Messalonskee senior Sophie Mihm became enraptured with songwriting
Messalonskee senior Sophie Mihm became enraptured with songwriting as a middle school student, and, even then, she strived for convergence.
“At first,” she said, “I just loved the ability to merge music and poetry.”
Mihm’s love for songwriting has not waned but the sophistication of her efforts has grown considerably as is evident by her recent honor: She was the only student in Maine whose composition was selected by the National Association for Music Education for its music composition competition.
Her piece “Spiral: Downward” will be performed at the NAfME’s Eastern Division Conference slated April 13-16 at the Joseph A. Floreano Rochester Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, N.Y.
Messalonskee band director Andy Forster said high school students who compose are “not super common,” and Mihm’s level of composition sophistication is even more uncommon. Her piece for NAfME, he said, is a prime example.
“It is not a high school level piece,” Forster said.
Mihm, who will study composition at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., still sees music as an opportunity to be poetic, but her compositional vision has expanded, so that now she looks to meld expression with invention; she wants to push the boundaries of sound expression while still creating something pleasing to audiences.
“As an individual composer … I want to find a balance between what the audience can hear and what I can do that excites me,” she said. “I’m writing a piece right now, and it’s definitely a little out there. It’s a little weird. But I’m using that weirdness where I’m still trying to tell a story, and I’m still trying to portray ideas and a message that I hope an audience will be able to recognize and hear simultaneously with it being a little experimental and inventive.”
Mihm wrote “Spiral: Downward” last summer during a two week composition program at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. One of her projects was to write music for a wind and percussion ensemble. Mihm’s piece, written for bass clarinet and marimba, was performed by professional performers.
“I ended up being OK with it,” she said of her composition. I try not to be hypercritical with my work because I’m still learning.”
Mihm describes “Spiral: Downward” as “a contemporary classical piece with jazz influences.” A little longer than 2 minutes in length, the work takes listeners on a journey, providing a sense of movement, and then ends in a somewhat contemplative fashion, a pause to consider what has just been experienced.
Mihm’s ultimate goal, “the dream” as she labels it, is to compose/score music for film, TV, and video games. Mihm plans to get plenty of high level instruction in her effort to achieve that dream, both at Vanderbilt and as a graduate student. Like her composition, she will soon take off for a journey, but based on her progress thus far, her trajectory is far more likely to be upward.