From 2019-2023, Oriana’s mentorship project with the Claude Watson Arts program, a specialized high school arts program at Earl Haig Secondary School, introduced young composers to writing choral music – a specific compositional process which is not as well represented in university music programs as instrumental composition. For each of the four years of this project, Oriana worked with approximately 15 – 20 students in Grades 11 and 12 – which meant that most students participated for two years in the project with the choir.
In the inaugural year of the project, Oriana’s composer-in-residence Matthew Emery, artistic director Mitchell Pady and collaborative pianist Ben Keast (both composers in their own right) visited the school regularly between September 2019 and March 2020 to mentor the students, as they prepared their scores ready for choir rehearsals beginning in March. Throughout the year, Oriana interacted regularly with the students who were welcome to join any of Oriana’s weekly rehearsals and who received a complimentary pass to all of the choir’s season concerts.
The students’ final drafts were ready right before March Break 2020, so unfortunately the onset of the pandemic prevented the planned reading sessions and performance. Nonetheless, the project was repeated in 2020-2021 in an online format, and the choir workshopped the pieces composed in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 during online weekly rehearsals.
Once again in 2021-2022 the project had to operate in a compressed format, but since Oriana had returned to rehearsing in person, the choir had the opportunity to read through all the compositions at rehearsal with the students in attendance, and also perform them in a showcase at the school for the students and their families.
Finally in 2022-2023, Oriana conducted the project in the manner it had originally been envisioned, with the choir’s artistic team working with the students through the first part of the school year, with opportunities for the students to visit choir rehearsals and attend concerts, and reading sessions in the spring of all the student compositions. Three compositions were selected by Oriana’s artistic team to be featured in the final season concert in June 2023.
The choral composition project that began with Oriana (and prevailed through the pandemic!) continues with another ensemble giving the students an opportunity to write mixed-voice repertoire, and Oriana looks forward to future opportunities to collaborate with the talented young musicians again.