LAS VEGAS - Jason Thorpe Buchanan, a UNLV graduate student in Composition, was recently awarded a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship to Germany for studies and research at the Hochschule f?r Musik und Theater in Hamburg, Germany. In addition, he has earned admission to the distinguished Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY as a candidate for the PhD in Composition and also has been granted admission deferral until the Fall of 2011 in order to first complete his Fulbright residency in Germany.
Buchanan came to UNLV in the Fall of 2008 from San Jos? State University with a Bachelor of Music in Composition and a Bachelor of Arts in Music Technology, with a minor in Film. After two years of study at UNLV, studying composition first with Professor Jorge Grossmann, then Professor Virko Baley, Buchanan leaves UNLV with these two remarkable distinctions.
"My primary objective during my Fulbright Fellowship in Germany will be to expand and refine my compositional technique through study with Prof. Peter Michael Hamel and Prof. Manfred Stahnke at the Hochschule f?r Musik und Theater in Hamburg," said Buchanan. "Additionally, I seek to work with Prof. Wolfgang Rihm at the Hochschule f?r Musik in Karlsruhe. I will compose and organize performances of three new works under the supervision of these professors, collaborating with conductors and performers in Hamburg and throughout Germany. In conjunction, I will conduct a research project in regards to compositional process and aesthetics, specifically a comparative analysis of one composer's method to the next. "
"This will be achieved through interviews with prominent living German composers, consultation of leading musicologists, and archival sketch study to illustrate the effects of each method utilized by a sampling of prominent composers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This research will provide valuable insight and awareness of my own compositional process, influencing my future work and serving as the basis of my doctoral dissertation. I have found that many people are not really aware of what composers actually do. My goal is to essentially "demystify" the craft of composition, to collect and present this information in such a way so as to dispel any misconceptions and elucidate that composition is a learned craft that should be accessible to anyone that would otherwise be discouraged."
Additional awards Buchanan received while at UNLV:
- UNLV Music Department Cristina Vald?s Solo Piano Composition Competition - Winner, 2009
- Brevard Institute of Music & Festival, Merit Scholarship and Work Study Award - 2009
- UNLV College of Fine Arts and Music Department financial assistance for Brevard Institute of Music and travel to Tokyo - 2009
- UNLV GPSA Grant for Travel to Tokyo, TAD Wind Symphony Performance - 2009
- Lillian Harlan Ramage Grant, Mu Phi Epsilon, for Graduate study in Composition - 2009
- Original Composition Competition, Mu Phi Epsilon, Graduate Chamber Work Division Winner - 2010
- Brevard Institute of Music & Festival, Merit Scholarship and Work Study Award - 2010
Since its inaugural in the late 1940s, the Fulbright Program has been an integral part of U.S. foreign relations. Indeed, face-to-face exchanges have proven to be the single most effective means of engaging foreign publics while broadening dialogue between U.S. citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad. In doing so, the Fulbright Program creates a context to provide a better understanding of U.S. views and values, promotes more effective binational cooperation and nurtures open-minded, thoughtful leaders, both in the U.S. and abroad, who can work together to address common concerns.
Whether the challenge is transforming conflict into dialogue, conducting medical research to end a modern-day plague, halting the trafficking of persons, or designing an efficient energy grid, today's issues call for new voices, new ideas and new leaders. Even in a networked world of the Internet and satellite television, there is no substitute for personal interaction-what journalist Edward R. Murrow called "the last three feet of communication." It is individuals, after all, not data streams, who must ultimately build the connections that in turn create lasting international partnerships.
Fulbrighters do just that.
