Congratulations to the 2008 winners of our High School Composition Contest!

The winners receive a public performance of their work at Northeastern University and a cash award. The winners and their high schools both receive a software bundle consisting of Cakewalk Sonar Producer Edition and Garritan Personal Orchestra.

Thanks very much to Cakewalk and Garritan Orchestral Libraries for their support.

For more information about the Music Technology program at Northeastern, a program in composition for new media, please see www.musictech.neu.edu

Read a description of this year's electronic music composition contest for high school students in the northeast.

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2008 Winners

1st prize: Mark Moskwa
Sayville High School, West Sayville, NY
LISTEN: The Profound Stress mp3
Composer's Notes: This composition is a musique concrete piece, abstract, yet telling a story. In my piece, I was looking to create a composition that captured the many stresses of life in a typical person’s day, such as someone telling them what to do, and even the first time one gets to sit down in the might. I also used many different sounds collected throughout the hallways and doorways of my school, such as hitting lockers, running up and down the stairs, talking behind doors to muffle the sounds, and, possibly my favorite, flushing the toilet and reversing the sound. All in all, I hope (you) enjoy the piece.

Judges' Comments: This work shows great pacing and is organized into clear sections. The piece moves at different speeds and has nice pauses, which can be surprising. The whole first half is quite excellent though the little pentatonic section goes on perhaps a bit too long. The gong interrupts the flow of events and produces a nice shift in the direction of the music. The piece as a whole ends a bit too abruptly: the ending certainly works and makes sense, but perhaps the section before that with talking and the little tune could build up a bit more in intensity. It seems to need a final burst of energy, followed by a section of repose (about one more minute of music). The piece has a bit of playfulness and edginess - perhaps you would consider a change of title?

2nd prize: Nicolas Jaar
Lycee Francais de New York, New York, NY
LISTEN: Framb(bois)es mp3
Composer's Notes: The piece is based on the organic being digitalized; most of the percussion (me throwing things around in my desk) was recorded with a microphone. Every sound was put into different samplers. I then assigned the decay function of ALL sounds to one knob in my controller. Thanks to this and a "drum machine-like" pattern I could control the decay of the whole beat. The beat could go from sounding like a little bug dancing to a crazy man watering his plants. The piano was played through an arpeggiator; once again, I assigned the decay to a knob. While I was playing, a very important "Clémentine Stip" would randomly change the decay of the piano. The programming of the percussion was recorded live and the piano was improvised.

Judges' Comments: This mostly electronic work opens with a distinct and colorful percussive texture that is soon accompanied by an acoustic piano sound that presents a very nice contrast. Like the percussive material, the piano has a repeating motive that occasionally exhibits pseudo random variations in pitch and, minimally, duration patterns. This basic texture stays in place for much of the first 2 minutes, then is enhanced by a metered layer at around
2:10 or so. The new metered layer moves opposite from the direction we would have expected (and preferred) - it serves to force the work in a more traditional "electronica" genre rather than open it up into further randomness and controlled chaos, which seemed to be the overall direction or flow of the music from the opening. 

Perhaps the composer would revise the piece from that point on, as it has the potential to build into a very exciting and propulsive composition with great intensity and effect. Unfortunately, it does not fully meet this potential.

However, the combination of electronic/percussive sounds with a bright and clean piano timbre is a very good choice, and the slightly random aspect of the piano material keeps it from getting monotonous. If these elements had been further developed into a large climatic section rather than having somewhat "stock" drum material enter to point the music away from the exploratory towards the traditional, the music would rise up another notch.

Honorable Mention: Eric Xu
Bridgewater-Raritan High School, Bridgewater, NJ
LISTEN: A New Breed Suite mp3
Judges' Comments: This is an excellently scored piece that is equally well emulated using samples. It is a very impressive work. The music itself is reminiscent of Igor Stravinsky's early works for the Ballet Russe. On a structural level, the piece is given unity with easy to identify recurring thematic materials and ostinati. The harmonic language is very sophisticated and ambitious. A few things that might make an already fabulous piece even better would be to find ways to contrast the materials already presented, particularly in the section that functions as a recapitulation.  While it can be great to reference 
and to return to some of the materials from the beginning sections of  a work, we’re not sure it works well in this particular piece.

One reason is that because the opening material is presented so thoroughly the first time through, it seems unnecessary to have an extended return to it.  We understand that you are trying to create something closer to a symphonic work than to the tableaux forms of  the ballets but We think you need to think about how to achieve contrast in the return, should you choose to use a recapitulation. Perhaps looking at some of Stravinsky's neo-classical orchestral works (Symphony in Three Movements, for example) might be a helpful reference. We would also consider revising the very end - it sounds too close to the way The Rite of Spring ends.  Whether intentional or not, you don't want people finding strong similarities between your work and that of such a famous piece. 

That said, there are some wonderful things going on in the recap particularly in the rhythms.  And overall, this is a most impressive effort - terrific work; we look forward to hearing your next opus.

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2007 Winners

1st prize: Ian Good
LISTEN: Theme for Exploration mp3
 
2nd prize: Casey Caprice
LISTEN: Dementia mp3

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2006 Winners

1st prize: Henry Buck
LISTEN: Overture from The Taste of Sunrise mp3
 
2nd prize: Jack Solomon
LISTEN: Urban Manchu mp3

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2005 Winners

First prize: James Perrella
Niskayuna High School, Niskayuna, NY class of 2008
LISTEN: Stream (2005) mp3
 
2nd prize: Carly Hodes
Lehman Alternative Community School, Ithaca, NY class of 2005
LISTEN: Salt Rain (2004) mp3
 
Honorable Mention: Peter O'Regan
Stoughton High School, Stoughton, MA class of 2006
LISTEN: Vistas de Vida (2005) mp3