January 9, 2021 - Present - ASMAC - Nathan Wang, Kim Richmond, Courtney Wright, Raymond Torres-Santos AND Gayle Levant, Milton Nelson, and Charles Fernandez AND Jonathan Allentoff & Eiko Jin
When you form a nonprofit, you dream that you will build partnerships which will help you scale and boost your reputation. Although we had an inauspicious start at our virtual conference, Milton Nelson, ASMAC's Executive Vice President, had lined up several mentors to come in and give workshops to our kids in the new year. And suddenly, our relationship blossomed.
We had gone through all the instruments of the orchestra, so it was a perfect time to begin bringing composers, arrangers, and orchestrators into the Inception fold.
With no disrespect meant to any other mentor, I felt like we were in the space we had been aiming for, that we had primed our kids to be ready to work with these heavyweights. And this only would have happened with the pandemic.
Nathan Wang is one of the most prolific film composers in China. He started our year off giving the kids a piece of animation he had scored, and let them work on their version of the piece over the holidays. Nathan not only reviewed, but gave brilliant suggestions on how to expand on their pieces. In his family's restaurant, he gave us one of the most memorable sessions to date.
Click on the video below for Nathan's mentoring session.
Kim Richmond is the former President of ASMAC and is one of the premier big band arrangers in town. He had recently given a masterclass on big band arranging to ASMAC and came in to Inception to delivered a similar, professional seminar. (At least college level.) We had not been doing any jazz to that point, so the wonderful Milton sent me a sheet of jazz chords in advance to teach.
Javier Oviedo played the alto & soprano sax, Courtney Wright, who had appeared on an ASMAC up and comers workshop, played the baritone sax and was a composer. She joined us from her apartment in New York. Fun, young energy, creative, and a great musician.
Raymond Torres-Santos was another ASMAC Board member. His resume is so long and prolific, that you need to read it yourself. He is a composer, conductor, instructor, and Deans of numerous college programs. He was so generous and a really great teacher, sharing with us the uses of I-IV-V chords.
ASMAC during the pandemic, also began delivering online zoom workshops which expanded their membership globally. We would more than occasionally cut our sessions short to join them as we overlapped by an hour.
Karen was able to reunite with her friends Gayle Levant and Ray Parker Jr, while we heard from Motown legend Paul Riser. Ray called up Stevie Wonder while we were on the call.
Huxley and Angela frequently were put on screen to ask questions. In the celebration of women composers, we met Nerida Tyson-Chew and Nami Malumad. Nami is a disciple of Michael Giacchino and currently scores multiple Star Trek television projects.
Huxley was floored when he got to have an extended conversation with Broadway vets Doug Besterman, Michael Starobin, and Stephen Flaherty.
I sometimes got in on the action (though I hated being put on camera to ask questions). I, though, did admire Bruce Broughton's work, and since he's a professor at USC, on behalf of our students, I asked him some questions about college admission.
When we started attending Saturday sessions, Gayle would thank the ASMAC partners and always ended on the Los Angeles Inception Orchestra. How would I describe Gayle, the music industry's first-call harpist? A superstar who refuses to recognize herself as such. Generous. Always trying to make the people around her better. Positive. She always lightens the room and is loving. I could go on and on. Gayle joined us several times in the booth for our recording sessions, which, in truth, I cannot believed happened, and I am still not over the privilege of working next to her.
Milton is by far the most selfless person in the music business I've ever met. He is quietly a great jazz pianist (I hadn't heard him play live until August 2024). I had known he is a brilliant orchestrator, because multiple mentors shared his orchestrations, including Nathan Wang and Ross deRoche. Although Milton never makes it across to our seminars because he is in charge of the ASMAC workshops happening later in the day, he is always checking in, figuring out how he can support by finding other mentors or providing material, and seeing if the kids have questions when we join the ASMAC workshops.
Gayle and Milton together are the one-two punch of how every musician, and frankly, person, should be.
Charles Fernandez first joined us after the Virtual Conference, but his role became more and more increasingly important. As an animation/TV composer, the kids were entranced with all of his demos of music to picture. He also joined our Board as the ASMAC representative.
Chuck came back to mentor multiple times. He reviewed young composers scores before recording sessions. And he conducted our first two big sessions - strings and winds.
Chuck is tall. So I was halfway intimidated meeting him. But he is also one of the kindest people I've ever met. He introduced me to folks as the creator of Inception. (Which I am, but I tend to forget). But he did it with such unexpected and unnecessary respect. And he was just so exemplary on the stand. He treated the composers as composers, and not as kids. He communicated with the musicians in a way that elevated their performances and reassured them they were doing great. And he chatted to us in the booth with ease, and with grace. He wasn't instructing me, but I learned how to be a better producer in the sessions from Chuck. and I will always be grateful.
Here is Chuck's first Inception mentoring session. You'll see what I'm talking about.
Click on the video below for Charles Fernandez's mentoring session from February 2021.
Although I will talk about Jonathan Allentoff and Eiko Jin extensively down the line, I include them on the ASMAC page because I met them both through ASMAC.
Eiko I saw all the time on their Saturday workshops, and she helped with technical support and editing. Jonathan and I met at a special ASMAC fundraising event at Evergreen Studios in 2022. He was one of the conductors and arrangers and was incredibly friendly when Karen, who was the violist, introduced us.
Eiko and I met in person at Nathan Wang's Chinese opera. A group of ASMAC folks were going in support, and Gayle generously invited me to join them as her husband, John Richards (more on him later), was going to be out of town. At the after party, Eiko and I were sitting across from each other with Gayle at the head of the table between us, and Eiko asked if we were looking for help at Inception.
Both these stories continue, but for the moment, I will just say that I consider Jon and Eiko family.
In December of 2023, I was elected to the Board of ASMAC, and my only comment is you have never felt imposter syndrome like this when you are on the Board calls. (GRAMMY winner, GRAMMY winner, EMMY winner, GRAMMY winner, etc.) I'm thrilled to be a part of it. Especially with Gayle and Milton leading the way.
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