My first private student I received upon moving home was a composition/theory student recommended to me by my middle school orchestra director, Butch Sievers. The student, Bennett Kane, is just now finishing his final year in middle school (8th grade) and thus, being the extremely well-rounded and talented musician he his, was asked to co-write a piece for the 8th grade orchestra's end of the year concert, held last night. Although Bennett only had a little over a month to write the piece, and although I only got to teach him every other week, I did get to offer a few suggestions for the piece even though I knew he wouldn't have time to change much (being on a tight schedule). Fortunately, I think all the theory we've covered since October really came in handy here; I've taught him introductory material to everything from common practice harmony to serialism, set theory, transformation theory, and (of course) minimalism.
In the end, although the 8th grade orchestra was (after all) just an 8th grade orchestra and therefore had plenty of ensemble problems (the least of which certainly wasn't intonation), the piece came off pretty well, especially considering how many difficult rhythms Bennett included and that the ensemble had relatively little time to prepare the piece. They didn't record the piece last night, but hopefully they'll get some sort of recording in class during the remaining relatively stress free days they've got before school's out.
All in all, I'm really proud of Bennett: he's a super intelligent kid who really loves music and is willing to put the time in to make himself a truly well-rounded musician (despite wanting to become an engineer of some sort someday...). If I'm lucky, I might be able to help change his mind on that one though... =)
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