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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2011 > April > 21 > Entry
Review: ASO’s Young Composer concert
On Wednesday night, the Austin Symphony Orchestra and Peter Bay made space on the podium to test out work from the youngest composers in Texas. This was a first in the state, we’re told, for a symphony to debut works written by Texans 18 and under. Out of 25 submissions, the ASO played 12 short pieces.
Disregarding the skills required to write for an entire orchestra, an accomplishment in itself, just listening as the musical vision of these young men came to life with the power of the full orchestra, was impressive.
All of the works had enough interplay between the sections of the orchestra to keep you intrigued. Sometimes the results were unusual — like using the string principals for extended solos — and sometimes the composers forgot to enroll the orchestra at its full capacity, leaving some dead patches. But a few of the them had an advanced understanding of how to put the whole group of players in service of their vision.
One of those was Wyatt Hahn, whose clever “Giovane Ballerina’s Suite,” was a symphony in seven minutes, with three tiny, hugely effective movements. Hahn, amazingly, a freshman at Cedar Park High School added color to a succinct waltz, with chimes. Then wood blocks and snare enforced the theme as it emerged, and faded, with the evening’s best use of dynamics.
Some pieces resembled video game soundtracks, or film scores a la Danny Elfman, and some could back up a PBS documentary, tonight. Quite a starting point for kids who still take P.E.
It was a treat to see so many young faces in the crowd, cheering after each piece. And this could become a “thing.”
Like the University Interscholastic League’s championships, this competition could improve and affect band and string programs in high schools across Texas by giving kids, composing on a computer in their bedrooms, something to aspire to.
As it was, the composers were all male, mostly white and from some of the most elite public schools in the state, something that says more about schools than about the competition itself.
Let’s hope that next year we see the entire face of Texas, including some young women.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Comments
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By Anthony Corroa
April 25, 2011 7:38 AM | Link to this
I hope many of the audience members in attendance will write a comment or two to describe their experience at the concert. We’d love to hear your opinions whatever they may be. It will help us to grow with the project in the future.
For me, as co-originator of this new program along with ASO Director of Education, Diana Eblen, it was a magical experience from beginning to end. I’m in awe of the amazing talent of each of the 12 individuals whose piece was performed. To say my wife and I could have adopted any or all of them into our own family might be an accurate assesment of how they touched me on a personal level. That said, each composition held its own fascination for me. Each evoked a different emotion as I listened to both rehearsal and performance…and they were all good. As an orchestra performer of over 35 years and an orchestra administrator for 18 of those years, I can only say that my favorite piece of the twelve happened to be whichever one was being played by the ASO at that particular moment in time. Bravo to the twelve young men and to Peter Bay and the Austin Symphony Orchestra.
By Mike
April 23, 2011 6:48 PM | Link to this
I have a few comments. It is worth mentioning that Matthew, the first composer, inspired the ASO to create the contest in the first piece with a piece the ASO played last year. Inspiration is the name of the game no matter if they use the whole band or not. He is from Stony Point and it is not an elite school. However, the students there have accelerated it to a high status without large financial help. Also, I understand a female had a piece in the symphony competition but was too complex for symphony to play. It should be noted that the competition was open to all composers. By the way Matthew is part Mexican decent although I can see how you cannot tell. We know that 2 have hispanic roots, 2 were asian or mix asian, 1 may be arab decent, 1 non-winner was a girl. Maybe 6 were actual white. I beleive that is the right mix for those who are in band and relate to classical type music. Also, Matthew used all parts of the orchestra (he downloaded the list of players last year and this year) as well but was not mentioned above for that. Maybe you were late to the show. I am not sure the original ASO request allowed for three movements for such a short piece, but that it is not for me to decide. I also wanted to mention most kids made their pieces on their own drive not pushed or trained by their schools teachers. Also most people watching said Jared’s piece was the most beautiful piece. And I say that as a Matthew fan. We were the lead ticket sellers for that event.