As the wildly successful RPM Challenge proved, the Seacoast is brimming with musical talent. From jazz and blues to rock and rap, we’ve got it all.

So where’s the classical?

On Friday, April 28, it was at the Paul Creative Arts Center at the University of New Hampshire, as compositions by seven students were performed by college musicians to a crowd of somewhere over 70 people. The UNH Student Composers Concert was part of the University’s Undergraduate Research Conference, a yearly event in which select students present the results of their studies through talks, displays and performances.

As the wildly successful RPM Challenge proved, the Seacoast is brimming with musical talent. From jazz and blues to rock and rap, we’ve got it all.

So where’s the classical?

On Friday, April 28, it was at the Paul Creative Arts Center at the University of New Hampshire, as compositions by seven students were performed by college musicians to a crowd of somewhere over 70 people. The UNH Student Composers Concert was part of the University’s Undergraduate Research Conference, a yearly event in which select students present the results of their studies through talks, displays and performances.

The music was a mix of traditional and avant-garde styles, thus catering to both the discriminating and the pretentious. While some of the pieces were outstanding student works, others, as is typical of collegiate art, gave the impression that the composers were so preoccupied by making their work “academically interesting” that they forgot to make it good.

The exhibition started well with “Six Variations for String Quartet,” composed by undergraduate music major Dan Noronha. The piece had a late-Baroque feel that was sometimes reminiscent of Vivaldi in his more introspective moods. It would make good movie music, appropriate at different times for wealthy dinner scenes at very long tables or a bloody and slow-motion massacre.

The second piece, “Woodwind Quintet,” composed by undergraduate music performance major Joel Biedrzycki, was a very rhythm-oriented piece, sometimes almost a march, though a poppy and chaotic one. Despite the occasional lack of resolution, reinforced by too many sudden and unannounced changes in the rhythm, the parts managed to flow together well, creating a mood that was at once exuberant and somehow ominous.

The exhibition, which had begun reasonably well, took a cliff-leap with undergraduate music education major Scott Thibodeau’s “Solo for Unaccompanied Clarinet.” I’d like to give Thibodeau the benefit of the doubt and assume that the distracting squeaks from the clarinet were the product of a technical malfunction. Had it been any other composition, I might have been able to do so. Unfortunately, the tones were not out of place, serving to jerk the listener out of the unavoidable lull caused by the slow and aimless meanderings of the clarinet. The basic and irreplaceable virtue of a solo piece is melody, and unfortunately this composition lacked it entirely.

The next piece, “Quintet for Winds” by graduate music education student Tom Bourgault, was different but only a bit more listenable. The opening, which consisted of all five performers nearly (but not quite) making notes, actually produced laughter from much of the crowd. I think and hope that the “just off” rhythms and almost-melodies of this piece were intended to be funny, though thanks to the work of John Cage and company, it’s no longer a safe bet. In any case, P.D.Q. Bach has been doing this sort of reflexive musical irony for many years and doing it better.

The fifth and sixth pieces were improvements over recent fare. “‘Til That Day Comes,” a very noir composition by undergraduate music education major Nate Therrien, performed by clarinet, vibraphone and bass, was characterized by generally slow development, except for one section of almost frantic action by the clarinet. The bass, which was at various times plucked and bowed, competently provided the piece’s mood. Overall, it was not a gripping composition, but it was pleasant and easy to listen to.
The piece that followed, “String Quartet” by graduate music education student Tim Miles, was quite the opposite: interesting, but, at least on a first hearing, not particularly pleasant. Easily the most complex piece of the night, it demanded to be listened to again—like a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, it sounded frenzied and untidy, but there was an order in the depths. The piece produced a definite tension in the room. When the players started plucking out notes quickly, tossing a melody around to one another like a hot potato, even the people who had been whispering behind me through the whole performance went silent. I’m not sure that I liked this piece, but it was clear that there is a great deal of talent here—the composition was careful and intricate, unquestionably resulting in the most substantial piece of the evening.

Given the success of “String Quartet,” I would love to be able to praise the last piece of the night, “Music for Clarinet & Percussion,” also by Tim Miles. Unfortunately, the parts were so unintegrated that the players almost seemed oblivious to one another. The clarinet work was dull, though it might have been less so had I not been utterly flummoxed by the percussion, which alternated between a few melodic hits on the vibraphone or another of the instruments set up for the percussionist and one very distracting drum roll after another. I was very surprised to discover this was from the same composer who created “String Quartet.” Like too many of the night’s compositions, it was dry and scholarly at best, coming across less as art and more as an assignment. Perhaps that sort of work is valuable as practice, but if there was a lesson of the night, it was this—and I say this as a listener who would love to hear more great music—a piece may look good on paper, but unless it exudes the distinctive passion that turns music into art, there’s no need to play it in public.