Julliard Orchestra: Student Composers

Julliard Orchestra: Student Composers

The concert I attended was on April 30th, 2009 at 8pm at the Alice Tully Hall in the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts. It was performed by the Julliard Orchestra: Student Composers.   The conductor was Jeffrey Milarsky who is a music Professor at Columbia University where he is the music director and conductor of this University’s orchestra. It was impressive to see very young people already being composers of such great pieces.   There were a total of four composers:   Elizabeth Lim with Paranoia, Gity Razaz with In the Midst of Flux…, Eugene Birman with Tomorrow at Dawn, and Niccolo Athens with a Five Tableaux, after Remedios Varo: I. Roulotte, II. Papilla Estelar, III. Aprendiz de Ícaro, IV. Camino Arido and V. Microcosmos.
The first composer, Elizabeth Lim, born in 1986 completed her first piece of orchestra after her senior thesis back in 2008 which was premiered during this concert Paranoia.   During this piece the music had a constant change of low and high pitches, and a high energy which the composer compares in the program notes to an erratic and obsessive heartbeat.   During this piece, the listener is forced to awake the sense of time within, and maybe becoming paranoid for a few minutes.   The second composer Gitty Razaz born in 1986 in Tehran Iran began composing at age nine and after going to pre-med school decided to go into music composition completely. Her piece, In the midst of Flux… starts with a crescendo dynamic giving first a mysterious feeling which turns into a very loud triumphant feeling.   The third composer, Eugene Birman, born in 1987 named his piece after a famous Victor Hugo poem: Tomorrow, At Dawn is a soft, romantic piece where the pianist changes the big piano for a small saloon piano with a softer sound and the use of gongs submerged in water create a sad feeling to express Victor Hugo daughter’s death.   At the end of the piece only a few instruments are left to give the perfect ending.   The fourth and final composer,...