August 20, 2024
By Johnny Holden
The faculty office corridors of UT’s Butler School of Music are lined with one shut door after another. But what might look uninviting to visitors is for good reason. From each room emanates a muffled cacophony of sounds – from piano, cello, or oboe, to computer-generated beats and digital distortions – that make up the diverse sound of contemporary music research.
Unlike some other disciplines, the research approach for music isn’t always static or definable in a tangible way.
“It’s going to be different for every composer you speak to,” said Yevgeniy Sharlat, associate professor of composition at the Butler School. “They'll all have a different approach and that's a good thing. Personally, if I locked myself into one kind of process, I would fail.”
Classical music research in an academic setting is much more than the study and interpretation of works already composed by historical giants like Beethoven, Stravinsky or Gershwin. Sharlat says this is, in fact, only one part of one research process.
“Students are indeed encouraged to learn from past innovators,” he said. “We also equip them with the tools necessary to compose, record and produce music. But the expectation is that all of this will inspire new forms of creative expression to emerge.”
The Russian-born composer came to the United States as a refugee when he was 16 years old.
“I started studying music when I was 6,” he said. “I studied first as an instrumentalist playing violin, piano and clarinet, and I was expecting to have a career as a performer of other people's music.”
Early on, however, Sharlat – who has since racked up a list of awards and accolades as long as an alpine horn – discovered he was more interested in making music of his own. “I assumed others were doing the same.”
It came as some surprise when he learned this was actually not the case.
In other styles – be it blues, pop, R&B or jazz – improvisation is integral, but “one of the issues with classical music training is that improvisation is not understood as an important practice in the context of the pedagogy,” Sharlat said.
“Students learn about musical and cultural traditions outside the Western classical approach too – such as Hispanic Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Hindustani and South African, to name just a few,” he said.
In terms of what inspires him and his work, Sharlat says it often comes from unexpected places.
“I’m fascinated by easy, small noisemakers, often toy instruments like harmonicas, kazoos, music boxes, etc. that are expected to convey something silly and lighthearted. Then I put them in a different context,” Sharlat said. “Using a toy instrument in a more serious composition creates a clash of our expectations – something that is so frequently a condition of the human experience. The reality of seemingly ‘positive’ things often conceals a less pretty reality. I try to present that in my music.”
Sharlat’s 2016 music and video collaboration entitled, Spare The Rod. Credit: NOW Ensemble.
Some research in music composition might draw inspiration from the unexpected. Other composers are influenced by mundane, everyday experiences. Others still may be energized by addressing society’s grand challenges through the medium of sound.
Understanding research impact through the prism of a composer’s inspiration, however, would miss the point. The subject matter of a piece is frequently just the conduit used to move the dial forward when creating new forms of musical expression.
In Sharlat’s case, instruments that, in isolation, sound “silly and lighthearted” provide the sonic contrast needed to produce more layered and complex compositions that have earned him significant recognition from his peers.
“Yevgeniy is certainly a superb representative of the kinds of research and creative practice going on at the Butler School,” said Mary Ellen Poole, dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University and former director at the Butler School. “He's exemplary in his open-minded and eclectic approach.”
A Hotbed of Creativity
Susan Thomas, who succeeded Poole as director of the Butler School, joined UT Austin in part because of the Butler School’s research reputation. As a musicologist with expertise straddling history, sociology, anthropology and media studies, Thomas represents another side to what the term ‘music research’ can mean.
She sees similarities between the compositional approach, taken by colleagues like Sharlat, and the process of scientific inquiry.
“Music and the arts have always been primary mechanisms through which people processed their connections to each other, to their beliefs, and to the world around them,” she said.
“Creative research in music is, thus, not unlike the practice of scientific invention,” she said. “A new composition does not only provide an aesthetic experience for a listener/spectator (although that is important); it is also a tool for the understanding of the human experience, opening pathways for the ideation of new solutions to the challenges facing us and our world.”
The Butler School is ideal for Sharlat and others like him, because of the absence of a rigid pedagogical approach.
“We resist the instinct to teach our students what kind of music to write and, instead, provide them with the tools to decide what to write on their own,” Sharlat stresses.
In addition, the School is embedded in the College of Fine Arts – meaning opportunities for collaboration with visual arts, theater, dance, design, creative technologies and more, are not only welcomed, they are easy to find.
“We also partner with Radio, Television, and Film at the Moody College of Communication, and informally with the College of Liberal Arts from time to time,” Sharlat added.
Music Technology
Composition students write for orchestra, band and chamber ensembles, as well as music for film, TV and video games. They create operas and musicals. They design art installations with sound. Some are even exploring engineering to advance the tools they use.
“One of our students, Sean Riley, worked with the School of Design and Creative Technologies to create a 3D-printed six-string violin.”
Sean Riley’s 3D-printed violin. Credit: UT Austin
Not every student requires technologies like 3D printers. Digital audio and production tools, however, are as essential to contemporary classical music students as the viola, clarinet or French horn.
“We have five recording studios equipped with all the latest hardware and software so students have the tools to learn how to record, edit, mix and master music,” Sharlat said.
An increasing number see the studio itself as a musical instrument. Technology is at the heart of the creation of modern music, regardless of genre.
Creative Data
The impact of music research is impossible to fully assess, Sharlat says. By the same token, there isn’t a person on the planet who could say music hasn’t directly impacted them, on some personal level.
Sharlat believes graduates leave with a level of passion for their craft that makes them ideal teachers and educators for the next generation.
“The majority of our graduates go on to teach at college level in different parts of the world,” he said.
Several alumni have also established music schools of their own.
Passing the baton through education is one path taken. Composers like Sharlat show another direction. The impact of music research on society, however, comes in many forms.
“It’s important to recognize that not all music research is composition,” added Mary Ellen Poole, noting that a work product can be an improvised performance, a scientific study using human subjects, an article or a book.
“Creators, performers and scholars are all drawn to music as their subject matter, and the Butler School has all these kinds of researchers,” she said.
“How do we show that our work stands alongside neuroscientists and engineers?” Poole asks. “If research equals inquiry, then inquiry happens when we attempt to give a historically informed performance. Or find out how a student orchestra's eyes track its leader or discover how music is mediated by popular culture in the Philippines. The possibilities are endless.”