Alexea Brown
    Staff Writer

On Friday, Feb. 26, 2016 the UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance and the UNCG New Music Program presented The Faculty Composers Concert. Friends, family, students and members of the community gathered in the Recital Hall to witness the world premieres of the music that artists such as Dr. Alejandro Rutty, Dr. Greg Carroll, Dr. Mark Engebretson and Dr. Alexander Ezerman spent an unmeasurable amount of time composing, practicing and perfecting, as well as a piece that is approaching its 30th birthday by Dr. Michael Burns.

The auditorium buzzed with excitement as attendees chatted in anticipation of the upcoming show. At 7:30 p.m., the show’s host took the stage to make a few opening remarks about the concert and the faculty members whose music would be featured in it. He made it a point to inform the audience of how emotional of an experience a musical debut can be, and, jokingly, compared it to childbirth because of the length of the incubation period for the creation and eventual fruition of the masterpieces.

Each piece performed in the show brought with it a different mood, and often, a sort of drama that could be visualized by the audience. Dr. Rutty’s “Transparent Sun,” performed by Dr. Fabián López on violin and Inara Zandmane on piano sounded like a morning ballad that was almost whimsical.

Dr. Engebretson’s “Concerto for Soprano Saxophone” played by Dr. Susan Fancher on soprano saxophone and Zandmane on piano, featured three movements entitled “Groove,” “Grace” and “Burn.” The piece presented the audience with hip-hop beats and sounds that were reminiscent of popular jazz songs and call-and-response music.

Contrastingly, “Elegy,” composed by Dr. Carroll and performed by Dr. Kelly Burke on clarinet and Zandmane on piano, introduced a more serious and gloomy tone that concluded in one that suggested a sort of acceptance.

Both Dr. Burns and Dr. Ezerman took alternate routes with “Swamp Song” and “Pack,” respectively. Dr. Burns performed “Swamp Song” on bassoon, as an electronically modified tape that sounded like a mix between gurgling water and an alien-like creature played in the background. Dr. Ezerman explained that his piece entitled “Pack,” which was played by an ensemble of cellos, was meant to sound, “not like an angelic choir, but a group of wild animals — a pack of wild cellos.” The differences in the compositions made for a fun and inspirational concert and gave the audience a chance to witness musical embodiments of the composers’ personalities and passions.

Luckily, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Rutty, a professor of music composition at UNCG and the composer of “Transparent Sun” about his piece and career as a musician. His career ultimately began at the age of 14 and grew from there.

“I started composing music even before I started to play an instrument, but I found it to be quite difficult without any serious training, so I joined a band, started taking lessons and tried to put together me and my friends’ music with our band, which played some sort of instrumental prog [progressive] rock. Later I discovered Beethoven and Stravinsky and incorporated that into the mix. By the time I was applying to college, it only seemed logical that composing was the thing to do,” Rutty explained.

Now, Rutty plays piano and electric bass and is a trained conductor, and spends hours preparing himself and his pieces for public exhibition.

His composition “Transparent Sun,” which made its world premiere on at the Faculty Composers Concert, was composed for and dedicated to UNCG faculty Dr. Lopez and Inara Zandmane as a tribute to their incredible skills.

“In the future, anyone else playing this piece would owe nod to these two artists,” Dr. Rutty said.

Dr. Rutty finds his inspiration in his colleagues at UNCG’s School of Music. “Nobody is perfect, but every one of them has some sort of incredible musical dexterity and artistic vision. It is great to walk around them,” Rutty said in reference to his peers.