‘Pull of Life,’ by 13-year-old Sylvia Pine, on program for Impact fundraiser

At the age of 13, violinist Sylvia Pine has already composed dozens of works for chamber ensembles. Her string quartet titled Pull of Life will be performed March 17 at Impact: Showcasing Education & Community Engagement at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The concert and fundraising benefit at Symphony Center consists of performances by artists affiliated with the Negaunee Music Institute, including musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Percussion Scholarship Program, Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, Young Composers Initiative, Young Artists Competition and more. 

A second-year participant of NMI’s Young Composers Initiative, Pine also is a member of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras’ Philharmonic Orchestra. “To call Sylvia precocious would be an understatement,” said Allen Tinkham, music director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. "She is an extremely talented young composer and certainly the youngest composer CYSO has ever featured. What’s impressive is not only her work itself, but the strength of her opinions about it; she knows what she wants her music to do, and she goes for it. I look forward to watching her skills develop, and anyone interested in the future of music should keep an eye on her.”

At Impact, Pine’s Pull of Life will be performed by CSO musicians Yuan-Qing Yu, assistant concertmaster; violin Jesús Linárez, CSO Fellow; CSO viola Danny Lai, and Kenneth Olsen, CSO assistant principal cello.

The daughter of violin virtuoso Rachel Barton Pine, Sylvia started composing at the age of 4. “From that point, I realized that I wanted to become a composer,” Pine said in an interview for the CYSO newsletter. “My goal for all my pieces is for them to have melodies that are catchy and easy to remember. They’re mainly made out of melody fragments that pop into my head; I discard the ones that aren’t memorable enough. I put all the fragments I think of into a book and use them when they’re needed.”

After writing pieces for voice, solo violin and duo violin, the first big work that Pine wrote was a theme and variations for solo violin called The Glow of the Lamp. "I performed it for some competitions, and my mom performed it, too. I had the pleasure of writing multiple brass quintets, a string quintet and a wind quintet as projects for the Tucson Symphony’s Young Composers’ Project and for my CYSO composition seminar. Then I wrote my first string orchestra piece, titled Rising Storm. It was premiered by the Kanack School Orchestra in Rochester, New York, and was performed by youth orchestras in DuPage County, Tampa, Florida, and by the Music Institute of Chicago Academy Orchestra."

Unlike many who play in orchestras to learn how to be an orchestral musician, Pine said that her main reason for participating in CYSO is to study symphonic repertoire as a composer. “I also want to experience orchestra rehearsals and concerts from the inside, so that when I grow up and visit orchestras who are performing my compositions, I’ll know how it all works.”

Pine has written cadenzas for all of her Classical-period concertos by Mozart and Haydn, renaissance variations and her first medieval-style piece, which was performed by a professional early music ensemble in Utah. Along with classical- music works, Pine loves to write in other styles. “For example, I’ve written lots of Scottish fiddle tunes (mostly jigs and strathspeys), a couple of American fiddle waltzes,” she said. 

Pine appreciates the positive feedback she has received from her work. “It’s so wonderful when people play my pieces,” she said. “It gives me an overwhelming feeling of happiness that I hope I’ll be able to continue feeling throughout my life. I always feel very grateful when people spend their time working on my pieces. I always hope that they enjoy my pieces as much as I enjoy hearing their performances. I want my pieces to make people feel emotions, and to make them think about the world around them. One of my hopes for my pieces is for them to really have meaning, and not just be notes.”

Being a composer has emphasized the importance of music in general. “It has taught me how music impacts other people,” she said, “and how important it is for new music to be brought into the world so it can touch people’s hearts in new and different ways.”