Breaking Out of Musical Boxes with Monica Mendoza

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Transcript

Intro

Wren 0:04

You're listening to Magical Moments with Music, the podcast where we share stories about the power of music and how it changes us for good. You'll get to hear how real people use music to express themselves, connect with others, find joy, and so much more. Hi everyone, thanks

About Monica

Wren 0:32

for joining. I'm your host, Wren, and today we'll be talking with Monica Mendoza. Monica is a PhD student in music composition at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In addition to her studies, Monica teaches musicianship classes and is the graduate teaching assistant for the New Music Ensemble. Monica is passionate about performing and uses her background and flute performance to help bring her peers' compositions to life. Monica has had her compositions premiered by the University of Utah Philharmonia and the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. In March, her music was featured at Electronic Music Midwest Festival, and this upcoming spring, her music will be featured at SEAMUS 2026. I first met Monica in 2018 at University of the Pacific. We played in Orchestra and Symphonic Wind Ensemble together, and we also performed our own arrangement of the Iron and Wine song Flightless Bird, American Mouth, for the student concert series. I have been so lucky to see Monica perform and play alongside her, and I'm so excited to see more about how she utilizes her passion for music and composition. Welcome, Monica!

Monica 1:49

Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.

Wren 1:54

Me too. All right, let's jump right in.

Magical Moments with Music: Bob's Burgers, Doctor Who, and Final Fantasy

Wren 1:58

Monica, tell me about a magical moment you've had with music.

Monica 2:03

Okay, so there's actually like kind of a recent one that immediately jumps to mind when I when I saw this question. And so this one is, you know, I go home for um Christmas break. That's usually my longest visit home, you know, because I work in the summer times. And so I went, I went home. This I think this was between my first and second year at Wyoming in my master's. And there's a Bob's Burgers Christmas special called The Plight Before Christmas. And um to just get just how crazy this story is, how awesome this was, is that me and my sister, one of our favorite pieces of music ever is the Mishima soundtrack by Philip Glass. And anyways, the plot of the episode is where um one of the kids, his um music teacher for the Christmas concert, has appendicitis, so they get a sub who is not a music teacher but was the only person who answered the phone. So the only person they could get to sub. And so they realize, like, oh, we can't do this without the main teacher. And he goes, wait a second, maybe we have too many notes to choose from. And I got I was like, are they gonna do minimalism? And so he like takes a bunch of the um keys off of the xylophones because that that's the music ensemble, it's a xylophone ensemble, and then they start, and it's like right away, me and my sister knew this they're playing Mishima. It's just such a beautiful piece of music, and to suddenly hear that on that show, oh my gosh, it was it was amazing. It was it was just like such a crazy coincidence that I don't know. And it was during the holidays, and I was home with my family, and I was like, this is great timing.

Wren 3:57

That is so special. I love that so much. I love that you knew the piece before Bob's Burgers because I learned the piece because of Bob's Burgers. Um, I I was listening to some music on Spotify, and then I looked down and I'm like, wait, there's no way this is the Bob's Burgers soundtrack. Oh, that's awesome! That's so cool. So you and your sister both listened to that. And you you and your sister love making music together and listening to music together. What are some of your favorite memories of music that you two have made together?

Monica 4:38

Let's see. Um one time we were singing along to this track from Doctor Who. I think it was The Long Song, and there's a really high note. There's like a high B natural, like a like a B, I don't know, it's like a B5 or something. And me and my sister, like in a very silly way, we're hitting that note right at the climax. The song ends, and we hear our dad down the hall trying to match the pitch with us. Just like, ah that's a little one. Another one. Well, there's the uh Final Fantasy concert that we did during the pandemic. So, what's great about living in the same house as you know, another musician is that you were lucky enough to be able to play with somebody in real time. That having been said, barely any of the tracks were us playing together in real time. We were usually playing multiple instruments, so we were editing together and to get the best possible sound, because I only had one good mic. We would play the solo part, we play the accompaniment, we do it all separately. So I say we got to play together, but we were st- we were still editing stuff together. But uh we love the the Final Fantasy was like we got so into that during the um the during 2020. So naturally the music really caught our attention and we for my you remember performance class. For performance class, you had to put together some kind of concert video, and that was my that was my submission for that class was the Final Fantasy concert, and that was really fun. We cosplayed for a few of the for a few of the songs where we had video, so that was really special too.

Wren 6:32

That's amazing. I didn't know that that was for performance class too. I love that you were able to do something so fun and personal and with your sister all for s- all for school.

Monica 6:45

Yeah. It was awesome. It was great. Everyone was so like everyone's comments were really, really awesome, you know.

Wren 6:55

Yeah, I'm sure they could see you know, see how special that was for you.

Monica 7:01

Yeah,

Video Game Music

Monica 7:02

it was awesome.

Wren 7:04

So you've been inspired by the music of Final Fantasy. What other video game music favorites do you have?

Monica 7:13

Well, definitely gotta mention Kingdom Hearts. When I was a kid, my dad worked at GameStop at the mall in my hometown. And so he was really on top of it when there were like new releases. And this one release that he was actually very excited about was Kingdom Hearts because, like, hey, this isn't a rated M game. My children who are like I think almost all under 10 years old could play this because it's Disney mixed with Final Fantasy. So um I d I fell in love with it. Me and my siblings fell in love with it, and yeah, that soundtrack definitely is just like yeah, it definitely it shaped my like musical taste in a pretty significant way, I think, just because you know, got into it so early. I think it was six, and yeah, definitely Kingdom Hearts. Um uh near the near soundtrack. So near, there's like the first game, I think, in 2009 or 2010. I can't quite remember. And then there was near Automata in 2017, and those those are really cool. It's like they're kind of like chamber orchestra-ish, they use a lot of folk instruments, very eclectic styles ranging from like kind of folksy to jazzy, and they almost always have some kind of lyrics, but they're they're lyrics in like a made-up language, so it like fits the kind of otherworldly. It's kind of like sci-fi fantasy, that kind of thing. So definitely, definitely that that soundtrack as well.

Wren 8:52

It seems like in a way that video game music is uh almost like at the forefront of composition and new music. It's such a unique uh setting to put music into.

Monica 9:07

Yeah, and I think that uh Final Fantasy was like uh really at the forefront of like getting just uh amazing musical scores in the games. You know, the composer Nobuo Uematsu is the original composer for Final Fantasy games up until I think 10. That he still wrote for 10, but 10, the s it was just like there was so much detail and it was so large in scale that they brought in a few other folks to you know co-write. But um they weren't pulling any punches with the soundtracks for those. Yeah. They've always been very good, lots of thought and intention put into them, you know. It's just a treat, you know.

Wren 9:49

Yeah.

Monica's Musician Origin Story

Wren 9:51

So video game music has played in an important role in how you connected with music. What else got you interested in music from a young age?

Monica 10:01

My little brother actually was the first one of us who really wanted to take uh music lessons. He really wanted to take violin lessons. And so my little sister also was like, Well, I want to take violin too. And uh my mom asked me, she was like, "What instrument would you want to do?" And so we had this like really old flute from a garage sale. It actually was like kind of factory irregular. It had like if you play flute, I think you'll know what I mean. It had three trill holes, but only two trill keys. So we didn't know how you activated that mystery third one. It was very odd. It was like some kind of knockoff that one of our friends got at a garage sale or something. But you know, it made noise. It it made noise, it was good to start on, and I was like, Well, I I want to play flute. And so we um I actually did take violin for uh a year with my siblings, but then I uh my teacher really encouraged my mom to sign me up for the youth orchestra in Monterey, Youth Music Monterey, and um when I got into that, I didn't have time to do violin, and I was frustrated with it anyways, because I don't know. I think even before I joined the orchestra, I put more time into flute, but with violin, it's like hard to like kind of half measure it because there's so much muscle memory and coordination. It's really hard to just like casually play it. I don't know, at least that was my experience. So I was frustrated with it. So when I was just in flute, I was like, yeah, all right, okay, now we're cooking, you know. And I was also interested in music because of ballet. When I was a little kid, I was crazy about The Nutcracker: Barbie the Nutcracker, Barbie Swan Lake, you name it, crazy about ballet. Then I took ballet class and they had us dancing to like Disney Channel music sung by like contemporary pop stars, and it was like the 2000s, so it was like very, I don't know. I feel like even back in the day, I was like, this is this is kind of cheesy. I was like, this is so embarrassing, "Mom don't come." I was like, "I thought we'd be dancing to like the ones where people die," instead we got like, I don't know. And I was like, "oh no, no one's gonna die, are they?" We're not gonna do anything with a plow, we're just gonna dance to this. And then I realized like I like the music better.

Wren 12:44

Yeah, oh yeah, completely. And and the music, yeah, that I guess the the pop version of of that kind of Disney music, it just doesn't speak to the like your whole soul and your whole being, like uh an orchestra does, something that is written intentionally for like these big emotional moments through dance.

Monica 13:10

Yeah, I wanted the drama, you know. And I mean, I wanted a character to die, not like one of my classmates.

Wren 13:19

Of course, of course.

Monica 13:23

Clarification needed.

Wren 13:25

Thank goodness. I actually also love Barbie and the Nutcracker and Barbie and Swan Lake, and I saw all three of the Tchaikovsky ballets last year

Monica 13:42

Oh wow

Wren 13:42

and when I when I saw Nutcracker and when I saw Swan Lake both times, um, I quote unquote "prepared" by watching the Barbie movies.

Monica 13:54

A couple years ago at Christmas, like, and me and my siblings are all grown up now, but like I think it was two years ago. We unironically watched Barbie and the Nutcracker when I was home for Christmas break.

Wren 14:09

So good. I know it stood the test of time. I I like I I couldn't believe how hard I cried when they had that beautiful ending dance scene.

Monica 14:26

Oh, and then he got the mouse, Tim Curry mouse, like opens the locket or something.

Wren 14:35

Oh my gosh

Monica 14:36

and he just disappears. Oh so dramatic and so good. See, that's what kids wanted, or at least that's what I wanted. I wanted some drama.

Wren 14:48

I love that.

Bringing Drama into Music

Wren 14:49

Okay, so knowing that you love the drama, how do you put the drama into your music?

Monica 14:58

That's a good question. I recently wrote an orchestra piece based on the Juan Rulfo book, Pedro Paramo. And this is a very dramatic book, you know. It's basically about a man who, a man whose mother passes away, and she tells him, you know, go back to my hometown, meet your estranged father, and get what he owes us. You know, I cut contact with him before you were even born, but I want you to go get what you're owed from him. And so he goes, and the hometown is a literal ghost town. He gets there, and there's nobody but ghosts. Ghosts who are unstuck in time, some of them don't know they're dead, some of them do know they're dead. So it's uh it's just this amazing book that's like less than 200 pages long, and it's just one of the best ghost stories I've ever read. In my first year at Utah, they were like, okay, my teacher was, "you're gonna write a proposal, just describe an orchestra piece you would write if you won this prize, because the prize is the orchestra plays it." So and so I was like, Man, there's so many ideas. But the first idea I thought of was that book. And even though a lot of other ideas kind of came and went, that one was just the one that won it out. And uh so when you asked how do I put the drama into my music, I think this is a good example because this is it's a very dramatic story, you know. The scene that made the most impact on me from that book was when we learn how the town got cursed. Because that's why it's a ghost town. It's there's like a curse on the town. But his the main character's father was the landowner for the entire area in this, you know, this Mexican town. And he was a horrible person, like no redeeming qualities, until he married his oh god, third wife, I think. It's a very dramatic book. His third wife, Susanna, he loves more than anything else in the world, and she's one of the few people that he is not cruel to. So, so yeah, she dies. Oh god, spoiler alert, sorry, for a 70-year-old book. He is just struck with grief, like the first time in his life that he's feeling real grief. And this guy, he's had an adult son be like killed. So this is the first time he's like actually legitimately grieving. It to give you an idea of I know it's crazy. And so he orders, because he's in charge, he orders every single church bell in the valley to ring. But the townspeople think that these are like party bells because she just so happened to die on a Catholic feast day. So they think, oh, of course the bells are ringing, it's a Marian feast day, and so they start partying. And the landowner interprets this as they're laughing at my pain. So he uh watches the party from his balcony, he crosses his arms, and he decides that it's never gonna rain again in this town. And as it stands, when his son gets there decades later, it hasn't, and everyone's a ghost. So that was a scene I just knew I had to portray. I just for me, one of the most dramatic things a piece of music can do is like is dissonance, and I don't mean like dissonance, like have like a half step or something, but that's just one kind of dissonance, you know, harmonic dissonance. But setting the mood with something deeply sad, juxtaposing it uh with something breezy and carefree, and then finding a way to mix them together is one of the most challenging things I've done, but also one of the most rewarding. And to me, one of the one of the one of the one of the this piece is probably the one of the most satisfied I've felt about a piece I've written. And so for me, a lot of the drama comes from just having some very stark contrasts, setting up an expectation, setting up another expectation, putting them in a blender, then it's subverting them. I don't know, I'm kind of yapping aimlessly, but I don't know, I feel like it's a little different for each piece, but for that one, it was definitely the contrasts.

Wren 19:48

Yeah, so it sounds like when incorporating that level of drama, that intensity, yeah, there's almost like a theatricality to it, it sounds like for you, having that that vision, that story seems to be a big part of that. Like there's there's you're giving context to the music and that deepens it.

Monica 20:12

Yeah, I write a lot of my pieces with some kind of narrative arc, I suppose. And that's something I want to try and challenge myself to do is write something that does not have like a story in the program notes, just vibes. Usually what my pieces are very like I'm telling a story through this. And I think that that's like I think that's like that's a stylistically neutral thing. That's that's neither bad nor good. But I think that it would be cool to just write something without a plot and see what I do. That's one thing that I want to that I want to try.

Wren 20:52

I think that that is a really cool way to expand your skills as a composer and to dive deeper into the music in a different way. Because who knows, maybe you'll find that you love writing music like that, or maybe you'll try and you'll realize that maybe you don't feel like you have that anchor to the music like you did before, and maybe there's something else that will keep you grounded.

Monica 21:19

Mm-hmm. Yes, it's very interesting. I have uh one of my one of my friends who graduated with her masters from this program that I'm in right now. Um, she is the opposite. She always wrote absolute music. And she she asked me, like, "I don't think I could put a narrative. It that just makes it hard. I don't know why," but she was describing that the exact way I would describe writing a piece of music without a plot. I'm like, that's so fascinating, the different approaches that we have, you know. She's like, "Isn't that not just another complicated layer?" Like, that's another place. To spin, why would you want that?

Wren 22:03

Yeah, I see where she's coming from, and and also this is making me think about my process too. Um, I shared with you that with another podcast guest, I'm working on a collaboration of a song that's inspired by the novella Carmilla. And for that, it it has to have that story because that's kind of the whole point of creating the song. But for me, I found that while I was working on the actual music itself, I loved that I had that because it really guided the music. And I feel like in a way it almost took away some of the excess noise in my head and the excess thoughts because I could just go, you know what, this really aligns with the story. This aligns with the narrative that we are sharing as a part of this song. So I don't have to overthink it because I know that it matches the story, and I feel like I would have felt a little bit lost in that experience without that.

Monica 23:07

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel too. And it's so funny because you know, me and my friend were both looking at each other like that's very impressive what you're doing. Like on my end, I'd be like, "that's crazy." It's like you don't have it's like you're an astronaut without a tether. Like But yeah, I love, I think a lot of it's because of the video game soundtracks. It's like I just associate music so much with the narrative. I mean, it's so powerful, you know.

Wren 23:37

So this is the piece that you had premiered by the University of Utah Philharmonia, is that right? Yes. Yes. So what was that experience like for you hearing your piece come to life?

Monica 23:51

I was uh I was a little giddy. I was nervous because there's a lot of sounds that I was asking for that the music software, you know, wouldn't do. I asked the strings to tap their the body of their instruments to make rain noises because the absence of rain is such a meaningful part of the book that any instance of water I feel is significant. And I really wanted to include that kind of I really wanted that in my toolbox, but I didn't know how that would sound, I didn't know if it would even be audible until I heard them rehearsing it. And there were a couple other times like that where I had an extended technique that I was asking them to do, and I had an idea, I knew what I imagined it would sound like, but I did not know if it would work in real life. And so there were so many moments where I was like sitting there, like, oh, they're getting to the part, and then just ah sigh of relief. It it sounds better than I thought it would because real people are playing it, and ah, and I don't know, I I was very I was very hyper, I was very excited. Um, I got to the conductor was also a grad student, so this was for a student spotlight concert, so it's very um the conductor for the orchestra, the the main maestro, he sort of he let this grad student take the wheel with my piece. He let us work together on it, and he just observed us, you know, and you know, guided a little bit where he thought it was necessary, but it was very much me and the this uh doctoral student conductor, which was an incredible experience. Um one of my teachers said that your piece isn't finished until you have people playing it, and I think that's absolutely true, because there were some adjustments I made to the score, nothing huge, but these were little things that made a really significant. I think that they were very uh very good improvements, you know, just little tweaks that go a long way. And so that was great working with the conductor. I got to work in particular with the concertmaster, because my piece ends with a violin solo. And again, I was asking for all these weird techniques, and so I uh I made the genius move of not of putting my notation on the page, forgetting to put instructions, giving everyone the music, and then going on Christmas break. So I come back and the concert master's like, "Hi, what does this mean? And what does this mean? And what does this mean? And what do you want here? And what does this mean? And I know what that symbol means, but I don't think you're using it in that way." And so I was like, oh man, I realized just how little instruction I gave. So that was a good learning experience that I have to be really specific. I can't just like, okay, bye. And so I got to work with her, which was so awesome, and she played beautifully. Out of it was the collab the collaborative effort was fantastic. And then even though I'd already heard it a couple times because of the rehearsals, the concert, I was just sitting there like holding my breath the whole time. Not because I was worried about how they'd play it, but just because I was like, now it's like for real, we're recording it and people are listening, and we're going from start to finish, and we're not gonna stop no matter what happens. And yeah, I was like, this is it, you know. It was crazy. It was a great night.

Wren 27:42

I got chills just imagining what that must have been like for you.

Monica 27:48

I did cry a little at the ending, which feels like that feels like such a weird thing to say about something I made, like it makes me sound a little bit like, oh. But no, it's just the the the musicians and the conductor did such an amazing job that part of the emotions were like, you know, I wrote the piece, so I chose for an emotional ending musical ideas that you know resonate with me. So that that's part of it. But then the other part of it was just like they played it so beautifully. This happened, it went amazing, and I worked with all of them. I'm sad it's over, but I'm also relieved it's over. There was a lot.

Wren 28:33

That reminded me, there's a story where Dolly Parton talks about listening to Whitney Houston sing her song, I Will Always Love You, for the first time. And she just had to stop in her tracks and was just overcome with emotion. And I think there's just something so powerful of taking this idea that is is so deep. And when you've been working on it, you I mean, you worked on that piece for hours and hours and hours of your life, and to have someone perform it into especially with an orchestra, you have so many people coming together to bring to just breathe new life into your own creation is so beautiful, and it's it's such an honor, and it's so well deserved.

Monica 29:24

Thank you. Yeah, it's incredible, it's it's humbling in a way, too. It's their performance and their shining, you know. And there's times where I'm just sitting there like, I remember when I wrote that, and I remember when I wrote that, and that's like the iceberg under the water, and that's like so cool that we have like all this behind the scenes stuff, and then we have this performance. Yeah, it was incredible.

Wren 29:55

I love that you mentioned too, remembering you know what was going on when you wrote that, too. I think it's really special because in a way it also serves as like a little time capsule too, because I'm sure that in the future when you listen to it, it'll bring you right back to all the feelings of the writing it, the collaboration, the performance, yeah, everything.

Monica 30:18

So yeah, just yeah, fantastic experience.

Composing with Extended Techniques

Monica 30:22 Monica 30:22 Wren 30:24

So something you mentioned was having some issues with writing out the extended techniques for the musicians. That's something that I I hadn't thought about as much. Um, but you as a as a new music composer and as someone who really enjoys new music and and all of the really cool ways that music has been expanded in modern days, how do you get to come up with using extended techniques?

Monica 31:00

That's a great question. These are extended techniques are one of my favorite things. I uh I usually well, okay, both things are true. So in composition lessons, they tell you like, don't just put them in there to put them in there. It's like any other musical color or texture. It needs to have a purpose. It can't just be like, look what, look what we're doing, how fun is that. But sometimes uh I'll use a harp piece that I I just wrote as an example. It's called "A Fox of Unusual Crimson" for and the harp ensemble commit or they didn't they asked us to they asked the harp ensemble asked the composers club to collaborate and write a whole bunch of harp ensemble pieces. And I titled mine "A Fox of Unusual Crimson," and I was very excited. And yes, I was thinking, "what kind of crazy stuff can I do? What can I do on the harp?" I mean, the strings are just right there. There's nothing in the way, you can do so much stuff. There's a wood thing to knock on, there's strings that'll buzz, there's harmonics, you could slap the strings, you could put things in between the strings, and so you get like all that inventory. You let your brain go crazy, and then you narrow the scope. Then you narrow the scope and start thinking about. I I put that aside, you know, for a second, and I start thinking about the piece itself. And then as I'm working on the piece, I start thinking of that inventory that I built up and see what things naturally come into play. I ended up having them weave tissue paper between their strings because I thought that that sounded like little woodland creature feet over twigs. Because it's it mutes the strings, but it also makes them buzz. So it's like zzz. So I was like, that sounds like my the fox from my title running around through this snowy forest. Um, so that's an example for the orchestra piece. It was for the orchestra piece, I would say that the story came before the techniques. For the harp one, I was just mad excited. I was like, yes, I'm gonna do some crazy stuff. And I'm like, I'll let myself go crazy thinking about all these ideas, but then I'll dial it back and just see which ones come up naturally. For the orchestra piece, it really was like, I want this sound, how do I get it? Like, I didn't have like a I didn't have the techniques already lined up. It was very much kind of a it was very much a discovery process. I was thinking, I want rain. There's lots of musical ways to allude to that. And that's how I came up with the drumming on the instruments, especially because I gave them instructions to not be like in sync with each other, so it wasn't like drumming. So they were just I gave them instructions to slow down or speed up at will. If you hear your neighbor slowing down, you should speed up. So it just had a very naturalistic sound to it. And I loved that because I started it in the low strings, and at that point in the performance, because I have it at the beginning and the end, and at the beginning I saw audience heads being like, like, "what is that? Like, what?" Um, another piece I wrote with a ton of extended techniques was uh it was called Wildflowers for a Machine. That one used prepared piano. That was really fun to tinker around with. That one came up because I was thinking, how can I convey? The most extended techniques came up in this part about the factory that the robot works in. Because the story is about a little robot who works in a factory, and then he looks up, the pollution cloud breaks for a sec, and he sees the world that's lying outside the factory, and he wants to escape. And so I really wanted to show like the industrial factory sound, you know. And so I had, you know, I that's how I came up with the idea for the prepared piano. So a lot of the times it first comes from having a sound you want, and then wondering how the instrument can produce that. Other times it comes with uh, oh my gosh, harp, this is like having a new toy. What can I make it do?

Wren 35:37

Yeah, and I mean the sky is the limit, and you get just you just get to be creative. So this piece is actually connected to your novella.

Monica 35:49

Yes, it is. Yeah, in my head, this piece was the soundtrack to the novella, and it they just that just kind of naturally came out of it. I wrote the novella, and it wasn't like I wrote it thinking now I'll write a piece of music about it, but I wrote it and then I was like, I was thinking about you know ideas for a piece, and I was just thinking, I I don't feel like I'm done with that little robot yet. That sounded that sounded kind of ominous. This is like I I want I want to revisit that story with music now.

From Flute Performance to Composition

Wren 36:26

You are now just full speed ahead in your composition era, your composition career. And I first met you when you were a flute performance major. I would love for you to share how it all came to be that you transitioned from flute into composition.

Monica 36:46

Yeah, so I don't know, it it all happens so fast. So I did I did my bachelor's in flute performance at University of the Pacific. Then I went on to do my master's in music and flute performance at University of Wyoming, which that's crazy because when I think about that, that was that degree was only two years, which means that if I was doing that right now, I'd be like finishing a degree right now instead of just being like, yay, finishing year two out of four, I think. You know, I'm like, man, that was a that was a lot packed into two years. Uh during that time, they offered composition lessons as an elective, and I always noodled around with writing my own stuff. I just for whatever reason didn't consider it like actual composition. Like if I was ever lucky enough to get into a room with a piano in Owen, in Owen Hall, I would noodle around, record some stuff. But I always just thought thought of that as me horsing around. But when I saw that one of the comp one of the music theory electives for grad students at Wyoming was composition, I was really excited. I was, I can, I was like, I can hone this skill a bit. You know, I have a lot of little bits and bobs, and it would be so much fun to write something. So I studied with Dr. Anne Guzzo for my first year, and I studied with Dr. Nicholas Chuaqui in my second year because yeah, there was no limit to how many times you could take that elective. You could fill, you could fill it up, you know, you could just take it all four semesters, which I did. And it was so much fun. What happened in my first year was that um Dr. Guzzo, she was friends with the conductor for the Wyoming Symphony, and he asked her to have grad students, or not just grad students, we had undergrads too. Yes, if if she had students who could submit some work samples and they'd choose one to write a piece for the orchestra. And we had just had our compositions performed. So my first composition performed by you know professional musicians, and so I submit that recording and I won that, and I wrote a piece for the Wyoming Symphony. That was so much fun. It was snowing like crazy that night, and there were still people there. I was like, man, me, I was like, should we go out there? And then people in this town are just like, yeah, it's only like 20 feet of snow. Like, of course we're going out. I'm like, oh, the California is showing. I'm like, oh my gosh, you guys, it's so icy out there. Anyways, going back to Wyoming, I uh in my second year, I crashed my bike and I broke my arm or I broke my shoulder. They didn't figure out it was broken until way later. So they had me in a sling, but after two weeks, everyone was like, Okay, it's time to get out of the sling. You have a recital coming up. Uh, the two weeks that I spent in the sling, I couldn't play flute at all, and it was pretty miserable, to be honest, because I was the TA for band, so I still had to go to band, you know, in case there were needs that needed meeting, you know. And I was just like so bummed out that I wasn't playing. I was just like, oh, I feel like a little Dickens character with my nose against the window, like, please, sir, let me in. But I could still compose. And so I really leaned into that, you know, started working pretty fast. And that was when I was putting together doctoral applications, was that fall. And my teachers uh encouraged me to also try some composition programs too, because they were like, with a master's in flute, you're already qualified to teach flute at, you know, whichever level you want. And branching into composition might be something you're interested in. Especially since even when I got back into playing flute, I will say that I did spend more time writing my stuff than practicing, just because part of it was my arm was still sore for like six months afterwards. But the other part of it, I was just like, this is so fun. This is so fun. And I did not know that I could do this, and I didn't know that I could do it and have people play it, you know. It was just it was just a whole new whole new experience that was extremely rewarding. And unlike flute, I didn't feel like I was always comparing myself to my peers because we all wrote such different music. Whereas with flute, I could be up against 50 other people playing the same Mozart concerto and someone's gonna play it the best. And that's really subjective, but the judge's subjective opinion is you know what matters when you're trying for a job. And that was just so intimidating, that always scared the heck out of me. I always felt, you know, like, how do I stand out as a flutist? And I think that being more in the new music lane now, I feel like I have a lot more fun playing. In my master's, I got very stressed out. I learned a lot. I don't think I'd be able to, some of my colleagues write really hard music, and I definitely would not be able to play that without, you know, the help of my teacher from my master's, who, you know, got me into really good flute playing technique and everything. But when it was time to have to make a decision, you know, looking over the different programs of study, DMA and flute looked kind of like the exact same thing as a master's in flute, just longer. Like the same kinds of classes and all that. But the composition PhD path was stuff that I hadn't studied before. And so I chose that one. It was just I realized when I got the acceptance letter from Utah that that was the school I was holding my breath for, waiting to see if I got in, because just the relief that I felt when I got that letter, I was just well, email because it was 2024, but the relief was just incredible, and I realized, like, yeah, I think I want to do this because I can always play flute, but this opportunity to study composition is just really special.

Wren 43:30

So I think it's beautiful just how naturally it all unfolded, and all throughout it, what I really admire is that every step of the way you have really stayed true to your vision and to yourself. And like every chapter of this story that I hear, I hear you committing to music in whatever way makes sense for you at that time. And I think it's so beautiful to be willing to evolve with the music and not to put yourself in a box. Like you've just allowed yourself to go everywhere. And it has brought you such amazing opportunities.

Monica 44:14

Yeah, I think that's important too, not being in a box. A lot of folks are so you don't play flute anymore. And I'm like, no, I I still play flute, but you're a composer. It's like I I do both. I don't practice every day. I don't play the best Mozart. But you know, I can pick up my flute at a week's notice and sub in for someone or play this piece. Like I have, I'm comfortable with my skill level. There's always more to learn. But I'm comfortable with my skill level. And composition's my main thing, but I still play flute. And I think it's important to not put ourselves in boxes like that. Which I feel like can happen at the university level, just because we're like, I am a performance major, I am a music ed major, I am a music therapy major. There's just so many like categories, you know.

Wren 45:01

Yeah, and we we don't fit into one category. Especially over time.

One Hour Music Composition Challenge

Wren 45:09

So when you when you talked about moving more into composition and how it was just more fun for you, that that made me think a little bit about our fun collaborative experience we had for the podcast recently. So we did a one-hour composition challenge. So we let the spinning wheel of fate decide our prompt. And it led us to write uh the first ideas of a piece based off of a place, which ended up being Central Park. And we had exactly one hour to see what we could come up with over Zoom.

Monica 45:51

It was the shortest hour ever.

Wren 45:55

Yeah. So looking back, what stands out about that experience for you?

Monica 46:00

How fast we can actually like workshop an idea. Because I we were talking, like, man, we only got like 30 seconds out of this, but that's actually a lot. Like when I compare that to when I'm composing like academically for school, like sometimes I'll be working for an hour and I'll get like I'm not kidding, and this is so frustrating, but I'll get like two measures and I'll step back and be like, whoa, that was a lot of work. I didn't wear my blue light glasses and I have a headache now and I'm hungry. But look at all the work I did. It's two measures. I okay, I quit. I'm moving, I'm going to the Yucatan and I will never come back.

Wren 46:41

Yeah, people don't realize how much time it takes to write. So much done, really, yeah.

Monica 46:50

And I really liked how our ideas played off each other. Like I had my flute melody, you suggested the chord progression. That was just, it was, it was really, it was fun, you know?

Wren 47:01

Yeah, I had a lot of fun too. I think um I I would actually consider it a magical moment with music. There was this really beautiful moment where you shared the melody that you had written, and I felt so shocked because it was almost exactly what I had envisioned for the melody. And it was it was so weird. And there were there were other instances throughout that experience where it was like we just were on the same page even without talking about it. Um, like another example was that we talked about having uh having it in 6/ 8. So having one kind of feeling, the beats divided by three, and then while we were both working on it, we both were like, no, this is in 4/4. This it's just not happening.

Monica 47:50

Like at the same time, we were like, I don't think this is in 6/8. This does not feel like 6/8. It's fun when the music has like kind of like takes you on a wild ride like that, you know.

Wren 48:02

Something that came up for me right after the experience was I needed to work on that Carmilla collaboration, and I had been feeling some really intense writer's block, creative block that week that we worked on it, and it was so cool. And I had this deep sense of knowing before we worked together that it was going to be what I needed to help get into a more creative space. Um, sometimes if I push myself into a creative space, it backfires, but I knew that that collaboration between us, it would just kind of cut through all of that because I have to show up. I'm working with someone else, I have to share ideas. And it was really cool going home after that, and then feeling like I had this fresh new perspective and like I could be creative, be a little silly, make some mistakes again. I feel like it gave me a little bit of permission to do that that I unfortunately that I felt like I needed.

Monica 49:11

Yeah, and for me, I had a similar experience because that was, oh man, that was way back in March. And at that point, it was it was so busy. And just like go, go, go, go, go. You need to have your student, you need to make your students midterm. You gotta proctor that midterm. You gotta grade that midterm, you gotta get the results back to them. You gotta, there's just like it's like a relay race, you know. The semester heats up. That that does that does make you feel kind of burned out because you start thinking, like, I'm a composition major and I almost never sit down and have quiet time to write. I usually write things in like such a quick flurry before I deadline. And so this, even though I know it sounds weird to describe it this way because we were on a timer, but it did feel kind of like it did feel like a deceleration, like a little bit of a slowdown, especially because it was just an hour. We gave ourselves permission for it to be imperfect, and that was very, very uh freeing. It was very uh therapeutic and just refreshing, uh just really nice, you know.

Wren 50:26

And that speaks to I think what the heart of music time on this podcast is all about to me, is creating space for music, but for the sake of music. Like we don't have any other agenda, we can just come up with whatever we want. And yeah, it's it is shared publicly, but it's not for critique. I mean, yeah, it can be critiqued, but it's not up for critique. Um we're not being paid for it. Uh it's just completely separate and and so special to just have something separate.

Monica 51:08

When it really boils down to it, music's like about, you know, expression. It is I think that community is a really big part of it. Like when when I picture like I try and sometimes I try and like psych my brain out by thinking, what's like the very, very, very, very, very first time like that music happened. And I just for some reason I always just think of like a bunch of people who are like bored and they are blowing off steam. So even though composing is pretty solitary, you still have to think about your performers. Even if uh you're writing like the most solitary genre ever, which for me would I love writing electroacoustic music. And a lot of that I compose like in my room. I don't even consult any other performers because it's just me sampling stuff around my house, whatever. Even then I'm sharing it with people, you know. I have to send it for you know, applications. I have to send it to my teachers. So it is a very much like, I don't know, I feel like it's kind of like in our DNA. I don't know.

Wren 52:21

So unfortunately, when we worked on this, the piano part didn't save. That's right, I remember. I'm gonna put it back in. So the piece that we worked on was inspired by Central Park, which was extra special because we have actually been to Central Park together when we went on our New York City Symphonic Wind Ensemble trip back in 2019. It was so special to play play that set, especially our memorial piece. So I'm going to play what we came up with together. I had so much fun working on this and even though we aren’t gonna continue, I really love imagining how this could be expanded. I feel like I can hear it in my head, even though I couldn't put it on paper, I can hear the vision in my head.

Monica 53:43

Yeah, it was just so it was just so fun. And we came up with such a nice little, it was very like nice, jazzy kind of like nightlife sounding piece. Just very, very atmospheric. I loved

Giving Monica her Flowers

Monica 53:56

it.

Wren 53:57

Monica, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with me. I had such a great time. And before we go, I have to give you your flowers. First and foremost, I want you to know that your quality of work as a musician just never fails to amaze me, whether I'm hearing you perform on flute or if I'm hearing a new composition from you. And I so deeply admire your commitment to music and your willingness to forge a new path within music and just expand yourself as a musician without ever letting go of what's important to you. And I feel like every time I make music with you, I feel so comfortable and so excited to play. And I just know that your University of Utah students and peers all feel the same.

Monica 54:45

Oh, thank you so much, Wren.

Wren 54:47

So I can't wait to hear all of your work and just hear more about how your compositions evolve and grow.

Monica 54:55

Thank you. Oh, that's all thank you so much. That means a lot. Thanks for having me. This was really fun.

Closing

Wren 55:02

Yeah. Well, Monica, where can people find you?

Monica 55:05

So I have an Instagram called Monica.Augustina. Composer. Augustina's my middle name, that's why I put that there. There's a lot of Monica Mendozas. So my Instagram is Monica Augustina Composer, and there's like a period between each of the words. I have a YouTube channel as well where I've posted some of my some of my music as well, and where some of it, more of it will go up.

Wren 55:29

All of the other links mentioned today to Monica's music and social media can be found in the show description. Thanks again for joining. Bye, Monica.

Monica 55:39

Bye, Wren. Thanks for having me.

Wren 55:46

If you'd like to share your own magical moments with music here on the podcast, fill out the guest interest survey. You can find the survey, social media handles, and links related to today's episode in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in. Now go make some music magic.