Last fall, a handful of student composers set out to accomplish every musician’s dream: Create original music, record it in a top-notch studio and all the while be guided by experts. A group of six students and alumni were able to do just that with help from a three-time Grammy winner, a Meadows Prize winner and a highly respected, award-winning music composer and theorist.
It all started with a brilliant and ambitious idea by violist and 2013 Meadows Prize winner Nadia Sirota. She wanted students to write original music and produce an album performed by Meadows new music ensemble SYZYGY. With guidance from Sirota, Artist-in-Residence and Director of Chamber of Music Matt Albert and Meadows Associate Professor of Music Composition and Theory Xi Wang, who assisted in choosing the composers, the six students were tasked with creating original music. They were given the framework and spent the summer composing and editing. Then, in October 2013, the group went to January Sound Studios with SYZYGY and completed an album on master tapes.
During the process, each student and alum got to see how a professional album is made. Each track shows the love of the process and how the process rewards the listeners with tracks that range from brightly feverish to baroque and brooding.
In many ways, the album is the artistic result of trial by fire.
