Tyler Mazone is a Deaf composer who focuses on accessibility in music and who strives to tell a powerful story in his compositions. He is graduating with his doctor of musical arts this May with Alexis Bacon as his advisor, and has also studied with Zhou Tian, Ricardo Lorenz and David Biedenbender.
Five years does a lot to you. It may not seem like much, but I have always felt a marked shift in my energy and who I am in that amount of time.
Five years is also the amount of time I’ve spent here at Michigan State University pursuing my master’s in music and then my doctor of musical arts, both in music composition. I came here in 2021 fresh out of undergrad, and I am leaving with a treasure trove of experiences and a better sense of who I am as a person rather than just as a musician.
In 2021, the composition faculty welcomed my unique voice as a composer. Being a (culturally) Deaf individual heavily involved in disability justice, I have a unique perspective on music. MSU has accepted my experiences with music and nurtured that perspective.
I’ve been able to take it outside of the classroom to do important advocacy projects such as Shut Out, a piece I composed in 2022 for a consortium of 26 wind bands nationally. It is a piece about disability rights and what it feels like to experience ableism every day. While Shut Out was premiered by my undergraduate alma mater, Crane School of Music, and numerous other groups, it was also performed right here at Wharton Center by our Concert Band led by Dr. Arris Golden. It showed me that even something I’ve done outside of my current academic requirements will make its way back to our MSU community!
Recently, I have moved in a different direction artistically. I just defended my doctoral dissertation, Songs from the Deaf, in which I set four Deaf poets’ text to choral music. It is a special new piece in the repertoire and something that has not been done before. I even wrote my own text in American Sign Language, set it as the finale of the piece and guided the choir to use ASL extensively by instructing them how to sign the poem while singing.
All of this new and groundbreaking activity has been met with support from everyone throughout the College of Music. My doctoral committee remarked how special it is that I brought myself as a human being into a piece, and I don’t know of any other music program that would be so open to a perspective like this leading to a piece that is truly fresh.
Among my favorite experiences in my time here are the composition studio recitals we call premieres. We have four of these concerts featuring student compositions each year, and I’ve been a part of or attended all 20 held since I’ve been on campus. The amount of diverse music that is heard at each concert is astounding. We even have an established prog rock band that has played every premieres concert this year, founded by a former student of mine from the Music Theory for Non-Majors course I taught.
It is through hearing my fellow musicians that I have grown the most, even more than by doing things myself. This is by far the biggest lesson I have learned: the best way of learning is by seeing what the rest of the world is up to. There is so much to gain from simply knowing and caring about what one’s colleagues are doing.
As a student at MSU, I’ve grown so much as a person. Because of the people I’ve surrounded myself with here in Michigan — my partner Christa, my MSU colleagues and professors, Michigan friends, the Lansing Concert Band — I’ve been able to learn so much about myself. I’ve learned how to handle life with compassion, kindness, tenacity and open-mindedness. Five years have brought so much change for the better in life.
Thank you, MSU. Here’s to the next chapter!
