Staff Creatives: Travis Weller

Creativity runs high among College of Fine Arts staff members, both in their day jobs in the college supporting our research and educational mission and in their personal lives. The college has an unusually high number of practicing artists, musicians and performers — many of them alumni — on our teams. 

Travis Weller is the production manager in the Butler School of Music.

How many years have you worked in the College of Fine Arts?

I will have worked for the Butler School of Music for eight years this coming October.

Describe your creative practice.

I'm a composer-performer and an instrument builder. My work centers around writing and performing music. While I've written a lot of music over the years that has been performed by other ensembles (mostly chamber music), I have been focused on writing solo pieces for the past few years. My primary instrument is violin, but I play and write for whatever I can get my hands on. My most recent recording project found me also playing viola, cello, double bass, piano and vibraphone. This recording also features percussion instruments that I built using scrap steel, two hand-built piano wire instruments and a shruti box (kind of like a harmonium) that I have augmented using motors so it can accompany my violin pieces hands-free. I've performed portions of this project live at the James Turrell Skyspace on the UT campus, and I'll be releasing an album in May.

How did you get started in your creative practice?

I started piano and violin lessons when I was in elementary school and was even a student in the UT String Project many years ago, so I've been running around the music building since I was a kid. I started writing music of my own when I found a love of creative collaboration with other musicians and wanted a structured way to pursue that. This happened somewhat organically and outside of school — mostly through one-off shows and a loose collection of scrappy nonprofit orgs.

What does a typical day look like when you’re balancing both your work and creative passions?

I have two kids, so "typical" days are few and far between. I try to set aside time in the evening and weekends to get writing and recording done, but that's challenging during the Butler School of Music’s recital season. Sunday mornings can be a productive time. My daughter studies violin, and my son has started cello, so I have some opportunities to merge music life with family life — which is wonderful. One recent productive period was when I switched everything off for a two-week residency in the highlands of Southern Appalachia during the summer off season. The kids were with their grandparents, and I was able to hunker down in the studio and work through the outlines of a lot of new material. When you have time like that, you have to make it count.

Any advice for students as they think about their professional pathways?

While keeping an eye out for auditions, grants and festivals etc. is important, try to also create your own opportunities by organizing events and working together with your colleagues to make your ideas happen.

How do you define success as an artist? How has that definition evolved over time?

One of the hardest things for me when composing music is staying true to the initial goals and ideas behind a piece. When I'm in the middle-end stages of a project and focused on details, it is easy to lose the thread. There are also lots of potential distractions from outside the piece, because I know I'm going to put it out there. Knowing when to be flexible and when to be tenacious can be hard. My definition of success is getting to the end of a project and feeling good about both the quality of the work and its relationship to what I was aiming for when I began.