Students Learn Lessons in Avant-Garde
Stuart Gerber and his students can make as much noise as they want in the basement of the Rialto Center for the Performing Arts and not worry about disturbing anyone. That's a good thing, because avant-garde sounds aren’t for everyone.
Georgia State's percussion coordinator can bang out rhythms from a century ago or beats composed in the last decade. Gerber balances past and present every day in his classroom, teaching students the history of percussion and to look forward to its future while making sure they can find a place in the music world after they graduate.
As one half of the award-winning group Ensemble Sirius, Gerber has traveled the world playing avant-garde music. But that genre poses a challenge because the style is different from pop, rock or classical, making it harder to connect with the public.
"Avant-garde is music written today, but as art music," Gerber says. "So it's not necessarily written in a popular genre. The goal of it is not necessarily to entertain the audience, but to explore new ideas, to find new types of music and new sounds."
As a result, avant-garde does not offer as many career opportunities as other types of music, so Gerber teaches a well-rounded repertoire to prepare students for life after college.
"There's a lot out there, but music in general can be difficult to make a living at," Gerber says. "They can do gigs playing with a jazz group or in the church on Sundays. It's the fun part about percussionists, but that's also the difficultly. There's so much to do, it's hard to focus."
Between gigs or auditions for orchestras, graduates might get teaching jobs — something Gerber encourages them to do even while still in school. When they graduate, Gerber wants his students to continue making and promoting music, whether classical works or pieces that push the boundaries of mainstream.
"As a musician, my goal is to contribute to the life of the art, so I feel the life of the art will continue to grow and expand," Gerber says. "So it's not just doing traditional music. If we just do the old stuff, we get kind of stagnant."