COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: STEPHEN RYAN JACKSON, "CEILING SONG"

This year, the Gruppetto Trio was selected as one of the winners of the annual New England Conservatory Honors Ensemble Competition. Their concert commemorating this will be taking place in Boston, Massachusetts on Monday, May 13th, featuring a program that includes musical selections by Haydn, Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and one world premiere - MCI composer Stephen Ryan Jackson's "Ceiling Song," written for this trio and for this event.

Read on to learn more about the inspirations that drove the composer to create his new piece for this special occasion:

Describe your inspiration for composing the piece.
My music lately has been about trying to musically recreate very distinct moments, trying to place the audience in a sort of stand still snapshot of that moment. In “Ceiling Song” I am trying to recreate that distinct sensation of blankly staring at your ceiling. Your eyes cyclically follow textures on the ceiling while your brain rushes and cycles through memories, for what seems like hours but in reality is only a few minutes. That exact feeling is what I am trying to replicate in this piece.

What is the overall conception for the piece (for example, is it programmatic or abstract? Is there a specific formal structure, color, or musical device you employed?)
I don’t think of my music as either programmatic or abstract but something sort of in-between. Ceiling Song obsessively uses motives that twist and cycle around each other, in a similar way as a textured ceiling or the many thoughts, doubts, regrets that can swirl in your head. These motives create large formal sections which then are subjected to the same twisting and interacting with one another.

What are some of the challenges you faced in writing the work?
I face the same challenge of “writers block” with literally every piece I write. I can spend weeks “conceptualizing” (more like procrastinating) on a piece before actually writing a single note. A lot of this “conceptualizing” time is spent figuring out the exact sensational content I am wanting to recreate and then the best way to musically realize that with the people I am writing for (in this case, piano trio Gruppetto Trio which I am super excited to work with!). Once I figure out these considerations, I can usually crank out the piece fairly quickly but getting to that step for me is a challenge.

Is there anything specific about your piece that you'd like your audience to look out for? What do you hope audiences will take away from hearing your work?
​I don’t really like imposing any type of listening bias on an audience or performer. I simply like to musically describe the scenario, the snap shot in which I want to place them in. Any emotional content, story or meaning that they prescribe to my music is valid because everyones experience is different. How one reacts to a scenario might not be the same as how another audience member would or even how I would and I find that to be part of the magic of art.