Composer Profile: Jeffrey Parola

Composer Jeffrey Parola began his fascination with music while visiting neighbors and hearing, and then playing, their piano. “One day I came home after several hours with my neighbors and there was a piano in my living room, which my parents had bought,” Jeff shared with me. He began piano studies privately, eventually spending 10 years with Martha Holly. “She was a great mentor to me,” Jeff explained. “When I first started studying with her, she wrote down my pieces for me and then taught me how to notate. When my music began to grow increasingly sophisticated, an 80-year-old Martha Holly enrolled in theory classes at the local community college in order to help me. She was an incredible woman!”

Jeff went on to study composition at UCLA, and then at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is currently completing doctoral studies in composition at USC. He has won numerous notable honors and commissions, including the Jim Highsmith Orchestral Composition Prize and the 2016 Hoefer Prize, the highest award granted to distinguished alumni composers from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

In terms of his style, Jeff describes it without a strict definition. “My earliest compositions were written in the style of Mozart, and even though I don’t write in that style anymore, Mozart’s transparency and economy continue to find their way into my music.” Jeff went on to say, “I also love Ligeti, not only for his limitless ability to invent, but also for the diversity of style represented in his output. Ligeti simply listened to it and let it be what it wanted to be as it unfolded in a composition. I try to do that with my music, which might explain why it is difficult to define my music in stylistic terms.”

Jeff described to me the background of his new composition for Pacific Serenades. “Written for a quintet consisting of a bassoon, 2 violins, viola, and cello, the piece is a string of short movements that serve as observations of trends I see present in compositions by contemporary composers. Some of these trends I find fascinating, some I find unpleasant, and I figured I should take a crack at them as studies (not parodies). Here’s a sneak peek: the first movement is called Attention Deficit, which confronts the unfocused, multi-tasking nature of the present-day world. The music constantly shifts its attention from one idea to the next, randomly and seamlessly moving on from, and coming back to, ideas without fully committing to them or investing in them.”

Jeff has composed numerous orchestral, chamber, and choral/vocal works. I asked Jeff about composing chamber music. His comments were rather interesting, focusing on the audience’s perspective: “I love writing for large forces for the embarrassment of riches. However, I’m noticing more and more that ‘distance’ is classical music’s worst enemy. In other words, the further away the audience experiences the action of a performance, they are less likely to be connected to the music; and I think because our technology facilitates such a close proximity for multimedia experiences, modern audiences are even more likely to zone out. Chamber music is meant to happen in a small setting where the music is presented with a palpable sense of closeness. The interaction of the performers is shared by the audience, where they witness the breaths, eye contact, and facial expressions of the performers. It intensifies the experience of humans playing music written for humans and composed by humans. For composers, there is the option to use the inherent theatricality of chamber music to one’s advantage.”

“Some months back, Mark Carlson approached me with the commission, which is particularly special because Mark was my composition teacher over 10 years ago when I was studying at UCLA,” Jeff told me as we discussed the new work. “Of course, I did not hesitate to agree, as it is a profound honor to write for Pacific Serenades, an authentic treasure for the local concert music scene, and an invaluable contributor to new music with its countless commissions. My piece was commissioned by Dr. Abdelmonem & Marianne Afifi, both of whom I’ve met, and they are lovely people, dedicated to the arts, and particularly to new music. I am tremendously grateful to Mark and the Afifis for this wonderful opportunity.”