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An up-and-coming composer is collaborating with students
at William S. Hackett Middle School on a musical composition the school
will feature at its spring concert May 19.
About 50 chorus, orchestra and band students are writing
lyrics and composing music with composer Stacy Garrop, D.M., an
associate professor of composition at Roosevelt University in Chicago.
“This is helping kids see they can create something where
nothing existed before,” Dr. Garrop said. She meets with groups of
students one week each month and together they write dialogue,
narration, lyrics and music.
The performance they’re crafting directly ties to Albany
history and the Hudson River. The story within the composition features
Henry Hudson as a time traveler who stops at six important periods in
local history. The renowned explorer begins with a visit with 17th-century
Iroquois and ends in contemporary New York City.
The idea of writing a piece of music based on local
history came to Dr. Garrop the first time she walked across the Hudson
River Way pedestrian bridge linking downtown Albany to the Hudson River
waterfront.
“I grew up in California and everything there is so much
newer,” she said. “We didn’t have the kind of architecture and history
you have here.”
Albany Symphony Orchestra partnered with the City School
District of Albany on the project because it wanted more involvement
with the city the orchestra calls home, said Jim Sector, the orchestra’s
education coordinator. Dr. Garrop’s stint at Hackett is part of the
orchestra’s “Composer to Center Stage” program. |
