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Meet our 2012 Finalists
The Georgia Young Composers Festival has assembled a very talented group of students from across the state of Georgia. Click on their photos below to read more about them.
To read more about the concert, visit our Performances page.
Undergraduate Division Finalists
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Jared Hettrick Toccoa Falls College Toccoa |
Kent Kercher University of Georgia Athens |
Grant Koenning University of Georgia Athens |
Andrea Love Agnes Scott College Decatur |
Jared Hettrick, Toccoa Falls College
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Jared Hettrick is a senior attending Toccoa Falls College in Toccoa, GA.
He will graduate this coming May with a BM in Music Performance and an emphasis
in voice. He began his formal training in music at age 11 when he studied bassoon
with Katie Bierman at the University of Georgia. He began vocal training at the
age of 16 with Marcia Little. Jared currently studies under David Jones at Toccoa
Falls College. He recently completed his senior performance recital which featured
works such as “Largo al factotum” from Il barbiere di Siviglia, “Avant de quitter
ces lieux” from Faust, “Denn es gehet dem Menschen” from Vier ernste Gesänge,
“Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera, et al. This fall, he will attend
the Longy School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts to study with Dr. Paul Brust
and pursue a Master’s degree in Music Composition. Jared will spend part of this
summer in Salzburg, Austria playing the role of Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro with
the Franco-American Vocal Academy. In addition to enjoying music, Jared has acted in theatre productions since high school. He has acted in several productions including South Pacific (The Professor), The Man Who Came To Dinner (Beverly Carlton), You Can’t Take it With You (Paul Sycamore), Hands of the Spirit (Paul), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Peter Quince). In his time at Toccoa Falls College, Jared has been an active member of the TFC Theatrical Society having directed two shows (Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and JM Barrie’s Peter Pan and Wendy), and currently serves as the director of dramatic development. As a vocalist and bassoonist, Jared has performed with many ensembles including the Toccoa Falls College Choir and Jazz Band, Toccoa Symphony Orchestra, Athens Youth Symphony and the Toccoa Falls College String Orchestra. As a composer, Jared’s works have been chosen by numerous ensembles to be performed. The Toccoa Falls College Choir recently performed his setting of “Psalm 3” for SATB choir and piano on their spring tour in Tennessee, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle. This May the Toccoa Symphony Orchestra will debut his newest instrumental work, the “Israel Suite”. Written for solo Bb clarinet, harp, and strings, this new work captures the heart of the country through five movements that represent varying locales and landscapes of the region. |
Kent Kercher, University of Georgia
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Kent Kercher is a fourth-year Music Composition and Music Business major
and a Charter Scholar at the University of Georgia. He has been composing music
since the 6th grade. While in high school, Kent discovered his passion for
arranging music of various genres for solo instruments, small ensembles and
full wind bands. He was a frequent participant in honors bands including the
Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony, the District XIII Honor Band, the Georgia All State
band, and UGA’s JanFest. He graduated from Duluth High School in 2008 as a
recipient of both the John Philip Sousa and Louis Armstrong awards for outstanding
musicianship in instrumental and jazz ensembles. As a clarinetist studying under Taylor Massey and Dr. D. Ray McClellan, Kent has been the Clarinet Section Leader of the UGA Redcoat Marching Band, has performed in all of the major concert bands at UGA, and has been a member of the Georgia All-College Band. In his years of studying composition under Drs. Adrian Childs and Roger Vogel, Kent’s notable compositions have included several small pieces for solo piano; a piece for trombone and piano entitled A Night at Sea; an art song, Enter This Deserted House, based on the Shel Silverstein poem of the same name; New World Dances, a three-movement work for saxophone quartet; and several hymns that are currently used in worship services. His major compositional influences include Aaron Copland, Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, Percy Grainger, Robert Russell Bennett, and even pop artists such as Paul McCartney, Pete Townsend, and Sting. His career goal is to work in a recording studio, whether in front of or behind the microphone, while continuing to compose. Kent’s first major a cappella choral composition, Magnificat, combines his love for music with his respect for the Latin scriptural text. With harmonies and voice leadings that seem just as likely to come from the Renaissance as from Contemporary styles, he has attempted to convey the timelessness of Mary’s song of joy from the Gospel of Luke 1:46-55. |
Grant Koenning, University of Georgia
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I was born in Marietta and I’ve spent the majority of my life there.
I am currently a freshman enrolled at the University of Georgia as a music
major with intentions of being a composition major. I started playing the
saxophone when I was in sixth grade. It was nothing special to me back then
but the longer I played it the more I fell in with music. My interest in
composition came from when my friends and I made movies together. I would
watch a scene or remember a scene that we shot and I would just mess around
on my keyboard to find music that I felt would match that scene. Even
though they were simple melodies with small accompaniment parts, they added,
I felt, a lot to our movies. For me it was a lot of fun and gave me practice
for writing for movies, which is my ultimate goal in life. Then in my sophomore year of high school I listened to Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber. After hearing it I knew that I wanted to be able to write music that was as beautiful as Adagio for Strings. I got the free downloadable version of Finale and started messing around. I was able to write more intricate pieces of music. Then in my senior year I took a theory class that my high school offered. This opened up many new doors to my compositions. I was now better at taking the melodies in my head and putting them down on paper. Once I got to the University of Georgia even more doors opened up. There are other people who wanted to do composition that I could talk to and share ideas with. There were composition majors that I could ask for help from. There were the full versions of Finale and Sibelius allowing me to write for any instrument in any key and time signature. I am taking theory and aural skills classes that improve my ability to write out what is in my head. I know that as I progress through my college career I can only improve my compositions. As for Awaken, this piece was taken from an upbeat piano song I had been working on. I slowed it down and the main theme from Awaken was born. After that I just let the music take me on a journey. The words soon followed. I feel that you don’t make music go where you want it to but, instead music takes you where it wants to go. |
Andrea Love, Agnes Scott College
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Andrea J. Love will graduate from Agnes Scott College in May with a B.A.
in Music and a minor in political science. Next year she is thrilled to be starting
her M.F.A. in Acting at the University of Alabama, with a full tuition waver and
teaching assistantship. She is the recipient of the Agnes Scott Presidential
Scholarship, as well as being a National Merit Scholar, a two-time recipient
of The Meroney Prize in Humanities, and a recent member of Phi Beta Kappa. In
Fall 2011 she spent a semester abroad in Milan, Italy studying voice with
Patrizia Zanardi and composition with Roberto Andreoni. She was a finalist
in the Agnes Scott Writers’ Festival in 2009 for nonfiction, and in 2011 for
songwriting. In 2007, she was selected as outstanding soprano vocalist at the
Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho. She has twice sung in Atlanta Camerata’s Christmas production, a 12th-Century music-drama entitled The Play of Herod at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church and Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery in Conyers, GA. During her time on campus, she has been an active participant in Agnes Scott Blackfriars, the oldest producing theatre group in Atlanta, and for the past three years has been the recipient of the company’s singular acting award, judged by outside theatre professionals. She has sung with the Agnes Scott Collegiate Chorale and ensemble Sotto Voce for seven semesters, as well as privately studying voice with Dawn-Marie James. She is also the Scholarship Chair, Programs Chair, and Chair of Fraternity Education for Sigma Alpha Iota, a music fraternity for women. In Spring 2011 she won the SAI Atlanta Alumni Chapter Scholarship for performance. A native of Seattle, Washington, she was a member of the Northwest Girlchoir for ten years, and traveled with the group to Japan, Newfoundland, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, and Australia. In Seattle she studied piano with Cindy Hughen for 10+ years, and voice with Beth Ann Bonnecroy and Nancy Zylstra. The past few breaks have been spent doing theatre in Seattle; roles include Viola/Sebastian in Twelfth Night with Young Shakespeare Workshop, and Nancy in Oliver! with Twelfth Night Productions. |
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Georgia Young Composers Festival |
gycf@DekalbChoralGuild.org |
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