ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Tewolde wrote the piece, “Waves on the Shore� as part of Mizzou’s New Music Initiative. Students in Mizzou’s composition program apply to get the chance to hear their pieces played by SLSO musicians.

“This is my first time working with musicians from a symphony orchestra,� Tewolde says. “The musicians are really high caliber, so it’s very exciting.�

The orchestra includes the piece as part of its Live at the Sheldon concert series. The theme for the April 24 concert is wind and water, and all of the pieces performed draw on that fluidity.

“The water motif is a character in the piece,� Tewolde says of his composition. “Meaning it describes a certain phenomena: waves crashing on the shore. It’s very high energy.�

Tewolde says he’s written about 10 compositions before this, and even had them played on campus by Mizzou’s New Music Ensemble. In fact, he submitted a piece he wrote for that ensemble in his application for the New Music Initiative.

“I needed to give the New Music Initiative materials so they could go to the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra and say, ‘OK, here are different composition students, and here are their different kinds of work. Who do you want to work with?’â€� Tewolde says.

His application piece combined jazz with lyrical writing and some experimental “anxious� sounds, Tewolde says.

As a musician, Tewolde straddles the classical and jazz worlds. He first came to music through classical piano, which he started in second grade. In seventh grade, he started playing the saxophone as well. He attended Rock Bridge High School in Columbia, Missouri, where he’s from.

“I play classical piano at school, and I’m in a jazz ensemble for saxophone as well,� Tewolde says. “So my music kind of fits between those two realms.�

Tewolde found out that he’d be contributing a piece to the SLSO concert series last fall and started working on it in a composition class he was taking with Selim Göncü, a postdoctoral fellow in music composition at Mizzou. Despite already having compositions written, everyone in the New Music Initiative writes a new piece. Tewolde says it took four months to write.

For his composition, he drew on the jazz-pop idiom. “The first section of the piece is similar to a jazz ballad like ‘There Will Never Be Another You,’� Tewolde says.

He brought in the classical aspect when he was thinking of his orchestration. He was instructed to write the piece for a piano and woodwind quintet.

“I was asking myself, ‘I have this instrument playing, but how are the other instruments going to support this instrument in the melody?’� he says. “I drew a lot of inspiration from classical pieces like Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds or Nikolai Kapustin’s Flute Trio.�

He communicated regularly with the SLSO about the composition, and it was a learning experience for Tewolde, who is used to his collaborators being nearby.

“Most of the time when I write pieces, it’s for students at the University of Missouri,� Tewolde says. “So whenever I had a question, I’d just run into them in the halls.�

Writing this piece though required more deliberate communication over Zoom or via email. “I had to be very concise in what I wanted to say,� Tewolde says.

In addition to Tewolde’s piece, the symphony ensemble will play pieces from Ravel, Poulenc, Florent Schmitt, Giles Silvestrini and Germaine Tailleferre.

Tewolde’s piece is the last from this year’s initiative to get its debut. From January through April, the SLSO has been playing the new compositions from different students in its Live at the Sheldon concert series.

The students whose works have already premiered are Seda Balci, a second-year master’s student; Henry Rusten, a sophomore; Harry Gonzalez, a master’s student; Atticus Schlegel, a senior; and JT Wolfe, also a senior at Mizzou.

“It’s a huge job,� says SLSO violinist Celeste Golden Andrews, who curated the concert on March 6 that featured Rusten’s piece, “Paradigm Shift.� “I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to write a piece of music like that. I certainly admire an 18-year-old who has accomplished something like that.�

The New Music Initiative started in 2010. According to Stefan Freund, artistic director for the program, the goal is to “establish the University of Missouri and the state of Missouri as a center for the creation and performance of new music.� The initiative includes the Mizzou International Composers Festival, which selects eight composers to have their work performed by Alarm Will Sound, a classical music ensemble.

For Mizzou students, there are opportunities to write new music, as well as perform with the Mizzou New Music Ensemble. “The opportunities that our (bachelor’s of music) students receive are truly unique,� Freund says.

Tewolde isn’t just a music composition student. He also studies biological engineering, which he says doesn’t offer many applications for in music. “I have found more applications for other kinds of engineering, like electrical,� he says.

Tewolde says that he initially came to music through his heritage. His parents are from Eritrea, and in Columbia there is actually a large (relative to the population of Columbia) Eritrean community.

“We would have these semi-annual gatherings here and meet up in Cosmo Park,� Tewolde says. They’d reserve a gazebo and share food and dance. “Eritrean dancing is a lot more communal. It’s a way to connect with other people.�

So from a young age, Tewolde saw music as a way to connect and have fun. “Much of what I aspire to do with my music stems from (that) experience,� he says.

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the year the New Music Initiative started. We regret the error.