Five young composers’ works receive premieres via a Negaunee project

During her second season as curator of the CSO MusicNOW series, Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery focused on intergenerational connections, featuring contemporary composers alongside the predecessors to whom they looked for inspiration or mentorship. Given this emphasis, it was fitting that Montgomery also mentored teen composers throughout the season as part of a new program of the CSO’s Negaunee Music Institute: the Young Composers Initiative. 

In October 2022, five students from Chicago-area high schools were selected following a competitive application process for the program. Each participant then met periodically with Montgomery to work on a new piece of chamber music in preparation for the world premieres of all five compositions at Symphony Center on April 24, 2023.

A piece by one finalist, Angel Alday, shared billing with music by Montgomery, Leonard Bernstein, Richard Einhorn and more at the final CSO MusicNOW concert of the 2022/23 Season. Members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago performed the other four works in a preconcert program in Grainger Ballroom.

“Mentorship and opportunities for young people are really important values that are close and dear to my heart,” Montgomery said to the attendees of the preconcert performance. “I was really, really thrilled to be able to bring this to the CSO this year.”

First on the program was Sonidos de Bolivia by Naperville North High School senior Sofia Ruiz Cordero, who drew inspiration from the folk music of Bolivia, where her family is from. Next, Lincoln Gibbs, a senior at Lakes Community High School, introduced his composition, Comfort. Paradoxically, this piece for winds, brass and percussion features some “uncomfortable” sounds, Gibbs explained to the audience.

Brandon Harper’s Still Some Spirit derives its title from the Nirvana song “Smells like Teen Spirit,” said the senior from Lincoln Park High School. After growing up listening to rock, Harper chose to implement “all of my musical influences” in this string quartet, which captures “the ebb and flow, the spirit of music.” Closing the preconcert performance on a more somber note was Recoverless by Malik Muhammad, a sophomore at Muhammad University of Islam, who shared that the piece is “about the experiences that mothers can face when losing a child.”

During the CSO MusicNOW concert, Montgomery invited Angel Alday, a junior at Chicago High School for the Arts, onstage to introduce his composition. Reflecting on the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, which “shook all of us deeply,” Alday channeled two contrasting emotions in his piece — “a harsh, dark” mood and “a more delightful, jumpy” tone. Ending on the more uplifting of the two, the work is meant to show that “there is still light in the world,” he said.

Between the preconcert performance and the CSO MusicNOW program, Sofia Ruiz Cordero shared some thoughts about her experience of the Young Composers Initiative. “Jessie is absolutely amazing to work with,” she said. “I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I started, but I’m really glad that I did it.”

During her meetings with Montgomery, “I would bring material in, and she’d help me workshop it,” Ruiz explained. “She’d give me new ideas, she’d give me things to consider, other things to try out, other composers to listen to for inspiration — and then, rinse, repeat. I’d go home, work on it some more, bring the new material in, and then we’d continue.”

Hearing her final composition performed at Symphony Center was “amazing,” she said. “It was much better than I ever thought it would be.”

To other students who might consider applying to the Young Composers Initiative, Ruiz would say, “Just give it a shot! I think you don’t know until you try. … A lot of people tend to be afraid of messing up or not sounding good, but once you get past that, you start to really be able to experiment and see what you like, what your sound is. It’s a beautiful process.”