Trevecca students research music in Bicentennial Park
When it comes to research, most of us think about labs and libraries, not musical instruments. But that’s not the case for seven of Trevecca’s student composers who have spent their semester working with Dr. Eric Wilson on one of Trevecca’s FLARE projects.
FLARE projects—FLARE stands for Faculty-Led Research Experience—are part of Trevecca’s Quality Enhancement Program (QEP) and allow undergraduates to experience research first-hand. This project is one of four projects taking place in the 2016-2017 academic year.
The Carillon Project, led by Wilson, chair of Trevecca’s music department, consists of seven student composers currently writing five- to 15-minute musical pieces for a performance that will be held at the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park this spring. The students were challenged to write compositions for orchestra, wind ensemble, brass ensemble, or percussion ensemble, but the carillon located in the park had to be prominently featured in their work.
The student composers began their compositions last fall and will present them in Bicentennial Mall on Sunday, April 9 at 3 p.m.
This carillon in Bicentennial Mall consists of 50 columns. The columns contain the 95 bells made of different metals, representing Tennessee’s 95 counties and honoring the state’s musical heritage. The carillon is one of the largest carillons in the world.
Wilson came up with the idea for the project after seeing the carillon on a visit to Bicentennial Mall.
“As soon as I saw the carillon, I thought, ‘We’ve got to do something with this,’” Wilson remembered. “It would be a great venue for an open air concert, sometime in the spring.”
Since neither Wilson or his students have been a part of a project quite like this, only a few of the composers have been able to experiment with the bells.
The seven student composers spent the Fall 2016 semester composing their pieces. Currently, they’ve finished with their first drafts and will begin to make adjustments to their pieces in the next few weeks.
Sam Krempl, a junior and a composer for the project, is currently writing a piece for a wind ensemble titled “Sleepy Hollow,” based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. His piece includes an introduction to set the mood, a happy melody section, an intense build, an oboe and flute duet, followed by a calm finish.
While Krempl’s compositions tend to be more joyful, he said he wanted to try something completely different when he started working on his composition for the FLARE project.
“I chose to do a song for a wind ensemble and to attempt to write a sad/haunted sounding song,” Krempl said. “Old habits die hard, so some of the song is still sounding happy, but I found that it fit the story quite nicely, so I kept it.
“I got the idea for the carillon part directly from our school bell tower,” Krempl continued. “It goes from a happy bell tower playing hymns throughout the day, to an almost mournful and haunted tolling every hour. The tolls are even spaced correctly to fit right into a scene with a haunted bell tower. I loved it and thought that the idea of a haunted bell tower would be a perfect starting point to writing a song with a less-than-happy vibe to it.”
Krempl says the process has tested and stretched his abilities as a composer, something he counts as “the best part” of the project so far.
“This is completely different than anything I have done in the past, and I have absolutely loved exploring this kind of music,” Krempl said. “The task of making an audience feel something though your music is not an easy one, but the feeling of accomplishment when done right is unmatched.”
By Rhiannon Peterson
Media contact: Mandy Crow, mmcrow@trevecca.edu, 615-248-1695