YOUNG COMPOSERS TAKE IT FROM THE TOP

by Susan M. Barbieri

On a Saturday afternoon in late May, a "cool" thing happened for Teddy Neidermaier. The 16-year-old from Minnetonka, Minn., was featured at a taping of National Public Radio’s From the Top, a show that spotlights young classical musicians and young composers.

Neidermaier, a composer and pianist (and Forum member), accompanied Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra principal clarinet Jennifer Gerth in an excerpt from the first movement of his clarinet concerto.

"It was really cool. It’s such a great idea for a radio show," says Neidermaier, who has written about a dozen original pieces. "It was all a good experience. All the people on the staff and all the engineers there had a wonderful sense of humor, and they’re very encouraging and everything. I’d encourage other high school composers to do it because it’s a lot of fun."

Neidermaier – who has already found a mentor in composer John Corigliano – studied at Tanglewood this summer with about 10 other young composers. "I’m realizing that there are a lot of young people who compose," he says. "Not just people who identify themselves as composers, but also people who are studying violin and stuff. They all want to write down things, and I think it’s a large part of learning an instrument and being a musician."

The feedback from his radio appearance was "crazy," he says. "I’ve heard from friends all over the country who I knew from music camp last summer. [They] turned on NPR, and I was playing on it. Cool things like that have been happening"

That’s just the kind of buzz Christopher O’Riley likes to hear about. O’Riley – host of the program, which has aired weekly since January – believes it’s important to include composers, not just musicians, on the show. About five composers have appeared to date.

Perhaps even more than performers, composers are uniquely well-placed to connect with an audience and let them into the music in a new way, O’Riley explains. "A composer is able to give actual information, and people are curious about that, whether they know it or not. They’re not going to ask you point-blank, ‘How did Beethoven write this symphony?’ But if the composer is standing there saying, ‘Well, here’s what I was thinking at this point and that translated into these few bars,’ that’s really a perfect opportunity, a great opportunity."

The producers of From the Top learn about young composers the same way that they learn about gifted young performers – through their Web site application (www.fromthetop.net) and audition process. But many young people who listen to the show either don’t think of themselves as composers or don’t think O’Riley would be interested in the creative adaptations they do.

In San Antonio, Texas, for instance, he discovered three girls in the bass section of a youth orchestra who write their own material. They didn’t think the show would be interested. O’Riley assured them that he was. "Just because you’re not playing Bach trio sonatas on three double-basses doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be interested," he says. "We just had a cellist who had an affinity with heavy metal music, and he did an arrangement of a Megadeath song."

And these sorts of adaptations, O’Riley says, are part of music-making too. It’s all part of the act – and art – of musical composition.