James Robert
Brašić
April 9, 2003
Baltimore
Composers’ Forum
Personal Information
On February 25, 1948, I was born in Chicago,
Illinois. I grew up in Mount
Prospect, Illinois, where I
went to kindergarten at Fairview School,
grammar school at Saint Raymond
School, and high school at Prospect
High School.
My interest
in music was fostered by the interest of my parents in music. My father began
the study of the accordion while I was a child. I did not want to learn the
accordion myself. However, while vacationing in Wisconsin
in the summer, I obtained a simple reed flute blown at the end like a recorder.
I liked it so I told my parents that I wanted to study the flute. At the local
music store, I was presented a transverse flute and began to take weekly private
flute lessons when I was in fifth grade. Weekly private flute lessons and daily
flute practice became part of my routine. Playing the flute became a major
activity for the subsequent years.
Shortly
after beginning the private study of the flute, I began to take part in group
instrumental programs. A local music teacher began conducting a children’s
orchestra in her house so I attended regularly. This local orchestra ceased
after a few weeks because neighbors complained about disturbing the peace. However,
the piano teacher informed me that Students Symphony Orchestra rehearsed on
Monday evenings in the Jefferson Park Field House in Chicago,
so I attended rehearsals weekly with another local student of the violoncello.
Along with my flute lessons, the orchestral rehearsals became major events in
my life. I planned to become a professional flutist. I attended summer camps in
band and orchestra at the University
of Illinois in Champaign
and Northwestern University
in Evanston due to my desire for
more instruction in flute performance.
When I was
in eighth grade, I wanted rigorous instruction in the flute so I auditioned for
study with Emil Eck, a former member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I also
wanted a top-notch instrument so I used my life savings to purchase a Haynes
flute.
I played in
the band at Prospect High
School for my four years of high school. My final
year I was the first flutist. I also auditioned to play a solo with the band.
This was rewarded by my performing from memory Concertino by Cécile Chaminade arranged for flute and band at the
spring band concert in my senior year of high school.
During my
junior and senior years of high school, I also played flute and piccolo in the
Youth Symphony Orchestra of Greater Chicago. I generally went to orchestral
rehearsals followed by flute lessons with Emil Eck on Saturday mornings.
Eventually
in high school I decided to become a psychiatrist instead of a flutist.
After
graduating from high school, I moved from home to continue my studies in Boston,
Massachusetts. I was given a scholarship
and a loan to attend the Honors Accelerated Six-Year Program in Liberal Arts
and Medicine at Boston University
so my parents agreed to the expense of my living away from home for the next
six years. Since I was unable to take private flute lessons in college, I gradually
practiced less often. Although the curriculum for the Six-Year Program was
highly structured, I was able to take courses in music theory with John Goodman
and David Edelman and in music composition and counterpoint with Hugo Norden. Additionally,
I played chamber music with other musicians throughout college and medical
school. In my final year of medical school I felt the need to continue my study
of music so I took private composition lessons from William Banchs in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Since I
wanted to complete clinical training in neurology and psychiatry immediately
after medical school, I promised myself that I may spend a year to study music
full-time once I finished residency training in psychiatry.
Therefore,
while a resident in psychiatry at Barnes-Jewish
Hospital in Saint
Louis, Missouri, I enrolled in
a Master of Arts degree program at Washington
University. There, I began studies
in composition with John MacIvor Perkins. Although Mr. Perkins told me not to
get my hopes up, I submitted a composition to a local music contest. My Four Songs for soprano, clarinet, and piano
were selected for the Forum for Composers in the Main Theatre of the Performing
Arts Center at the Saint Louis Community
College at Forest Park
on May 3, 1977, partially
funded by the Missouri State Council of the Arts and the Music Performance
Trust Fund. A professional performance of my composition was provided by
Carolyn Gaspar, soprano, Robert Coleman, clarinet, and Mary Mottl, piano. I was
given a recording of the concert for my personal use. This experience convinced
me that I have potential as a composer. I am grateful to Jeanne Milder,
Chairperson of the Department of Music of the Saint
Louis Community College
at Forest Park for orchestrating
the first performance of my music.
After the
absence of two years from Saint Louis
on active duty in the United States Air Force, I returned to the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences at Washington
University in 1979, for my year of
music study full-time. By this time I had stopped practicing my instruments
regularly. I sold my flute and piccolo to pay for my expenses during my year
studying music full-time. I studied music composition with John MacIvor Perkins
and music theory with Robert Wykes. A high point
of that year was a recital of my original music on April 24, 1980, in Graham Chapel at Washington
University in Saint
Louis. Jan Parker, soprano, Gary Scott, clarinet, and
Margaret Peterson, piano, performed Four Songs.
Jennifer Jo Schroeder, flute, and Margaret Peterson, piano, performed Nocturne (1975) and th (1976). Nicholas Solomon, bass, Jennifer Jo Schroeder, flute,
and Margaret Peterson, piano, performed my musical setting of Triad (1974) by Adelaide Crapsey.
Jennifer Jo Schroeder, flute, and Mark Lewis Tate, percussion, performed Termination (1977). I had planned to
have a dance student perform during Four
Songs, but that did not occur. I was given an audiotape of the recital.
After graduating from the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in Saint
Louis with my Master of Arts in Music Composition in
May, 1980, I moved to New York to
continue my psychiatric career with a fellowship in child psychiatry at New
York-Presbyterian Hospital. Due to my distaste for business I did not pursue
the publication of my music. I decided to begin the study of dance myself so
that I could provide both dance and music. For my first year in New
York I studied ballet at the Joffrey
Ballet School.
Then I studied at the David Howard School of Ballet, and finally Broadway
Dance Center.
At the David Howard School of Ballet, I met Frank C. Martin, II, a scholarship
student studying choreography. I offered the music that I had composed for his
use. He choreographed several ballets to Termination,
performed in the 1980s in New York,
at the David Howard School of Ballet, the Harkness Ballet Foundation, Merkin Concert Hall, and
other venues. Videotapes and other documentation of the ballets choreographed
by Frank C. Martin, II, to Termination
are in the Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts at Lincoln Center. Frank C. Martin, II,
returned to South Carolina to teach at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He is currently Interim
Director, Curator, and Instructor of the Department of Visual and Performing
Arts in the School of the Arts and Humanities at the South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Beginning in 1990, Belinda Sue James began presentations
of her choreography entitled Metamorphosis to Termination at the Mark
Goodson Theatre of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and at the Cathedral
Church of Saint John the Divine in New York, New York, and the Triangle
Theater, Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center, Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. Videotapes and other
documentation of Metamorphosis choreographed by Belinda James to Termination are in the Dance Division of
the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
In 1999, I moved to Baltimore, Maryland, to commence a fellowship
in nuclear neuroimaging at the School of Medicine of Johns Hopkins University. I composed a piece for
clarinet and three percussion for students at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns
Hopkins University in 2002. I have joined the Baltimore Composers Forum to
actively perform my musical compositions. In January, 2003, I presented ballets
choreographed by Frank C. Martin, II, to Termination at Winter Words, a concert of music
and the spoken word, by the Baltimore Composers Forum, at the Creative
Alliance, Baltimore, Maryland.
I seek to foster the performance and
the publication of my original musical compositions through the Baltimore
Composers’ Forum.
Further information about my career
is available as follows:
http://www.med.nyu.edu/people/brasij01.html
and
http://myprofile.cos.com/yrral