Arts Faculty News

Richard Trostel rehearses Thomas Reiner’s Alaska Sinfonietta with the Juneau Student Orchestra and the Alaskan Youth Choir.

Dr Thomas Reiner, from the School of Music – Conservatorium, has recently returned from Alaska, where his Alaska Sinfonietta, commissioned by the Juneau Student Symphony, was given its first performance.

Alaska Sinfonietta was performed in March at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center where Dr Reiner was composer-in-residence thanks to generous support from the Association of Alaska School Boards, the Rasmuson Foundation and the Juneau Student Symphony.

The work, in three movements, is response to Aanti Yéili’s lament-song, Ch’a aadei yei unateegaa (1912) which is often misunderstood as an anthem. The first movement, ‘Innocence’ is simple in tonality, harmony and melody. The second movement is the most sonically adventuresome. It is in the last movement that the form of the Sinfonietta takes cultural and artistic license to extend the lament of Aanti Yéili’s song into hope for the future. The final movement is a setting of Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer’s poignant and optimistic poetry sung by a two-part youth choir: the Alaska Youth Choir and singers from Gustavus and Hoonah. Significantly, Richard’s poetry was also written in hopeful response to Aanti Yéili’s song.

From his office at Monash, Thomas shared drafts of his work with the Juneau Student Symphony and the Alaska Youth Choir. The musicians tried out the music and gave feedback to the composer as to the playability of their parts. Alaska Sinfonietta is scored for full orchestra and youth choir and runs for approximately ten minutes. Future performances of single movements of the work a planned for every concert of the Juneau Student Symphony; the idea here is to use the Sinfonietta much like a musical logo for the orchestra.