Academy of Music recital includes Celestial Dream
Tonight, Penticton audiences will have the opportunity to hear a winning music composition written by Nicholas Ryan Kelly.
His piece entitled “Celestial Dream,” gives a musical setting for text from Walt Whitman’s poem, “Proud Music of the Storm”. It will be performed in a recital featuring faculty members of the Penticton Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
He was inspired by the atmosphere of Whitman’s poem, which describes the awakening from a dream in which the universe is illuminated through music: “The sensation of floating between sleep and waking, the reminiscences of a dream, the sense of newness the outside world takes on… I tried to translate it into music as if I were scoring a scene in a film,” Kelly said.
Celestial Dream recently won first prize in the Grand Philharmonic Choir’s inaugural composition contest for Canadian composers in Kitchener, Ont., where it was also given its world premiere this February.
The GPC’s artistic director and conductor, Mark Vuorinen, says about Kelly: “He writes with a deep understanding of the voice and the choral medium.”
Kelly has received many accolades for his compositions. Since 2015, both his choral and wind ensemble compositions have been recognized by winning numerous national and international awards. The Penticton resident has won a total of five first prize awards over the past year and a half, including the international Edwin Fissinger Choral Composition Prize.
Kelly studied music composition at Ithaca College in New York and the University of British Columbia. He felt lucky that he had a high school band teacher who, aside from the standard fare, exposed his students to classical music, which broadened the potential of music for him. He is drawn to the power of music to tell stories through film soundtracks and symphonic poems.
He moved to the Okanagan Valley with his wife, Christine Robinson (who played Lily in Soundstage’s recent production of The Secret Garden). He teaches music theory and composition at the Penticton Academy and conducts the Tuneagers orchestra and choir. He says he is “happy to be in a quiet place” where he can spend time to compose.
Singer-songwriter Tavis Weir, who comes from a jazz background, signed up for some classes with Kelly.Whereas jazz theory is required to enable one to improvise, classical music theory as taught by Kelly helped Weir understand how harmonies and key changes (in the music) can be used to ‘paint’ emotions, how a song’s composition can affect a listener psychologically.
“His (Kelly’s) ’sounds’ are very exciting because it is new emotional territory and I’d like to be able to put them into my songs,” Weir said.
A new arrangement of the piece will be performed by Mia Harris (voice), Misty Knol (flute), Olivia Walsh (cello) and Evelyn Krieger (piano).
“His music is satisfying to sing because the harmonic progressions and rhythmic gestures clearly describe the emotion put forward by Whitman’s poetry,” Harris said.
The Penticton Academy Faculty recital will be held tonight at 7:30 p.m. at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church. Tickets are $20 and available from Tumbleweed Gallery at 452 Main Street and The Dragon’s Den on Front Street. Tickets will also be available at the door.