The music may be brief, but its reach will span more than 200 miles across California's airwaves.

Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) student Joaquin Castillo has been selected as the winner of the KDFC Audio Logo Contest. Castillo will receive a $1,000 cash prize and have his work featured heavily on the radio station KDFC, Classical California. This marks the tenth year of this unique collaboration. 

"I really appreciate the recognition," Castillo said. "I always love to get my music heard, and having it played on the radio is especially exciting! I'm looking forward to the recording session and the learning opportunity it provides."

TAC student works in the state-of-the-art Studio H.

This year, 15 TAC students applied to the annual contest with KDFC, which sees students submit musical cues or audio logos as a musical theme for KDFC and its Los Angeles sister station, KUSC. "Since the first winner in 2016, we've been collaborating with KDFC on this annual contest where students create a new version of the logo, which is deeply woven into the station's sonic identity," TAC Professor Matt Levine said. This year students were asked to redesign an "uplifting" theme, composed for violin, clarinet, and piano.

"This whole process gives the students a sense of what it's like to be a professional composer,” Levine added. "Clients often evaluate and make decisions about music when the composer isn't present, so the artists need to put all of the emotion and craft into the demo so it stands on its own." 

TAC students tour the KDFC Classical California studio.

While Castillo was chosen as the winner, all TAC participants will have their submissions recorded by a live ensemble in February, allowing students to use them in their portfolios. "The students also have the magical experience of hearing our wonderful musicians bring their work to life," Levine said. Recording sessions are produced and engineered by SFCM's two-time GRAMMY award-winning engineer, Jason O'Connell. 

KDFC studio in SFCM's Bowes Center.

With KDFC Classical California's studio inside SFCM's Bowes Center, the collaboration with the radio station runs deep. In 2025, the Conservatory hosted KDFC's Arcade Live! event, a performance featuring music from iconic video games like World of Warcraft and The Legend of Zelda alongside classical works like Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" and Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. TAC students arranged, recorded, and edited the music. In 2024, the station also hosted its annual Classical Kids Discovery Day in the Bowes Center, welcoming San Franciscans to performances, an opera vocal range testing exercise, and an instrument petting zoo, among other educational experiences.

"Congratulations to Joaquin!" KDFC and Classical California President Bill Lueth said. "Thank you to SFCM's TAC department for this long partnership. Classical California is thrilled to continue this real-world project with these students, the future music-makers of our time."

KDFC's Arcade Live! held in Studio G.

For Castillo, the best part of the experience has been the freedom of creativity. "My favorite part of the process was finding all the ways to morph and vary the theme," Castillo said. "To me, developing material is much easier than coming up with it. This particular theme is a very nice and malleable melody. There is a lot of potential to be varied and developed, and I really liked finding all the variations I could slot into the logo."

The KDFC Audio Logo Competition is just one of the many diverse aspects of the TAC program, which gives students a direct path into the worlds of film and video game scoring, live performance, emerging new media, sound design, and popular music production. 

While all of those skill sets excite students like Castillo, for him, it's about the people he gets to work with. "My favorite part about the TAC program is the community. There is such a supportive, welcoming, and helpful environment here that the students and faculty foster. I have learned so many things from both faculty and other students, and it has been so much fun." 

You can listen to 2022’s winning tracks, and previous winners’ compositions on Soundcloud.
Learn more about studying Technology and Applied Composition at SFCM.