Young Performers and Composers Explore Contemporary Music in Annual Seminar

Despite the fact that he is a seasoned performer as a violinist, Eddie De Souza had not previously performed in Seminar. As a result, De Souza was both surprised and honored when he found himself at the center of two major premieres. 

One of those works was written specifically for him through RSC’s collaboration with composition students from the New England Conservatory (NEC). De Souza was paired with NEC composer Runchen Li, and met early on in the process of bringing the piece to life. That meeting was particularly meaningful for De Souza, he says, “because I got to meet someone musically inclined like I am, but from a completely different culture, a different continent,” as Li is from China. De Souza’s own skills and background served as inspiration for the piece Li would write. 

In the spring, all of the NEC composers met again with their paired musicians to rehearse and modify the works in preparation for their premieres at Seminar. De Souza premiered Li’s piece, Violin Sonata in E Minor, along with pianist Victor Cayres. De Souza said he and Cayres “both enjoyed the piece. We both thought it was a really good piece, and it was fun to play.”

For De Souza’s second premiere, he performed in a string quartet to debut a new arrangement of featured composer Matthew Aucoin’s song cycle The Inner Core. Aucoin is an RSC alum and a 2018 MacArthur Fellow, and has achieved world success with performances of his works. Also performing in the quartet were Rivers students Sophia Kim ’28 on violin, Henry Goldstein ’26 on viola, and Alexander Slywotzky ’28 on cello, who performed alongside award-winning operatic bass-baritone William Socolof, who traveled from Berlin, Germany, for this special premiere.

On top of being selected to perform the featured work at this year’s Seminar, De Souza spoke about how far he’s come: “You know, I don’t come from big things. I’m an immigrant from Brazil. I moved to the U.S. when I was nine. If you asked eight-year-old me in Brazil where I’d be at 18 years old, I definitely wouldn’t have said playing a piece for a renowned composer.”

That perspective made the honor of this premiere all the more special for De Souza. “I looked around, I saw world-renowned singer William Socolof, and then renowned composer Matt Aucoin, and then I saw my local friends from Rivers and Mr. Lowry [RSC Faculty and the quartet’s coach], who I had known for years before. And it felt very surreal.” He added, “I just knew…I have to play my heart out because I'm not only representing The Rivers School, but I'm representing a lot more than that.” 

De Souza’s experience captures one side of what makes Seminar so special: the opportunity for student musicians to venture into unfamiliar musical territory while collaborating at a high level. Across the Seminar’s six student concerts, musicians ages 6 to 18 performed works by both established and emerging composers, many encountering contemporary music for the first time. 

If De Souza’s journey reflects discovery through performance, Gavin Armstrong’s experience highlights growth through creation. A violinist, violist, and dedicated composer, Gavin found in Seminar a platform not only to perform, but also to develop his voice as a composer. After premiering his first original work at the 2023 Seminar, Armstrong returned this year with three compositions: one he performed himself, and two brought to life by fellow students.

Hearing his music interpreted by others has become a crucial part of Armstrong’s process. “I was very impressed by the amount of effort and enthusiasm that the performers this year put into my music,” he said. “It was great getting to hear these pieces…played on real instruments rather than on computerized versions.”

“One of my favorite parts of being a composer is hearing how other people interpret what I’ve written,” he explained. “A big part of my compositional process involves revising my pieces after rehearsals and performances by taking into account the performers’ ideas and perspectives.”

Armstrong’s musical interests blur the line between contemporary and historical. His composition Partita No. 1 in A minor for Solo Viola d’Amore was written for and performed on a baroque instrument, the viola d'amore, which differs from the viola in that it has sympathetic strings, which are not played but vibrate ”in sympathy.” ”Ever since I picked up the viola d'amore about three years ago, I've made it my goal in both composition and performance to bring neglected instruments to modern music and to prove their capabilities in a variety of different genres,” Armstrong explained. It’s an approach that mirrors the spirit of the Seminar itself: an openness to exploration.

While De Souza and Armstrong were just two of many participants in this year’s Seminar, together their experiences, as performers and a composer, illustrate the full scope of what the Seminar on Contemporary Music offers. It is a place where students can encounter new ideas as performers, collaborate with peers and mentors at a high level, and take meaningful steps toward their future as artists, whether that future lies in performance, composition, or both.