Music major's composition wins Young Composer Competition
Music major and 2009 graduate Heather Stebbins’ cello composition, “rush me to the shadows” was recently selected as the winning composition of the University of Louisville Young Composer Competition for New Electroacoustic Music.
Stebbins composed the piece during the summer of 2007, with the support of a School of Arts & Sciences summer research fellowship. She planned to compose a piece that she could submit to Richmond’s 2007 Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival but also wanted to create a composition that she herself could play.
Stebbins, who has played the cello since she was six years old, was inspired by the work of contemporary solo cello composer Kaija Saariaho and set out to compose a piece that combined cello and electronic sound and explored Saariaho’s techniques.
“I did a little composing when I was in high school but nothing major, and I never took formal lessons,” said Stebbins. “When I was applying to college, I knew I wanted to go to a school that had a good composition program but was not a music conservatory, so I picked UR. I started composing during my freshman year and really loved it, so I continued taking lessons.”
Her piece, “rush me to the shadows,” was programmed and well received at the Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival, and as a result, Stebbins entered it in the University of Louisville Young Composer Competition for New Electroacoustic Music. In addition to winning a cash award of $1,500, Stebbins will perform her composition at a special electroacoustic concert at the University of Louisville in November.
During her four years at Richmond, Stebbins was a mainstay in the University Orchestra and String Quartet. In addition to “rush me to the shadows,” she wrote five other compositions including “Confessions, Reactions,” which was awarded a prize by the International Alliance for Women in Music and “Child of Grass,” which was premiered by the Schola Cantorum in the fall of 2008.
This coming year, Stebbins will work for the University of Richmond in the music technology lab. She plans to take the year to apply to graduate programs, where she intends to study music composition.
“If everything goes as planned, music will certainly be a big part of my life!”