Statement of Purpose

Dear UVA CCT Admissions Committee,

I’m Caleb. A detailed biography appears in my portfolio, but in short, I am a songwriter who works as a composer, using my computer as my primary instrument. My music sits at the intersection of art pop, punk, and experimental electronic music, and I am drawn to breaking the structures of popular music into new forms, treating genre as compositional material, and using distortion, noise, and evolving sound worlds to push those boundaries. Since 2022, I have written and produced seven albums and five EPs, a process that has clarified my creative identity while revealing the limits of my self-taught background.

In preparing this application, I found myself thinking about the difference between purpose and intent. My purpose is to make music—contributing to its magic, its exploration, and the communities it creates. My intent is to collaborate, learn, and engage deeply with the faculty in UVA’s CCT program; to make full use of UVA’s technological and creative resources; and to join the Charlottesville community as a composer committed to experimentation and research.

To prepare for this work, I have spent thirteen years (nine actively) developing my skills as a computer musician through writing songs, shaping sounds, producing music, and exploring music technology. What began as dance music grew into art-pop songs, then hybrid compositions, and eventually experiments in structure and form. This trajectory led me to restart lessons in theory and piano this past year, focusing on pop forms and traditional compositional foundations. These efforts strengthened my practice but also made clear the need for guided mentorship. I want to develop fluency in composition, to understand why the works I admire function as they do, and to apply those insights toward expanding my own musical language.

My primary research interest is the development of hybrid compositional forms that merge the immediacy of pop songcraft with the structural and sonic openness of experimental composition. I am interested in how dismantling and reimagining the rules of pop form, with its linear structures, hook-centric core, and perceived simplicity, can generate musical architectures that remain emotionally grounded yet structurally and timbrally diverse.

At present, my work takes the form of linear, pre-planned compositions as I establish the foundations of my approach and determine how these materials operate and interrelate. Ultimately, I aim to develop compositional systems in which the work exhibits controlled emergence, allowing each piece to evolve within a framework I design. Rather than remaining fixed, the music’s form can shift through interactions between modular pop elements and rule-based processes that respond to performer input or system conditions. I can imagine this taking shape in both ensemble contexts and in recorded media–an album designed so its tracks can be played in any order while still forming continuous, interconnected pathways.

The foundations I have developed center on three interconnected ideas:

• Modular pop systems: treating hooks, beats, dynamics, genre gestures, and sections as interchangeable musical cells that can be reordered, extended, or transformed, enabling flexible, multi-movement forms shaped by emergent behavior rather than fixed design.

• Genre as compositional material: approaching stylistic identities not as aesthetic boundaries but as functional parameters that can shift, collide, or recur to create contrast, continuity, or formal tension.

• Pop signifiers as structural anchors: using melodic hooks, grooves, and motifs as recurring points of orientation within evolving architectures.

To advance these questions, I want to study form and analysis, algorithmic and rule-based composition, and computational approaches to structure and sound generation. Professors Ted Coffey and Matthew Burtner feel strongly aligned with this trajectory: Coffey’s work in acoustic and electronic composition and performance demonstrates how form can emerge from shifting conditions and performer–system interaction; Burtner’s research into timbre, ecological form, and ecoacoustic composition offers models for understanding sound as a structural force. Their methodologies reflect the kinds of thinking I need to engage in to expand the scope of my work, and the broader environment of the VCCM, with its facilities, maker-oriented resources, and culture of experimentation, would provide the infrastructure these projects require.

As a secondary but closely connected focus, I am interested in generative sound design as a performative and compositional partner—systems in which morphing, semi-autonomous timbres act as active musical agents. Rather than treating production as fixed, I am drawn to sound worlds that evolve on their own terms: textures that shift identity, timbres that respond to performers or data inputs, and electronic systems that function as improvisers within a piece. My interest lies not in asking these systems to dictate form, but in how they shape timbre, texture, and contour within a work. This aligns strongly with Professor Luke Dahl’s research in new musical interfaces, sensor-driven performance, and technologically mediated musical behavior, which offers conceptual grounding for the behavior-responsive sound systems I hope to explore.

In the long term, I hope to extend this work by experimenting with real-time biometric feedback from animal companions using non-invasive sensors. Physiological signals such as pulse or stress level could be mapped to timbral parameters or behavioral controls within these generative systems, enabling biological rhythms to influence how sounds change and evolve. These inputs would shape timbre, texture, and contour in real time, extending my interest in semi-autonomous musical behavior and integrating living systems into compositional processes.

Looking ahead, I plan to continue working as an artist while developing myself as an educator. Creating music feels essential to me. I am committed to pursuing it wherever my career takes me. At the same time, I feel a growing desire to teach and to build communities of creative practice. I want to help younger artists gain fluency in songwriting, composition, and production, empowering them to realize and believe in their creative visions. To teach with generosity and clarity, I need mentorship, structured learning, and immersion in an environment built around experimentation and inquiry. The CCT program is where my artistic and intellectual goals align most fully, and I am eager to contribute to and grow within this community.