Ever hear of David Maslanka? No.
But, take a look at the photo. He looks pretty happy. Or rather, looked. He died the other day. Let's say he died comfortably, in terms of his finances and his fame. He did pretty much what he wanted, even if you never heard of him. He fulfilled what mattered to him most, I would assume, which is creating. How many people enjoyed his work? Enough. When you work in certain fields, enough IS enough.
Maslanka just missed his birthday (August 30, 1943-August 6, 2017). Colon cancer, any cancer, will take you out no matter how much you "battle." The obits, of course, will tell you that people "battle" cancer. Which is like saying the Japanese in Nagasaki and Hiroshima "battled" the bomb.
The important thing for this composer, was to be able to compose. To be free to do his work and not starve. He didn't "pay to play" in small clubs. He didn't put his stuff on YouTube and hope for the best. He disappeared into the arms of Academia, and was nurtured, petted, and rewarded:
He enjoyed five residency fellowships at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He recieved grants from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation, the American Music Center, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, the State University of New York Research Foundation, and even ASCAP, the bunch who don't do anything about piracy but Tweet to a half-dozen people some congratulations when some Latino goes "Platino" with an album of dance music.
As you've guessed by now, David Maslanka was a classical American composer, which means he created symphonies, concertos, even choir pieces. Whether this was avant-garde stuff that everyone hates, or just imitative variations on something out of the Elgar playbook or Vaughn Williams or John Rutter or Kabalevsky...who knows. Nobody said, "Dave, boy, we've got Beethoven and Mozart, we don't need YOU." Or, "Dave, boy, you ain't gonna rival Stravinsky, and we've heard electronic stuff and even silence. Go teach flute playing to grade schoolers."
Academia gave him room and board. And awards. You need awards to feel good about yourself, when the Grammy bunch don't even mention Classical on their telecast, and nobody can name a classical conductor or opera singer, as they could when Leonard Bernstein and Luciano Pavarotti were alive. He recorded mostly for Albany Records, which you never heard of. He could sign a copy if you bought one, but he signed his name on checks much more often, getting the grants, getting the honorariums which is what playing the Academia game is all about. Need a classical composition for a a bunch of trombones, or even flutes or marimbas or a euphonium, and you could ask David. You'd end up with "Montana Music: Three Dances for Percussion" or "Arcadia II: Concerto for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble." Your small circle of friends would be impressed. Somebody's budget paid for it.
Maslanka won the National Endowment for the Arts Composer Award two years in a row (1974 and 1975) and made a comeback to win it again in 1989. Ten years later, the durable Dave won the National Symphony Orchestra regional composer-in-residence award. Over the past 37 years, he was a guest composer all over Academia...at college and university music festivals and conferences.
You want to know more about a particular Maslanka work, or about his theories? Academia comes to the rescue. Academia Begets Academia. Call it egg-headed exercises if you want to, but there's a reason to hide in a quiet campus library, or find a fine life in dwelling on things that are meaningless to most everyone on the planet. Anselm Hollo, who was perhaps the Allen Ginsberg or Kenneth Rexroth of England, made his way to Academia and taught poetry in Colorado somewhere. It was a nice life. You can buy Anselm's various small-press books. He's well known in that small circle of those who care about fine literature in general, and modern poetry in particular.
Academia is a dream within a dream. You can do a treatise on Maslanka, and who knows, become such an expert, you could teach a course on him. Become a professor, somewhere, of modern American classical composers, based on your dissertation:
Futile?
Obscure?
Tempting!
There probably isn't a published writer who hasn't thought of hiding in Academia, or a musician who hasn't thought, "Hmmm...I could teach."
What IS obscurity? It's a TV show that was popular 30 years ago. A radio show that was once #1 and is now totally forgotten. A best seller published last year.
Academia isn't really any more of a cop-out than being an accountant.
Who knows what Davey-Boy's private chagrins were. Did he find it a drag to follow directions for taking a bus to a train to a cab to a plane, to waiting for some under-grad to be there in an SUV and drive him to the campus? Did he NOT want to sit at a dinner with a bunch of boring people discussing whether a bookcase fell on Alkan or not? Or what he thought of Procol Harum's concert with the Edmonton Orchestra? Or if anyone makes a quality bassoon? At least he wasn't working 9 to 5 at something outside his area of interest. He could thank Academia for that.
And so it is, that a lot of people consider Academia to be THE PARADIGM. Even radicals and pervs like Allen Ginsberg and Philip Roth were PROFESSORS. As successful as they were, they weren't living off mere royalties. Most any musician, writer, singer or artist has heard it: "Be a teacher. You get a pension. You only teach a few hours a day. It's pretty easy, if you can stand it." Even Mort Sahl tried to teach a few courses a few years ago. Many former stars with nothing to do can get a teaching gig, based not on having a Ph.D., but "life experience."
It's a way not to starve. They threw a benefit to pay Dave Van Ronk's medical bills. I don't think that was the case for David Maslanka.
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