Berklee College of Music has only a 35 percent acceptance rate, but Hillsdale sophomore Jonathan Edelblut is one of those elite accepted few.
The sophomore music major is tentatively planning to transfer to Berklee to focus his studies on composition and music production. His ultimate dream is to write film scores for movies.
“Sometimes composing can be mind-numbingly difficult, kind of like writing,” he said. “You’re trying to make something creative, and nothing is happening, and you wonder why nothing is working. But then there’s those moments where you understand what you’re doing. It feels like the world is going in slow motion and you just keep going at it. It’s those moments when you’re so interested in what you’re doing and involved in the creative process; it’s those moments that make me love composing. I’ve been blessed to have lots of those moments.”
Edelblut’s original plan was to finish his Hillsdale education and then attend graduate school. But after speaking with former Hillsdale student Jeffrey Gaiser, who transferred to Berklee, he began to consider the idea of beginning studies at Berklee as well, focusing his attention on their incredible facilities, networking, and connections.
He said he was blown away during his tour of the campus to see a professional full-size film-scoring studio, a facility rare even at a grad school. Berklee also has 448 student ensembles and 316 practice rooms.
“I am absolutely delighted that he is attending Berklee,” Associate Professor of Music Matthew Fuerst said in an email. “I think it is the perfect place for him to continue to grow as a composer while making connections in the film and commercial industry that will help him as he prepares to embark on his professional career.” While he said he feels fairly sure Berklee would be the right decision, he said he would deeply regret having to say goodbye to Hillsdale.
“I love Hillsdale and I’m going to miss it and every person here,” Edelblut said. “It’s still going to have an impact on me years in the future. Jeffrey told me there’s something irreplaceable about Hillsdale that you won’t find anywhere else.”
As a music major at Hillsdale, he sings in chamber choir and serves as songmaster for Mu Alpha men’s music fraternity. Recently, he arranged a piece from the film “The Prince of Egypt” for Mu Alpha, Sigma Alpha Iota women’s music fraternity, the Hillsdale Camerata, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia to perform for the Mu Alpha concert. He has also taken lessons from Fuerst for two years.
“I think what the faculty saw in Jonathan is a very talented young composer who has learned how to compose with a variety of musical techniques with great skill,” Fuerst said. “It is something we have worked on in our lessons over the last two years, and his hard work has really paid off with his development as a composer.”
Edelblut occasionally composes music for short films, advertisements, and donor videos. Some of his work has been for senior music major Faith Liu, who’s known him since middle school.
“Every time we saw each other, there would always be a lot of music, a lot of singing,” Liu said. “He and I would spend a lot of free time singing music together. If there was a guitar, we would use it. If there was a piano, we would use it.”
Once, the two of them agreed on a chord progression and improvised on a grand piano for about 10 minutes. Afterward, people approached them to ask for the title of the song and were shocked to discover the two of them had made it up.
Another time, Edelblut composed a requiem for a fallen soldier, intended for a soprano and orchestra. He asked Liu to assist him by singing it.
“I remember recording it and just thinking it sounded so awful, but it turned out pretty okay,” Liu said. “I was really excited to be singing an original piece of music that he had just written. It’s really exciting to see a new work like that and to be one of the first to bring that to life.”
Edelblut occasionally composes short pieces as birthday gifts and sometimes earns money for the compositions he does for short films. But he said he derives his inspiration from the satisfaction of watching his music performed.
“It’s when you hear it for the first time in a concert setting; never mind rehearsals, never mind all that, when you hear it being performed and you know that it’s yours — it’s like you brought something alive into this world,” Edelblut said.
