STUDENT CLOSE-UP

Music to His Ears

By Nancy Moen

It's not every day that a student gets the chance to hear his professors perform music he has written. But for John Ernst, a senior music student, the opportunity came shortly after he won the 2006 National Young Artist Composition Competition of the Music Teachers National Association.

Ernst’s winning composition, “The City Awakens,” had its national debut at the annual meeting of MTNA on March 28 in Austin, Texas. Three of Ernst’s mentors from MU’s School of Music faculty played the piece: Paul Garritson, clarinet; Stefan Freund, cello; and Karen Larvick, piano.

Ernst attended the conference and received the $3,000 student composer’s prize. “I’m really being spoiled to have my teachers play this,” Ernst says. “I feel very privileged. I attribute my success to their nurturing influence.”

“The City Awakens” is the first movement in a set of three character pieces inspired by an urban landscape. The music evokes images of a city gathering momentum at the beginning of a day, with people and traffic at first trickling and then pouring onto the streets and sidewalks.

“One of the strong points of the piece is the convincing building of energy that is kind of pleasing,” Ernst says. “There’s a lot of dialogue between the instruments. They talk back and forth. You hear the exchange as we would converse.”

Ernst identifies the city of inspiration as Atlanta, Ga., where he was enrolled in computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He transferred to Mizzou after realizing that he missed music and wanted to learn to compose. “I found myself drawn back to music. I decided to do what I really wanted to do. Write music,” he says.

Ernst grew up listening to classical music and was fascinated by composers who could write a symphony with so many instruments playing together. He says he constantly hears music in his head.

When he composes on his laptop or on a piano, Ernst imagines the form of the piece by dividing it into sections and determining how it will make sense logically. He develops an idea and lets it evolve through different methods such as moving into a new key. “You play with your material like an artist would do with clay,” he says.

Ernst started piano lessons in elementary school and continued the study through his senior year at North County High School, where he graduated as salutatorian. At MU, he has studied violin, oboe, percussion and voice, and he sings with the University Singers.

Ernst is a student of Professor Thomas McKenney, who teaches composition and theory, and is McKenney’s fourth composition student to win the national MTNA title. Last year, another mentor of Ernst, Associate Professor Stefan Freund, won the national MTNA composers competition for faculty members.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in May 2006, Ernst will enroll in a music composition program to pursue his master’s degree. He is considering programs at several universities.

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Last Update: August 7, 2008