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The Setnor School of Music composition students put on their best clothes, got warmed up and admittedly, were a little nervous. But, unlike many of their fellow Syracuse students, this group wasn’t anxious about impressing their Valentine’s Day dates — they were gearing up to have their original music performed for the first time.

“On the one hand, it’s super exciting because you’re playing original music written by your classmates, and you get to be the first person to bring it to life and give that gift to the world,” said Abigail Wood, an organ performance sophomore. “But it’s also nerve-wracking, because you have a responsibility to your composer to do their work justice.”

The Valentine’s Day Composers’ Concert on Tuesday night offered Setnor composition and performance students the opportunity to take the stage in the Setnor Auditorium and perform original work for an audience. The concert featured 12 separate musical performances, each with different instruments, genres and motifs reflective of the student’s own creative prowess and vision.

The composition students were mentored by Natalie Draper, Loren Loiacono and Nicolas Scherzinger, all Setnor faculty members. Under their supervision, Scherzinger said, each of the students developed and honed their own original compositions last semester. Some pieces, like the closing number “The Ballad of the Boy and the Rattles,” composed by Noah Sherman, took months of writing and revision in order to get it performance-ready.

But, Scherzinger emphasized, the student-composers are truly in the driver’s seat of these concerts.

“We teach the composers, but it’s really student-run. They find the performers, they write the pieces and we’re just there to support their creative goals,” Scherzinger said.

Many of the students “double-dipped” at the concert, having their compositions performed for the audience and playing in one of their classmates’ numbers, too. One student, Hannah Dale Scarborough, sang high soprano for her classmate Samuel Evans’ musical theater composition “Takes Time Sometimes,” while also debuting her own vocal composition “Thy Name Shall Live,” with fellow soprano Tara Sandlin.

For Scarborough, even as she is finishing her second year of her master’s degree in music composition, said the collaborative nature of these concerts remains her favorite part. Scarborough loves getting to use her musical talents as a way to support her fellow composers, she said.

“It’s such a unique experience in music to get to ask a composer directly how they want something done, and to have the opportunity to tell your musicians how you want your vision conveyed,” Scarborough said.

Wood echoed Scarborough’s sentiments, emphasizing how important she feels her role as a performer is. She explained that when she is working with a new composer, she feels like she’s acting as the vehicle between the composer’s ideas and what the audience hears.

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Uniquely with student composers, though, many of these musical compositions have never even been played on stage before, Wood said. Even though the students rehearse a great deal with their composer prior to performance night, the moment they start playing the new composition is the first time fresh ears will hear the music.

“A lot of time when I learn music, I look it up online to see how it’s interpreted and played. But we can’t do that with this music because it’s brand new,” Wood said. “It’s pretty cool — we get to work right up close with them [composers] in a way you never really get to otherwise.”

After the pandemic halted live music performances, Scarborough said her live composition performances now hold an even deeper meaning and significance in her life.

As a composer, Scarborough explained that much of her creative process occurs in solitude — with just her paper, pencil and computer — until she is able to share her music with performers. So, when COVID-19 made it impossible to play live music together, Scarborough said the composition process became even more lonely, because she wasn’t able to see other artists bring her work to life.

“Writing music itself is inherently pretty lonely, just you in a practice room,” Scarborough said. “Performance is just a vital part of that, because you get that positive audience feedback to remind you why you do it.”

That ‘why’ is also a key reason why Scherzinger was pleased the concert fell on Valentine’s Day. He explained that though it wasn’t intended to be a celebration of the holiday, having a composition concert on a day devoted to love is fitting for these students. The love and passion they bring to their compositions, performances and classrooms, is deep and true, he said, and is reflected every time they play a single note.

“There is something really special about this being on Valentine’s Day, because they all love music,” Scherzinger said. “There’s this true love kind of bond that happens between a composer and performer when they bring a piece to life.”

Published on February 15, 2023 at 12:41 am