The Online Reflector

Eleven students of John Berners, associate professor of theory and composition, and Pete Schmutte, associate professor of music, presented their original works on April 7 as part of the Student Composers Forum in the Ruth Lilly Performance Hall.
The night featured various instruments and unique ways of playing them, such as plucking the strings of the violin rather than using a bow and using bouncy balls to play the xylophone.

“Pendragon,” by sophomore music performance major Jeff Taylor, opened the concert. The piece was written for the marimba and inspired by medieval times. In the program notes, Taylor noted that the character of the piece changes to a slow, almost peaceful section, only to be brought back to the way the piece started, with dark leading to light.

Junior Mack LaMont, a music performance major with concentrations in both music technology and recording and music composition, played his work “Ethereal Boundaries.”

“I began working on ‘Ethereal Boundaries’ late last semester. I was at that time exploring a wide variety of keyboard percussion repertoire and found that only a few pieces tended to spark any inspiration at all, ” LaMont said. “I finished it in February.”

Freshman music performance major Morgan Knapp composed the song, titled “Roark,”after the main character in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” She noted that the piece is not finished, nor is it written in a traditional way.

“When I sat down to write out this piece, it took me a couple of hours.Although I wouldn’t say it’s finished. It’s definitely a work-in-progress. Indeed, this is only the first movement,” Knapp said. “This piece is aleatoric and doesn’t use traditional notation, but I think that the later movements will blend indeterminate elements with traditional notation.”

Knapp chose four fellow string players to present her piece at the concert, noting that four is significant, but it’s a secret as to why.

“I wanted four players that were strong and confident, creative and comfortable playing improvisation,” Knapp said. “[Freshman] Lauren [Alayza], [sophomore] Bethany [Walters], [sophomore] Cody [Wakefield] and [freshman] Jhalyn [Greene] reminded me of “Roark” in that they are strong and confident no matter what situation they are in, and performing in front of people is no easy task.”

The concert ended with LaMont’s piece entitled “Dear Mr. Cage.”

“‘Dear Mr. Cage’ was a last-minute inspiration that was composed only the week before the concert. Fellow composer junior Matthew Bridgham and I were glancing over the program and noticed that there were more piano pieces on it than anything else,” LaMont said. “Hoping for more variety, I started thinking about composing an indeterminate percussion ensemble piece. I was struck with the thought that I should compose a piece that consisted only of instructions for each player, just as the famous composer John Cage did many times. Thus the piece was dedicated to him.”

“Dear Mr. Cage” featured eight different musicians, various instruments and bouncy balls.

“I asked three other percussionists besides myself, Taylor, [freshman] Tyler Shields and [sophomore] Jake Emch to play on ‘Dear Mr. Cage’ first, and then expanded to other composers I knew would already have pieces in the concert–Bridgham, [sophomore] Jake Towe and [junior] Elizabeth Knox. The last player, [junior] Susan Lutterbach, knew that she would be working backstage the night of the concert, so she joined the ensemble as the final member,” LaMont said.

In deciding what instruments to use on this song, LaMont looked for those that provided an interesting sound.

“The instruments I chose were chosen for both the variety of sounds they could produce and the instructions each player was going to receive,” he said. “Using bouncy balls on the xylophone stemmed from an idea I’ve had for several years but never used.”