Listen to Finn’s composition performed by the Queensland Youth Chamber Orchestra, 30 September 2020 at The Old Museum, Bowen Hills, Brisbane.
Listen to Finn’s original composition submitted with his entry.
My passion for music began at age 11 learning the saxophone at school, from that sparked my love for creating music. I live in South Australia and attended Pulteney Grammar School were in year 11 I began composing and arranging under the guidance of Ms Annie Qwok. My first major composition was composing the schools drum corps peace for the Christmas pageant. Hearing my creation for the first time was magical and from then on I’ve always known it’s something that I wanted to pursue. My musical education then continued at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide studying jazz performance on the Alto Saxophone where I extended my passion of jazz music and improvisation. This gave me the opportunity to work with like-minded people and create arrangements for small ensembles and write for other group projects Having the opportunity to travel to New York on a study tour at the start of the year was one of my musical highlights. Attending workshops and seeing some of my musical influences in person was groundbreaking.
Composition Inspiration
Influence for my composition ‘Frames of Fanfare’ came from a Jazz/hip hop pianist Robert Glasper, in particular The finale track from the Miles Davis film he scored where he sampled Miles Davis and rearranged into the closing track of the film. Even though it was the ending of the film it felt like it represented explosion of music that Miles Davis created. To me this is what modern fanfare should represent, The beginning of something new. Hip-hop has been a huge influence in writing process. I like the idea of sampling something already built and then evolving it more. For my Fanfare I took a three beat melody from Alfa mist’s ‘Door’. I then took influence from one of my favourite intros ‘give the drummer some’ From the SFJAZZ collective Where is Melody starts as a swing groove implying hip-hop beat with a melody in five layered over top. As my starting riff was in 3 I decided to try improvising over the top of it with a 4 feel. This is where the brass lines come from in my composition. When listening to my composition I realised that when listening to different melodies, it implied different time feels hence why I gave it the name Frames of Fanfare