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David MacDonald and two
other award-winning student composers will be featured with
faculty composers in a showcase of new music in March at
Carnegie Hall. See more information at the end of this story.
Photo by Harley J. Seeley, Michigan State University,
IMC I&DG
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Sounds
Like a Winner
By Nancy Moen
“You won’t
like it,” senior David MacDonald is likely to warn people
with untrained ears who ask to hear his music. On the advice of
his faculty mentors, MacDonald sent one of his final works as
a Mizzou student to a national competition for composers.
Judges of the BMI
Student Composer Awards selected MacDonald’s “Elegy,”
an atonal contemporary concert piece, for one of the most coveted
awards in the Western Hemisphere for young composers. Eight to
10 winners emerge each year from a field of 500 entries.
BMI, or Broadcast Music Incorporated, is
a performing rights organization for songwriters, composers and
music publishers. Its judges are historically important American
composers, who seek experimental, edgy works and have an impressive
record for finding new talent. Eleven former BMI student winners
have won Pulitzer Prizes. A relative newcomer to composition,
MacDonald had been composing for only three years when he won
a 2006 BMI award.
His start hadn’t been easy. The St.
Louis student enrolled at Mizzou to study trumpet performance
after failing the theory test for entry to another university.
At MU, he soon discovered he had an aptitude for and love of composing.
“David has one of the most creative
minds of any student who has studied with me, Tom McKenney, professor
of composition and theory, says. “He has a great sense of
humor and is liable to do something totally bizarre. His sense
of humor is reflected in a lot of what he does.”
MacDonald’s winning effort was anything
but humorous. He composed the piece as a musical version of English
Professor Rod Santos’ poem “Elegy
for My Sister,” which Santos wrote as a memorial after
the death of his sister.
Creating “Elegy” stretched MacDonald
as a composer. It took him a year to write the 20-minute piece
for horn, string quartet and two voices. For contrast, he used
both singing and speaking voices. The baritone performs as the
primary singing voice; the soprano sings syllables as though she
were part of the instrument ensemble, and she sings commentary
to represent Santos’ sister.
Although MacDonald and Santos had exchanged
e-mails, they had never met face-to-face before the public performance
of “Elegy.” MacDonald didn’t know for sure,
but he suspected Santos would be in the audience at MacDonald’s
senior composition recital when “Elegy” made its debut
in MU’s Whitmore Recital Hall.
Photo by Harley J. Seeley,
Michigan State University, IMC I&DG
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At the end of the piece, MacDonald gestured
into the darkened hall in hopes that the poet would stand and
take a bow. No one stood. But as the performers and composer went
offstage, Santos found them and gave MacDonald a huge hug.
Santos was impressed by MacDonald’s
insight into the poem and precocious understanding of the nature
of elegies. “How could someone so young have understood
loss, grief and mourning so deeply? It’s really a brilliant
piece,” Santos says.
MacDonald received a bachelor's degree in
music performance and composition in May 2006. He is working on
a master’s degree in composition at Michigan State University.
MacDonald is the third MU student to win
a BMI Student Composer Award. Previous winners are Ricardo de
Souza, BM ’97, MM ’99, who won in 1999, and Gene Marshall,
BM ’90, in 1989.
The
School of Music has developed a reputation as a nurturing
environment for the creation of new music. Earlier in the year,
senior John Ernst won the 2006 National Young Artist Composition
Competition of the Music Teachers National Association. Previous
MTNA winners are Marc-Andre Bougie, MM ’01, who won in 2001;
Keith Kolander, BM ’79, in 1978; and Jay Jacobs, MA ’73,
in 1971.
One of MacDonald’s pieces, as well as
compositions by two other award-winning student composers and
two award-winning faculty composers will be featured in a showcase
of new music at 7 p.m. March 23 in New York at the 2007 Mizzou
on Tour at Carnegie Hall. MU faculty will perform the selections.
Tickets for the Weill Recital Hall performance
are available through MU by calling 573-882-4409 or 800-430-2966.
MIZZOU ON TOUR
NEW MUSIC BY AWARD-WINNING COMPOSERS
John Ernst, Composer
"The City Awakens," 1st movement
Paul Garritson, clarinet; Darry Dolezal, cello; Peter Miyamoto,
piano
* Ernst's "The City Awakens," 1st movement, won
the 2006 National Composition Competition of the Music Teachers
National Association.
"Harbinger," 1st and last movements
Dan Willett, oboe; Marcia Spence, horn; Peter Miyamoto, piano
David MacDonald, Composer
"Emulsion Quintet" (A World Premiere)
Paul Garritson, clarinet; Leo Saguiguit, soprano sax; Marcia Spence,
horn; Darry Dolezal, cello; and Julia Gaines, marimba
* MacDonald won one of nine Broadcast
Music Incorporated Student Composer Awards in May 2006.
Patrick Dell, Composer
"Three Notes and Lots of Notes for Piano"
Patrick Dell, piano
* Dell won the 2006 Sinquefield Composition Prize for
the state of Missouri.
Thomas McKenney, Composer
"C:M for Marimba and Recorded Sound"
Julia Gaines, marimba
* Thomas McKenney is the 1970 MTNA Distinguished Composer
of the Year.
Stefan Freund, Composer
"Screams and Grooves for Saxophone and Piano"
Leo Saguiguit, alto saxophone; Patrick Dell, piano
* Freund is the 2005 Distinguished Composer of the Year; a
two-time winner of BMI Student Composer Awards; and winner of
the 1999 BMI William Schuman Prize.
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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