School of Music

Professional NY Musicians Perform BYU Student Compositions

By Daniel Ng

The sights and sounds of New York City, a place known for its vibrant fashion, theater and music, don’t often make their way west of the Rockies.

Rather, aspiring artists usually have to make their way to the largest city in the country to be trained.

Luckily for music composition students here at Brigham Young University, the sounds of New York decided to come out west and visit them for a change.

Through the Barlow Endowment Education Grant and the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration in the Arts along with the efforts of Steve Ricks, associate professor of music composition, the composition program brought in an acclaimed trio of musicians from the Big Apple.

The trio ─ consisting of world renown Curt Macomber (violin), Chris Finckel (cello) and Stephen Gosling (piano) ─ not only performed an evening concert on their visit, but more importantly, played and critiqued various music scores written by the school’s composition students.

“I’ve worked with all three players before on different occasions,” Ricks said. “They had been invited to play at the University of Utah and contacted me to tell me they’d be in the area. Since I knew them very well, I figured it would be a great opportunity for our students.”

Seven students were chosen to write scores for the trio to perform. For them, preparations started well in advance of the visit.

“During last semester, Steve told us they were coming,” said Curtis Smith, who is in his first year as a graduate student of the composition program. “He told us to write a piano trio for them (to perform) when they got here. So the seven of us set about researching and wrote our own piano trio movements. We also sent them scores and audio a month in advance.”

According to Ricks, the extra preparation the students put into their scores for the trio really benefited their educational experience.

“It teaches them a little more about preparing their scores and music in terms of being clear, accurate and expressing what you want in the music,” Ricks said. “Time can get eaten up real quick in mundane questions when visiting artists come so it’s important for the students to realize that they must present their compositions well and clearly to maximize their time with the artists.”

Although the trio had a month to look at the various scores sent to them by the students, it was still obvious to Smith and his fellow student composers that the trio’s musical talent was masterful.

“They were the best sight readers I’ve ever seen and the best I’ve been in studio with,” Smith said. “They were sight reading as a group, on the spot, and nailing stuff. It was cool to be with that caliber of musicians.”

Michael Wahlquist, another graduate student in the program, said that even though it’s nice having student performers or computers go through his compositions, it pales in comparison to having professionals perform the music.

“The trio was able to come in, look at my music and play it right the first time,” Wahlquist said. “The best experience is when you get professional musicians to come in and look at your music. Actually writing out something on a page and getting a performer to interpret your intentions, that’s what composition is all about.”

Ricks also commented on another unique component of the trio that made their ability to sight read the seven different scores even more astounding.

“It’s really unique as well that they don’t perform together regularly,” Ricks said. “Usually if we try to host musical groups on campus, it’s an actual group that has a concert season and has been playing together for awhile. The trio has performed together before, but they don’t regularly rehearse or perform as a threesome.”

Along with their time spent performing compositions, the trio also took an hour out of their day to have lunch with Ricks and the students as they socialized and spoke about the current state of contemporary music.

“We got a good feel for the music scene in New York,” said Wahlquist about their conversations during lunch. “I got the feeling that new music is alive and well. There are a lot of composers making it and a lot of performers interested in playing new music. We don’t hear about that here in Utah so that was encouraging to hear.”

Ricks enjoyed the fact that his students learned and realized through their interaction with visiting artists that a music career includes lots of networking and performing with various groups.

“Their career paths will ultimately be different because the students are composing and the artists are performers, but the students get valuable insight into how many different groups these guys are playing with,” Ricks said. “They have a great variety of activities that they do to make their living. They record, teach and perform with two or more chamber groups.”

Neither Smith nor Wahlquist knows exactly what they will be doing once they finish their degrees, but both agreed their time with the trio was time well spent.

“I’m really glad BYU was able to provide that opportunity,” Wahlquist said. “For me, that was the highlight of my semester.”