Clay Mettens (Bachelor of Music in composition and performance certificate in clarinet) is a composer and the Executive Coordinator of External Affairs at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. He has composed a new work in celebration of the School of Music’s 100th anniversary that will premiere at the Freeman Sundays @3 concert on October 27, 2024.
We recently caught up with Clay to ask him some questions about his time at the USC School of Music.
Why did you choose the USC School of Music?
My high school band director, also a USC School of Music alumnus, encouraged me to visit. I had a fantastic clarinet lesson with Joe Eller and was really excited about high-level music study coupled with an Honors College experience. Not many other programs offer the same pairing of musical and scholastic training. Once I interviewed for and received a McNair Scholarship, the decision was easy!
What ensemble(s) did you perform with while at USC?
Chamber Ensembles; Opera at USC; USC Symphony Orchestra, USC Wind Ensemble; Southern Exposure performance of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians”
What person, course or experience was most influential for you while at the School of Music? How?
I had so many impactful ensemble and classroom experiences, from Peter Kolkay's chamber music survey to my introduction to music technology and electronic music with Reginald Bain. The class that spurred my single fastest period of growth, however, was John Fitz Rogers's graduate-level Advanced Orchestration course. He taught us how to study scores deeply, ask probing questions, and think critically about what we were seeing and hearing. Almost fifteen years later, I'm still pondering some of these insights and trying to impart a similar skill set to my composition students. I was so excited to teach an Advanced Orchestration course for the first time at Roosevelt University in 2022, and dug up my syllabus from 2010 as a starting point.
How has your education at the USC School of Music helped you in your life and career?
My time at the USC School of Music set me on a path to be a much more complete musician. I performed in and composed for a variety of ensembles, and was encouraged to organize ambitious projects. The breadth of my undergraduate experiences has made me a better teacher, composer, and administrator. Once you get used to wrangling ten or more busy School of Music students into a rehearsal room, most other organizational tasks become pretty straightforward! Without really knowing, I began preparing at USC for all the roles I've held in my professional life: academic in music and the humanities, composer, performer, youth orchestra manager, audio engineer, grant writer, and now nonprofit administrator on a fundraising team.
What is one of your favorite memories, classes, professors or activities while attending the School of Music?
Performing Olivier Messiaen's "Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum" with the USC Wind Ensemble and Scott Weiss stands out as one of my most memorable student experiences—it's a massive piece that tested my musicianship, stretching me to listen more carefully inside incredibly dense textures. In some moments, it requires delicate chamber music making; in other moments, absolute precision is necessary to navigate virtuosic rhythmic unisons with the entire woodwind section. The challenge was initially terrifying, but the ensemble bonded over the experience and felt tremendous satisfaction with our progress towards several highly polished performances.
What advice would you give current students or recent graduates pursuing a music performance or music education career?
Be curious about everything and intensely interested in a few things! As musicians, we are required to be experts in our primary focus areas AND flexible or adaptable to new challenges, collaborations, and professional situations. You never know how a passing fascination with a particular topic or mode of music making could set you up to be successful in a new endeavor months or even years into the future. Also, support your peers in their growth; despite long, solitary hours spent in practice rooms or pouring over music history textbooks, learning flourishes in communal experience.
What is one of your proudest professional or personal accomplishments that occurred after graduating from the School of Music in which your education played a role?
I included my senior thesis for the SC Honors College, a song cycle for soprano and 9 instrumentalists, as part of my application to the American Opera Initiative, which resulted in a commission for a short opera premiered by Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center in 2015.
Do you have any recent news of accomplishments, awards or major life events you can share with us?
I finished a PhD in music composition at the University of Chicago in 2021, followed by a two-year Teaching Fellowship in the Humanities (also at University of Chicago). I held teaching positions at Valparaiso University and Roosevelt University between 2020-2023. I was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2020, as well as the Hermitage Prize from the Aspen Music Festival and School in 2021.
Learn more about Clay and his work at www.mettensmusic.com