By Molly Taylor
THE WAVERING winds of Mount Gambier have been transformed into a memorable piece of music by a handful of Limestone Coast students.
Over recent months, The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has provided Mount Gambier, Grant and Millicent high schools and Tenison and St Martins Lutheran colleges the opportunity to work with composers Adam Page, Julian Ferraretto and Hilary Kleinig to create brand new music as part of its Silos and Symphonies composition project.
Working via online platforms, composers facilitated music writing workshops to create themes with students, building on their existing musical interests and providing an insight into writing for an orchestra.
The composers then used ideas to create pieces of music, which was recorded by the orchestra and presented to students last week.
Almost 20 Year 8, 9 and 10 Mount Gambier High School students were involved in the program, helping craft musical piece Waving Winds of Mount Gambier with composer Julian Ferraretto.
School teacher Meg Spirat said the approximately five-minute song was based around three Mount Gambier tourism attractions including the Umpherston Sinkhole, Cave Gardens and Blue Lake and Valley Lake precinct.
After dividing into three groups, woodwind, percussion and strings, Ms Spirat said students brainstormed words and sounds to describe the areas.
“We went into graphic notation, where they would draw the scapes they were trying to represent,” she said.
“We had the shape of the volcano which would go up and down, waterfalls, birds and other objects.
“The final step was to put notes and melody to those shapes. Students workshopped sounds and put them all together and decided which instruments they wanted to represent each section.”
Ms Spirat said at each stage, Mr Ferraretto would disappear behind the scenes and work his “compositional magic”.
“He was trying to interpret what the children were saying. He would go away, come back and we would develop it from there,” she said.
“The way he represented them was incredible.”
Ms Spirat said composing with an orchestra was completely new for the educational site.
“We just do not have easy access to orchestras in the South East,” she said.
“We are lucky enough to have in Mount Gambier, jazz ensembles and bands we can tap into.
“This was an incredible opportunity for our students to experience how music works in the real world; the process of composition, rehearsing and polishing the performance and then hearing their melodies and ideas come to life.”
Participant and music advanced student Amity Sheedy said the program provided the ability to learn the basics behind constructing music pieces.
“It was also beneficial as it gave more of an eye-opener of possible future careers down the pathway,” Amity said.
“With the piece of music, yes it tells us the serenity of Mount Gambier, but I feel like it shows a bit about us as students and how we work together and bond.
“I feel like our piece of music we made with Julian, tells a big story and when you listen to it you get lost in the sounds.”
Also involved, music advanced student Bella Shaughnessy said the process was enjoyable and students and staff made many laughs and jokes together.
“It tells us how many different roles it takes to make a piece of music and what it means to be in a piece of music as well,” she said.
Ms Spirat said she was proud of all involved and how well everything blended together, ending in a “wall of sound”.
