USD’s music department introduces new recital to community

USD’s music department presented its first ever Composition Studio Recital on April 14 in Colton Recital Hall. Students have been offered lessons in music composing since the fall of 2020. 

“The compositions in the recital were composed by my students,” Paul Lombardi, USD composition professor, said. “The pieces will be performed by my students as well as other music majors.” 

Brandon Sterling, Marcus Klassen, Nathan Van Den Oever, Marcelo Ratzkowski and Kate Huntimer were students who provided the music for the recital. 

“It’s cool not hearing dead old white guys. It’s young people writing music that we really want to and it’s just stuff that’s self-driven,” Huntimer said.

Huntimer is a junior earning her degree in music performance, and has been taking composition lessons since last year. She provided two pieces for last week’s recital, a piano piece and a string trio entitled ‘Aubade’ and ‘The Last Seance,’ respectfully. Huntimer said in her approach to composing music, she has to imagine a story or picture.

Huntimer said the string trio was inspired by the spooky mood of Agatha Christie’s literary work, “The Last Seance.” Huntimer found the word “aubade” on the internet which means “dawn serenade.”

 “It’s basically a song for the sunrise and I imagine the sun rising over a pier in a harbor. Therefore the piano is very moving and sweeping,” Huntimer said.

In addition to some of the previously listed students, performance of the student-composed music was done by Natalie Sterba on violin, Vaughan Hennen on cello, Lauren Paul with voice, Leandro Moutin-Fernandez on violin, Rebecca Kelley on piano and Diane Van Den Oever on piano. 

The music department will put on a symphonic band concert on April 21 and an orchestra concert on April 22. Both performances will be in Aalfs Auditorium.