In light of the many upcoming deadlines for summer music programs, I figured I should put together some sort of summary or review regarding my experience in the EAMA Porgram.

EAMA stands for European American Musical Alliance, and is run by composer Philip Lasser from the Julliard School.  It is designed to follow in the lineage of Nadia Boulanger, a French composer and – far more importantly – musical pedagogue credited for training such composers as Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Walter Piston.  Her lessons included rigorous training in counterpoint and keyboard harmony, and her creed was for each composer to return home to create music that was individual, and undeniably identifiable as music from their own country (in the case of the students that I had listed, this would be an American musical identity).   Lasser’s program, while incorporating a great deal of keyboard harmony and counterpoint, also includes composition lessons (for the composer section), chamber music coachings (for the chamber music section), conducting lessons (for the conducting section), analysis lectures, choir rehearsal, and either lessons in ear training or score reading.  I’ll go through each class and faculty member as best I can to give a full view of the program.

Location:

The location of this program is in Paris, France.  Classes are held at École Normale de Musique, a converted mansion in northwest Paris with highly elaborate decorations, a collection of usable pianos that used to belong to Gabriel Fauré and Frédéric Chopin.  What this building is not is a school similar to what one would find in the United States.  You are literally in someone’s house, and it is obvious that the building is not designed to host lectures, or even group lessons of any type.  The only time I found this to be problematic was during choir rehearsals and the larger counterpoint and analysis lectures, simply because the only room that could hold everyone had a divide in it that made it so you couldn’t see anything if you showed up to class late (or just before it started, as the case usually was).

Everyone who seeks housing through the program is put up at the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris, conveniently located on the opposite side of the city from the school.  Most of the program will be housed in a building called Colegio de España, which is a gorgeous building on the southwest side of the campus.  They let you print things on your own at a price comparable to the United States (billed to your room at the end of the program), require you to get tokens for laundry, and have a game room and gym in the basement.  This place will also provide you with breakfast every morning if you are a resident.  It also has one of the most evil receptionists you will ever meet.  He was nicknamed Napoleon by the resident assistant because he would constantly yell at you for being loud, even if you weren’t talking, and, if you didn’t live in the building, he would kick you out, even if you were in the designated waiting area.  The other building is Maison du Cambodge, which is cheaper to live in, but you do not get breakfast, printing is sent through the office and much more expensive, you get to do your laundry with your own money, and the rooms have bathrooms where you could bathe and sit on the toilet at the same time.  The staff was quite nice, but the EAMA students housed there are a fraction of the Colegio, and because of Napoleon, you will be quite isolated from the rest of the students if you stay here for the program.

It takes about 45 minutes to get to the school from the dorm by metro, and you will be riding it twice a day, so it is important to spend the €54,60 for the month pass.  You will use it!  The map takes a bit to figure out (at least for me), but just know you get on at the Cité Universitaire on the RER B line and need to get off at the Malesherb stop on the 3 line.  I’ve described the metro on earlier posts…

Classes:

Score Reading:  this will only be useful if you have piano skills.  If you don’t play the piano, don’t take this course because you will get left behind.  You basically sit at a piano for an hour with three other people and play a score (Beethoven, Mahler, etc.) to Mark Shapiro’s conducting.

Musicianship:  I did not take this class, but it is the alternative to Score Reading.  It sounded like extensive ear training taught by either Teddy Niedermaier or Kyle Blaha, and everyone that took it said it was a blast.

Counterpoint:  everyone takes this course, and it is broken into lectures with the full program taught by Philip Lasser,  and small group lessons taught by either Benjamin C. S. Boyle, Lane Harder, Philip Lasser, or Teddy Niedermaier (you rotate each week).  You spend a week on each of the four species of counterpoint, each with assignments.  If you’ve never had counterpoint, or very little, this is very useful.  If you’ve already had this type of training and remember it, it will just be monotonous.

Keyboard Harmony:  the majority of course work is focused into these small group lessons involving voice leading and harmony.  Taught by either Lasser, Boyle, Harder, Shapiro, or Bonet this course is designed to help you hear individual voices in harmonic progressions by singing them, singing one voice while playing the others on the piano, singing progressions in canon with the group, and harmonizing given bass lines provided by French composer Paul Vidal.  It is probably the most humbling aspect of the program, and the growth that occurs in this course is definitely the most visible.

Analysis:  this section is fascinating.  Each lecture is lead by Dr. Lasser and pertains to a different piece, usually composed by one of the three Bs (Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms).  This is not the standard type of analysis where the professor goes on and on about form and how the augmented sixth chord works in such and such a measure.  He approaches it from an aural level, teaching you how he hears the piece and what it means to him.  Lasser is completely open to alternative ideas, and it would seem his interest is only to get your ears working and thinking about how we listen.  His ideas didn’t seem forced, nor did I feel like he was trying to shove the music into a box.  Definitely some of the more fascinating lectures from the program.

Chorus:  everyone takes chorus, and you will sing old music that is out of copyright that you can print off of the internet.  Mark Shapiro conducts the ensemble, which consists primarily of untrained singers.  By the end of the rehearsal, you will be tired if you do not know how to sing because you will not be taught how to sing.  You just kind dig through the music over and over and over again until it sounds okay.  I was highly disappointed by this aspect of the program.

Conducting:  similar to score reading, except the students in the conducting section are the ones leading the pianists.  Mark Shapiro offers group lessons a few times a week, and private lessons once a week, putting great emphasis on ear training, being able to play the score at the piano and singing each part.  His teaching for the most part is really good, except I don’t understand why he wasn’t spending any time on technique, which all of the students really needed.  I never got to ask him.

Composition:  this aspect of the program is the main reason for existence, and subsequently has the most amount of students (40+).  Each student receives individual lessons from either Lasser, Boyle, Harder, or one of the two resident instructors from École Normale de Musique:  Michel Merlet, or Narcis Bonet.  I studied with Michel Merlet, and can say that he is an absolutely fantastic teacher.  He takes a great deal of time examining every aspect of your music and will explain to you very clearly what he likes and dislikes about what he sees, as well as a variety of ways to enhance and develop your music.  Needless to say, time with him is well worth it!

Chamber Music:  this is the most underdeveloped aspect of the program, having only 11 student in 2009.  The coachings that I was able to attend seemed very informative, though none of them were led by the chamber music faculty member April Clayton.  I never saw Dr. Clayton work, but the final concerts were very well prepared, so she must be doing something right.

Faculty:

Dr. Philip Lasser:  the head of the program and a past student of Nadia Boulanger, Dr. Lasser teaches at the Julliard School during the year.  At EAMA, he offers private lessons, teaches the basic analysis and counterpoint lectures, and leads a small group for the counterpoint labs and keyboard harmony.  He is highly knowledgeable, easily approachable, and an excellent teacher, open to multiple interpretations and not afraid to demonstrate the fact that he’s human and a growing musician like everyone else in the program.

Dr. Benjamin C. S. Boyle:  Lasser’s second in command, Dr. Boyle holds a PhD from University of Pennsylvania, a former student of the EAMA program, and teaches as an adjunct and free lancer composition professor in New York, Philadelphia, and areas of New Jersey.  My only interactions with him was my small group counterpoint lab – which was involved a lot of analysis of a Bach fugue – and a counterpoint lecture where he kept saying, “my friends.”  I have little opinion on how he is as a teacher, but as a person, he is quite friendly, and one hell of foosball player.

Lane Harder:  Holding a masters degree from the Peabody Institute – where he is currently a faculty associate– Harder is also a former student of the EAMA program.  Again, my only experience with him is one counterpoint lab which was spent checking over our assignments more than teaching.  He was in charge of scheduling, and whenever he would address the students as a whole, he would never look at the group.  One on one, he seemed quite friendly and had some fantastic stories about his schooling.

Dr. Mark Shapiro:  Lasser’s longest standing colleague in the EAMA program, Dr. Shapiro runs the conducting section, score reading, two sections of keyboard harmony, and the chorus.  He’s extremely dry and closed off from the students, being sure to not let them get to know him too well.  I had three classes with him, and found that he is one to pick on you if he feels you are learning something.  He also gives you extremely weird looks while you are trying to figure things out during his class.  It is questionable whether or not he is as good at what he does as it would initially seem.  His keyboard harmony class worked very well, and he did not let anyone slip by.  The score reading class, however, moved way too fast, and you were left in the dust if you were not a pianist.  Because he is so closed off, I found him hard to read and decided that he is good with a group of people at the same skill level in a subject, but is completely lost – or unwilling – to teach multiple levels of skill to a larger group.

Kyle Blaha:  I never had Kyle as a teacher, but on a personal level, he is awesome.  He loves teaching, he loves writing, and he loves smoking in excess.  I wish I was able to get to know him better.

Teddy Niedermaier:  My only interaction with Teddy was in a counterpoint lab, but it was clear that he knew species counterpoint better than anyone should.  If you were having an issue with your assignment, not only would Teddy be able to identify it, he would be able to create an amazing solution in under 2 minutes.  It was pretty miraculous.

Narcis Bonet:  Bonet was Boulanger’s closest student, and is responsible for most of her publications during the end of her life.  He taught private composition lessons, two sections of keyboard harmony, and was a guest lecturer on theory.  He is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and was more than encouraging upon every interaction you had with him.

Michel Merlet:  a student of Messiaen and a spitting image of Ravel, Merlet was an outstanding teacher, gentle in nature, and extremely informative with regards to harmony and instrumental usage.

Dr. April Clayton:  I literally did not work with Dr. Clayton at all.  She is in charge of the chamber music section of the program, and recruited many students from her program at BYU.  This section of the program needs to be drastically increased in attendance to balance out the massive amount of composers that are accepted.