Band students from West High School and Franklin Middle School worked with world-renowned composer and conductor Brian Balmages to premiere his latest piece titled "Hope Ahead." PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A collection of Green Bay students, led by a world-renowned composer and conductor, performed an original musical work Wednesday that they helped to inspire.
Band students from West High School and Franklin Middle School worked with Brian Balmages to premiere his latest piece titled “Hope Ahead.”
Balmages’ music has been performed in major venues around the globe, such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Sydney Opera House. Performances range from professional symphony orchestras to elementary schools.
It all began when Balmages saw a drawing of a broken robot staring down at a city over a ledge. He originally interpreted the artwork as a depiction of a dystopian society with an overreliance on technology and artificial intelligence.
But when students submitted essays to Balmages, speculating how the drawing could be interpreted and expressed musically, his mind was changed.
“It was after the feedback that I decided that this was going to be about this idea of mental health and about looking ahead, looking into a bright future, and this way of kind of reminding everybody in the ensemble that all of them are important. All of them have value,” Balmages said.
You have to hold onto hope, because sometimes hope is the only thing that we have. And so this piece really tries to tie all those things together.
“I really like how it starts out. It’s like a whole journey,” said Aiden Miller-Riesterer, a junior who plays the trombone. “It’s a build-up, basically, for the whole entire song.”
Balmages will be in attendance for the premiere of his composition at 7 p.m. at West High School.
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