Just listen to Quincy!

By Allen Snow

Quincy Hilliard is really two people.

The outer man--the public man--is positive, energetic, self-assured. His genuine laugh and mile-a-minute approach to life quickly rub off on those around him and it's hard to imagine anyone not being affected by his electric charm. If you run into him in a restaurant or sit in on one of his classes or watch him conducting a band, this is who you'll see.

A Starkville native and 1975 graduate of Mississippi State, Hilliard is an associate professor of music theory and composition at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette, a successful businessman, and an internationally renowned composer.

It was natural that Hilliard gravitated toward teaching. His father, who died in 1968 while Hilliard was still in high school, was a minister in the Methodist Church. His mother, who died last May, was a school teacher in the Oktibbeha County Schools for 34 years, and she instilled in her son a love of scholarship.

She also made countless sacrifices to help him acquire the education he would need in order to pursue his chosen career. Hilliard remembers one such sacrifice in particular.

"We weren't integrated until I was in the 11th grade. Up until then, I went to Henderson High School, and my junior and senior years, I went to Starkville High.

"My mother had bought me a new horn just before we were integrated. In the Starkville band, you had to have a certain type of horn, and when they came over to ask us Henderson kids to be in the band, I shrugged it off. I thought, 'My mother's never going to buy me another horn.' John McArthur, the band director at Starkville High, kept talking to me about it, but my father had just died and I knew there was no way to get a new horn.

"Mr. Mac said, 'Let me talk to your mother.' So one afternoon, he came by the house, laid a brand new horn on the table, and said, 'It's great, go ahead and play it.' And he proceeded to convince my mother that I was going to amount to something in music. She went to the bank and borrowed the money and bought the horn for me.

"I guess the joy of teaching came from my mother, because I didn't know anything else. I didn't know how to become a nuclear engineer; I didn't know how to become president of a bank. I love teaching. I love working with kids, watching them progress. I love to hear a kid say, 'I've got it!'"

Hilliard became interested in music at an early age.

"My mother always played piano in church. In fact, that's how she met my father. A minister at that time needed a wife who could play the piano," he laughs. "That way, whenever he moved, he always had his piano player with him.

"She started giving me music lessons early on, and there's a lady in Starkville named Lois Coffman who gave me lessons. She's a very sweet lady.

"My first band director, when I was in the sixth grade, was James Parsons. But even before that, when the band was out practicing, I would march alongside them."

Hilliard enrolled at Mississippi State, to some extent, out of necessity.

"My father had recently died and I didn't want to be too far away from my mother. I had had dreams of going to Florida State, but financially, there was no way. I could attend State and live at home. And, too, my mother tricked me. She said, 'If you stay and do well, in a couple of years with all the money we've saved, we'll be able to buy you a car.'

"Also, after we integrated, I got to know a lot of kids whose parents taught here. Their kids were in the band with me, so it was real easy to make the transition.

"I had very good experiences at Mississippi State. The faculty works extremely hard; they're the type of people who can take a kid and really teach him. I remember Mr. [Kent] Payne, who's still here. I'll never forget him. And Dr. [Kent] Sills, who's still here. Mr. [William Thomas] West, who's now gone, was the head of the department, and Mr. [Thomas] Watson was here. Dr. Frank Stewart, who is no longer here, was my theory teacher. I loved writing music, and he helped me get started in that. It was the planting of the seed."

After graduating, Hilliard went on to Arkansas State University to study under Jared Spears, who became his mentor.

"He was my composition teacher at ASU, and if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be where I am today. He not only taught me about music and writing--he taught me about the business of music. He taught me the elements of communicating with people, and how important that was to the development of my career."

With a master's degree in hand, Hilliard then went to the University of Florida for his Ph.D. There he studied with composer Richard Bowles.

After several years of teaching at the junior and senior high school level, he moved to the college level at Florida International University, Nicholls State University, and now at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette.

"I realized that in order for me to do what I wanted to do, I would have to teach on the college level. Colleges and universities provide a sort of modern patronage system; they provide stability in regard to finances, which allows us to do the artistic things we need to do.

"I've been at USL for about nine years now. It's a great university and there are many wonderful people there. Dr. Ray Authement, the president; Dr. Gary Marotta, vice president for academic affairs; and Mr. Gordon Brooks, dean of the College of the Arts--they've all been more than supportive. They and many others have helped me get where I am."

Hilliard's compositions for wind band are published by numerous major publishing companies, including Boosey and Hawkes, Carl Fischer, and Neil A. Kjos, and are performed throughout the United States and abroad. A seven-time recipient of the coveted American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Award, he is invited frequently to Mexico, Australia, and Canada to conduct, judge festivals, hold workshops, and demonstrate his teaching techniques. In addition, he is a recognized authority on the music of Aaron Copland.

Hilliard is the author of several pedagogical books, including Selecting Music for the School Band, Theory Concepts Books 1 and 2, and Skill Builders Books 1 and 2. He has published articles in Opera Journal, The Instrumentalist, School Musician, Bandworld, American Music Teacher, Florida Music Director, and Tennessee Musician.

In 1994, Hilliard donated his papers to Mississippi State University. They are housed in Special Collections at Mitchell Memorial Library.

As a testament to his musical talents, he recently was commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games to write a composition for the 1996 Olympics, one of only eight composers to be so honored. The composition, titled Anthem for Victory, is four and a half minutes long. After its Olympic premiere next summer, it will be published by Carl Fischer.

Just this summer, the University of Southwestern Louisiana awarded him the Heymann Endowed Professorship in Music.

Even with all those irons in the fire, Hilliard still finds time to run a business of his own. He is president of Hilliard Music Enterprises Inc., a personal consulting firm which has a corporate board of distinguished music educators. He also serves as a composer, consultant, and clinician for Boosey and Hawkes Publishers and Carl Fischer Publishers.

It's hard to imagine that he has any time left to be a husband and father, but he does. His wife, Rubye, and sons, Cameron, 10, and Alex, 7, occupy much of his time.

Composers who have influenced him include Aaron Copland, Frances Macbeth, and David Holsinger.

"Their work is exciting. It speaks to me."

Hilliard's approach to composing varies with the piece.

"Music is an emotion, a feeling. For the Olympic piece, there wasn't much research involved. When you think of the Olympics, you think of fanfare; you think of victory; you think of a flambouyant opening. I tried to picture myself winning a gold medal, and what music I would want to hear if I won one.

"Ghost Dance, on the other hand, was based upon an historical event. So I went out and researched that, got all the information I needed. Then the mind started to work."

When he begins to talk about the highly acclaimed Ghost Dance--his magnum opus and longest composition, at 25 minutes--his eyes go to the ceiling and he seems to drift off to another place.

Enter the other Quincy Hilliard, the composer of such haunting works as Requiem, Universal Covenant, Final Rituals, and Death Chants--and, of course, Ghost Dance.

This is a quieter man, more introspective. He is given to spiritual concerns, often to thoughts of death, and he seems to live closer to the center of something--perhaps his own soul or a collective soul. This is the Quincy Hilliard you will never see, only hear, and he is most likely the one history will remember.

"Ghost Dance is based on the massacre of more than 300 Lakota Indians--men, women, and children--at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1890. I went up and researched it. I met with the descendents of those people, with Indian scholars; I went to the burial ground, read a lot of books and other materials. My head was running over . . . it was like you take a cup and keep pouring water into it and it keeps running over. I couldn't get that piece out fast enough; it just wouldn't stop.

"I opened it with a flute cadenza. There was a little girl, Lost Bird, who survived the shooting. Four days later, they found her under her mother's body. She was still alive. After the last movement of the piece, which represents the battle, you can hear a baby crying, representing that.

"The tragedy of that episode in history was summed up by the Indian leader, Red Cloud. He said, 'There was no hope on Earth, and God seemed to have forgotten us.'"

As often happens in the creative process, Hilliard hit upon the idea for Ghost Dance almost by accident.

"A friend of mine, Bruce Ammann, who was director of the concert band at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, had asked me to write him a piece. Every year, we'd talk about it; he'd ask me about it. And I'd say, 'Yeah, well, I'm working on it.' Later, he'd ask me again, and I'd say, 'I'm still working on it.'

"Then one day I was reading USA Today, and there was a story on the 100th anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee. I thought it sounded interesting. Suddenly, I thought, 'Ghost Dance--what a fantastic title!'

"So I called Bruce and told him about my idea, and he thought it was perfect. He went out and got somebody to write grants, and they gave him all sorts of money. When the piece was finished, Bruce premiered it at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and received a standing ovation."

He shakes his head. "All my major pieces seem to deal with death: Ghost Dance, Final Ritual, Universal Covenant, Death Chants. Sometimes I think that coming to one of my concerts must be very depressing.

"I've finally learned how my mind works--about 55 percent of it, and knowing just that much is good. I want to continue to learn to know me so that I can be more effective in using my time when I'm writing. Then, I want my music to have more passion, more caring. It doesn't do that, and I don't know why. My music is just the opposite of me. One of my friends said once that maybe that's my dark side.

"You look at all of the ugly events in the world, and they begin to affect you. And you try to wake people up through a medium. But actually, this medium--which is music--is supposed to project hope, beauty, sensitivity. Somehow, I seem to have missed that.

"I watched my father die. And I was holding my mother's hand when she took her last breath. Maybe that has something to do with it.

"But I want my music to project passion. I want it to project hope. And I have to move in that direction so that it can. How? I don't know, but I need to do it quickly, because the things that come out of me are very emotional--anger, depression, sorrow, fear. I don't know why."

Hilliard's career may indeed be on the verge of taking a new direction.

"I just got my first film score assignment. I'm writing the music for a public television documentary about the Texas Rangers. So, I'm moving into a new area."

That documentary, "The Texas Rangers," will be aired next spring. Hilliard is working now to complete the musical score.

And what else does the future hold?

"Wow, that's scary." The other Quincy Hilliard has returned, laughing. "See, my career traveled so fast, I got ahead of myself," he says. "Where I am now--at 41--I wasn't supposed to get here until I was 50.

"What I had sketched out for my 50s, I have to go back and fill it in, maybe revise it. I'm working on a book to be used at the university level that will train instrumental music teachers in how to select music for the school band. I have to get that done. I think I'm going to continue with the film scores, and I'd like to win some more awards. I'd really like to become more involved in writing music for films."

Where does he get his energy?

"I don't know. I really don't. People ask me that all the time. My friends tell me that when they get depressed, they call me, and when they get off the phone, people ask them what they're excited about. And they say, 'I just talked to Quincy!'"

He takes a moment to consider the question seriously. "I think my energy must come from the joy of living. I love meeting people, working with people. I also read a lot of motivational books. Those things have helped me enhance what I do. When the books, for instance, agree with the course I'm on, they reinforce my decisions. But mostly, I just love people, and I like to have fun. I think life is like that. If you take it too seriously, it's going to laugh at you."

That being Quincy Hilliard's philosophy, there's a better than even chance that the outer man and the inner man will some day become one.

And just imagine the music that will flow from such a union.