October 2020 - A New Wave of Composers
Seven months in to our 17 month cohort, we picked up two new students, Bradley Carpiuc and Huxley Westemeier.
I was looser on the private mentoring prior to their arrival, really encouraging kids to be creative, experiment, and storytell. But Bradley and Huxley brought a new level of experience which made me adjust on my teaching style.
Huxley was a stage kid. He been on Broadway with George Abud in "August Rush" and had toured the country in "School of Rock". He could sing, play the guitar, the piano, and the oud which George had taught him.
COVID had upended Huxley's burgeoning stage career. But he had written songs which he'd performed at a state fair. (Thought in 2024: I think it might have been the Minnesota State Fair, and I wonder if Coach Walz heard him.)
Huxley is another one of those "I'm twelve, and I'm taking college level classes" kids. In fact, the first piece he wrote was called "Hexidecimal". I kept calling it "Huxidecimal" and sent him a mug with "Huxidecimal" written on it so he couldn't argue with me about the title.
His big piece during the first cohort, though, was called "NYC". Every one of my colleagues and I dug in on it, helping to shape Huxley's storytelling, orchestration, and theory. He had a habit of writing what he could play on the piano, and my proudest accomplishment was getting him to start thinking beyond a five-finger stretch at a time.
"NYC" is a behemoth of a piece that only exists in mock-up format. But boy would I love to get this to concert (where I intend to play the drumsticks on the water jugs since Ben Phelps won't let me conduct.)
Listen to the piece by clicking on the video below.
Bradley joined at the same time as Huxley. And here's the thing... Bradley remains one of the most naturally gifted composers I've ever met (young or old). Bradley had been composing long before he got to Inception. He had a composition teacher who had guided him along really brilliantly for the piano.
I sat down for my first private mentoring session with Bradley and realized I could not screw around with this one. Bradley is just plain talented. He was also twelve or something. He took notes. He reworked things. He took direction. And he blew everyone away, including the mentors.
His first piece was "Elements". He had written gargantuan pieces for each of the elements on the periodic table.
What could I help him do?
Orchestrate them.
But Bradley was not just an avant-garde composer, he could also whip out animation scores really, really quickly. After blowing up an animation assignment from Nathan Wang, Bradley rescored the opening to "The Lion King," which if you didn't know that "Circle of Life" started the movie, you would not have known this wasn't the official track.
For your enjoyment, here is the audio only version of the track. You'll have to use your imagination recalling the movie, but it's really easy to picture.
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