Feature -- by Mark Sproxton

From the bedroom on the top floor of a Calgary condo, the sounds of piano, oboe, violin and a host of other instruments leap. Short pauses of silence interrupt the flowing melodies. Hour after hour this pattern continues as the composer moves from piano to note pad, to keyboard to note pad....

John Estacio likes the freedom offered a composer.

"When deadlines are around the corner, you get up, grab some breakfast and work for 18 hours and eat when you remember," explains John Estacio, composer in residence with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Calgary Opera. "The closer the deadline, the more structured my day. It is the nature of the beast. Things need to be done by certain dates." Those things include getting the score to the conductor and then extracting individual parts for the musicians.

Meeting with administrators of the CPO, the conductor and others, Estacio gets the dates for completing a piece and how long the piece must last. From there, he pretty much has free reign to put his talents to work. "In that lovely time when the deadline is far away, my typical day will consist of working three, four, five hours a day depending how you feel," the master of music degree holder said.

And it's that kind of freedom the University of British Columbia graduate has come to enjoy in his almost 10 years as a professional composer. "I like being my own boss, having my own hours and taking on as much work as I want," the former Edmonton Symphony Orchestra composer in residence said. "I like being able to chose projects that excite me and make me want to get up in the morning."

But for composers, like musicians, competition for scarce jobs is fierce and sometimes you're only as good as your last piece of work. "What I don't like is deadlines, and the insecurity of the job. I'm lucky, I'll be employed for the next one-and-a-half years, but after, who knows?" With no set fees or salaries, composers have to pay close attention to their financial interests.

These challenges came as no surprise to Estacio who previously studied trumpet and piano, but always knew he wanted to be involved in music. After finishing post-secondary, the place he said allows you to write pieces and learn from your mistakes, Estacio had to prove himself in the "real" world. "In many ways it's about promoting yourself and networking. They heard about me in Edmonton and asked me to send in samples of my work." Based on that he landed the position there, and afterward here.

Despite hearing his pieces played on the same program as Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and other greats, Estacio considers himself early in his career. "I'm still learning," he said. "You never do stop learning." But whether you're an established composer, or one on the way up, you have to be good. "As a composer, first and foremost, you have to have your craft," he said. "You need to excel at what you do. And you need to have an idea of what you need and want in your work and in your collaborations. I don't think it's something you can sort of do. It demands all your resources, attention, focus."

For anyone looking to spend days and nights writing music for orchestras, Estacio offers this advice: "If you want to be a composer, you need to be a very good composer and a very good something else. There are a lot of jobs in the industry and having a music degree is an asset to get those other jobs. I've been lucky. I've just been able to compose. But I have friends who teach, play or make arrangements for (musical groups) on the side."