COMPOSER SABRINA PENA YOUNG | MUSIC TECHNOLOGY | FILM | CLASSICAL | OPERA

Please read the original article here:  http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/composing-and-motherhood/ COMPOSING AND MOTHERHOOD BY  EMILY DOOLITTLE ON APRIL 26, 2017 When I started composing, as an 18 year old in 1990, I knew of few women composers. Those I did know of either had their careers curtailed when they had kids (Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler, Ruth Crawford Seeger), or they didn’t have kids (Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, and the few women composers I knew personally). I thought I might want to have kids one day, and it was scary going into a field in which I knew no role models. But I needed to compose, and any possible kids were a long way off. Certainly I encountered occasional sexism as a student and young composer, but mostly I received great encouragement. My way of participating in the new music world was no different from that of my male contemporaries. I studied, [1]  I went to music festivals, I lived abroad, I went to artist residencie...

The Failure of Superwoman : A Young Composer's Confession  (Originally Published 2010) In this poignant confession, an overworked mother shares her daily struggles of work and family while giving a seed of hope to working mothers the world over.  My friends call me Superwoman.  Singlehandedly I juggle work, music, and motherhood , and still manage to get a healthy dinner on the table before my husband comes home at night. You can find me lecturing on Baroque Music and Beethoven at the local university, composing electronic music for my opera until the late hours of the night, teaching my baby girl proper fingering on the piano, and trying to find ways to buy organic vegetables while cutting my grocery budget by another ten percent. I appreciate the empowerment my mother's generation gave to Generations X and Y. We grew up believing that we could have it all. Despite all of the bad publicity for being "slackers", we believed that a woman could perfectly bal...

The Composer 's Daughter: A Mother's Recollection  A young mother recollects musical memories  about her new baby in this heartfelt story. Strangers say she has the slender fingers of a pianist. She grimaces at minor seconds and is lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the pounding drums. She cries as cluster chords play electronic strains and is fascinated by the simple strumming of the melodic mandolin. She smiles as her mother sings a half-forgotten lullaby and shuts her eyes at the clash of clanging cymbals. She is the composer's daughter. As I hold her tiny, pink, pillowy body closely to my gently beating heart, I wonder if the nearly ten months she spent in my womb has left any permanent musical impressions on her. I remember the rhythmic kicks she gave me from within when I stubbornly insisted on playing drum set seven months into the pregnancy, my bulging belly only a centimeter's distance from the piercing snare drum . I think of the hours I performed on...

I suppose we all have those days, when no matter what your good intentions, a good day starts out ok and then slowly spirals into mayhem. For some reason, our best efforts melt by the wayside, tiredness kicks in, your smile melts into a frown, and you wonder if you will ever be able to balance the thousand self-inflicted projectiles that you are attempted to juggle.  I guess that is how I felt today, trying to balance online classes with my three-year-old, finishing up a video and getting ready for a music class tomorrow, trying to clean the house for visiting friends, and dressing for affiliation with Sigma Alpha Iota , the international music fraternity for women. And I guess that's when I realize that I am trying to fill the roles of several people - mom, wife, musician, teacher, friend, and I can't do it all, all of the time. Some days I will fail, like today when I found my head almost literally spinning in circles. All that was missing was the pea soup.  I ...