HWS News
11 July 2025 • Arts • Faculty Olivieri's Approach to Music Composition and Mentorship
From Bogotá to Fort Worth, Composer and Associate Professor of Music Mark Olivieri performs his works while balancing teaching, composing and coordinating international performances.
Composer and Associate Professor of Music Mark Olivieri starts most mornings in his studio, in silence. He carves out mornings and afternoons for writing, the rest of his time on his recent sabbatical has been devoted to collaborating with other musicians and securing commissions — but mostly organizing and performing in concerts from Bogotá in June to Fort Worth in July.
In June, Olivieri also led Hobart and William Smith’s two-week Composer’s Sandbox Summer Intensive, a program Olivieri founded five years ago for early-career composers to study the process and business of music composition.
Performing
Last month Olivieri presented an all-Olivieri concert at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. The program featured the Colombian premiere of “Launch” for B-flat clarinet and piano, with Olivieri performing in the concert. Additional works included two movements from his violin and cello duo “Suite for Jules,” two solo piano works titled “Solenne” and “Spectacular Vernaculars” and a violin-piano duo “Music for a Super Hero” from the second movement of his project “24-Hour Music.”
“It’s rare to have an entire program dedicated to my music,” Olivieri says. “When the opportunity presents itself, especially internationally, I try to make the most of it.”
Olivieri’s new composition “Copy Cat” for E-flat clarinet and piano premiered July 11 at the International Clarinet Association’s annual conference in Fort Worth, Texas. The performance features Clarinetist Diego Vásquez with Olivieri at the piano. On Aug. 24, Olivieri’s work “Akshara,” a new piece for violin and piano, premieres at the prestigious Teatro Mayor in Bogotá.
The international momentum continues with a commission by Austrian violinist Anyango Ariela Samantha Yarbo Davenport who chose Olivieri to write a violin concerto, scheduled to premiere during the 2027–28 concert season.
Composing
Olivieri describes his composing process as structured yet intuitive. He starts writing at 8 a.m. most mornings and continues until noon. To be effective, he requires silence and a great deal of physical space, he says. Olivieri begins writing again at 1 p.m. and continues through 5 p.m. for four-day stretches or as long as his schedule permits. “I write in big blocks like that because it keeps the piece fresh.” Olivieri says if it lingers for too long, he starts to second-guess himself. “I’d rather capture it while it’s fresh and move forward.”
When asked how he derives inspiration he says, “I don't know. I'm not like one of these people: ‘I was walking through nature.’ It doesn't happen like that.” But music does come to him while he’s riding his bike, which he says helps him stay in alignment.
“Oftentimes when I'm cycling, I'll hear music in my head,” Olivieri says.
“I'm also an improviser, so I'll play what I hear in my head. But I kind of feel like the piece already exists, and I hear it all, and then all I do is just write it down: I just transcribe what already exists, kind of, in the ether.”
Hustling
Coordinating concerts, securing commissions and connecting with performers around the world are all part of the work too. “There’s the composer who makes the stuff,” he explains, “and the composer who hustles. That’s a full-time gig, too.”
It’s a dance between solitude and collaboration, between structure and improvisation--between control and letting go.
Though composing is solitary, Olivieri explains it also is highly collaborative. The musicians who play his music, not only realize its potential. They extend it. “When you hand off a piece to a musician, it becomes theirs. The best performers show you new dimensions of the music you’ve written,” Olivieri says.
Teaching
Last month, Olivieri led students through the Composer’s Sandbox--an intensive course designed to help composers build experience, skills and the portfolio needed for graduate study and professional success. The course emphasizes close mentorship, exposure to diverse compositional voices and practical training in areas such as self-promotion, commissioning and contracts.
At HWS, where Olivieri has taught since 2010, Olivieri is an advocate for improvisation. When he’s teaching composition from the Gearan Center for the Performing Arts on campus, Olivieri begins with improvisation and limitations, which he says, are the most effective way to teach improvisation. “You can teach improvisation by setting boundaries: dynamics, articulation, mood,” he says. “Creativity thrives inside limitations.”
Olivier’s courses at HWS include “Introduction to Music Theory,” “Music, Math, & Magic,” “Music and American Culture” and “the Genealogy of Hip-Hop.”
Olivieri believes a good piece is one-third for the composer, one-third for the audience and one-third for the performers. “If they enjoy playing it,” he says, “they’ll keep playing
Top: Composer and Associate Professor of Music Mark Olivieri (second from left) poses with musicians (from left to right) clarinetist Julián Casas, violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, pianist Andres Gomez Bravo and cellist Viviana Pinzon for a concert of his music in Bogotá, Colombia.
