April 16, 2025
By Jill Ryan
The Phoenix Symphony is giving students from first to 12th grade a free opportunity to submit their music compositions, work with some professionals and possibly have their pieces performed by the orchestra next season.
The associate conductor is in meetings with 15 young composers this week.
This is the first year the Phoenix Symphony is formally doing the Student Composition Project. It was inspired by its pilot last year that came together unexpectedly.
Associate Conductor Alex Amsel says chosen composers will work with him and other symphony professionals over the summer.
“Some of the pieces will be performed in our field trips, some of the pieces will be performed in our chamber series so it’s not an algorithm of who gets to win who gets to perform, we’re just trying to find the best fit,” Amsel said.
He says a Metropolitan Youth Symphony member Yola Svoma inspired the program. She asked, unprompted, for feedback on something she wrote.
“So there was this 10-year-old at the time, maybe 11 that had written a full symphony for a full symphony orchestra,” Amsel said.
Now it has now been played nearly 10 times.
Applications for this year’s project are due by June 1.
