On Saturday, April 29, the Keene State College (KSC) Music Department presented the Student Composers Recital in the Alumni Recital Hall of the Redfern Arts Center.
The concert featured students from the studios of Keene State faculty Heather Gilligan, Elaine Ginsberg, Daniel Prindle, Andrew Smith and Christopher Swist.
The following Keene State student composers premiered their original works: Alex Wilderman, Hannah Benoit, Matthew Marzola, Brandon Lane, Alex Poor and Jameson Foster.
Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff
Their compositions were performed by a both Keene State faculty and music students.
Alex Wilderman, a junior at Keene State, began the concert with his composition entitled “Lake of Squam,” written for two guitars and tenor voice.
Regarding his inspiration for the piece, Wilderman said, “My piece is about Squam Lake. My family rents out a house on the lake. I wrote this piece over winter break morphing it from the popular song ‘Danny Boy.’”
The next featured composer was Keene State senior, Hannah Benoit.
Benoit wrote a piece entitled “Forth,” instrumented for both cello and marimba. She said that her composition is very representative of her feelings about moving on in life after graduating from college.
Benoit said, “Composing was not something I expected to be doing at KSC. Professor Gilligan has pushed me to write some music compositions. This piece represents a new chapter in my life depicted by the harmonic changes and dissonance.”
Matthew Marzola, junior music performance and music technology major, remarked that he wrote his piece for his Composition II class.
Entitled “Trio,” Marzola scored the music for saxophone, cello and piano. Marzola said, “I don’t compose that much. I wanted to have three main themes to the piece, similar to an overture or an introduction to something.”
Other specific original compositions included “Caught in the Storm,” by Brandon Lane, “Siamese Leaf,” for solo guitar by Alex Poor and “Twin Trees of Valinor,” by Jameson Foster.
Ethan Chalmers can be contacted at echalmers@kscequinox.com
