I started playing piano in 2007 and I completed my Grade 8 AMEB Exam last year. I now take monthly composition lessons and I am in a piano trio at school. I took up the cello in 2009 and I participate in the school’s symphony orchestra and chamber orchestra with the cello.
I begun singing lessons in 2011 and I’ve performed in my school’s yearly musicals. Last year I played the role of Wendy in the middle school musical of Peter Pan and this year I was in the Senior School musical of Urinetown. I also participate in my school’s senior choir and choral jazz program.
I’ve also been teaching myself various other instruments such as the guitar and saxophone. I completed and notated by first composition in 2009 for a piano solo. Since then I’ve composed various other piano solos, pieces for voice and piano, one for piano and cello, two string quartet pieces and compositions for other small ensembles.
Composition Inspiration
My fanfare is called ‘Restoration’, meaning the action of returning something to a former owner, place, or condition. I named it this because the beginning gives a sense of uncertainty which I created by not basing the key chords around the usual major chord progression but by adding unusual accidentals throughout them, however the second half of the piece feels as if everything is restored, meaning it is back to the way that it should be as it lands strongly into a major key and has a solid marching feel that is full of certainty.
A piece that inspired me whilst writing my Fanfare was Fanfare for the Third Planet by Richard L. Saucedo. This fanfare has a very strong rhythmic feel right from the beginning of the piece and could be described as having a strong brass section that is supported and made stronger by the other instruments in the orchestra. I tried to reflect this in my own composition by giving the main melodies to the brass section and the other counter melodies to the woodwinds, violas and cellos. The rhythmic feel in my fanfare is then created by the percussion and the violins and string bass.