All posts by Anne Kilstofte

I am a composer and musician (the two are not exclusive, but sometimes the word composer puts people off). I have been a pianist for more decades than I am willing to admit and a composer for many of them and I have been teaching music in some manner for more decades than I'm willing to admit to. (Are we finding a common theme here?) I've taught music theory, ear training, music fundamentals, musicology (including World Music, Jazz History, Rock History, and Survey of American Music), composition, orchestration, piano, copyright issues, and honors courses as well as web design and instructional design. I've been named a Fulbright Senior Scholar and taught, researched, and composed in Estonia for a year-long fellowship - I took my husband and son and we had a whale of a good time (no whales). During that year we also went to Holland for the tulips, France for sheer joy, Finland more times than I can count (separate story), Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Belgium, and Great Britain. I've received awards for my music including a Bush Artist Fellowship (in today's dollars it's about $120K), Minnesota State Arts Board (2), Arizona Commission on the Arts, the McKnight Foundation (2), Arizona Humanities, and ASCAP. I have worked to incorporate higher standards for graduation for middle school and high school levels and have worked with high school honors students in composition. If you see me around campus you will probably find me going to CTLE but I primarily work in the Performing Arts Department - Music, teaching online courses in Music History. I have a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and my Masters and Bachelors Degrees are from the University of Colorado. I have been named an Outstanding Adjunct (oh, yes, I work "part-time" at GCC), and a Master Teacher in the Maricopa County Community College District. I volunteer at the Silver Spur Therapeutic Riding Center (yes, with horses) for those with special needs, ski when I'm lucky enough to go, and do weight training (yes, some of that includes watching mine go up or down).
CTLE, GCCAZ, Glendale Community College, professional development, Write6x6

Community Roots

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Giving up the life of the road (or the airplane) is partly how I ended up at GCC. I’ve been a long-time traveler. Although I was born in Arizona where my father finished his structural engineering degree at the University of Arizona, my parents and I moved within eight months to Minnesota. A few years later we moved to Colorado. I lived in so many different places in Colorado, depending on the university I was attending or the degree I was seeking in Denver and Boulder, that my mother finally started using pencil to update my address in her address book. My roots are scattered because of this constant moving.

Two years before we moved to Arizona, my husband, son, and I went to Estonia for a year while I taught as a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Academy of Music and Theater in Tallinn. Everyone told us it was not the “going on” a Fulbright that would be hard, but “returning from” our year away. They were right. We had changed and the only way to live with that change was to change our surroundings. We moved.

My husband, son, and I had been living in Arizona for about a year, and I’d spent most of that year working and traveling as a Composer or Producer-in-Residence back and forth to Minnesota, as well as to Rome, Beijing, Toronto, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Atlanta – well you get the idea. My long travels ended when I came home and was greeted by my nine-year-old son, who was just waking up, when he said, “Mommy, are you really here or am I just dreaming?” Ach! It was a knife in my heart! He had never mentioned that he missed me and certainly not this much! I decided if I did travel it would only be for short trips and only occasionally from then on.

Before you ask, “What kind of a mother are you?” you need to know that my son is autistic and has always been very accepting of me going away; with a kind of “bye, see ya” sort of attitude. He loves to be alone, and it’s difficult, sometimes, to accept that. To give you an example, my husband and I went on a business trip back in 2018 (yes, he’s a musician, too), and left our son at home with the dog (by this time he had graduated from high school with honors and was capable of being alone – but it was an experiment because we would be further away – so we had support people at the ready if he needed someone). When we returned my husband kept coming back in from the garage before he left for work to make sure our son was okay with him leaving, and asked him so, and our son, who has a great sense of humor, said, “Less talking, more leaving!” From that response, although ten years later, we knew he didn’t miss us that much while we’d been gone.

Jumping back ten years, I applied to teach at GCC. The first word I think of when I remember my first days at GCC is “friendly.” I found everyone friendly and helpful. The two communities that first welcomed me were the Music Department (aka Performing Arts) and CTLE.

Before this, I’d been teaching for twelve years, after my doctorate, at two private institutions (three, if you count my alma mater – which is public) in Minnesota, so I knew my way around lots of subjects, but I knew there was a program called Blackboard, among others, but no one would teach me about it. Over the years, I had also been offered five full-time positions in Minnesota, strictly a phone call – “we’d love to have you come work for us,” but my health was not good when I was offered a few of them, and the other, which I would have loved to take, was offered just as I was receiving my Fulbright. I couldn’t take the job knowing I wouldn’t be there that next year. Also, and you’ve heard this from others if you haven’t said it yourself, the winters were about eight months long and I just couldn’t take that kind of cold anymore. I was looking to take my roots somewhere warmer although I had not planned it to be this warm.

The Music Faculty shared their syllabi, what needed to be in a syllabi technically, how to find my courses, and helped me get up to speed within a few days! I hardly knew what had hit me, but I really enjoyed the people I met. They have become friends and some of the best people I’ve worked with. I’ve missed seeing them during the pandemic at meetings and performances. We recently met in person for the first time in two years and my heart sang for hours afterwards, having been able to see so many friends again. It is truly an anomaly to have this many good people together in one department – and that includes the whole Performing Arts Department as well.

I discovered the other GCC community shortly after I started when I signed up to learn how to teach online. No one had asked me to learn this, but I saw this as a possible future — need I say more? That introduced me to Karen Russo and CTLE. For several years I took everything that CTLE offered, free seminars on teaching and best practices, free offerings on other online programs for use in online courses, district workshops, designing courses for E-readers, and master classes on being a better educator. I’ve gotten to know almost everyone in the department, and I’ve met other equally friendly and helpful educators as the department expanded.

I now have been teaching exclusively online for a little more than 10 years, and love it. I still take a workshop here or there, although mostly on Zoom or Google lately. CTLE has patiently answered questions and solved problems for me. I have learned more from them about successful teaching than I had ever known and I am thankful for it. I applaud CTLE for what they have offered through the years so I could become a better teacher of music. The Music Department and CTLE has allowed me to put down some strong roots in this community.

The women and men from the Women's International Congress, International Alliance for Women in Music Beijing, China 2008
The Great Wall of China with the International Alliance for Women in Music 2008
empowerment, higher education, Write6x6

Lifelong Search ….

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Almost Losing My Heart

Whenever I saw a piano (as a child) I felt compelled to play it. I attribute this to my birthday because it fell just after the kindergarten cutoff for enrollment by two hours, and resulted in piano lessons for a year. When I did start kindergarten a year later our class shared many miscellaneous items in Show and Tell, (one involved a large coconut which I carried ten blocks with two skinned knees – the frustration of dropping and falling over and over, and the excitement of wanting to show it to my classmates… I still remember).

I am told that one afternoon our kindergarten teacher was called out of the room. As you know, teachers rarely leave the classroom because chaos often ensues. With a bit of trepidation she returned to find the entire class quietly huddled around the piano where I was sharing some of the pieces that I had learned. I wasn’t showing off, just simply showing them things I had learned, much as teachers did for me for many years to follow.

I have memories of many teachers who made a difference. It wouldn’t be fair to single out one because I was lucky to have had so many. Everyone talks about good teachers that make a difference. They never talk about the lousy ones, but I had a crop of those, too. By that time I was much older, an accomplished pianist after decades of lessons, but now ignored primarily because I dared to try to write music instead of just play music. That also taught me a lot as a teacher. It taught me never to pre-judge a student by assuming that they didn’t have anything to offer because of the notion that only certain people can write music or learn about music. It sounds almost impossible today. People lose jobs over that. I almost lost my heart over it.

No, I didn’t teach at that school, although I did create a course at one of its sister institutions, a course in Marketing the Arts, which I taught for several semesters – much to my professors’ chagrin. I persevered in the program, and, as luck would have it, became a music critic at a major metropolitan newspaper and ended up reviewing every professor I had and their music writing. (Unlike them, I was kind). I graduated and changed schools.

At this new school I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. I expected the same treatment. My music was representational which was not in vogue. What I found instead was that the faculty and students accepted me and my music. Interestingly enough, I rarely play piano anymore except to compose. My many days of performing in order to be an accepted musician were now only as an accepted composer – I made a point of it. I taught theory classes, which is what most composers teach while finishing their terminal degree. I wrote articles and produced concerts. I reviewed concerts at another major metropolitan newspaper from time to time. But I now never introduced myself as a pianist, which was where I found my heart. I now only refer to myself as a composer, where I found it again.

It took losing my heart to find it again and it means too much to me to let it go. I love teaching music and teaching about being a musician. I love teaching about the creative process and I love the enthusiasm of my students, learning about or hearing music for the first time. That is where my heart takes me.

evaluation, Glendale Community College, student success, Teaching Ideas, Write6x6

Faking it

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When was the last time you saw a film or television show where someone was supposed to play an instrument or sing well?  When that moment of reckoning occurs I always hold my breath and wait for the tell.  The tell is the point where it is clear that the actor is faking it.  That actor may be faking it successfully or poorly – or, of course, the actor may actually be a musician, as many are, and is not faking it at all.   But if faking does occur, an editor often gets involved to fake it further.  We see, we listen, we constantly assess.

When we assess students isn’t this ultimately what we are trying to determine? Are they faking it, or do they know and understand the material? As a musician, do they know how to play musically or are they simply playing the notes?

When we assess aren’t we also looking for those who fake it well?

One of the jokes among instructors of applied music (performing music) is when the teacher corrects the student and the student says, “Well, I just don’t understand. It sounded perfectly fine in the practice room.”

What that means is that most of the time (not all) the student can’t tell the difference and is, ultimately, faking it.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It?

I remember a student who was excellent at mimicry. I learned never to play a piece for her because she had too good an ear and could fake it. The problem was that she could not read music. She was a good pianist but when asked to play something that she misheard or ostensibly misread because it was incorrect she could not “replicate the results.”

I have tremendous respect for her because she had been playing for many years and had to face the fact that not only was she faking it but she had to face the degree of how much she was faking it. If she wanted to continue lessons she had to re-learn how to read music after many years of classical piano lessons, her chosen genre.

There is a part of me that thinks she always knew how much she was faking it but she had choices moving forward. She could have stayed at the level where she was because she could fool many. She could have gone on her merry way and continued to play the way she did. She could have walked away and given up. Music was not her major so that might have been the easiest choice. She chose instead to go back to the basics and learn how to read music. It was a daunting task and I commend her for her perseverance. It was a lesson in patience because, in this case, one does not fake it until you make it. She’d already been down that path.

Two Studies that May Surprise You

I love surprising students (not that you are students) so I leave you with two listenings of people who are not faking it – or are they? In the first example, Bence Peter’s Fibonacci series moves to a video image which allows him to re-sequence the series so that it can go backward, using digital editing. This video clip often offers my students a new “take” on music and they are surprised because they are hearing something different. If you are using speakers, turn them up. In the classroom, I usually turn off the lights.

The second video clip shows an interesting twist on talking and singing where he includes the spoken word. Is he having trouble or is he faking it? Here is Al Jarreau.

GCC, Teaching Ideas, Write6x6

Inclusivity on campus, three lessons LEARNED

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As someone who has been ever watchful of inclusivity for nearly twenty years, I see this topic as a hopeful step.  In the classroom, I am always mindful of those who march (or dance) to a different drummer and some of the lessons I’ve learned from it.  I like to think that I am respectful and try to champion everyone’s accomplishments.  One of the things I’ve learned more recently is to be quieter.  Championing is sometimes better when it is sotto voce.  Here are three lessons of the many I have learned over the years.

I had one individual who sat all by himself in the front row of my classroom of about fifty. He never took a note but listened as he kept his hands busy.  One afternoon, just as I was dismissing the class, I realized that on that day he had been working with a Rubic’s Cube.  What I didn’t catch until nearly everyone was gone was that he had perfectly aligned the cube by the end of the class period and was just sitting there waiting for me to notice.  I wanted to be able to announce this to everyone! How many of us have tried and failed at this?  But, I realize now, he may not have wanted this kind of attention.  Lesson learned.

I had a student in one of my Honors Classes who would not look me in the eye.  He would talk to me and answer questions and was paying attention.  But I had not learned enough about all of this yet.  Having been an advocate for all things spectrum I kept trying to catch his eye.  I finally caught it one day when he was leaving the classroom.  But it was not a moment of jubilation.  If anything, he just wanted it not to matter.  Lesson learned.

The one individual I have worked with the most is the one that has come the farthest.  I’m told he weighed less than one and one-half pounds at birth.  It’s amazing how babies have an innate sense of fighting for their lives. This young man worked on executive skills and impulse control, transitions and focus. He’s worked on the hope that he wouldn’t be bullied and stood up for himself when he was.  He has had fabulous medical and educational help to teach others what he needed at every step.  One physician stated that the college administration would never have any idea how far he’d come. They would only see what he is today.  If only they knew what he’s fought just to get to this moment.  Lesson learned.

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The Stars!

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I’ve always loved the stars, both metaphysically and metaphorically.

As a composer for over, well, let’s just say I started young, I have written a lot of music on the subject of stars. It started with an opera, and then a requiem, and smaller pieces for chamber ensembles, and it just snowballed until a great deal of my work has some connection with stars!

As many Arizonans know, stars have a special impact, especially in a dark sky.  And dark skies are important for us to remain connected with the stars.  I chose an elective my first summer in Boulder at the University of Colorado when the skies were still dark there, where we were close to the stars at over a mile above sea-level, and felt like we could reach out and touch them.  I became enamored of the stars by taking a chance on an elective called General Astronomy.

Astronomy, at C.U. is no light subject, and I entered it with much trepidation but my fears were soon allayed. My professor was so excited to teach about the stars we were excited to be able to learn about them from him. He showed us so much that summer, in the classroom, at the observatory, and at the Planetarium. There are things I learned from him that I will never forget, and they have nothing to do with my field and everything to do with how it was taught. He was enthusiastic, and I remember that energy the most. Everything was worth learning about and he shared that feeling with all of us. It also made me realize that if I’d been able to take this course while I was taking Geometry I would have understood Geometry better because now I understood why we were trying to find angles. It’s all about context, isn’t it?  For us musicians, we call that applied music.

So my inspiration came from excitement about teaching, learning about stars, and it all started with an elective I chose to take because I thought it might be interesting.

Electives are near and dear to my heart because I have been teaching elective courses here at GCC and at several universities for over twelve years at each institution. (Yes, add the numbers together.)

Most of my students apologize for taking my courses as electives, because they are required, but I can tell they are holding out hope that they, too, will be inspired by learning about a choice they made that just might be something they remember for years to come. And for me, being able to enthusiastically share music with them is a blessing.

One of my favorite texts about stars is actually found as two different poems by the poet below.  This is one version:

The Starlight Night

Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!
I kiss my hand
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight, wafting Him out of it; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west;
Since, though He is under the world’s splendour and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet the days I meet Him, and bless when I understand.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins

So, open your mind and your heart, and be inspiring.