One Night, 24 World Premieres: NEC Pianists Perform Préludes by NEC Composers
“It's good to be reminded that all that music was new once,” says piano faculty Victor Rosenbaum.
Student composers craft new préludes
Last semester, students of Victor Rosenbaum presented some of the best-known and most beloved music in piano repertoire—Debussy's 24 piano préludes. This semester, in contrast, Rosenbaum's students will present the newest music in piano repertoire—24 world premiere préludes by NEC composers, commissioned for the occasion.
“As a follow up to the Debussy project, I wanted my students to experience the pleasure and fascination of working with a living composer,” says Rosenbaum.
To make this vision a reality, Rosenbaum enlisted colleague Michael Gandolfi, chair of NEC’s composition department, and together, they recruited 20 student composers to write the new works. Student pianists were then tasked with not only learning the pieces, but meeting more than once with their composer.
“It's good to be reminded that all that music was new once.”
As a composer himself, Rosenbaum prizes the musical and educational richness of working with new music:
“It's good to be reminded that all that music was new once—when the performer was just playing from the manuscript of the composer, with no concept of how it was ‘supposed to go.’” says Rosenbaum.
“In the old days we had to go to a record store or the library and get out an LP and bring it home, so people didn't listen to other people's performances much. But students today become familiar with a piece by previous performances of it.”
Rosenbaum sees preparing new works as an opportunity to use one’s own musical feeling in a new way:
“Everything involves subjective judgment: How loud is a forte? How fast is an allegro? We bring our feeling to the music. I wanted my students to see what kinds of feelings they could bring to an absolutely new piece, and how their intuitive feelings might jive, or be different from, what the composer has expected to hear.”
Preparing music is a dialogue
Pianist Victor Xie ’20 will perform “For Pinto” by composer Christopher Vu ‘19 MM. Xie also composed his own piece, titled Prelude-Fantasy. Xie notes that no matter whether a piece is new or classic, preparing a musical work is always a dialogue:
“Being able to talk with the composer allowed me to check how close my interpretation was to the source. In a way, however, it would be the same as having a dialogue with another pianist that knows the music. Once the composer writes the piece, it doesn't only belong to the composer but has its own potential in terms of interpretation and expression.”
After tonight’s performance, the pieces will also belong to the audience, with the hope of future life. As Rosenbaum says,
“These are all young composers. Who knows which one will be the next Aaron Copland or Elliot Carter? And whether or not that happens, the students will still have the pleasure of having given that first performance.”