When people think of orchestral music, they often think of classic composers like Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart. A youth orchestra in Cleveland is hoping to add some new — still living — names to that list.
Cleveland’s Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO) celebrated its 30th anniversary by hiring four working composers to create original pieces for its students to play. In doing so, CYO hopes to add some variety to the repertoire of orchestral music available for high school students in Northeast Ohio and across the country.
“The exciting thing about contemporary classical music is that it does sound like music from our time, but for something like an orchestra, which is a very traditional medium,” said Gala Flagello, a Michigan-based composer and music educator who wrote one of the pieces for CYO’s show.
Performing original pieces offers students a different experience than what they’d get from playing the classics, said Kris Morron, the orchestra’s music director. For the anniversary show on Feb. 22, students worked directly with the composers to create the first-ever performances of these pieces, he said. They had just nine rehearsals to prepare. They were still making tweaks in real time with the composers just hours before the show.
“There’s definitely a need for original contemporary orchestral music because that’s how the tradition continues to live,” said New Orleans-based composer Dylan Trần.
Trần wrote a piece for CYO called “1,000 words.” Students Audra Incledon, Alisdair Welty and Maria Zarjetskiy sent him a variety of creative projects including poems, a collage, and a piece of music that all helped inspire the piece. He also used pictures captured by students at the Cleveland Print Room as inspiration, he said.
Katie O’Hara LaBrie, another composer, wrote a piece called “Drive.” The piece was inspired by both the bridges and roadways in Cleveland and thoughts from CYO students, she said. When talking about their experiences in Cleveland, students said they often drive around with friends for fun.
“That just brought back a lot of nostalgia for me,” O’Hara LaBrie said. “Remembering when I first got my driver’s license and just going around with my friends. We would just drive into the countryside, just drive around talking, listening to music and just being teenagers.”
The orchestra also played an original piece by composer Nubia Jaime-Donjuan, along with a piece Morron wrote a few years ago. CYO percussionist Cameron Shelton debuted a piece he wrote, and cellist Elisa Moulthrop performed a solo.
