Each week Sebastian Bachmeier and Dr. Nicolas Papador met to explore their research through composition. Sebastian was a fourth year student in the music department, who graduated as an Outstanding Scholar in May, 2018. An avid jazz player, he plays the saxophone, clarinet and flute, and he also composes music for bands of all sizes and instrumentation. Working with Dr. Papador, Sebastian was able to explore his composition skills. Sebastian created original material and explored it in performance. The "performance as research" process allowed him to use the techniques and strategies of the past to create better works of art.
Sebastian describes his research in this way: "Research is kind of a broader term in music, because in the traditional sense you have the historical research. But in what I'm interested in, that can really only go so far. I'm a jazz player, so I've studied the people who have played jazz in the past - the biggest jazz players. As far as research in an applied sense, that tends to be studying, composing, and arranging for performance, looking at different composers, different people, and the techniques that they used to create this material. Research in the "performance as research" sense means creation of original content and, ideally, performance of that original content."
Below, Sebastian (saxophone) plays one of his compositions: "Gone in a Flash." The musicians playing with Sebastian are: Austin DiPietro (trumpet; Outstanding Scholar, 2018), Mark Calcott (keyboard), Vanessa Harnish (percussion), and Alex Aideira-Leite (bass). This recording was made at the Phog Lounge in Windsor, ON, on March 17, 2019.