If you ever wondered how a composer puts together and completes a piece of music, or if you’re just curious about what our student composers at USM have been up to, the School of Music’s “Works in Progress” performances next Tuesday night should be intriguing.
USM resident composer J. Mark Scearce started the event last year as an opportunity for student composers to talk about their work in public. Scearce said professional composers are often asked to give pre-concert lectures and must also talk to musicians about their work. “As composers, we have to talk about our music as much as we have it played,” he said.
Interaction with the audience is an important part of the show. After each piece is performed, the composer speaks about their work and takes questions. Scearce said that although talking about one’s music can be difficult, it increases the composer’s confidence. “Audience members can say, ‘Why did you do that?’ And the young composer has to stand there and defend it… it really reinforces one’s belief and contributes a great deal to [the composing] process,” he said.
This year the event will feature a variety of compositions, including pieces composed for solo flute, harp, cello and guitar, and even music composed for a full orchestra. The seven featured composers’ musical influences and backgrounds range from baroque classical to garage rock.
One of the composers, Chris Alden Kinne, is planning to involve the audience in a less traditional way. She will present her composition as a cello solo, clarinet solo, vocal solo, and finally as a trio of clarinet, cello and flute. Afterwards she will ask the audience to vote on which instrument(s) the piece should be written for.
The Works in Progress show is next Tuesday the 30th at 7 30 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
Brian O’Keefe can be contacted at [email protected]
Student composers:
Anthony Cushing, who has the distinction of being the first student in the School of Music’s brand-new masters degree program in composition, will present a solo flute piece. He wrote it in the 12-tone style. He said he plans to demonstrate in his presentation that music composed in such a systematic way can still be beautiful. Cushing said that much of the final result depends on the flautist, who can pick and choose which part of the composition to play and how to interpret it.
Sherwin Young is presenting a two to three minute piece for solo harp. He counts Debussy, Stravinsky, Var?se, and especially Frank Zappa among his influences. He is writing the piece as a self-designed study in composing for the harp, as it is his first composition for the instrument. Young said he wanted to explore what could be done in a harp piece, as a challenge to himself.
Don Pride’s composition is a six minute piece for orchestra. He has an interest in jazz, and cites contemporary composers Michael Daugherty and Elliott Carter as influences, along with Frank Zappa. He said that this piece is a departure from his previous compositions in that he tried to start out with an idea as small as possible, and then develop it. The entire piece is based on two intervals, a half step and a whole step.
Angus McFarland is working on a short composition for guitar and cello. McFarland said that this particular piece, the first in a series of four, is relatively slow and melancholy in tone. His music is influenced by Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev, Fernando Sor and Leo Brouwer. He said his aim in writing the piece was simply to communicate a feeling.
Students Kevin Smith and Chris Seddon are also scheduled to present their music but could not be contacted for this article.