This Friday, May 9 the Summit Middle School Orchestra under the direction of Angie Allen will debut a new string piece by Oklahoma City composer Steven Stark. The title of the work is “The Swashbuckling Suite”. The students will be playing several movements from the work including “The Sea of Adventure” and “Parry and Thrust.”
“The work is pirate-themed and is actually still ‘under construction’. I am still working on the final movement, but we decided it would be a rewarding experience to go ahead and play a few of the movements this year,” said Stark. “I could not be more excited to work with Angie and the excellent students at Summit. Hearing them play this piece is about as fun as it gets!”
"Because it is more modern music, I think it is more interesting,” said Mei Zhang, an 8th grade violinist at Summit. “Since the composer is alive, we can really portray what he wants us to."
"Because we are going to be the first ones to play the music, it is going to be a very rare experience. Most people don't get to do that, “ said 8th grade cello player, Jessica Fan.
"Steven has written an exciting and beautiful piece, and the students have really enjoyed learning this music,” said Allen. “It has been both a challenging and rewarding experience."
Steven Stark lives and works in Oklahoma City. He has written many pieces for middle school and high school string orchestras. He also recently composed the score to the documentary “Where Did the Horny Toad Go?” As a cellist and guitarist he has toured with the Starlight Mints and the Lovely Sparrows. As a session musician he has played on recordings by Graham Colton, Avril Lavigne, David Hodges, Student Film, Tyson Meade, Bronze Radio Return and many others. He was a member of the seminal OKC rock band The Fellowship Students, and has released several solo albums. He can be contacted at www.stevenstarkmusic.com.
The concert is at the Santa Fe High School auditorium and will begin at 7:00PM. In addition to the premiere, the 6th, 7th and 8th grade orchestras will play works by J.S. Bach, Mark Williams and Soon Hee Newbold among others.
Way to go Steven! And still alive.. that is something! Your students are very privileged.
ReplyDeleteThanks Burk! Writing for middle school orchestra has been very enjoyable. The goal is to give an orchestra and its director a piece which gives them a good chance of making music - and of learning about music and their instruments. We will see!
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