By Tereza Yerimyan
Terezayerimyan@ucla.edu
Beginning his music career at the tender age of six, Cameron Hovsepian is now striving to bring back the love for Jazz music to both the UCLA community and the musical world at large. A third year music major, Hovsepian feels that it is necessary to mold Jazz music to fit the current music stream, but also allow it to maintain its essence as soulful music.
In his musical experiences, Hovsepian has noticed that musicians are often discouraged to approach jazz tunes, saying, “People don’t seem to want to bring jazz back, so the musicians simply don’t.” Hovsepian points out that “most of the music listened to today is garbage, and jazz needs to be reintroduced to mainstream music in order to differentiate from what the general public listens to today.”
In addition to jazz music, Hovsepian enjoys Armenian folk music. As many of us can relate, an Armenian gathering is not complete without the traditional sounds of the dhol, zurna, and various other Armenian instruments. In fact, his family has always surrounded themselves with the love of art: “There are always performances going on in our home, from playing the piano to singing to reciting common sayings,” Hovsepian explains, “considerably creating an environment for me to gain interest in music.”
He was drawn to music after listening to a jazz recording at the age of eight after accidentally downloading the wrong song off of Napster. Luis Armstrong’s “Westwood Blues” caught his attention. “It was the first time I had ever heard jazz music, and it was so different,” he said. No one in his family had played a jazz recording up until that point. An accident turns out to be a sign of fate as this recording became his inspiration to follow a career in music specialized in jazz.
According to Hovsepian, his family didn’t take him seriously at first, but grew to accept and support his son’s choices. As an artist, he finds it important to “have a real grip of reality” because many artists fall into the trap of their art without considering the commercial factors of life. He feels inspired by his father to work hard to attain success through rationality.
Hovsepian’s composed music has extraordinary blends, much like the person himself. Originally, he entered UCLA as a double major in both Music and Physics. “It seems like an odd combination of interests, but in actuality, math and music go hand in hand,” Hovsepian states. His favorite pieces to compose are strictly mathematical, much like classical music.
He believes that artists come up with their music beyond its math orientation. Much like how we daydream in the middle of lecture, Hovsepian, in a sense, writes an imaginary story with his lyrics and music all stemming from a small occurrence in his daily life. He believes that the imagination could take a single event and fantasize something better than reality, which is exactly what happens in his song called “Sunshine”. Hovsepian feels that his songs emerge from a pure interaction between himself and the experience and believes that they become an interesting story once he is finished with producing them in the studio.
Hovsepian does everything for his music tracks, from composing the music to writing the lyrics and performing his own songs. When in need of other instruments or musicians, he will pull them from the music department to help record a song, accrediting them for their input.
The music industry is one of the hardest modes of entertainment anyone can become a part of, which makes us wonder what expectations this Bruin holds. Like many artists, Hovsepian hopes to land a record deal and in doing so, realizes that they will suggest alterations. Hovsepian wants to make a living off of his music, but he’s not limiting his options to just performances or record labels. Hovsepian sees a future in writing scores for films (and possibly winning an academy award for best music) or applying his musical genius to similar modes of entertainment.
You can check out Hovsepian at http://www.myspace.com/cameronhovsepian to listen to his latest releases and keep an eye out for his performances at De Neve Plaza and other UCLA musical events.
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