Composition, creative risk-taking, success

Researcher: Sarah Marze

How does a composer operate when faced with the void of the blank page? Like many others, I self-impose limitations, which inevitably inspires some form of creative path around those limitations. However, an equally challenging situation arises when the page is already filled with a considerable amount of ink.

Composing for amateur and educational choral ensembles naturally presents a number of challenges and limitations, such as varied ability levels, fluctuating attendance, degrees of familiarity with new music and programmatic constraints. While these limitations can seem frustrating at first, they allow the composer opportunities to be creative or inventive in new ways.

Amateur and educational choirs are capable of great musical excellence and powerful, committed performances when presented with the right materials. This project is an exploration of my collaborations with choirs across the UK and US, exploring the balancing act of creative risk-taking while properly gauging feasibility within amateur and educational ensembles.

I will augment my practical findings by interviewing participating choral conductors and choral singers, as well as by documenting my own experiences as a singer within the choirs. Through my research, I seek to offer my findings and inspirations for other composers interested in writing for these applications.

Image: stock photo from Unsplash by David Beale