Kira Budge
The Paw Print
On Saturday, March 23, Composition and Music Education major Chelsea Oden, who will graduate this semester, gave her senior composition recital to an enthusiastic audience of faculty, students, friends and family. Oden, who plays clarinet along with composing music, has been a well-rounded and gifted member of the Music Department for her tenure here at ASU. She has worked as a teaching assistant, been a Drum Major for the band, and done much work on clarinet.
The performance, which began at 7pm, showcased Oden’s work as a music composer in a fun, varied, and multimedia format. The performance began with a stunning piece Oden wrote earlier in her time at ASU, “Tale of Sea and Star,” which included a variety of instrumentation, including some unique percussion, and showcased the oboe. The piece indeed had the feel of a star over the ocean. Following this, a quartet of musicians, including Oden, performed Oden’s sweet arrangement of Thomas Newman’s “Little Women” score. Then a film score part Oden composed was presented along with a scene from Titan. A.E.
After intermission, Oden’s performance moved into the full-on multimedia presentation. This began with “Silly Waltz”, both a comedic performance and a musical piece involving a large group of instrumentalists with different assigned personalities. This was followed by the culmination of the recital, a ballet written as a gift to Oden’s family, first unveiled at the composition recital. This ballet had four parts for the different members of the family, mixing together into a unique and interesting performance.
The ballet began with “Butterflies on a Walk”, a piece for a small group of instrumentalists written for Oden’s mother. This piece included the musicians onstage with a solo dancer, and followed patterns and imagery of the title, with trilling, randomized melodies and a fluid dancing movement. This was followed by “Inspiration”, for Oden’s sister Sarah, which included a number of musicians coming together in a mix of beauty, unique rhythms, and body percussion, and building up to a climax as a female dancer performed onstage. During “Inspiration”, a PowerPoint with various hand-themed drawings by Sarah Oden was presented. “Inspiration” went straight into “Dawn of Spring”, for Oden’s father, which was a beautiful piano piece with two dancers, ending in a piano cantata. The ballet concluded with “DubStepSan”, for Chelsea’s brother, Graham, where a dubstep Oden put together played on speakers as a group of dancers dressed as ninjas did a ninja-esque performance.
When asked about her experience doing the rectital, Oden stated, “…one of my favorite parts about this concert was the new venues of collaboration… I feel that the most exciting work we create as artists is collaborative.” As a whole, the performance went spectacularly. The musicians and dancers did relatively well in realizing Oden’s vision, and most importantly, Oden proved herself a versatile, unique and very gifted composer. ASU should be proud to have her as a student, and look forward to her work in the future.
What’s Been Said…