Centenary's Composer: James Eakin
Sophomore Dominick Benedetto and Dr. James Eakin in composition class.
It’s been a year of accolades for Centenary Associate Professor of Music James Eakin, who teaches music theory and composition at his alma mater while continuing an impressive professional career as a composer. Eakin’s choral work, #twitterlieder: 15 tweets in 3 acts, was announced as the winner of the American Prize in Composition in the large choral works division in October 2022. The American Prize, the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the classical arts, is dedicated to evaluating, recognizing and rewarding the best performers, ensembles, composers, directors, and administrators in the United States.
#twitterlieder was commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and premiered at Davies Symphony Hall in April 2015. The piece features text by the poet and lyricist Charles Anthony Silvestri. Using Twitter’s original format of 140 characters, Silvestri wrote 15 short prose poems to reflect the cycle of a person’s life. The 30-minute work’s three acts – Youth, Middle Age, and Old Age – are intersected by an unaccompanied “Greek Chorus” that comments on the life events chronicled in the previous section’s “tweets.” Eakin composed the music to accompany Silvestri’s text, and their collaboration has been performed by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, the Virginia Chorale, and the Centenary College Choir, among many other choral groups. The Virginia Chorale’s preparation to perform the piece was the subject of a PBS documentary that aired nationally in 2019. The Centenary College Choir performed the full #twitterlieder this year and previously performed excerpts from the work.
“This was a tricky piece to compose,” explained Eakin. “I wanted each movement to capture the brevity of a tweet, but it was a challenge composing 15 short pieces that also felt complete compositionally. Two of the most challenging pieces in the set were ‘Busy’ (the entire poetic tweet was one sentence with no spaces between words) and ‘Auto-Correct’ (for frustrated soloist using spoken dialog, and the choir responding by emulating the clicking of typing on an iPhone and the “whoop” sound when you send a text message). The trick was to lock in a musical form for each piece of poetry to keep me on task; however, this is true when composing a traditional length choral piece too.”
Eakin also recalls that the timeline to complete the work was challenging, as the commission came to him “quasi last-minute.” From start to finish, he had six weeks to complete a 30-minute work that included various soloists and duets, choir, and instrumentation consisting of piano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and percussion. Several years later, his efforts have been rewarded in a very significant way.
“Winning the American Prize in Composition was surreal,” said Eakin. “This has become one of the most prestigious competitions for composers and performing musicians, and I am honored to have won.”
In November 2022, just weeks after the announcement of the American Prize, Eakin was promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure at Centenary’s Hurley School of Music.
“Hurley is fortunate to have Dr. Eakin on faculty,” said Dr. Cory Wikan, dean of the Hurley School of Music. “As an alumnus, Eakin’s great success affirms the quality of education Hurley and Centenary have offered its many students over the years. Second, his pervasive connections to the music industry, from film to choral music, allow Hurley students a current, relevant training with a thriving master teacher and composer.”
Eakin brings his experiences as a professional composer as well as his life experiences to the classroom, to the great benefit of his students at Centenary.
“My advice for students who are interested in a career in music composition is this: Compose regularly even when you don’t feel like it,” said Eakin. “When I was a student at Centenary, I would only really compose when I was ‘in love’ or ‘heart broken.’ As my career began to blossom, I learned quickly that if I only composed when the Muse inspired me, I would not make my deadlines.”
Eakin also stresses to his students that another benefit of composing daily is that a beginning composer will discover their voice much quicker.
“On the first day with my new student composers, I always tell the story of ‘throwing pottery,’ explained Eakin. “In a pottery class, the students were divided into two groups. The first group had to create one perfect pot. The second group had to create as many pots as they could. After several weeks, the students showed their work. The first group’s ‘perfect’ pot was okay, but far from perfect. The second group showed all of the pots that they made, with their later pot’s quality surpassing the ‘perfect’ pot of the first group. The lesson from this is that we learn from our mistakes and keep improving through repetition. This is also true in music composition.”
Eakin received a bachelor of arts in music from Centenary College in 2000, a master of arts in music from SMU, and a doctorate of musical arts in composition from the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Eakin studied at the Aspen Music Festival and School’s Center for Composition Studies before becoming the Electronic Music Studio Coordinator and eventually the Director of the Film Scoring Program there in 2008.
He has been a composer-in-residence with the Turtle Creek Chorale and Resounding Harmony, both of Dallas, Texas; the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus; and Te Deum, a professional choir based in Kansas City. His compositions have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas, to name a few. He has scored several films, including Cut to the Chase, Sugar, and Visible Scars.
Learn more about Eakin’s work at jameseakin.com.