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Student’s symphony

Colin Smyk has gone to see the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra play from time to time, but when he goes to the Auditorium Jan. 20, he’ll be one of 28 Sir Winston Churchill high school students to have their name on one of the compositions.
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Composer Brian Current (right) works with students at Chruchill high school on a piece for the TBSO to play. (Jodi Lundmark, tbnewswatch.com)

Colin Smyk has gone to see the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra play from time to time, but when he goes to the Auditorium Jan. 20, he’ll be one of 28 Sir Winston Churchill high school students to have their name on one of the compositions.

Through the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects, a Trillium Foundation funded program, the students in Julie Heroux’s Grade 10 and 11 instrumental music class have been working with renowned composer Brian Current on a piece of music for the TBSO to perform with Current at the helm.

The aim of the program is to let the students see what it means to write music for an orchestra.

"We talked about how it’s important for composers to try to say what it feels like to be alive at this time and place in history," said Current.

He posed the question ‘what is it like to be alive in 2010 in Thunder Bay?’ to the class and one thing that was said was the cold winter weather.

"How do we write music that’s about cold?" he said. "They said kind of bright, hard sounds and that was really interesting."

That familiar chilliness might work it’s way into the piece’s title, which is still unknown at this time.

Current said writing classical music is about trying to build something that’s rock solid, that will endure the test of time; he also wants the students to realize that despite its reputation, classical music isn’t relaxing.

"It’s supposed to be inspiring; it’s a history of ideas," he said. "I’m trying to get them to see – and it seems to be happening – that classical music and orchestra music isn’t just some lame thing or for rich people sipping champagne. It’s really about them and if it’s not meaningful, it’s not going to last; it’s not going to be real."

Smyk said he has always wondered how orchestras put all their music together and this project is a good learning experience on top of being something fun and different.

"It’s kind of strange to start the music," the Grade 10 student said. "You do all these weird exercises to put all the music together. You can see how it’s building onto the scoring sheet music. We barely know what we’re doing most of the time, but it’s fun."

With 28 students providing ideas for the composition, it can get a bit difficult to piece it all together, but Smyk said they each get to write a couple of lines of music and then find a way to put it together so it sounds good.

"And it does sound good," he said.





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