Rickelton honored by American Composers Orchestra's Earshot program

 

Lipscomb alumni Michael Rickelton (’06) was recently selected as a top emerging composer through the American Composers Orchestra’s Earshot program. In April, his piece, And After the Dark, was read by the Nashville Symphony at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center as part of Earshot, a partnership among American Composers Orchestra, American Composers Forum, American Music Center, the League of American Orchestras, and Meet the Composer.

 

The goals of Earshot are to create the nation's first ongoing systematic program for identifying emerging orchestral composers, to provide professional-level working experience with orchestras from every region of the country, and to increase awareness of these composers and access to their music throughout the industry.

 

Rickelton, a native of Charlotte, N.C., earned a bachelor of music degree in music education from Lipscomb where he studied composition with Dr. Jerome Reed. In the summer of 2005, Rickelton attended the European American Musical Alliance program at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, France, studying with Claude Baker and Narcis Bonet. He is currently pursuing his master’s degree in composition from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., where he is a student of Michael Hersch. In addition to his work as a composer, Rickelton is also a singer. He and his wife, Emily, live in Baltimore.

 

Composed in the fall of 2007, And After the Dark is said to depict feelings of rage juxtaposed with periods of contentment, elements of frustration relieved by triumph, the calming of the convulsive, and darkness succumbing to clarity. Rickelton said his goal in this work is to connect these disparities on levels including the artistic, intellectual and spiritual.

 

And After the Dark explores the interaction among multiple varying figures presented throughout the orchestra. The piece focuses on three distinctly contrasting motives that provide the foundation for the work’s harmonic, rhythmic, and textural development. In And After the Dark, the individual qualities of each figure are linked to create a sound world rich in diverse character and color. The intended result is a work that hinges on the relationships of the contrasting; both evidently presented in the music and the allusive.