Growing as a composer

In the fall semester, Danielle Brown plunged into a full-time independent study program in Puerto Rico. Her dual mission, she says, was to “absorb the musical culture of Puerto Rico and to work on my own musical compositions.” To meet her first goal, she explored the storied clubs of Old San Juan in the evenings to study Latin music in performance. The intimacy of the clubs allowed the Brooklyn, NY, native to introduce herself to the musicians some of them legends and talk with them about their craft. Says Brown, “If these players were in New York, I would’ve had no chance of meeting them.”

By day, Brown lived like an artist on retreat, concentrating on her original jazz compositions. The hard part of composing, Brown says, is fleshing out a melody and a few chords into a fully rendered arrangement for a variety of instruments. Her stint in Puerto Rico provided a way to complete some of her songs, three of which will be part of her application this spring to a master’s degree program in jazz composition at New York University. In the meantime, she is waiting to hear whether she’ll be selected to receive a prestigious Watson Fellowship to study African-American jazz music in England, France, and Switzerland.

Associate Professor of Music Douglas B. Johnson, who is Brown’s academic adviser, was impressed with the initiative she showed in fashioning a productive off-campus semester for herself. Brown is a “self-starter,” he says, whose study in Puerto Rico and Watson Fellowship application are evidence of her ability to “create learning opportunities for herself.” 

A well-rounded musical education
A music major whose other academic interests include psychology, microbiology, and Spanish language and literature, Brown has pursued a well-rounded musical education that has combined courses in music theory, history, and composition; lessons in voice and piano to hone her technical skills as a musician; and experience in the art of performance through participation in Salsafication (Trinity’s salsa and Latin jazz band), the Jazz Ensemble, and the Trinitones.

Assistant Professor of Music Lise Waxer taught Brown in a course on African music and characterizes her student as having “an extreme amount of self-discipline, maturity, self-motivation, and originality.” In one assignment for the course, students were given the option of writing a critical paper that reflected their understanding of the course material or creating a project that achieved the same goal. Brown wrote a series of original songs that featured the various musical styles and traditions covered in class. As Waxer observes, Brown managed to meet the demands of the assignment creatively while at the same time pushing herself forward as a composer: “She turned it into an opportunity to use new compositional ideas.”

Although her main focus this year has been on growing as a composer, Brown believes one of the most important ways she has evolved at Trinity is as a performer. When she joined Salsafication, it was a fledgling ensemble, and she was the only female member and one of only two or three first-year students. She recalls thinking, “All these musicians are much more seasoned than I am.”  Brown, who is soft-spoken in conversation, says of her singing with the group, “I’ve learned to let go and to not hold back.”  Waxer, Salsafication’s faculty adviser, notes that not only did Brown become a dedicated teaching assistant for the ensemble, but also she has flourished as a lead singer with enough stage presence and savoir faire to act as the band’s unofficial emcee, talking to the audience between songs and introducing each new number.

Off campus, Brown has sought out other opportunities to enrich her music education. In a summer internship with the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Brown supervised high school students in a work-study program called Neighborhood Studios. In the process, she gained an insider’s perspective on the field of arts administration. She added teaching experience to her credentials last spring semester, when she taught a weekly music appreciation class to children between six and 12 years old at St. James Episcopal Church in West Hartford. Devising class activities to engage children in such a wide age range was a challenge, Brown comments. Some days, she would play a few bars of music on the piano and invite the children to improvise with her. On one memorable day the group made maracas out of tuna fish cans filled with rice or beans. “I still have a set,” Brown says. “I like having all sorts of instruments around.”

A composer from childhood
One of the instruments Brown has saved is a small keyboard she received when she was eight years old. Even then, she was writing songs and singing them with her brother. Every day, bits of musical ideas flash through her head, although she doesn’t know exactly where they come from. Sometimes she just starts humming a tune she knows has the potential to be a full-fledged song. “I hear music all the time,” she says.

Brown would like to produce a CD of her own work someday. Her dream ambition, though, is to run her own jazz club that would be classy but accessible to a broad audience. Brown’s mentors at Trinity have no doubts about her potential for success. “She has a very clear idea of where she’s headed,” Waxer notes.

That may be why Brown often can be found playing the piano in Trinity’s practice rooms until late at night.  Says Brown with a quiet laugh, “I live in Austin Arts Center.” 

                                                                                                                       --Leslie Virostek