By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
When Leah Tracy was looking for a place to study music composition, what she found at Bowling Green State University stood out.
The chances have her music performed were extensive.
And in the past four years Tracy has made the most of those opportunities as a composer and as a singer. That was true right up until her last week on campus.
With the Collegiate Chorale’s last concert of the semester behind them, the director Richard Schnipke gave over rehearsal time to Tracy and the four other composers who were sang in the choir, so they could hear pieces they’d written.
That included Tracy’s “sing to us, cedars.”
The piece is serving as a career bridge for Tracy, who graduated with a Bachelor of Music in music composition in May.
This spring, Tracy was one of four winner’s in Chicago a cappella’s inaugural “HerVoice” competition for emerging women composers. A partnership with the Kansas City Chorale, the competition attracted works from 69 composers from 13 countries and 22 U.S. states.
“Sing to us, cedars” will be workshopped and performed by the Kansas City Chorale. Tracy will also be mentored by the composer Chen Yi.
The piece is a choral setting of the Canadian poet E. Pauline Johnson’s poem “The Birds’ Lullaby.”
“The piece was sort of my musical response to the year of 2020,” Tracy said. She did not lose anyone to COVID-19, so “I did not feel comfortable doing a memorial piece per se.” Still, she said, “obviously it had an impact on my daily life and my emotional health.”
In the early months of the pandemic, she would go to walk in Wintergarden Park several times a week with a friend.
Tracy strives to capture that experience of being absorbed in nature in “sing to us, cedars. “When things are tough, the world of nature can bring us comfort and bring us through.”
Tracy, who graduated from Riverdale Public Schools in Mount Blanchard, said she was inspired to compose after participating in a regional honors choir where composer Mark Patterson was the clinician. The Ohio Music Education Association had commissioned Patterson to write a new piece for the choir.
“I was just so fascinated by the process of him talking through his composition,” Tracy said.
A high school junior, she had done some arranging for her show choir and band, but had never composed. It was a “late start,” she said.
That regional choir experience was her first time singing contemporary music, and it was “the nudge” she needed to get her to start composing. This was something, she decided, that could be important in her life.
She was already considering majoring in music education, but now she was applying as a composition major.
She considered double majoring in composition and music education, but decided teaching in a public school was not the path for her. She decided she’d rather work in a community settings.
BGSU “definitely had the strongest composition program,” she said. And it offered the most opportunities to have her music heard.
And there was the pull from home. “I have two little sisters,” Tracy said, and being close enough to visit often as they went through elementary school was appealing.
She was also assured that as a composition major she would still have the opportunity to sing in the top choirs on campus. Everything was strictly by audition.
Tracy, who studied with Myra Merritt-Grant, sang in the A Cappella Chorus in her first year, and then in the Collegiate Chorale for the final three. She and pianist Steven Naylor placed second in the Conrad Art Song Competition in March.
But mostly it was the many opportunities to hear her work and the work of her fellow composers that brought her to BGSU. That includes regular composer forum concerts, and performances by Praecepta, the student new music organization, not to mention the annual New Music Festival.
Tracy was asked by Emily Pence Brown and members of the Women’s Chorus to compose an official anthem for the ensemble. The result was “Remember, Woman” based on a poem by contemporary poet Reese Layva.
For her senior recital, Tracy wanted to put together a choir to perform, but that wasn’t possible given pandemic restrictions. A live recital was out of the question.
The recital featured recorded performances of art songs, “I knew not but the next,” which she sings with a virtual ensemble, and two pieces for virtual choirs, including a version of “Remember, Woman.
Being virtual made it difficult, but it also gave her experience working with audio and video technology.
One of the solo instrumental pieces, “fo[rest]land” for double bass, appears on Christopher Jeffer’s recently released recording “Cat’s Cradle.”
This is the kind of collaboration that makes BGSU special. “Everyone is so willing to play each other’s music. People are so willing to ask for new music to be written for them to play,” Tracy said. “I feel like we have a lot of people who have a specific interest in new music.”
And it extends to a network of alumni. She’s in contact with BGSU graduates now out leading their own choirs. They hope to perform compositions by their fellow Falcons.
For now, Tracy is taking a break from school. She’s hoping to find work with a church or community choir, to gain more experience conducting. Eventually she plans to go to graduate school.
For now, there’s composing to be done. “I’m kind of excited to have free time to actually get some projects done and build up my portfolio and be able to present the music I want to present,” Tracy said. “ I’ve had ideas and lots of fun projects that I’ve wanted to do, but school’s so busy.”
