Listen to Benjamin’s composition recorded by the Australian Youth Orchestra.
Listen to Benjamin’s original composition submitted with his entry.
Benjamin Raymond (Age 18, Tas)
FANFARE: Universal Galaxies
I am an 18-year-old college student simultaneously studying music in Year 12 and at university level. I began to play the flute in Grade 5 for Southern Tasmania’s Combined Primary Schools Concert Band program. I also began to play piano soon after taking up flute. And for the past two years I have been expanding my interest and skills in percussion.
I began composing in Grade 9 as part of my learnings in high school music class. I was ineluctably drawn to composition. It was exciting and compelling; I could feel it expanding my mind in thrilling ways. I hear the music instantly in my mind. I hear the melody and the chords and the parts for all the instruments.
My dream and heart’s desire are to pursue a career in acting, and composition for films, musical theatre, and maybe, perchance, to compose a future theme for the Olympic games.
Composition Inspiration
I was inspired in the writing of Universal Galaxies: The Fanfare of Time and Space by the opening number of the suite of Pixar’s Up by Michael Giacchino. And I was also inspired by ‘Transformation Finale’ by Alan Menken, in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
I imagined it as people seeing a signal, not just any signal, but space signal waves, like space gas and galaxy particles coming through the Earth’s atmosphere in big perfect circles and expanding out in syncopated time with a big stream of flashing lights trailing out from behind. I imagined people exclaiming to each other and to themselves ‘What! What is that up there in the sky?’. Then I imagined the people who were watching and exclaiming, beginning to discover that they were receiving signals from the Voyager 1 on their phones… and that the Voyager 1 was contacting them.