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CSUB teacher's music to be performed

BY CAMILLE GAVIN, Contributing columnist | Wednesday, Nov 11 2009 06:16 PM

Last Updated Wednesday, Nov 11 2009 06:16 PM

A significant portion of Friday evening's CSUB Chamber Music Concert at the Doré Theatre will be devoted to music written only a few months ago by faculty member Jim Scully.

Each is part of what Scully calls his 30/30 Project.

"Last summer," he explained, "I set a goal for myself of writing a new 30-second work every day for 30 days. In the end it took me 42 days to complete the 30 pieces but the original intent of the project was intact."

Referring to one of his colleagues, he added, "As Doug Davis says, 'summer break is the mad dash for composers.' There's no time during the school year -- all of our time (with students) is face-to-face time, you know."

Along with all that, Scully has a fair number of duties as a dad -- he and his wife, vocalist Jennifer Neil, are the parents of 4-year-old triplets. But finding time to write music is important to him.

"It's like playing an instrument," he said. "The more you do it the better you get at it."

Although Scully, a guitarist, is well-known locally as producer-director of the university's Jazz Coffeehouse series, and for his occasional gigs at Le Corusse Rouge, he also has gained attention nationally as a composer.

In the past three years, several of his compositions have been performed by groups in Mississippi, Connecticut and Massachusetts. And on Jan. 28, his "Duality for Two," a piece for cello and flute will be premiered in Boston.

With all of this activity, it's easy to think that Scully's raking in the royalties. Not so, he says.

"I'm spending more money flying around the country to hear my music performed than I make in royalties," he said, with a good-natured laugh. "I think the last check I got was for $57."

Even so, he's not deterred.

"I genuinely enjoy teaching at the collegiate level and I want to keep doing that," said Scully, who has degrees in music from Cal State Bakersfield and UC Irvine. "But my main interest is as a composer of both jazz and serious contemporary classical music."

In all, seven of his pieces will be performed at the concert. Scully will direct the CSUB Guitar Ensemble in "Eclectic Suite," which is a five-movement composition drawn from his 30/30 Project. The others are individual pieces scored for two pianos.

Music faculty members Joel Haney and Soo-Yeon Chang coached the students who are performing.

"Also on the program," said Haney, "will be a variety of pieces from three centuries of the standard repertoire."

Included are works by Beethoven, Brahms, Shostakovich, Telemann, Bartok and 20th century American composer David Borden.