My name is Aurora Lahur. I’m 14 years old and I am currently in Year 9 at Sacred Heart Girls’ College Oakleigh. I’ve been playing piano since 2009, when I was five years old, at Yamaha Musical School. During my time there, I learnt how to improvise on a given motif on the spot, and compose my own pieces. In 2012, I started piano and composition lessons with my current teacher, Keiko Fuji. With her help, I composed many pieces and entered them into various competitions. In 2015, I won 1st place for the ACMF songwriting competition. I have also been the recipient of the Tony Dorembus Memorial Award in the Boroondara Eisteddfod in 2014 and 2018. From the age of 12, I started playing cello, and joined a number of ensembles at school. I am currently preparing for my AMusA piano exam. So far, I have composed more than seven pieces, most of which are for piano solo, but I have also composed for piano duet and most recently, this fanfare.
Composition Inspiration
My fanfare is called ‘Jubilance’, which refers to the feeling of being exultant, triumphant, and joyous. I named it this because I wanted to make my fanfare sound as if it were announcing the entrance of something important, or as an acclamation of victory. This idea is expressed at the beginning of the fanfare, when the trumpet first plays the motif, followed by the French horn and then the trombone, overlapping. This ‘announcement’ repeats itself several times throughout the A section. This section is primarily in F major, with modulations to E flat major and D major. The middle section is slightly quieter, but then shortly afterwards, it modulates to A flat major and you can hear a very distinct melody played by the brass, accompanied by a series of short, sharp chords played by the string section. The accompaniment does not follow the typical chord progression to create a feeling of tension that will be resolved at the end, where, after a drum roll, all the instruments come together to play the final chord of A flat major, to create a sense of finality and jubilance. During the writing process, I was inspired by fanfares such as Olympic Fanfare and Star Wars by John Williams, 20th Century Fox Fanfare by Alfred Newman, Fanfare for the Third Planet by Richard Saucedo, and Marvel’s Fanfare by Michael Giacchino.