TBNC is thrilled to announce that Alex and Crystal Ho, Jivan Ramesh and Xavier Lucas, four young composers from the Two Bridges Music program ages 9 – 13, will have their original compositions premiered by Interschool Orchestras of New York in concert at the Metropolitan Museum in New York on May 16th.
Two and a half years ago, Two Bridges Music added a composition class to its program offering. The class, designed and taught by Cyrus von Hochstetter, teaches pupils how to write their own music in a hands-on head-first manner. Instead of spending years studying music theory first, the students were encouraged to imagine their own music right from the start. As the course progressed, more tools, techniques and theory were introduced, along with stories about famous composer’s lives and their music.
Two years into the class, the young composers were faced with the task of writing their first pieces for string orchestra which were then picked up by two youth orchestra ensembles of Interschool Orchestras of New York. Thanks to this tremendous collaboration with ISO, Alex, Crystal, Jivan and Xavier have the unique and rare opportunity to hear the music of their minds performed by a real orchestras and played by their peers in concert.
The four young composers heard their music for the first time when attending a rehearsal of ISO’s ensemble led by Brian Worsdale.
Watch the video below to hear excerpts from the first rehearsal.
XAVIER LUCAS (*2006) was born in Monterey, California, has lived in four different states and now resides in Newark, NJ. Xavier is passionate about building, creating new things, drawing and is currently taking classes in printmaking. He is homeschooled and believes that music is, in addition to being part of his education, an important part of life. He finds that writing music is a way to explore his creativity. For the past three and a half years, Xavier and his four sisters have been taking music lessons at Two Bridges Music where Xavier studies piano with Colby Charnin and composition with Cyrus von Hochstetter.
Piece Title: Desire
“My family inspired this piece, every time I hear the piece I think of my family. I want my audience to feel excitement and joy when they listen to my piece. When I started writing it I already had the first measure in my head, and I built the rest around it. It took me three months to write. The piece turned out exactly how I imagined it to be. I liked working on this longer piece and found it harder than writing short pieces. I learned that when I write music I have to think about it and imagine it before I write it down.”
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CRYSTAL HO (*2003) is a student currently studying at Millennium High School in New York City. Crystal has been learning piano since 2010, and has taken lessons with Two Bridges Music for the last 4 years where in 2016 she began studying composition to learn how to create and produce original musical pieces. Starting with the basics, Crystal began composing easy pieces and moved on to writing more complex and vivid music which she found allowed her to explore more about who she is. Besides learning piano, Crystal also took classes of violin, Chinese Erhu, Yangqing, as well as voice lessons. Crystal’s hobbies include drawing, reading, crocheting and writing stories.
Piece Title: Midnight Rambles
“My piece, Midnight Rambles, was a piece of trial and error. I say this because as I sat in front of the page, my mind was blank of ideas until I put down a few notes to test the waters. It was a chain reaction that led to many other ideas that fled my head. My inspiration came from my experience at nighttime, when I’m lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling while my thoughts run wild. I share this with others to see if they experience the same as me night after night. The feeling of the piece is a peculiar, jumpy piece; bringing to life the jitters of darkness at 1 am. Based on the experience of writing this piece, I learned that mistakes are okay in music. You learn from making them, and may create something even more preferable.”
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ALEX HO (*2006) is a 6th grade student at Shuang Wen School in Manhattan, New York City. Alex has been taking piano lessons with Cyrus von Hochstetter at Two Bridges Music since he was 8 years old. He joined the composition class in 2016 where he has been exposed to theory and the history of different composers and musical styles. Alex sings in his after-school choir and won several awards in singing competitions in and outside of his school. His essays in Chinese were published in the Chinese World Journal. In his free time, Alex enjoys reading, playing soccer, chess and computer games.
Piece Title: Space Adventure
“My inspiration for my piece was that I was thinking of taking the audience on a fun and exciting adventure. This piece did not turn out the way as I expected it. I wanted to write something fast but then I felt that this one is better. It was a new experience to work on one piece for several months. I found that a mistake can lead to a good idea.”
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JIVAN XANDER RAMESH (*2008) is a surprising musical talent in a non-musical family. At the age of 3 he expressed a desire to play cello. At the age of 5, he became the youngest string player to play at Carnegie Hall. Jivan is currently enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music in the Pre-College program, and is working with famed cello pedagogue Marion Feldman. He also plays in the MSM Repertory Orchestra and in a professional orchestra, the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York. Jivan started composing at the age of 5. He composes in many musical styles, including classical, Chinese, Indian, and fiddle, and his compositions have been played by a number of ensembles, chamber groups. He is currently taking composition lessons with Ira Taxin and studying counterpoint and harmony with Cyrus von Hochstetter. At any time of day or night Jivan can be heard humming his latest compositions. Jivan says that music is not just his passion but it is a part of his soul.
Piece Title: 鸟和锦鲤 (Niǎo Hé Jǐn Lǐ)
“I wrote 鸟和锦鲤 (Niǎo Hé Jǐn Lǐ ), meaning “The Bird and the Koi”, after a day dream I had of my pet canary and the Chinese legend of the koi jumping the Dragon Gate. I composed it in a Chinese style because I like Chinese music. Originally I composed it for solo cello, because I wanted to show how versatile a cello can be, sounding like many different Chinese instruments such as guzheng, pipa, erhu, and drums. I orchestrated it to go even further to see how multiple Western orchestral string instruments can come together and sound like many Chinese instruments.”
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