Catch up with Young Composer of the Year

We have been having SUCH a wonderful time with our second year work with Young Composers from the foreSOUND School of Music in our ‘Young Composer of the Year’ education project.  Quite uniquely to this project, we ask young students to undertake the serious task of composing and notating a complete new work for our ensemble (usually 2-3 minutes long) and we premiere all the pieces on a concert (the winning piece is performed again later in the year).

As with last year, we began the project with an ‘instrument shopping’ day, where our musicians go and play for the young composers – inviting them to ask questions and giving loads of examples from a handout prepared by our Artistic Director, Aaron.

The students then develop their ideas and start working on the beginnings of their pieces.  In groups, they meet up with Aaron and get direct feedback/explore other ideas for their pieces, before finishing.  Their final pieces are professionally entered into Sibelius software and turned into a beautiful score that each composer gets to keep.

All of the new pieces will be premiered – alongside Tavener’s wonderful To a Child XXX – on 7th May and then again at Guy’s Hospital as part of our Breathe AHR performance there.

Keep an eye out for the final score before the performance, and an ear out for recordings after!