Name: Justin E.A.Busch
Artform(s): Music Composition

When did you arrive at the Northern Warehouse? 

Resident since September, 2006.

How has the Northern Warehouse helped you as an artist?

The quiet sense of artistic purpose shown by most members here encourages my own productivity; the frequent interaction with good friends I have made since moving here helps create an atmosphere most congenial to careful thought and creation.

What projects are you currently working on?

Following the release of the first CD containing my music (see samples page link above), I have been sending out copies to conductors and performers in the hopes of generating interest in other works of mine. In addition, I continue working on new pieces, including extensive sketches for both a symphony and an opera - though these two are very long term projects indeed.

Who/What inspires you creatively?

My inspirations come from many sources, not all of them musical. A trip to Estonia in the summer of 2006 included stopping at the ruins of a fortress at Laiuse, which memory recently emerged as a tone poem for full orchestra. Poems of Maryland Watson, published exactly 100 years ago, have become a seven movement song sequence, Destiny and Desire. But often hearing the works of great such predecessors as Anton Rubinstein, Dmitri Shostakovich, Allan Pettersson, Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, and of course, Beethoven, makes me all the more eager to do what I can to become a part of that lineage and heritage.

Anything else you would like to share about yourself?

In addition to music and essays, I have written (though not yet published, alas) a 100,000-word fantasy novel which contains, as integral parts of its structure, several sonnets. One of these I have recently set to music (a cappella chorus). In addition, I have compsed a suite of pieces for violin and piano, modelled on the 19th century folk dance collections by such composers as Rubinstein, Brahms, and Dvorak, rhapsodizing on imaginary folk tunes reflecting the character of various locales from the continent in which the novel takes place. This is rather unusual; it is rare for any composer to be also a novelist, and comparatively few composers have so extensively cross-bred these two artistic disciplines.