-: My name's Erin Bush.
I am the founder and Artistic Director
of the Young Women Composers Camp.
So the Young Women Composers Camp
is a two week music camp for girls
and non-binary students ages 14 to 19.
Takes place here at Temple University
on the main campus in July for two weeks,
and while they're here students learn
about music composition, music theory,
improvisation, orchestration, all these different topics
that are important to know as composers.
They meet with guest composers
who come in from the nearby area
who are successful in the field,
and they all compose a new piece
that's premiered at the end of the festival.
So our days are pretty jam packed.
Classes start at 9:00, they go until 4:00.
In the morning we have our set classes,
so every morning they'll have composition.
They'll have a theory course, and they all sing in a choir
where they're performing works
written by women throughout history.
And then in the afternoon we have a variety of guests
that come in and teach about their specific topic.
So we'll have a string quartet
come in and demonstrate their instruments.
We'll have a guest composer come in and present
some of her works.
We'll have different types of workshops
centered around these different topics.
One thing that I think is really important
is a community of other women and peers who are composing,
who have similar goals to them.
A lot of the students who have come to me have no peers,
male or female in their community
that are working on the same kinds of things
that they're interested in.
And so I also hope that they get mentors that can help them
throughout their next stage
of their lives and their careers.
And then more tangibly they're also going to get
the experience of working with professional musicians,
of having a recording of a piece
that they wrote in just two weeks,
and all of the knowledge that they gain
from the coursework as well.
It's so personal and so different for everyone.
For me I really am starting from a place
where I find a sound world,
some pitches that I feel really drawn to,
or maybe a text that is inspiring me for the piece.
I generally write at the piano.
So a lot of the early process days
is just finding some harmonies, chords,
maybe a melody that I'm drawn to,
or a specific timbre of the instrument that I'm writing for.
And then the process grows from there,
but I do a lot of sketching by hand.