NORMAN — “Music is music,” said Lauren Sonder of Sonder Music, Dance and Art in the midst of a conversation about the universality of music.
This is the point she hopes presenters will drive home during the Oklahoma Composers Association Symposium on the Future of Music, which takes place Saturday. The free symposium is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Sonder’s studio, 225 E. Gray St.
It’s pegged as a discussion-based conference by composers for composers, dealing specifically with the world of musical composition.
“The landscape is changing on what it means to be a working composer,” Sonder said.
Instead of just composing for orchestral groups, the composers also create the sounds for film scores and even video games. However, the basic concepts are the same, Sonder said.
Another focus of the symposium will be breaking down the barriers between contemporary and classic music and discussing common misconceptions about the two genres.
“Pockets in each genre are different, but so much more is universal,” she said.
Topics to be discussed touch on career opportunities and technicalities of music making. Presenters include Marc Jensen, a composer, performer and scholar with a certificate in Deep Listening; Samuel Magrill, a professor of music and composer-in-residence at the University of Central Oklahoma; Joseph Rivers, a concert and film composer and professor of music and film studies at the University of Tulsa; and Ricardo A. Coelho de Souza, a visiting instructor in world music and percussion at the University of Oklahoma.
The partnership between the OCA and Sonder Music, Dance and Art for the symposium stems from a two-year long relationship that has included a composers salon concert series once a month.
These concerts, as well as the symposium and the composers association, all have the same goal in mind.
“The whole idea is to keep composers in the state,” Sonder said.
The OCA was formed in 2008. Originally, the association was focused more on Norman, launching programs like “Composers in the Schools,” where composers work with Norman high school ensembles.
Looking to branch out and include composers across the state, OCA will launch the program in Tulsa for the coming school year.
If the symposium proves to be successful, Sonder said she would like to see it become an annual event.
For more information on the OCA and the symposium, visit oklahomacomposers.org.
Aaron Wright Gray 366-3533 pop@normantranscript.com
