CODARTS MOTIVATION

I’ve known since I was little that I wanted to play music all the time. I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of learning new music, I’ve always loved the feeling of being greeted and congratulated after a performance, and I’ve always felt a duty to myself to continue learning and performing music. I remember how empowered I felt when I first performed with a professional orchestra--being at the precipice of the creation of such intricate, intense, emotional music was an awe-inspiring experience.

 

However, over time I began to feel a need for something more. I needed to justify to myself why, while the planet’s climate is changing catastrophically and millions live without clean water or sufficient food, I was putting so much time and effort into something that couldn’t be touched or measured or used to directly help a deeply troubled world. I was also very interested in biology, and spent many sleepless nights agonizing over which path I should choose. I remember my father saying that, though he didn’t want to tell me what to do, he thought the world would be better off with a vaccine for a life-threatening disease than with another interpretation of a Chopin etude. 

 

It was around this time that I started to truly delve into the world of jazz music. While I will always have a great love for classical music, I felt something in the music and culture of jazz that I had never felt by performing classically. For some reason, playing jazz with other people allowed me to open myself to the world around me. I began to listen to the stories that the sounds around me were telling, both in classical music and in jazz. I began to understand why music meant so much to me: it tells stories with an emotional power that is impossible to find anywhere else. In doing this, it helps us understand the stories in our own lives.

 

Once I began to understand the way in which music helps us understand ourselves, my whole world began to change. Playing jazz felt less like a daunting intellectual challenge and more like a way to freely express my feelings about myself and the world around me. It became a way of connecting with the people I was playing with and for, and laughing and crying with them through our instruments. I could finally justify why I put so much time into playing music: if I could help people understand themselves and others just a little better, that would be how I made the world a better place. Besides, I also began to understand that I didn’t need to choose between music and science; as long as I found the right community to develop myself intellectually and musically, I could keep doing both, and the two would compliment each other.

 

As I searched for a place to develop my own musical storytelling abilities, I came upon the RASL Double Degree Programme. The second I visited Codarts and learned about this program, I knew I had found the right place. Not only was the RASL program exactly what I was looking for--a way of contributing to the world scientifically and artistically--but I felt more at home at Codarts than at any other conservatory I’ve visited. I felt that Codarts was a place where creativity, collaboration, and musical growth were more important than competition; I felt that the people around me would help me become the musician I wanted to be. The people studying at Codarts were already expressing themselves fully: watching the video of the Codarts Pop Orchestra, I saw people telling stories the way I’ve always wanted to. I felt equally inspired by Codarts’ Indian, Turkish, and Latin music departments. I felt that I had found a place where I would be immersed in music from all corners of the world--and, more importantly, I felt that I would be immersed in music that was made with authenticity and feeling, rather than competitiveness and self-interest. I felt that I had found a place where I could tell my own story. That is why I want to be a part of the RASL Double Degree programme (I’ve already been accepted to Erasmus University College)--and that is why I want to study jazz piano at Codarts Hogeschool voor de Kunsten.