Teens trickle into the classroom. Everything is pretty casual. Everyone seems to know one another and there’s energy in the air. Soon, the voices morph into a tuning cacophony of instruments. Everyone knows what they are doing and that they belong here.
This is not a typical classroom filled with books, shelves and posters. Music stands populate the room.
“How do you feel? Any immediate thoughts? Feedback? I’m also curious how you felt about the tremolo at 36,” asks Tanner Porter.
She speaks from the conductor’s place among chairs arranged around a stand in a semi-circle.
That conductor, Porter, a part of the Louisville Orchestra’s Creator Corps, has open and direct communication with the Waggener High School orchestra students and the Louisville Orchestra musicians working with them on their piece called “Forest Dawn.”
During this March rehearsal, they analyze their three rehearsals. Then they play. Together. The music is melodious and dynamic. It is a shared contract of people with similar and different interests bonding over art, over music.
This is a glimpse into a special aspect of the Louisville Orchestra’s Creator Corps program. The program that began in 2022 chooses three people from nationwide calls. The three chosen composers live in Louisville’s Shelby Park neighborhood and work full-time for the orchestra for a season. Every Creator Corps composer also creates and implements their own project.
Porter is now part of a tradition of Corps composers working with youth. The first was Tyler Taylor, an inaugural Creator Corps group member. He launched a program for young composers.
Porter, a composer, performer and songwriter, describes her music as theatrical, and emotional and as having lush chords and big, hefty melodies.
“I love melody. I think it’s a great way to tell a story,” she said.
Porter stresses artistic collaboration. She believes having “an artistic vision that you can express in multiple ways” can become incredible with “kind collaborators who are willing to help you execute that vision.” She also likes how music can be a backdrop for many different mediums, such as film, animation and theater.
At Waggener, the new composition sounded vibrant and infectious. It was clearly made with talent, passion and collaboration.
“Forest Dawn” is a composition composed by Porter and these orchestra students, who earned a top award at the Kentucky Music Educators Association’s annual conference in February for their performance there. The performance was part of a annual competition the association holds where middle and high school bands and orchestras from across Kentucky participate in a musical extravaganza.
Students Sophie Popham, Jeremy Doe and Ronald Washington were part of that and last February they got to perform with the Louisville Orchestra in Porter’s piece called “Canyons.” The orchestra will perform the piece on its Harmony Tour this month in Murray, Hopkinsville and Henderson.
Sophie, a Waggener senior who plays viola, briefly explored composition in middle school. But she hadn’t had many opportunities to learn more.
“Composition really isn’t taught much in orchestra. It’s not really an accessible subject to learn, and there aren’t many music educators available to teach it,” she said. “But I feel like I’ve learned a lot with actual production and what goes into composing.”
Sophie said she appreciated working with Porter and with contemporary composition.
“It’s really interesting to see how music has evolved, like ‘Canyons,’” she said. “This piece that she’s composing for us, compared to what we’re used to with Beethoven, it’s inspiring to see the creative liberties she takes and how we have a say in it.”
Ronald, a sophomore at Waggener, also got to work with Porter on “Canyons” and composing “Forest Dawn.”
“Right now I feel like I have a strong connection to Miss Tanner,” Ronald said. “I’m really excited that I get to do this piece, another piece with her, which is just for our school.”
On May 9, Waggener High School’s orchestra performed “Forest Dawn” for the school. By then, Porter had been unexpectedly cast in the Tony Award-nominated Broadway play “Illinoise,” with plans to release her own album, “One Was Gleaming,” slated for July. But she made the trip back to Louisville to be a part of the event.
Meanwhile, a member of the Creator Corps group, composer Taylor, continues the project he started. This Louisville native and duPont Manual High School alumni worked with JCPS schools during the 2022-23 season helping students compose pieces for the Kentucky Music Educators Association conference.
During that time, Taylor noticed how eager the JCPS students were to learn.
“I was really, really surprised by the creativity, especially by the younger students, the elementary schoolers and the middle schoolers,” he said. “It’s always a really inspiring moment when you see the creativity and the talent that these students have, as long as there’s someone there to validate and foster that.”
As part of the Creator Corps, Taylor created the Louisville Orchestra Young Composer Program, which he continues to run. The program works with students to help them compose pieces for a spring concert. During its first year,19 students from 11 schools participated in the program. Last year, 28 youths from 13 schools took part.
“There wasn’t anything in the school systems when I was a student that addressed the teaching of composition,” Taylor remembered.
Today, a few American orchestras have similar programs. Among them are the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony. These programs, he said, don’t just benefit youth, but also the composers who work with them.
“I just felt very lucky that I was welcomed into these classrooms to work with the students and work on a piece together,” Porter said, reflecting on working with students while in the Creator Corps. “Everyone was so gracious and so kind, and the teachers were so wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful experience.”
”It’s our biggest flex. It’s really cool,” Waggener senior Sophie said of her experience. “It’s been a really good learning experience for everyone.”
This coming season, three new composers, including Brittany J. Green, make up the orchestra’s Creator Corps program. Green wants to work with the Louisville Orchestra Rap School (Hip Hop Into Learning) to create an original piece and the Louisville Folk School to create an original children’s story set to music.
She said one of her favorite parts of being a composer is telling stories with music that draws from many musical inspirations, including impressionism, minimalism, experimentalism, gospel and R&B.
“I like to think of the piece as one, cohesive project and each element — the sound, the visuals, the text — as different but equal voices in the piece,” she said.
Green’s plans signal the orchestra’s dedication to welcoming newcomers to the world of composition and validating and fostering creativity among young people.
