Photo Credit: KEVIN CLIFFORD

Truro School Sixth Form student Ben is currently writing his own full-scale musical work for piano and orchestra. It is due to be performed with the school’s Symphony Orchestra in March.

An organist as well as accomplished piano player, Ben won the school’s Performer of the Year Award last year. He was rewarded with the opportunity to perform a piano concerto of his choice in a big concert, and decided he would write his own.

“I am really enjoying it,” he said,” but it is hard work and mostly a slow process. When I have my first ideas it’s quite quick then things can be very slow. I am more used to improvisation than formal composition – this is new territory for me!”

The piece will probably last about 25 minutes – about 20 of which have been completed. Asked if he has been strongly influenced by any particular composer, he said “Some people will probably say that the first movement sounds quite like Rachmaninov, but I feel I am influenced by lots of types of music. I have included quite a lot of modern jazz harmonies as I am an admirer of Miles Davies.”

Director of Music at Truro School, Martin Palmer, will conduct the first performance at Carn Brea Leisure Centre on March 27th, in a concert that will also include the big choral work, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. He commented: “ Ben has treated us to many performances of classical repertoire and more recently, full-scale jazz improvisations. He is also a fine arranger. For the first time Ben will be putting all these skills together to produce a brand new piano concerto. This is a very exciting project for us all and we look forward to trying out the new work in the next few weeks here in school, and giving the world premiere performance in March.”

February 2010