Listen to Marcel’s original composition submitted with his entry.
Marcel Howell (Age 16, WA)
FANFARE: Beginner’s fanfare
My name is Marcel Howell and I was born in February, 2006 in Perth. I come from a musical family where my dad plays and repairs flutes and my mum plays and teaches the trombone. I spent my childhood in the northern suburbs of Perth leaning piano until I was accepted into the Churchlands Senior High school Gifted and Talented music program to learn the oboe. Music has always been a big part of my life but I remember always wanting to create some music of my own when I was younger. When I was fifteen I joined a composition club at my school and finally started getting some of my thoughts and ideas on paper. Even though I was (and still am) a ‘slow’ writer, I managed to write a small piece for string quartet in the final quarter of 2021. The experience of hearing this work being played by real musicians for the first time, and not a synthesised playback, only deepened my love for composing.
Composition inspiration:
When I first heard of the Artology fanfare competition, I knew I didn’t want to create the ‘stereotypical western fanfare’ with a straightforward steady tempo and the sort of loud and triumphant brass you usually get. So i decided to try and spice it up a bit.
I took most of my inspiration from the Latin American music genre. I’ve always loved the amount of energy and character found in pieces like Danzon no.2 by Arturo Marquez, and I wanted to try and emulate that in my style of a fanfare. I imagined my piece to be as full of character and energy as possible, so I made the brass melody articulated and punchy and the percussion accompaniment syncopated, yet still with a clear sense of the beat, so that once all the elements were combined the piece would catch the audience’s attention.