FIRST YEAR'S
CREATIVE
PROJECT
2019
Russia - Bali - Cuba
YST Conservatory National University of Singapore
Introduction
Every year the new batch of first year students of YST conservatory start with a creative project before the beginning of the first semester. This project comes traditionally at the end of the freshman orientation weeks organized by the National University of Singapore (NUS). Our music students would meet for the first time with their instruments and create music together.
Since YST studies are all in the in the classical domain: orchestral instruments, piano, voice, composition and sound registration, the student group is quite homogenous. Most of these students have neither experience in making their own music, nor experience in improvisation. Since it is part of the identity of YST to emphasize and develop the creative agency of its students, this project is a strong first impulse and signal to set this development in motion.
The 2019 creative project
At the beginning of August 2019 56 freshmen students of YST came together for their creative project. Spending 2,5 days playing and planning together they created a piece which was performed in the opening concert of the school year on August 14th. The piece was later re-created and performed for a multitude of cameras. The resulting video will be shared on this presentation page.
The guidance and coaching of the process was done by myself and my colleague Ty Constant. Ty is a percussionist specialized in ethnic percussion of various styles. He also brought a large collection of percussion instruments which were picked up by some of the students who do not play a traditional orchestral instrument. We had various spaces available: the Orchestral Hall functioned as a central
space where work with the full group could be done, while a few large studios were used for breakout sessions. In principle students play their main instruments, but this is not obligatory; some students played multiple instruments or preferred playing a percussive instrument instead of their main instrument. After developing materials and structuring them the students came up with a title for the piece: "Russia, Bali, Cuba". A further analysis and description of the creation processes will be given in the BACKSTAGE section (see link).
Full performance of Russia - Bali - Cuba, recorded after the opening concert performance (August 2019)
>> BACKSTAGE