Young Composers

Composer Alma Deutscher, born 2005 Inspiring! This young composer creates a piece of music based on three notes pulled form a hat . Use this idea — words rather than notes — as a model for a writing project. British Composer, Alma Deutscher, (born 2005) is always, relaxed — charming. A child who puts other children at ease.  This video from January, 2014, when Alma was eight, is many things, including, the perfect introduction to composing. The interviewer, often talking in Hebrew (this is from Israeli television), asks Alma to pull three notes from a hat and then improvise a piece based on those notes. The interviewer then talks with her about improvisation. It would be easy to construct a writing exercise inspired by this musical improvisation project. Write words on a card, put in a hat, and pick three (or if you are a teacher hand out the randomly chosen words to your class). Alma talk about harmony and some other features of her improvisation that are unique to music. But analogues for harmony can be found in the idea of themes, or sub-plots, that might interact with the words chosen in the drawing. After the improvisation Alma then plays a fun fast an furious piece inspired by a bees and appropriately called, “Bee,” written by a little known composer François Schubert (1808-1878). The interview ends with Alma playing for the first time the first part of her Piano Sonata No. 1 — a piece for piano and violin that I find unusually beautiful. More information: Alma Deutscher at the Wikipedia. Alma at YouTube. Alma Deutcher’s website. Please support her work by purchasing her album or downloading the music from iTunes. Search on Alma Deutscher.