“Winner of the 8th Annual Sigma Alpha Iota Composition Competition.

For the Composition Competition, we were given five days to write a piece for either, a woodwind quintet, a brass quintet, or a string quartet. And we were then given a “secret ingredient” that we had to incorporate into our piece. The secret ingredient was “fairy tale.” I really tried to push my self to go for something other than overly cheery princess music. I eventually landed on accounting the battle between Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

The piece begins with Peter Pan taking the kids to Neverland, I used a lot of the musical language of classic Disney movies to invoke that magical feeling. Then, for Captain Hook’s section, I hearkened back to sea shanties; particularly “What do You do With a Drunken Sailor.” These two ideas were then thrown together and eventually reaches this massive fight; where Peter Pan rises to the top.”