Two of Bowdoin's own nouveau composers are making their stage debut this weekend, as Nate Guttman '07 and Adam Cohen-Leadholm '07 will present their senior honors projects in composition. The show will be in Kresge Auditorium today at 7:30 p.m., complete with professional musicians.
The evening, which will feature Cohen-Leadholm's piece, "The Praying Neobaromantis: AWV-273.15," and Guttman's "Short Stories," will mark an important moment in both men's musical careers, which started years ago.
Guttman's introduction to music came at the age of four when he first picked up a violin. He learned to play using the Suzuki method, which emphasizes playing by ear and memorization rather than sight reading music. However, by 13, Guttman was tired of the violin. After his experimentation with the bass in high school failed to interest him, he thought his musical days were over.
"I had no intention of being a music major when I came to Bowdoin, but Robbie [Greenlee]'s Music Theory 1 class was so cool freshman year that I decided to take more classes and decided that it was what I liked," Guttman said. "I do composition because I'd rather not touch any instruments and just be in control."
Cohen-Leadholm started playing guitar in eighth grade, and played in his high school jazz band and a rock band with friends.
At Bowdoin, he took part in a multitude of groups, including the Brazilian Ensemble and the Jazz Band, as well as taking lessons. One has to look no further than the many concert admission bracelets which circle Cohen-Leadholm's wrist to understand his devotion to music.
Guttman and Cohen-Leadholm both took courses in tonal composition and electronic music in fall 2005, which is when Cohen-Leadholm decided he wanted to pursue an honors project. The following semester, he studied in Barcelona and the project began to take shape.
"I went to Spain looking for inspiration for my honors project and I definitely found it there...I took a music class in Spain and [the professor] forced us to go to these concerts, and we went to tons of concerts of all different styles: classical, flamenco, and more urban stuff. It opened my eyes to the whole field and gave me lots of ideas," said Cohen-Leadholm.
For Guttman, the decision was more gradual. He originally planned to do a project in philosophy, but in summer 2006, he shifted his focus to music. Since he was already planning on doing two semester-long independent studies in composition, it was an easy transition.
Poised over a piano, Guttman said, "The way I compose is really tactile. I play a few notes and then think, 'Well, where does that want to go?'"
While he spoke, his fingers carelessly trotted over the keys, creating a new melody and demonstrating his technique.
The three musicians in the show are from Portland, but they do not regularly play as a group. The string players, Myles Jordan and Lydia Forbes, both belong to the DuPont String Quartet, and the pianist, Annie Antonacles, is a faculty member at the University of Southern Maine (USM). Both composers have enjoyed hearing their music played live and working closely with the musicians to perfect the pieces.
"You write the stuff on crappy programs on laptops, and it sounds awful. But then you hear these people play it live and it just melts my face off, it sounds so good," said Cohen-Leadholm.
Despite all the face-melting, however, there have been problems during rehearsals. Sometimes the musicians had difficulty understanding the music Guttman and Cohen-Leadholm wrote.
"Basically, because we're not professional composers, there are a lot of conventions that?even if we read our orchestration book?we just wouldn't have figured out," Guttman said.
Both Guttman and Cohen-Leadholm admit to being nervous for the performance, but with all of the energy the composers bring to the show, along with the promise of an unsanctioned "meta-pop" encore, it should prove to be an entertaining evening.
Guttman summed up his goals for the performance very nicely: "I just wanna rock the house."