Student musicians had their composition pieces performed by their peers during the Student Composers Recital.
The showcase took place on Saturday, Dec. 7 in the Redfern Arts Center’s Alumni Recital Hall. The works of 14 students were performed with various instruments such as piano, flute, drums, violin and voice.
The recital opened with the piece “Light Rays” by sophomore Lucas Parhiala and performed by KSC Music Department Pianist Vladimir Odinokikh and violinist Ben Carter. According to Parhiala, the piece was inspired by the action of the sun shining its UV rays down onto humans, resulting in the tanning of the skin.
“I had this thought of, ‘I wonder if the sun misses its rays now that they’re gone or it just learns to appreciate the person and the beauty of what the light rays became,’” Parhiala explained.
Parhiala had another piece featured in the recital titled “I Did Not Die” based on the text from poets Mary Frye and Clare Harner.
“I took the words, I spent some time thinking about the poem and trying to understand it better and figured out how to make music that would bolster, reinforce the actual central message of the poem,” Parhiala said. “Which in general is, when I die look at the world and look at nature and all that around you, look at everything that reminds you of me.”
Sophomore Jamie Mailloux’s piece “A ‘Lonely’ Outing” featured senior Laura Sandman on flute, junior Korben Robinson on clarinet and Odinokikh on piano. Mailloux told the audience the piece was based on a nightmare he had. Audience member Ally Legare is a friend of Mailloux and said she enjoyed the piece.
“[Mailloux] thoroughly described the nightmare to me and with the piece he wrote, it seems to reflect very well on the nightmare,” Legare said.
The recital ended with senior Miles Johnstone’s “Fallin’ Fast,” a piece dedicated to Johnstone’s partner, he told the audience. The piece featured the seniors Liz Borelli on vocals and Tori Young on vibraphone, juniors Julia Baer on guitar and Emma Toscano on drums and seniors Logan Philips on bass and Alex Royce on piano.
KSC Composition Coordinator Dr. Heather Gilligan said the students composed pieces as part of the composition course she ran this semester, but some students had prior experience composing.
“[I had] a span of students who have never written anything before in their lives versus students who are current seniors and have written quite a number of pieces and getting ready for senior recitals and that sort of thing, it’s a pretty wide span,” Gilligan described.
Gilligan said the students in the composition class this semester created a community for each other.
“In the beginning, it’s fairly intimidating, but they just dive in because there’s no other choice and they’re there to support each other because people that are more experienced with it can help the people that are not as experienced,” Gilligan said. “It’s a two-way street because they both give feedback and then receive feedback, and it also becomes kind of a safe zone where it’s okay to feel vulnerable because everybody is in the same boat.”
Gilligan added, “I basically run the same curriculum every year, but the pieces themselves are nothing like pieces that we’ve ever had before … We’re presenting 14 new pieces that have never come into the world before.”
Nicole Dumont can be contacted at
ndumont@kscequinox.com
