Dorian Degrandez stood up as the crowd went wild for his composition entitled Blue Ink at the Winter Concert. While observing the audience’s reaction, he said that “it was just… surreal…”

In his Senior Project entitled Growing as a Musical Composer, Dorian set his project around minimalism. Minimalism, a style of music originating in the 20th century is characterised by repeated motifs, varied slightly over a long period. “Minimalism is everywhere… name any artist that’s popular today and they have most likely used it in their music” said Degrandez.

His objectives were to learn proper musical notation, research the origins of minimalism, and experiment with minimalism in his own musical compositions. “I’ve dreamed about writing songs since around fifth grade, but I didn’t get serious about it until around ninth grade” he said.

In the ninth grade, a friend introduced him to electronic music, which is what really began to inspire him into crafting his skills and techniques outside of school.

Dorian spent roughly 168 hours (a week straight) working on this piece. These hours include writing each instrument’s part, ensuring that pitches agree with each other, checking over rhythms and making sure that everything is in sync.

Techniques needed to create Blue Ink were a combination of prior knowledge and things he learned in his Music Theory class at Wakefield.

His next steps, as far as his musical career goes, are to apply to schools with good music programs; creating other musical works is definitely a major part of his future.

Black Ink, a darker sequel to Blue Ink is currently in the making.