2026 JiB Senior Composer Introduction Series: Jason Thorpe Buchanan

It is our pleasure to introduce Jason Thorpe Buchanan.

EofC Describe the moment when you discovered your calling to music.

I remember participating in a 4th or 5th grade "assembly" where a guest teacher demonstrated each of the orchestral instruments that we could choose from to play in the elementary school band. I was immediately drawn to the flute and played that for a couple of years before moving on to guitar. At some point I began transcribing rock songs using the flute as a tool to do so. From that point forward I was obsessed with music and listening, and through the guitar, drum set, and a bit of piano, I eventually found my way to music theory. Around age 12 or 13 (1998-99), I was layering overdubs ad nauseam with an old 4-track Tascam recorder, and I remember thinking to myself there must be a better way to do this, because I could only record two channels at a time and then overdub the next two onto the opposite side. When I was about 14 I distinctly recall trading in my alto saxophone (my technique was garbage--I never formally studied it...) for my first 12 or 16 channel digital recording device, and then eventually moving to Pro Tools a few years later, perhaps around 2001. I finally discovered "new music" and formal composition a bit before university as I was studying for my undergrad entrance exams (2005). Through my interest in studio work and audio engineering, I eventually began to gravitate toward a more experimental practice and computer music. But it took a while for me to shake some of the weird aesthetic baggage that academic institutions sometimes instill in young composers, particularly American institutions with more conservative performance programs. But I never really understood what a composer 'did' until I had already decided to study composition in college, I just knew that I wanted to make music. I essentially had zero frame of reference for this, so before university I was starting from almost nothing, just some guitar chops and a bit of theory. There is a part of me that believes this actually allowed me to break with some conventions and compositional phenomena that are typical of young American composers who spent their youth steeped solely in classical music. I actually gave up the guitar and piano entirely because I felt that my established habits (jazz and rock improvisation, extended harmony) and pre-occupation with pitch organization were getting in the way of thinking more creatively, audiating and imagining musical situations beyond my own limited abilities while composing.

 

EofC This is the JiB year of the composer/conductor. How do composing and conducting relate to each other in your practice?

This is a complex question but my relationship to classical music has always been, perhaps, a bit abnormal (for a composer with a notational practice). I grew up playing rock music and only really beginning to engage with conducted ensembles when I started university, so I was never steeped in classical repertoire until I began to study it formally at University. In fact, I was acquainted with the music of Ligeti earlier than, for example, the music of Beethoven or Mozart. And this had a massive influence on my compositional thinking. So, having had only a handful of experiences working with conductors, when I began conducting during my bachelor's and master's, it was almost exclusively the work of my peers -- other composers I went to school with -- and once in a while my own music as well. I studied conducting a little more formally in my Masters, and then when I arrived at Eastman for my Ph.D., I reached out to Brad Lubman. Brad, needing an assistant conductor that year to rehearse the new music ensemble while he was away on professional gigs, offered me the opportunity to work with the Musica Nova ensemble, and to be perfectly honest, I was really thrown into the deep end, but in the best way possible. I was surrounded by musicians with literally decades more experience in classical music than myself, conducting them in rehearsals of Boulez, Abrahamsen, Unsuk Chin, Wuorinen, Czernowin, Lang, Zorn, etc. Out of necessity, I quickly learned "good" rehearsal technique from watching Brad, and then eventually conducting more and more with [Switch~] when we founded the ensemble in 2012 and a bit with Ossia and the Graduate Composers Sinfonietta. Even though I don't conduct as much these days as I am more focused on composing and teaching, having experience as a conductor absolutely informs my compositional practice deeply, in that I can better understand what sorts of things get in the way of musicians being as musical and expressive as possible, what can be achieved quickly, and what might be an unnecessary burden for musicians. I try to incorporate this into my practice with electroacoustic and intermedia composition, in that I am always thinking about optimal expressivity and efficacy with regard to the relationship between the ensemble and the technology, attempting to work toward the strengths of each of these two complementary entities and not getting in the way of what musicians can do.

   

EofC What place does the audience have in your compositional process and what place do they have while conducting?

In the same way that I feel it isn't really an artist's place to decide how their own history will be written, I don't necessarily believe that it is beneficial to composers (or any artists, really) to worry too much about how their work will be received. An interdisciplinary practice that engages with exploring new aesthetic trajectories, trying out new ideas with other musicians and artists, and investigating new technologies is fundamentally more engaging (imho) than emulating old and tired historical practices inherited through tradition (sorry, everyone). My hope is that through striving to create new and sometimes challenging (or abnormal) musical situations, someone listening might be able to find something that they can latch on to and appreciate. That is really the most one can hope for, isn't it? But I have absolutely zero interest in making "accessible" or marketable art, at least, in the sense that the term "accessible" is often thrown around these days, particularly in American institutions. I think if a composer wants desperately to be loved by the masses, they should probably choose another career path. But that said, artists these days are all unfortunately competing for a relatively scarce quantity of resources in order to create art (unless you are independently wealthy, in which case: call me). So everyone is inevitably thinking about what they can do to obtain said resources, and sadly I feel many composers and conductors become preoccupied with how their work is received rather than just trying to make the best art that they can and hoping that it will resonate with someone. 

 

EofC How do you approach giving masterclasses?

I've always appreciated my own teachers who really put in the time to understand what I was trying to do rather than making assumptions based on their own compositional practice or experiences. So for me, a big part of working with student composers is simply trying to meet them where they are at and providing guidance and hopefully a bit of wisdom to help them achieve their own artistic goals. Or perhaps, arrive at some clarity regarding what those goals might be. Working with younger composers with limited experience, that could simply mean exposure to new ideas, new works, new methodologies that will broaden their compositional thinking, stimulate creativity, and lead to greater technical fluency and clarity of conception. In a masterclass this could manifest in all sorts of ways, but I think what is more useful than a critique of existing work is to try to take a more holistic approach to understand what their underlying motivation as a composer or artist might be, and then figure out how to more precisely achieve whatever it is they are attempting to do. I would much rather understand something about a student's artistic identity and come to some sort of mutual understanding than spend a half hour debating their musical notation or signal routing (that said, clarity of intention in the score is crucial!).

 

EofC How do you approach giving public lectures?

Really, the crux of my practice for the last eleven or so years has been exploring the relationship between live performance and technology. In a lecture on my compositional work, I try to demonstrate how this has developed over the course of my career, starting with purely acoustic notated music and then gradually moving toward a more interdisciplinary approach incorporating graphical elements, theater, improvisation, aleatory, video, generative or gesture/audio-reactive systems, etc. I find the compositional process itself fascinating and have always enjoyed learning how other artists work. I suppose my hope is that through sharing a glimpse of my own workflow, system design, and compositional practice, student composers might take something from it that they can begin incorporating into their own practice or, at least, reflect on what sorts of things work well for them and what might getting in the way. Take what is useful, and throw the other stuff in the bin.

  

We thank Jason Thorpe Buchanan for the interview. If you would like to discover some of his work, please check out the videos below!