I am still grinning ear-to-ear after this year's brilliant young composer's concert. 10 compositions for full orchestra all written by Texas composers under the age of 18 including a work entitled Elements by former Shirah Studio composition student, Justine Maeurer. As she explains in her program notes, Elements is a programmatic story about fire, water, earth and wind and how they interact.
With today’s tools—manuscript software and virtual instrument libraries, mp3 recorders, Google and Youtube—students have an orchestras literally at their fingertips. Justine likes to work at the piano, record an mp3 file and upload it into her manuscript writing software. There she can play with different instrumentations and hear a good rendering of what it will sound like on real instruments. Google “how to compose for violin” and you’ll find multiple listings and Youtube videos of performers demonstrating what their instrument can do. Just think what good ol’ J.S. would have done with all this at his disposal!
With today’s tools—manuscript software and virtual instrument libraries, mp3 recorders, Google and Youtube—students have an orchestras literally at their fingertips. Justine likes to work at the piano, record an mp3 file and upload it into her manuscript writing software. There she can play with different instrumentations and hear a good rendering of what it will sound like on real instruments. Google “how to compose for violin” and you’ll find multiple listings and Youtube videos of performers demonstrating what their instrument can do. Just think what good ol’ J.S. would have done with all this at his disposal!
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