Summer 2020 Composition Lab with Opportunity Music Project
Keeping K-12 students creative and connected during the summer of 2020.
Due to the global pandemic, many college-aged musicians had their summer festivals and performance schedules suddenly cancelled. In response to (relatively) clear schedules and limited opportunities for in-person collaboration, I wanted to try and build community around introducing composition to younger people.
I partnered with the Opportunity Music Project whose mission is to provide equal access for children in New York City to learn an instrument. We collaborated to launch an OMP Summer Composition Lab, which seeks to empower students to compose their own music to the their story and to respond to the broader issues in our world.
Program Highlights
Thirty students were equipped with free, cloud-based music notation tools to create music.
Students were paired with a composer-mentor to get feedback on their work. Students and mentors connected on Music-COMP, provided in-kind.
Four on-zoom composition seminars took place for students to hear each-other’s works-in-progress, participate in creative group activities, and to meet special guests.
Students worked towards a goal of finishing a piece for solo instrument.
The finalized pieces were sent to Juilliard/Curtis performers who recorded the pieces from their homes and provided encouraging verbal feedback.
Program culminated with a Composers Showcase on zoom where the videos of the new pieces were premiered. Each student composer spoke about their work and heard their new piece performed by world-class musicians.