Music criticism boot camp

Laguna journalist attends an intense 2-week workshop at Columbia, Juilliard.Thomas Aujero Small is a Laguna Beach music critic who just returned from a two-week workshop on music criticism at Columbia University and the Juilliard School.

As a student at Yale, Small majored in comparative literature but studied music theory on the side and was a member of the Yale Russian Chorus.

With the chorus, Small sang at Carnegie Music Hall and toured both the U.S. and USSR, though he said that was not where he learned most of what he knows about music.

Small is now the Orange County correspondent for French classical music website www.concertonet.com. He heard about the workshop through a news release, and, after an elaborate application process, had what he described as an intense journalistic experience.

“It’s been a real boot camp,” he said. “Brahm’s first symphony with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra on Monday, and then with the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday -- the reviews were due on Wednesday. Then we had a piano recital at Carnegie Hall on Thursday, and the review was due Friday; another on Sunday, and the review was due Monday.

“Where I really learned about music was going to concerts. With me it’s been an obsession for the last 25 years, so I know all the different music halls and orchestras in the countries where I’ve been. And what we have here in southern California is just -- we are so lucky.”

The reason why we’re lucky, Small said, is that we have the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, which he describes as “avant-garde” and “cutting-edge.”

“I think that we don’t appreciate what we have [here]. The Pacific Symphony is in the shadow of L.A., so it has to be different to compete at all with L.A. In terms of living composers, the Pacific Symphony is the most aggressive and original symphony in the country.”

Small said that the program in New York was very high quality.

“The access they’ve created for us [was] at a shockingly high level. We’ve had some intensive intros to different types of music. It’s fascinating to look at it from both sides of the podium: from the musicians’ side, the composer’s side; and from the New York Times and their frustrations and what they like to see from artists.

“It’s brought me into an international community at the highest level. Being able to participate has been the most valuable thing. Getting to know the other journalists has also been good.”

Of the other journalists, Small said, “There’s a broad range of people in the program in terms of how much music exposure they have and geographic region.”

For the most part, though, “It’s mostly mid-career people, many who write for midsized papers in large cities.”

Now that he’s done with his workshop at Columbia, it’s back to writing for money. He’s working on a story about the “future of classical music” and talked about the big hit that western classical music is making in China.

To learn more about the NEA Institute in Classical Music, go to www.jrn.columbia. edu/events/nea/. 20051118iq2rexknWENDI KAMINSKI / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)Laguna resident Thomas Small with his briard sheepdog, Hobbes, at Blue Lagoon. Small participated in a workshop on classical music criticism in New York offered by the National Endowment for the Arts.