Congratulations to all the winners of our High School Composition Contest!

The winners receive a public performance of their work at Northeastern University and a cash award. The winners and their high schools both receive a software bundle consisting of Cakewalk Sonar Producer Edition and Garritan Personal Orchestra.

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2011

See the 2011 Composition Contest Rules

1st prize: Nick Garcia
Island Trees High School, NY (Class of 2012)
Program Note: Similar to a 12-tone piece; Incorporates chromatic scale and follows specific rules.
LISTEN: ice “berg” mp3

2nd prize: Travis M. Petre
White Plains High School & Juilliard Pre-College, NY (Class of 2012)
Program Note: This is a brief piece for orchestra highlighting a heroic, fanfare-type main theme, with several supporting themes and motifs. The beginning section is fast-paced, the middle section is contrastingly less rhythmic, and the closing reprises the intensity of the first section. Unusually large orchestra; 2 piccolos 2 flutes 2 oboes 4 clarinets bass clarinet 2 bassoons contrabassoon, 4 horns 3 trumpets 2 trombones tuba, percussion, strings.
LISTEN: Fanfare for Orchestra mp3

Honorable mention: Victoria Hope
Mt. Hope High School, RI (Class of 2011)
Program Note: I am at a concert. A mesh of music plays. This musical composition brings the listener through a journey of song: from the stimulating start, to the intermission in the middle of a concert, to the exciting end. A concert in Music, with a coffeehouse musical theme is embedded into this musical piece
LISTEN: Choir Concert mp3

Honorable mention: Emily Gaggiano
Nazareth Academy (Class of 2013)
Program Note: Not really a sonata is basically in sonata format, aside from the lack of key change to the dominant in the 2nd movement. It’s a duet, which can be played on 1 or 2 pianos. It’s in the key of C minor, in 6/8 time, and although it’s somewhat of a sonata it can also be considered a “variations” piece. In the first movement I tried to establish two different themes, which I repeated in sorts of variations in the 2nd and 3rd movements.
LISTEN: Not really a sonata mp3

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2010

1st prize: Kanki Suzuki
’12 Greenwich High School, Greenwich, CT
LISTEN: Rainy Day mp3

2nd prize: Michelle Garcia
’11 Bay Shore High School, Bay Shore, NY
LISTEN: Ambient Snow Fall mp3

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2009

1st prize: Christopher Kostaras, Jr.
’09 Island Trees High School, Levittown, NY
LISTEN: Machine Wars mp3

2nd prize: Samuel Young
’10 RHAM High School, Hebron, CT
LISTEN: In the Air mp3

Honorable Mention: Lucas Ashby
’09 North Allegheny High School, Wexford, PA
LISTEN: Mesh mp3

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2008

1st prize: Mark Moskwa
Sayville High School, West Sayville, NY
LISTEN: The Profound Stress mp3

Composer’s Notes: This composition is a musique concrete piece, abstract, yet telling a story. In my piece, I was looking to create a composition that captured the many stresses of life in a typical person’s day, such as someone telling them what to do, and even the first time one gets to sit down in the might. I also used many different sounds collected throughout the hallways and doorways of my school, such as hitting lockers, running up and down the stairs, talking behind doors to muffle the sounds, and, possibly my favorite, flushing the toilet and reversing the sound. All in all, I hope (you) enjoy the piece.

Judges’ Comments: This work shows great pacing and is organized into clear sections. The piece moves at different speeds and has nice pauses, which can be surprising. The whole first half is quite excellent though the little pentatonic section goes on perhaps a bit too long. The gong interrupts the flow of events and produces a nice shift in the direction of the music. The piece as a whole ends a bit too abruptly: the ending certainly works and makes sense, but perhaps the section before that with talking and the little tune could build up a bit more in intensity. It seems to need a final burst of energy, followed by a section of repose (about one more minute of music). The piece has a bit of playfulness and edginess – perhaps you would consider a change of title?

2nd prize: Nicolas Jaar
Lycee Francais de New York, New York, NY
LISTEN: Framb(bois)es mp3

Composer’s Notes: The piece is based on the organic being digitalized; most of the percussion (me throwing things around in my desk) was recorded with a microphone. Every sound was put into different samplers. I then assigned the decay function of ALL sounds to one knob in my controller. Thanks to this and a “drum machine-like” pattern I could control the decay of the whole beat. The beat could go from sounding like a little bug dancing to a crazy man watering his plants. The piano was played through an arpeggiator; once again, I assigned the decay to a knob. While I was playing, a very important “Clémentine Stip” would randomly change the decay of the piano. The programming of the percussion was recorded live and the piano was improvised.

Judges’ Comments: This mostly electronic work opens with a distinct and colorful percussive texture that is soon accompanied by an acoustic piano sound that presents a very nice contrast. Like the percussive material, the piano has a repeating motive that occasionally exhibits pseudo random variations in pitch and, minimally, duration patterns. This basic texture stays in place for much of the first 2 minutes, then is enhanced by a metered layer at around 2:10 or so. The new metered layer moves opposite from the direction we would have expected (and preferred) – it serves to force the work in a more traditional “electronica” genre rather than open it up into further randomness and controlled chaos, which seemed to be the overall direction or flow of the music from the opening.

Perhaps the composer would revise the piece from that point on, as it has the potential to build into a very exciting and propulsive composition with great intensity and effect. Unfortunately, it does not fully meet this potential.

However, the combination of electronic/percussive sounds with a bright and clean piano timbre is a very good choice, and the slightly random aspect of the piano material keeps it from getting monotonous. If these elements had been further developed into a large climatic section rather than having somewhat “stock” drum material enter to point the music away from the exploratory towards the traditional, the music would rise up another notch.

Honorable Mention: Eric Xu
Bridgewater-Raritan High School, Bridgewater, NJ
LISTEN: A New Breed Suite mp3

Judges’ Comments: This is an excellently scored piece that is equally well emulated using samples. It is a very impressive work. The music itself is reminiscent of Igor Stravinsky’s early works for the Ballet Russe. On a structural level, the piece is given unity with easy to identify recurring thematic materials and ostinati. The harmonic language is very sophisticated and ambitious. A few things that might make an already fabulous piece even better would be to find ways to contrast the materials already presented, particularly in the section that functions as a recapitulation.  While it can be great to reference and to return to some of the materials from the beginning sections of  a work, we’re not sure it works well in this particular piece.

One reason is that because the opening material is presented so thoroughly the first time through, it seems unnecessary to have an extended return to it.  We understand that you are trying to create something closer to a symphonic work than to the tableaux forms of  the ballets but We think you need to think about how to achieve contrast in the return, should you choose to use a recapitulation. Perhaps looking at some of Stravinsky’s neo-classical orchestral works (Symphony in Three Movements, for example) might be a helpful reference. We would also consider revising the very end – it sounds too close to the way The Rite of Spring ends.  Whether intentional or not, you don’t want people finding strong similarities between your work and that of such a famous piece.

That said, there are some wonderful things going on in the recap particularly in the rhythms.  And overall, this is a most impressive effort – terrific work; we look forward to hearing your next opus.

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2007

1st prize: Ian Good
LISTEN: Theme for Exploration mp3

2nd prize: Casey Caprice
LISTEN: Dementia mp3

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2006

1st prize: Henry Buck
LISTEN: Overture from The Taste of Sunrise mp3

2nd prize: Jack Solomon
LISTEN: Urban Manchu mp3

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2005

First prize: James Perrella
Niskayuna High School, Niskayuna, NY class of 2008
LISTEN: Stream (2005) mp3

2nd prize: Carly Hodes
Lehman Alternative Community School, Ithaca, NY class of 2005
LISTEN: Salt Rain (2004) mp3

Honorable Mention: Peter O’Regan
Stoughton High School, Stoughton, MA class of 2006
LISTEN: Vistas de Vida (2005) mp3