KJZZ: Meet the 12-year-old composer from Arizona whose work has been performed at Phoenix Symphony

When thinking of music composers, Beethoven and Mozart can come to mind, maybe even John Philip Sousa — for the brass fans out there.

A young composer from Tempe could one day have that name recognition. She is 12-year-old Yola Svoma, and the Phoenix Symphony orchestra just concluded its final performance of her work.

Dvořák, Stravinsky and Harry Potter were some of the inspirations for Yola’s first composed symphony, simply named “Symphony No. 1.” She was about 10 years old when she wrote it.

“I like the romantic era the best because the music is very dramatic and they have big themes,” Yola said.

The Phoenix Symphony has been performing a portion of “Symphony No. 1” for a while. The 11-minute piece has four movements.

Alex Amsel is the Phoenix Symphony’s associate conductor.

“So Yola is a cellist at the Metropolitan Youth Symphony, and the Phoenix Symphony and the Metropolitan Youth Symphony did a side by side last season,” Amsel said. “And a side by side is where we bring both symphonies together, literally side by side.”

He said the program was a chance for students to get a feel for playing in a professional setting. But Yola did something different.

“I printed out my symphony and went up to the conductor Alex Amsel and showed him my piece,” Yola said.

And then Amsel …

“I grabbed the stack of papers, and it said ‘Symphony No. 1’ and I was just blown away — first of all, by her ability to come up, because I was a very shy kid; I would never (have) done that,” Amsel said. “She came up and she presented this piece to me, and we sort of kept in touch and I started studying the piece because she wanted some feedback on it, and I was just blown away.”

Then, he got an idea.

“There’s a lot of programs out there for young composers to have, maybe, their pieces workshopped by professional symphonies but rarely, if ever, actually performed,” Amsel said. “So we wanted to include it in a special type of performance where it would be showcased in the best way possible.”

He worked with Valerie Bontrager, the symphony’s senior director of community engagement and education. And Yola’s piece became a part of the symphony’s performances that they offer for free to Arizona student audiences.

“So our Symphony for the School’s program is a symphony that is created for our Arizona youth,” Bontrager said. “We do open rehearsals, we do a lot of field trips, but this is created specifically in collaboration for what teachers are looking for, in order to have a symphony that are for Arizona and to meet Arizona standards.”

She says May 6 marked the eighth and final performance of “Symphony No. 1.” Yola had been at every performance, telling the audiences more about her influences.

And now, the Phoenix Symphony is looking for more kid composers like Yola.

“We’re doing this pilot program which is literally the first of its kind in the country in which musicians of this age,” Amsel said. “So it’s open to anyone up to a senior of high school to submit their compositions and have them be looked at and perhaps even be chosen to be performed in the next season.”

As for Yola, her “Symphony No. 1” won an incentive award last year from the National Federation of Music Clubs’ junior composer competition. She’s already written “Symphony No. 2,” and that just won first.

As for a third symphony, “Each instrument is a character in Harry Potter and then I kind of write out the story but in music,” Yola said.

It’s untitled for now, and a work in progress.