Training Musicians for a Career

Sometime last winter harpist Michelle Gott, 20, was walking through the hallway at Juilliard, where she’s a third-year student, when she was stopped by an oversized, colorful poster announcing the summer program at the Henry Mancini Institute. “I noticed ‘jazz,’ ‘studio training’ and ‘scholarships,’ and all that really appealed to me,” says Gott, who has been playing her golden instrument since she was 4-1/2. For the classically trained Gott, HMI promised to stretch her versatility, as she says. She auditioned and was accepted as one of the 84 very accomplished musicians selected from 600 applicants from around the world to participate in the four-week summer education program held at UCLA. “I needed something more challenging on a day-to-day basis, and this is giving me more training in improvisation and sight reading.” Indeed, in rehearsal for HMI’s chamber orchestra concert two weeks ago, Gott was plucking, sawing and jabbing away as if in heated dialogue with her instrument. Different from other summer music programs, HMI is open to college and post-college-aged musicians, and focuses on versatility regardless of students’ backgrounds. Instrumentalists and composers receive hands-on training with professionals in a range of musical expressions’jazz, improvisation, contemporary and film music in large and small ensembles. “HMI crosses all musical boundaries,” Ginny Mancini, Henry’s widow, told the Palisadian-Post. “In order to be a full-fledged musician today, you have to be versatile to make it in this industry. All these students have mastered their instruments, they’re all very good, but that doesn’t translate into a successful career in music.” HMI was founded in 1997 by composer and conductor Jack Elliott in honor of his friend Henry Mancini’one of the most successful composers in television and film, as well as a popular pianist and conductor. Ginny recalls that her husband, who passed away in 1994, never wanted anyone to do anything using his name. “But then after he died, Jack approached me about starting the institute. I had been involved with Jack on other projects, such as the jazz philharmonic orchestra; he always had something going in new music. I called together some music people like Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith and Patrick Williams and we sat in my living room to talk about it. They all thought it was a brilliant idea.” Over the past nine years 476 alumni from over 41 states and 27 countries have graduated from the summer education program, and many are hired regularly in ensembles throughout Los Angeles and the U.S. In 2000, HMI established a community outreach component that provides school partnerships, after-school artist-in-residence programs and free community HMI alumni concerts. The summer program musicians are treated to four weeks of all-expense-paid study with guest artists, composers and conductors. A number of Palisadians participate as master teachers, including conductors David Newman, film composer, and Vince Mendoza, jazz composer and conductor of the Metropole Orchestra of the Netherlands. French horn player Richard Todd, currently the principal horn with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. also participates. The students are selected to make up the HMI orchestra, and in addition certain students are chosen to play in the big band, jazz strings bands and in the HMI chamber orchestra. Free concerts are arranged throughout the month, with the culminating concerts featuring a Latin music motif on Friday, August 12, at the California Plaza downtown, and the Mancini Musicale featuring Bobby McFerrin and the HMI Orchestra on Saturday, August 13 at Royce Hall. “This program is really a roller coaster of music, with a limited set of rehearsals, similar to professional experience,” says Mendoza, who is the chamber orchestra conductor. “I think that this is a time for personal discovery. The students are responsible for preparing the concert in a very short period of time. “I quickly appreciated the amount of the conviction of these students the first moment I met with them,” Mendoza continues. “I asked them who wanted to be a musician, and they all raised their hands and their pencils went flying. Since that first meeting the read-throughs have been getting better and better, and better.” Because of the Mancini legacy, jazz and film composition have always been the core part of the program, says Executive Director Dan Carlin, music director, editor, music supervisor and soundtrack producer. The opening concert with the HMI orchestra, conducted by HMI artistic director Patrick Williams, featured Henry Mancini’s theme from “Mr. Lucky” and Duke Ellington’s “Grand Slam Jam,” but also debuted HMI student composer Matthew Janszen’s “Release.” Janszen’s story is different from most musicians, because he did not major in music in college. “At Purdue, there was no school of music,” says Janszen, who got his degree in acoustical engineering. “I stared writing music, and because there was no competition, the school band and ensemble played my work. So I learned by doing.” Janszen’s schedule at HMI is a bit different from the instrumentalists because he has private lessons in conducting, group lessons and master classes. “My assignments are all about experimentation. I wrote a string octet, which we recorded, and another assignment was to produce a Christmas song. You learn how to conduct your own session, deal with the composer and get it published. I can also write anything I want; it’s open to experiment with anything.” Janszen, who will attend the University of Kansas to study theater sound design, has refined his ambitions. “I want to write the understory and soundtracks for live theater,” he says. “This summer has been great.” Tickets ($50; $20 for students) for the culminating concert honoring Bobby McFerrin performing with the HMI Orchestra at Royce Hall are available by calling 825-2101.