By Kamaiyah Lineberger
When walking into the Recital Hall at the Center for the Arts at Towson University, the lights illuminated the stage and the structures on the sides of the walls. The room had an overall light brown color, and the chairs on stage were black, which created a nice contrast. The ceilings in the hall were more than 15 feet high, but the room itself wasn’t very big, so it made the concert feel very intimate and personal.
Around half of the audience members in attendance were music students and the other half were other students and a sprinkle of parents. One concertgoer said that he made his girlfriend tag along. Every time there was applause between performances, the doors opened to allow a few others to trickle in. There were around 30 people in attendance.
Comprised of four different pieces, the Student Composers Concert, which took place on Nov. 5, highlighted Towson music students’ talents. This concert is hosted by the Department of Music once a semester for composition students who are a part of the composer studio.
Before each piece, each composer came on stage and explained the work. The composers were Thomas Stecklair, Maura Gim, Will Bresson and Ethan Hart. They announced the name of their piece, talked about their inspiration for it and explained why they chose those instruments for it. Everyone, composers and performers alike, were dressed formally and elegantly.
Once each piece began, it transported you into a different place. “Aries, The Vibrant,” composed by Hart, felt like you were walking through Mars because of the tempo that was kept by the saxophones. “Gilded Blue Cores,” composed by Bresson, felt like you were put in the middle of Alaska during a horrible snowstorm because of the swirling of the violins around you. “The Lost Pleiad,” composed by Gim, felt like saying your last goodbye to loved ones on your deathbed due to the sad piano. “How Like a Winter Hath My Absence Been,” composed by Stecklair, featured a soprano, and when she hit high notes, her voice felt like professing your undying love to someone after years of knowing them.
Above the stage were two shotgun microphones that were suspended in the air to make sure that every breathe and every note was heard. On the stage there were chairs, music stands and a piano. In between each set, a stage manager came out and rearranged the stage for the next performance.
The composers varied in age. There were both a grad student and a freshman performing their pieces. Adrian Shavuo, the pianist in the piece “The Lost Pleiad,” said that the process of composers selecting which musician plays their piece is a personal decision. Each composer thinks of a fellow musician who they think will do their piece justice with their respective skills. Gim, a junior composition student, reached out to Shavuo to play the piano alongside cellist Jillian Maier in his piece “The Lost Pleiad.”
Freshman Bresson said in his introduction that he chose to work with instruments that he doesn’t usually work with. He also said that the original musicians who he chose to perform his piece couldn’t be there, so there were two people stepping in.
The first composer, Stecklair, sat in the middle row of the audience while his piece was being performed. The second composer, Gim, sat next to Shavuo, the pianist, on stage and turned the pages of music for him. While he was on stage and turning the pages, he was also admiring his work. You could see it in his face as the piece would crescendo; he would anticipate that part of the music. He wasn’t quite nodding his head to the music; it was more like active listening. The third composer, Bresson, was on stage conducting a violin quartet that was performing his piece. The fourth composer, Hart, sat in the first row of the audience to watch his piece. After composers took their turn, they all took a seat in the audience to watch their peers’ work.
Composer and grad student Hart concluded the show with his zodiac-inspired piece titled “Aries, The Vibrant.” Hart said that he has been composing music for eight years and that in spring of 2027, he has to put on an hour-long concert of entirely his own work, so he’s in the process of writing and performing to prepare for that show. Hart’s piece involved an alto, soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, which come together to be a sax quartet. “Saxophones can sound like anything. They can sound like a brass instrument or a woodwind,” Hart said.
The piece had a lot of different sections, solos and changes of pacing that made it all very alluring.
“All the pieces were amazing,” pianist Shavuo recalled.
Each piece ended with bows and multiple rounds of applause. None of the pieces performed were similar; they all took you to different places and had very different instrument choices. Some pieces were longer than others. “The Lost Pleiad” was around eight minutes long, while “How Like a Winter Hath My Absence Been” was a little over four minutes. Watching the composers admire their hard work was very inspiring. You could tell that they were looking forward to sharing the experience of their pieces with the audience by how proud they were when they took their bows.