Anyone who's ever uttered the phrase "those who can't do, teach," has obviously never met Virko Baley. The Ukrainian-born professor joined UNLV in 1970, and has since written scores of scores, garnering critical praise along the way (The Los Angeles Times said of 'Dreamtime': "As chamber music goes, Baley's opus is grand."). In late June, Baley will complete the prestigious Petro Jacyk Distinguished Research Fellowship at Harvard University, where he is working on his opera, "Hunger (Red Earth)." Though a welcome surprise, the fellowship came at a bad time. He spent the spring semester commuting cross-country to teach his UNLV graduate students. He and fellow music professor Jorge Grossman also organized the first Nevada Encounters of New Music (NEON) composers' symposium, a three-day festival of lectures, performances, and master classes. While he's not a fan of the time spent on airplanes ("At my age, it's not exactly ideal."), Baley maintains that "everything has its price, and it's the artist's concession to have to travel."
Baby
Mozart: When I was still a baby,
basically in the crib but standing up
already, any time there was music playing
on the radio, I would stop, listen, and wave
my arms. Now, I could've been waving
my arms for all kinds of reasons, but my
mother decided that it was for the purpose
of following the music, that I was listening
and following the beat ... which I use as
justification for my conducting career.
I Want My MTV: MTV was a huge revolution
because it brought the message that
music was commercially viable, and that in
turn influenced everything else. Suddenly,
$1 million wasn't nearly a success. You had
to have $10 million and $100 million.
Under the Influence: The list of influences
gets huge at a certain point. There are
different people for different reasons. The
influence that contemporary music has had
on me as a composer has been more in the
area of jazz. Bebop for the most part, I find
very, very interesting. And flamenco has
been a very big part of my life. Recent rock
and roll, I find basically boring.
Learning to Compose: When I realized
music was going to be my life, it
was two areas: piano performance and
composition. I made the decision to only
get a degree in performance, and that was
under the influence of one of my heroes at
that time — Bela Bartok, who I discovered
when I was about 16. Bartok essentially
stated that composition was not a subject
that you could teach. My position on that is yes, he's right, and yes, he's wrong.
What he meant by that was the way you
teach composition is by teaching music
in-depth, and to do that, you really had to
perform. He thought that it was not possible
for someone to be a really first-rate
composer without also doing a lot of performing.
There are obviously exceptions
to that rule, but I think on the whole, the
rule is accurate.
Youthful Thinking: I always took composition
in college, but that was not my
degree, because I felt, in kind of a snobbish
way, that people took composition as their
major because they didn't have any other
skill. We all have our moments of arrogance,
and that was mine.
Students: If I had a favorite, I wouldn't
admit it to you.
Hitting the Woodshed: The ideal
thing is to set aside fours hours a day for
writing. I think it's difficult to be a professional,
functioning composer without
doing that. Still, before a deadline you
end up writing 12, 14 hours a day to
make up for the fact that you didn't do it
along the way.
Alternate Ending: If I hadn't become a
composer, I would've gone into filmmaking.
I co-produced (Swan Lake: The Zone),
which won an award at the Cannes Film
Festival in 1989, and then I did music for A
Prayer for Hetman Mazepa in 2001. I think
each century has its primary art. The first half of the 19th century it was music, and
the second half I think the novel. In the
20th century I think it's film that became
both the great art form and also the most
popular.
Short Pants: I was 10, going on 11
when we landed on the American shores.
I think the shock of the new isn't all that
shocking, but you have to learn to deal
with the social mores of where you are. I
was 11 going on 12, and I decided to go
to school — in Europe it would be very
standard — in short pants. I was laughed
at. I remember going back home taking
the long way through the woods. I realized
that in the United States, for a kid who was
already past kindergarten to wear short
pants was considered sissy, or something
like that. I remember sitting there trying to
figure out what you do and don't do, just
in terms of social interaction.
Long Pants: At the twilight of my years,
I see the composers conference and UNLV's
composition program here as the important
thing I want to do, to get it on solid ground.
The program here wasn't really functional
until about eight years ago, so it's very
young and it's still going through some adolescent
growing pains now — it's exchanging
short pants for long pants.
Nurturing New Ideas: Well-established
schools often get in the way because they're
known as well-established schools. UNLV
allows for new ideas, and I appreciate that
immensely about the school.
