, you're probably not reading any of this.
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