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Brief Biography
Dr. Simonson received his Ph.D. from
the University of California-San Diego in 1999. That year he joined the liberal
arts faculty at DACC and has been teaching all of the music courses. His
degrees are in music composition, but his interests and teaching experience have
involved computer music, music theory and musicology. He studied composition
with Harvey Sollberger at Indiana University and Roger Reynolds at UC-San Diego.
His current creative project (entitled "Geometries") is a group of chamber music
pieces which incorporate electro-acoustic and computer generated sounds. Dr.
Simonson is also a pianist and conductor. He has performed as piano soloist
with the Tulsa Philharmonic, Oklahoma City Symphony and the Memphis State
University Orchestra. Before turning his attention exclusively to composition
and teaching, he enjoyed a busy career as an accompanist. Dr. Simonson has
extensive experience conducting choral and instrumental groups (especially in
20th century repertoire). From 1999-2001 he directed DACC's College Singers.
Prior to coming to DACC, he was a part-time instructor at Tulsa University and
UC-San Diego.
Teaching Philosophy
"I feel that it is my responsibility to expose my students to new sounds
(and physical and historical information about those sounds) and help them begin
to understand why they may or may not like them. This critical hearing and
thinking faculty should also be applied to sounds they already know and may be
comfortable with. I will put forth even greater effort to assist those who want
to move beyond just hearing sounds and want to actually make sounds (both
beautiful and ugly, but at the right time). One must learn that there is a time
for a beautiful sound and a time for an ugly one. That time might be prescribed
more or less precisely by a musical score or may be the subject of philosophical
speculation. If I accomplish nothing more, I am satisfied if I have failed to
satisfy the curiosity of my students regarding these things. If they have no
curiosity, then this is cause for great concern and my methods must somehow be
sensitively adjusted."
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