Keene State senior Simon Furze, was recently announced as one of the winners of Symphony N.H.’s Student Composer Competition.
The Troy, New Hampshire native, a double major in music composition and music technology, had a musical upbringing.
“My mother had a piano when I was a … baby … around [age] four or five I just started… banging on the keys,” Furze said. “We learned simple songs like ‘Heart and Soul’ … then around… at [age] twelve or so I started getting into percussion … I was essentially self-taught up until my senior year in high school.”
Furze described his drive for higher education and said, “My mother didn’t attend any sort of college … She works a very simple job … My father got into concrete at the age of 18, so it was a little bit interesting to me … I sort of emerged this … 4.0 student who is doing a lot of things … from two parents that hadn’t gone to college.” He explained his fervor and said, “I’ve paid every single penny … for my education … I think that can really push a person,” Furze said. Furze said he was, “A bit of an introvert at heart.”
He continued, “I kind of keep my circle small … but I do have a lot of very fantastic connections with both my colleagues and my professors … [I’ve] built a lot of good healthy connections with them. I’ve made some great friends and I really look up to a lot of my educators.” One of those educators is Dr. Christina Wright-Ivanova, who elaborated on her experience with Furze.
“I think he specifically learned good time management skills, and really learned how to prioritize his stuff over the course of the first year,” Wright-Ivanova said. “If I could … bottle up what he has done in the four years, I would sell that to many of our students.” Another one of his professors and his advisor, Dr. Heather Gilligan, said, “He’s one of our most conscientious students … he came in not having a lot of knowledge about time management [and] has really done a lot of work to improve.”
Furze said in the upcoming years he hopes to, “Fine tune a lot of my … skills before … reapplying for [the] master’s programs. And then … I’d like to get my doctorate and teach at a university because I want to not only give back, but I just have a burning passion to teach at this higher level.”
Regarding advice for fellow and upcoming students, Furze said, “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because they’re going to happen and you learn the most from them … Find that sweet spot where you are working, you feel satisfied, but also you’re giving yourself time to breathe.”
Benjamin Martins can be contacted
at bmartins@kscequinox.com
