Project 21 officials plans to collaborate with other schools and universities for upcoming concerts.
The group has three concerts left: Feb. 23, March 23 and April 13 in the Medium Rehearsal Hall in Wanda L. Bass Music Center.
Project 21 is a student music composition organization led by Dr. Edward Knight, composition director, and Ryan Robinson, instrumental music assistant professor and Project 21 president. The group has about 14 members, according to their website, project21composers.com.
Simón Gómez, music composition/music theater freshman, said he hopes to perform two original works at the March concert.
“If everything goes to plan, it will be voice, cello and possibly electric guitar, and the other one is just going to be a reprise of a piece I premiered last semester but I turned into a duet,” Gómez said.
The group enables members to perform music in any way, like when a student played the guitar with a cello bow at a concert, Gómez said.
“The really cool thing about the program here at OCU is the fact that you can do literally anything with your music,” he said. “It’s important to get the opportunity to play your music, it’s really the opportunity to do whatever you want and share that.”
Project 21 members hope to do special events for each performance in future concerts, Gómez said.
“We are playing around with the idea of putting up an art piece, like a painting, and then having different composers go up and improvise based on what they feel from that painting,” he said.
The April concert will feature the work of Hannah Helbig, composition senior. Helbig attended the 2018 Great Britain/Great Plains Composers’ Exchange Competition, a composition competition in London. There will also be five other composers and six grand pianos played simultaneously.
Clint Williams, music composition graduate and Project 21 organizational liaison, said members of the organization also are interested in collaborating with other schools like Edge Hill University in Lancashire, England.
They also will host a competition where high school composers from across the country submit their work for someone to perform at the March 23 concert.
“We have a reputation for being not just a group of composers, but a group of committed composers,” Williams said. “We enjoy what we do, and it’s something that we can work with anybody on campus.”
Williams said he’s excited the group can collaborate with other schools on campus.
“I think it’s very exciting that we are in the position where we can have special concerts every semester, all throughout the semester, and I think it’s a very promising future,” he said.
Project 21 is open to any student at OCU. Students can join by contacting Knight and attending a composition forum at noon every Friday in Wimberly Recital Hall in Kirkpatrick Fine Arts Center.
Contributing: Copy Editor Chandler White
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