Arts & Life, Music

Four-piece performs students original compositions

An intimate crowd of Cal State University Long Beach composers perked their seasoned ears to listen to their own tunes as performed on Monday at the Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall.

The Veda Quartet, an all female group from CalArts, performed original pieces composed by CSULB students.

The quartet premiered student works from the composition studies area at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music. They specialize in performing new music and closely working with composers, according to the CSULB Composers’ Guild.

“They all did a great job, though they looked nervous playing in front of the composers,” said sophomore vocal performance major Michaela Blanchard. “Understandably! I would be nervous too,” said sophomore vocal performance major Jenny Paz.

The group was founded in 2013 and is comprised of two percussionists, Jessica Anderson and Anna Wray; a harp player, Jillian Risigari-Gai; and a mezzo-soprano, Sharon Kim.

The performance started late as attendees were still filling the room when the all-female quartet came onto the stage.

Often times, the group gave each other glances and head nods to keep in time with each other.

Dressed in professional-looking black attire, the performers took the audience through a variety of arrangements including pieces like “Implementation,” “Dinner Gong” and even crossing over the seas with the French tune titled “A la Faveur de la Nuit” during their nine piece performance.

The lyrics of a French piece were translated into English in the program, and were sung by Kim; her vocals radiated and stretched throughout the recital hall.

Kim is a voice artist based in Los Angeles who performs baroque, opera, contemporary, electronic and musical theatre amidst her ranges of vocal sounds. She has performed in solo and ensemble concerts in venues such as the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Spectrum in New York and overseas to Yeongdeungpo Theater in Seoul, South Korea.

“It was gorgeous; the colors remind me of an impressionist painting,” said Kim. “It was easy and fun to sing [‘A la Faveur de la Nuit’].”

Music composition major Garett Dahl composed “Implementation.” Dahl said that he was happy to see his work displayed.

“I’m a young composer; I could have made things sound better, but they were awesome,” Dahl said.

Starting off with song writing, Dahl has been composing for five years, and is currently working on a junior recital.

“Implementation” took around 25 hours to create, Dahl said.

Alan Shockley, a music director at CSULB, was proud of the work the quartet put into their show, considering that the girls only had a month to learn all the material.

“It was a lot of material in a short amount of time, they did very well,” Shockley said.

Before the last piece, harpist Risigari-Gai, stood up and thanked the composers for their works and the quartet for their performces.

“It’s been such a wonderful experience learning these pieces in the last month,” said Risigari-Gai.

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