True stories of the multitalented

[Diamond18]

Came across this in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, thought some BD'ers might find it interesting:

Love of music, fiction create symphony

In case the link stops working: (there's a color picture of the subject there, though, if you're interested in seeing that)

By ELYSE UNDERHILL
as told to Elaine Schmidt

Elyse Underhill, 16, is home-schooled in Elm Grove [Wisconsin]. She has played the cello since age 5 and the piano for nearly that long. She hopes to become a composer of film scores.

When I was 6, my dad read "The Lord of the Rings" to me for the first time. I read it several more times on my own, and then when I was 14, I started writing a symphony based on the book.

The Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra Senior Symphony played one of the five movements from it in Uihlein Hall in April, which gave me a chance to hear some of the symphony in a hall with good acoustics.

People ask if I saw the movie before I wrote the symphony, and the answer is no. I wrote the whole thing before I knew there was a movie.

The symphony took about a year to finish. It's lucky I had no idea what I was getting into when I started, or I might not have kept going.

I wanted the music to be about the story. I would sit with the book in front of me, open to the part I was writing, as I worked. A lot of the music is very literal - if something happens in the book, you hear it in the score.

When I started, I was basically drawing on what I had heard other composers do. I play the cello, so I had a pretty good idea of what the strings could do. I would listen to different composers and think, this is what the flutes can do, or this is what the brass can do.

My dad had an orchestration book that had the ranges of all the different instruments and that helped me. I play in the MYSO Senior Symphony. On rehearsal breaks, I would ask people in the wind and brass sections what their instrument can do.

I think the hardest thing was dealing with the harp. It is a pretty complicated instrument to write for. You have to understand the mechanics of how the pedals work so you know what notes you can and cannot put together.

This is the first orchestral piece I have written, but I also like to write pop songs. I started a string quartet when I was 10 or 11, but I never finished that.

I have really been improvising as long as I have been studying music. When I was little, I took Suzuki cello. My dad would practice with me, which is the way Suzuki works. When we would finish practicing he would tell me to play a made-up song. As time went on, those songs got more and more interesting.

I love writing fiction and I love music, so putting the two together was just a dream. Now I am working on a ballet, and I have also started a symphonic suite based on "The
Song of the Lioness" by Tamora Pierce.

From the June 15, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

With a name like "Underhill", I guess she was destined to become a Tolkien fan of notoriety, eh? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]