Dear members of CvA,

I am writing this letter to express the motives to enter your Jazz Master's Degree programme.
I want to enter your master programme in order to be trained as a versatile, original, and most of all
professional musician. I deeply believe that, as I have just completed a Bachelor's Degree
programme, I need the training and the opportunity your institution offers to enhance my qualities
and talents, thus resulting in me and my inspiration making a difference in society, because music
and art in general are about communication, which plays a role of significant concern in society and
how society itself develops its internal dynamics. As a future professional musician I mainly see
myself as a performing artist, both working as the leader of my own projects and as a sideman,
working with different ensembles, tailoring my qualities and my knowledge to different situations. I
also see myself engaged in teaching, as performing and teaching share the main goal of art –i.e.
communication- , and firstly because it offers you the possibility to really assimilate what you've
learnt.

In order to become a professional musician, an interest of high degree in arts and culture is a matter
of extremely high importance, because music is a branch of art, and all the subjects of art influence
the others, creating new paths and ways of expression and communication. Having told that, I'm not
claiming that one must be an expert of every aspect of culture, but must be projected to what art,
culture and science offer, and to keep up with them in order to be original, and to develop a personal
voice in the artistic milieu. Talking about my own experience, I found a great deal of stimuli in
literature, painting and cinema, although I clearly see that all the elements of communication and
self-expression, ranging from humor to politics, can be found in all the branches of culture. As I am
concerned with music, the main deal of stimuli suitable for my expression are found in music, from
any genre, from r'n'b to rock, funk, jazz, classical music and world music. Another crucial point I
would like to make is that all these stimuli coming from anywhere in the climate of culture are, for
me, vital to understand that a true artist is always in search of something to learn and develop.

For the reasons above, I've chosen to attend CvA's Master programme because this institution offers
an highly varied study programme, rich in stimuli, and planned to give me all the elements to
master my main subject with artistic originality. Furthermore, your institution provides an
international environment, enabling the students to come in contact with different cultures, different
people, languages and points of view around the main and shared topic which is music. I've also
decided to apply for your courses owing to the teaching staff present at your conservatorium: I'm
sure that all the teachers will provide me with an optimum guidance to enhance my own talents,
considering at the same time that studying major artists plays a big role in one's artistic
development.

Having written about the motives for which I've chosen your institution, now I have to show you
my qualities. I have to say that I am an introvert, and owing maybe to this feature of mine, I
consider myself a "listening" person: listening, for what I can say, is the best way to learn anything
which deals with communication, because it offers you the possibility to understand deeply every
single aspect and view of the subject. I also consider mysel open-minded, I'm always looking
forward to broaden my horizons, to learn anything new and to share it with others, because I truly
feel that knoweldge is something that must be shared, and not taken for ourself in an egoistic way.
I'm also an hard working man, and my dedication to what and who I love has always been
recognized by the people I know. I also organize my life in long terms, setting short term goals in
order to achieve the main goal, and as a consequence, an important deal of determination and
dedication is required. It is also important to recognize failure as an element to be dealth with when
pursuing a big goal. Furthermore, I'm self confident, I know what my strong and weak points are,
and my ideals are very clear in my mind but I'm always open to change and improvement.
By attending your courses I hope to be able to contribute actively to the cultural climate, both
during the courses and as well as a professionist. I think that I can contribute to the musical
environment in three different ways: through performance, teaching and research.
As I mentioned previously, performing and teaching have one big thing in common, which is a
direct expression of your inner self to other people, whether they are audience or students. I
profoundly believe that through performance and teaching you can also educate people to tolerance,
which is a big value in the globalized society we live in. To transfer these value in music, it's a
matter of high importance to work with and understand any musical genre and the styles within a
particular genre, and then being able to reuse the peculiar features of any genre into our own music
and compositions, thus making our own voice original and up-to-date with the pace of a globalized
cultural climate. This kind of project, in my opinion, underpins the way that jazz music has
developed and will develop throughout history: even if jazz can be subdivided into many inner
styles, it has always treated miscellaneous elements and has always been contaminated by different
musical influences and cultures, so that jazz itself, always in my opinion, can be seen not much as a
genre, but a common and highly personal way – even within strict rules- of treating contents
coming from very different cultures. In addition to this, research in how the main features of jazz
and music in general are treated, such as form, rhythm, melody and harmony, will definitely play an
important role in building a valid educational path, probably structured in lectures and masterclasses
but also performances, which traces its main features in music, and can have important effects on
other cultural aspects and artistic fields, as any form art can influence the others and viceversa.

I am grateful for considering my application and I look forward to a favorable reply.

Sincerely,
Gabriele Bertossi