By Rachel Bartz
In late 2025, Gunter Gaupp (ΦBK, Rhodes College) was awarded The American Prize Charles Ives Award in Chamber Music in the professional category. Gaupp’s rich musical background, from middle school band to his current role as a music teacher, is reflected in the piece for which he was awarded The American Prize, Is This/This Is It.
Originally from Louisiana, Gaupp was exposed to music at a young age by his mother, an opera singer, and through school band programs in the tradition of American military bands. This style, he explained, was not particularly appealing, but the skills he learned allowed him and his friends to create and explore music of their own.
At Rhodes College in Tennessee, Gaupp felt a degree in music was the only path that made sense. While grateful for his professors, he expressed that the academic lens in college often left him feeling less connected to music, saying, “Academic jazz is so, like, that same sense of bravado and showing off and competition…and that made me feel so bad about myself. And I was in this hole of practicing in order to compete, almost like an athlete….”
Amidst the relentless drive for perfection, Gaupp was exposed, through his liberal arts program, to musical genres less focused on technicality and rigidity, such as free jazz. A musical education rooted in the liberal arts was crucial to the development of his own artistic style.
“Because I went to a more liberal arts kind of program, I was having to study all kinds of music that was not related to my degree,” Gaupp said. “We were talking about atonal music, and then having to look at pop music examples, or talking about these weird time signatures, and looking at Sting and The Police.” The breadth of his musical education helped Gaupp forge his own path in the performing and composing fields.
One of Gaupp’s pieces in which this musical journey is most evident is Is This/This Is It. “The piece…is very noisy, but also rooted in pentatonic, folky, pleasant sound, so all the notes are very tonal, and on top of that is this more expressive, free sound,” Gaupp explained. “And then a lot of the scoring, I tried to leave it really open-ended…It’s these moments of improvising that I took from the jazz world, along with a sense of freedom to play your instrument, that really attracts me to jazz still, and then with these structures of string quartets and players who like extended techniques.”
The hypercompetitive nature of the composing world primed Gaupp to believe that little would come of entering Is This/This Is It in the chamber music category for The American Prize. He recounted his surprise and shared that, even now, “This award is kind of an anomaly, in a lot of ways, because I feel like I’ve really only written for my friends and have not been seeking awards….”
Gaupp is currently a high school music teacher at Memphis Rise Academy, where he focuses on equity in music and understands that what interests students is ultimately the guiding force behind his curriculum.
“It does not matter what I want to teach them,” he laughingly acknowledged. “It only matters what they want to learn, and what they care about, and how I can service that.”
Being a teacher has also led Gaupp to reflect on his membership in Phi Beta Kappa as he supports the next generation of musicians on their educational journeys.
“It’s a genuine joy to be a part of Phi Beta Kappa and their mission. Their love for learning is something I think about often and a virtue I hope to instill in my students.”
Besides teaching and composing, Gaupp continues to perform with a variety of groups and musicians across Memphis. His next professional goal, he shared, is for his newborn to hear his music.
Rachel Bartz is a graduate of The College of William & Mary, where she studied international relations and economics. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa there in May 2025. William & Mary is home to the Alpha of Virginia chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.