UCLA students perform at Graduate Composers Concert

White noise and dances to contemporary classical music are a few of the sights and sounds that will be performed at this year’s Graduate Composers Concert.

Tonight, three students in the graduate composers program will debut music projects they have been working on, showing the audience their musical interests.

Under the guidance of concert director Yushun Hu and the graduate department, the quarterly concert series explores genres ranging from modern, avant-garde to contemporary classical.

Hu is also one of the performers in tonight’s concert.

Originally from Taiwan, Hu studied music composition on the East Coast before coming to Los Angeles to finish her music composition doctorate at UCLA. Since her arrival, she said she has found a supportive and conducive environment dedicated toward helping students find their voice in music.

“We’re very fortunate here at UCLA to have a faculty and department that is very open and willing to work with students. … They want you to find yourself in your music,” Hu said.

In addition to her piece, which will be premiering outside Taiwan for the first time, Hu will be sharing the stage with two younger members of the program.

Jessica Birkes and Jennifer Sager, both first-year composition graduate students, will perform before a UCLA audience for the first time.

However, neither composer will physically play her piece.

Birkes’ piece will be an electronic recording of a piano and white noise, programmed herself and played through a sound system.

Having moved into the medium of electronic composition, Birkes said she prefers this over acoustic composition because of the ability to manipulate the sound.

Her music will be complemented by members of the graduate dance program who will interpret the piano and white noise with paper skirts and carefully planned choreography.

By blending different frequencies, mixed with moving lights and the dancers’ paper skirts, Birkes will produce a visual and auditory representation of light and shadow.

“I got the idea from a show in downtown, where the choreography involved two small flashlights attached to poles that two people would move around to create shadows off of the dancers,” Birkes said. “I wanted to recreate that same sort of effect by using white noise.”

Sager, by contrast, will treat the audience to a more traditional piece of music – but only traditional in the sense that the music features acoustic instruments.

Her piece will be performed by a string septet consisting of four violins, a viola, a cello and a bass.

Drawing inspiration from Arvo Part, an Estonian composer who rose to fame in the 1970s.

Sager said she channels his famous piece “Fratres,” to give the audience a taste of her own style of contemporary classical music.

Regardless of their different styles, both composers said they have a strong love for music and said they plan to pursue doctorates in music.

“I love what I do,” Birkes said. “After I’m done at UCLA, I want to explore a lot of different things. But as long as I’m still writing music, I’ll be happy.”

Email Lucacher at [email protected].