Student Musician On Campus Spotlight

By Aliya Schneider Student Musician-On-Campus Spotlight S tudent Musician-On-Campus Spotlight (400-600 words) Writer would reach out and in terview a student musician on Barnard campus to ask about their work and how they incorporate their music into their daily life on campus whether socially (i.e. in a club) or academically. Is this student looking to pursue music professionally? What genre(s) does this musician explore and what do they hope to convey through their music?

When she was in 3rd grade, Annie Nikunen wanted play the cello like her brother. When her mom said that the instrument was too large for her tiny frame, she started to play the flute. She ended up thriving in her school’s notable music program, and went on to pursue a conservatory program in high school. Nikunen is a singer, composer, and flute player. She spent 12 years danc ing ballet, and now dances recreationally. Originally, she sought to pursue dance, but found it difficult to balance the physical demands of ballet along with her music commitments. As a result, she has integrated dance and music by accompanying the Columbia Ballet Collective show, Jerome Robin’s Antique Epigraphs, and even using dance to find inspiration to compose.

“Sometimes I dance to nothing and see what kind of music matches to it in my head,” she said.

Since the age of five, Nikunen’s music educators have always inspired her. She refers specifically to Frank Doyle, a member of the 70’s band Meatloaf, who she says “lived nine lives.” He taught her the importance of dedication to her craft and having a vision for her self. She keeps in touch with her childhood music teachers and plays with them in a community band in her hometown of North Port, Long Island.

Nikunen enhances her Barnard and Columbia college experience as a member of the Manhattan School of Music exchange program, where she has been taking lessons with Tara O’Connor, who has transformed the way she thinks about playing the flute and approaches pieces. “She’s a wizard in terms of both technicality and musical ity and she knows how to connect the two,” Nikunen says, eager to talk about her teacher’s alcolaids.

O’Connor has taught Nikunen to focus on the “story of the piece” and think about what she is trying to communicate to her audience. “You want to get the image of the composer to the

audience,” Nikunen explained.

Meanwhile, Barnard gives Nikunen a strong platform as a female musician, which she finds empowering. Currently, she is writing her thesis about how “compositional-choreographic collaboration [is] moving from traditional to experiential at New York City Ballet, but how there are still little female choreogra phers and female composers involved.” And during her time at college, Dodge Music Hall at Columbia has been her second home, as she has become close with graduate students in the music program. “The brilliant minds you come across are unbelievable,” she says, adding that the graduate students have been very willing to speak with her and share their advice. “They have so much life experience so talking with them is really valuable.” Nikunen described the way she has learned to emotionally connect to characters in pieces she plays. Because of the mechan ics of the flute, it is “purely your breath creating this sound, color, flavor,” with nothing in between.

As a performer, it is her job to convey a composer’s image or idea and add her own edge to it. As a composer, she tries to bridge the gap between per former and audience. She says it’s special to see her work unfold, now in the hands of the musicians.When she composes, she creates the title of her piece before composing it, calling herself a “programmatic composer”—she composes with a story in mind.

Unsurprisingly, Nikunen admit ted that it is occasionally difficult to balance her composing project with the rest of her musical demands. Yet her personal work is therapeutic for her, and so she structures time for herself to practice her flute and composes on the go, scribbling and sketching into her notepad when she has an idea.

While she normally listens to orchestral, choral, and ballet music, she has a “pump up playlist” that she listens to in order to get ready for auditions or competitions. It has songs from Bruno Mars, Earth Wind and Fire, Anderson Paak, and even Madonna, with some orchestral pieces thrown in to get herself in the mental zone to perform.

“It’s a little secret that no one really knows… I listen in solitude, almost like a meditation,” she said. This has been one of her private rituals since she was 12 years old.

While she has been involved in the music scene at Columbia, she stressed the importance of getting involved in the city as a musician. She was invited to join Black Box Ensemble as a result of being discovered on Columbia New Music’s Soundcloud, and now performs with them throughout the city. She hopes to stay in New York City for graduate school, combining her performance, composition, and theoretical work.

“As a musician, it’s so important to be here,” she said.