Prepare

It was May of 2021 and the ceremonial had been delayed from 2020 and turned into a livestream. Susie Ling and Nate May were both being recognized with awards, and it was supposed to be a banquet, but Covid changed this, along with so much else. Texting from opposite coasts, it was a chance to reconnect after meeting at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2015, where Nate was a master’s student and Susie was an exchange student from China.

Huijuan (Susie) Ling grew up in Hengyang in Hunan province. She started piano lessons at age six and learned quickly. By the age of 12, she thought that it was time to start pursuing her musical dream outside of her hometown, and she landed at one of the most prestigious prep schools in a country famous for its musicians, the Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

But instead of majoring in piano, she decided she wanted to make her own music. She thrived as a composition major until artistic disagreement with her teacher led her to some mild teenage rebellion, and a new passion for World of Warcraft.

Nevertheless, her talent and love of music carried her through to a coveted position in the conservatory’s undergraduate program in composition, where she stayed until her exchange program in Cincinnati.

After that, she completed a master’s in Cincinnati, earned a Ph.D. degree in composition from Duke, and went on to win international awards for her compositions, including the one from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

While Susie was honing her love of music in Hunan province, Nate was doing so in West Virginia, in the Appalachian mountains of the USA.

Although his family gave him every opportunity they could in his hometown, he didn’t have access to the level of training of his peers in the cities and suburbs. When he arrived as a jazz piano major at the University of Michigan, he realized just how much he had to learn.

His playing was transformed by the strict pedagogy and high standards of his teacher, the late great Geri Allen. He spent his third year in Cape Town, South Africa, learning as much as he could about music of the continent.

After he returned, he began working as a dance accompanist, where he would spend hours every day improvising music to support the movement of modern dancers. He began to have ambitions beyond the jazz ensemble, and decided to pursue composition.

His first composition degree was a master’s from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and from there was accepted to the doctoral program at Yale, the only composer accepted in his year. He earned his degree in 2023.

In the midst of these studies, Susie and Nate were maturing as artists and as professionals, compiling bodies of work that would be performed on five continents in venues like the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. They were writing for orchestras, choirs, chamber ensembles, electronics, and rock bands. They were scoring films, one of which landed on national television.

And unlike many of their peers who only wanted to compose, they were becoming passionate about teaching.

It was teaching that they ended up texting about during that ceremonial in 2021, which led to Susie joining Synthase the following year.

The Synthase Composers Academy is an outgrowth of this love of teaching. It’s a chance for them to share some of their knowledge and skills with aspiring composers around the world.