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Student Composers Display Diversity of Styles and Sounds By CYNTHIA LEE WONG
Believe it or not, there is a group of music students at Juilliard who do not camp out in practice rooms or spend all day in rehearsals. They are not even required to perform, yet performers are often their inspiration. Instead, they might be editing their scores in the computer lab, strolling in the park, or reading a good poem or book in the library.
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| Nico Muhly |
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This community of highly independent individuals is very friendly, despite the solitary nature of its art: music composition. Yes, we are composers—and despite rumors to the contrary, we still exist! We are like philosophers, in that many think we have died out a long time ago. In reality, we are very much alive and inspired.What distinguishes music of our time from that of our forebears is the sheer variety of voices one can hear on a single new music concert. Not only do composers differ in the harmonies they choose, the processes they prefer, or the ways in which they become inspired, but their pieces reflect these differences. An observation by Michel de Montaigne, the famous Renaissance philosopher, can apply to us today: "We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game."Two concerts take place at Juilliard this month at which you can witness our own musical patchwork. The first is on April 15 in Alice Tully Hall, when the Juilliard Symphony will perform works by this year's orchestral composition competition winners—Justin Messina, Nico Muhly, Sean Shepherd, and Wayne Oquin—conducted by Jeff Milarsky.I asked each of the four composers for some comments about their music.
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| Wayne Oquin |
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Justin Messina says he wanted his piece Harmonasium to be similar to an overture: "I thought of it like a concert-opener—something short, bright, and full of energy. The harmony was used to create the excitement, but also, it determined my process. The sequence of chords, for example, outlines large-scale as well as local events." When asked what got him interested in composing, Messina replied, "I couldn't read music very well and had to make up something during my piano lessons. Being 6 or 7 at the time—well, it was more fun to play than to practice. Of course, now composing has gone deeper than that."Nico Muhly had a different approach to his piece So to Speak. He based it on Thomas Tallis's motet Loquebantur Variis Linguis ("They Spoke in Many Tongues"), which is for the festival of Pentecost. The festival revolves around the miraculous event during which God's disciples were suddenly infused with the Holy Spirit and began preaching in all native languages of those present. Muhly writes: "One of the ways in which Tallis imitates this sort of chaos is by having all these crazy lines of counterpoint going at once, up and down and intersecting. It's a fabulous thing and something I always adored." The composer then used fragments from the Tallis work, wrote his own countermelody, created harmonies, and "put the thing together." He continues: "It is meant to sound respectful of the Tallis but also respectful of what I thought the emotional agenda of the Tallis was meant to be, which is sort of a proud, stately reflection of linguistic chaos."
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Juilliard Symphony: Student Compositions
Juilliard Theater
Thursday, April 15, 8 p.m. Free tickets available in the Juilliard Box Office.
Composers Concert
Paul Hall
Monday, April 19, 8 p.m.
Free, no tickets required.
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Wayne Oquin's An Unbroken Chain to Infinity, dedicated to composition faculty member Samuel Adler, won this year's Arthur Friedman Prize. Regarding his process, Oquin writes: "I begin with the music—pitches (already in their registers and instrumentation, rhythms already attached to their dynamics and articulations). I continue to compose until I arrive at a small section with which I am really pleased and then ask myself, 'Why do I like it?' My answers will affect every dimension of the piece: the harmonic language, the overall organization, duration, orchestration, etc. Out of this I develop a conception of the details and the whole which may very well take the shape of 'precompositional' sketches. The charts and diagrams for An Unbroken Chain to Infinity exceeded 100 pages, but these designs all grow out of music, not the other way around."
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| Sean Shepherd |
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Sean Shepherd's process is just as unique: "I start off slowly. In the first few days, I may sit for several hours at a time and never write a note. I spend the early days basically gathering and developing material, and at this point I do a lot of visualization about the piece (from graphing the dynamic and emotional scope to picturing the ensemble onstage). The rest of the process consists of basically building the piece from beginning to end, which goes relatively quickly." His piece Surface Tension is comprised of one 14-minute movement, which alternates between fast and slow sections. "The piece lives in an atmosphere of unrest," Shepherd says, "and although there are moments of relative calm, it never really leaves that world. It's a difficult piece, with lots of notes and lots of changes."In one concert, we already have four very diverse composers and pieces. Want to experience even more? Our last composition concert of the year is on April 19 at 8 p.m. in Paul Hall, and will feature chamber music by Reena Esmail, Ryan Gallagher, Brett Abigaña, Nico Muhly, and Mathew Fuerst. We hope to see you at one or both of these events!Cynthia Lee Wong is a composition student in the accelerated B.M./M.M. program.
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