2021-22 Creative Reactions Contest: Award Winners

CREATIVE REACTIONS CONTEST Dedicated to the memory of Vera Sharpe Kohn

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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS CREATIVE REACTIONS CONTEST First Place Auhjanae McGee ’23

Second Place Will Hartmann ’25 Alejandro Virue • Graduate Student

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THE 2021-2022 CREATIVE REACTIONS CONTEST A contest designed to capture the impact of music, as perceived by Princeton University undergraduate and graduate students.

Sponsored by Princeton University Concerts

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ow do Princeton University students conceive music of gratitude or remembrance?

83 students — including undergraduates and graduates — reflected on this prompt in Princeton University Concerts’ (“PUC”) eighth annual Creative Reactions Contest, focused this year on creative writing entries. Participants attended the Dover String Quartet’s PUC debut performance in April to hear how the internationally-beloved young ensemble curated a program titled “Music of Gratitude and Remembrance.” The students then submitted written reflections on one of two prompts: What music do you associate with gratitude and/or remembrance, and why?

OR What aspects of gratitude and/or remembrance did the Dover String Quartet’s performance evoke in you as you listened?

The anonymous entries were reviewed in two rounds of judging.

Final Jury: Elizabeth Margulis, Professor of Music, Princeton University Anne Midgette, Music Critic, formerly of the NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST Dorothea von Moltke, Member of Princeton University Concerts Committee/Owner of Labyrinth Books The Creative Reactions Contest is dedicated to the memory of Vera Sharpe Kohn, a loyal member of the Princeton University Concerts Committee.

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CREATIVE REACTIONS CONTEST

Thank you, Alicia Keys Auhjanae McGee ’23 So there’s this little girl, right? And she loves Alicia Keys. Just

melodic as ever; and, sure, the lyrics are short, simple, and sweet

simply adores her. She is more than happy to perform dramatic

— perfect for a first-grader.

renditions of “If I Ain’t Got You” in the shower to a captive audience of sudsy bars of Dove soap and half-used razors. She sometimes

But these parts of the song are not the reasons why the song holds

wonders if Alicia Keys knows just how much of an impact her

such a special place in the little girl’s heart.

music has had on people, if she is even aware of how it has the ability to resonate with even the most unorthodox of audiences.

Okay, maybe they are, but just a little. It’s Alicia freaking Keys

The girl doubts that when Alicia wrote her Grammy-winning single

after all.

“No One,” she had even the slightest clue that a six-year-old girl with a hatred of bread crusts and a love of Bratz movies would

But honestly, what captured the girl’s heart when she first heard

immediately fall in love with song, and that her spirit would be

the song on the radio was its story. This heartwarming tale of two

moved by the lyrical matter for years to come, even though she has

people loving each other unabashedly, even defiantly, while the

never fallen in love herself.

world seems to be turning against them, was so powerful to the girl. It reminded her of her own life. It reminded her of the first

On the surface, “No One” is a standard R&B ballad. It follows the

face she saw when she woke up in the morning and the last face

standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure that

she saw before she went to bed at night, one of the only faces

has been a staple in popular music for decades. In its four minute

whose features she could etch in her memory when nearly all the

and fourteen second run time, Alicia spells out her devotion to

others were subsumed into a never-ending blur. It reminded her

her lover, triumphantly declaring that she does not care what

of someone who felt constant, reliable, immovable during a time

other people think — their love is unique, special, untouchable.

when all she knew was confusing, constant change.

Indeed “No One” can get in the way of how she feels for him, and no matter what hardships they may endure, in the end, they will

It reminded her of her Mom.

emerge victorious.

Mom’s life had been hard. Had a baby before she could legally Now, some may be inclined to wonder, why on Earth would a

drink and chose her baby over her degree. Married a man who

six-year-old like a song like this? Sure, Alicia’s vocals are just as

barely let her breathe. Took her baby and ran. And ran. And no

powerful as ever; sure, her piano playing is just as satisfying and

matter what, no matter how hard life got, she always put her baby

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first. Even when the car was just a bit too cold to sleep in. Even

little girl knew that when everyone else ran away, they would

when her pregnant belly growled. Even when she bounced from

always have each other. Mom would always be around for the little

house to house. Always kept her baby close and safe and warm.

girl, because she had to be. The little girl had no else. Dad was a

That baby grew into a precocious little girl who loved music. And

fiction and grandma got a little too friendly with a bottle. So Mom

when she turned on the radio in the tiny room she shared with

would always be around. She knew, for certain. The little girl has

Mom, she heard Alicia sing:

grown and done big, big things. She and Mom are still thick as thieves, because people would search the world to find something

I just want you close

like what they have. And she still plays that song, almost every

Where you can stay forever

week, and feels the warmth in her heart, the brightness in her

You can be sure

soul. Thank you, Alicia Keys, she thinks.

That it will only get better The little girl believed that, locked those words in her heart, and stowed away the key. It would only get better, because it had to.

She and Mom had seen so many lows that it was statistically impossible for them not to be due for a rollercoaster high. And when the demons danced on the walls and gave the little girl a fright, she kept Mom close, snuggled up to her round belly, and willed the demons away. Alicia kept singing: When the rain is pouring down And my heart is hurting You will always be around This I know, for certain Oh goodness, did the hearts hurt. People lie and steal and cheat and leave and these things hurt so, so much. But Mom and the

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Everything, and What Comes After Will Hartman ’25 Gratitude smelled like cherry blossoms and sounded like D-major and felt like thick ribbed cello strings. I was eighteen, overseas, living a gap-year utopia, spending my hard-earned money in boatloads. I was grateful mostly for the coins of afternoon sun. For the crescendo of wind in my face. For the dream I was in.

Because I was across an ocean from where I grew up, and because despite the crowds there was no one in that continent but me, I learned to listen to nature’s code and to code it myself. I was writing. I was trying to put nature on paper, and mostly failing. But I would walk in operatic light from my Edinburgh AirBnB to the shore, to the park, past COVID-closed restaurants, taking the music from the moment and knowing I had to love it for all it was worth, because it was worth everything. Because it was gratitude that made a thing really what it was, and I wanted to make things what they were so I could remember them.

It was in April that I listened to Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B-minor as I watched nature’s concerto around me. Terns slipped level to level like wavering violins. Ripples on the crescent pond in Inverness were a cello’s vibrato, ocean waves the roil of an upright bass. Leaf flutters were flute flights. I was living the overture, with its form and arc, its layers, and notes emerged and gleamed brilliant and then faded into the general harmony, and meanings leapt and dove like the pelicans I admired on the staccato sea.

But I was also in mourning. Living in a dream, I was already in grief for its death. I was casting my mind into my year-later body, the one I’m writing in now, and already humming requiems for my gap year, for what it felt like to exist alone in the world’s wide symphony. That year was life, the purest I’ve ever felt — yet already it was bruised with its inevitable death. And it was me living it, this self-same me that was born, grew, walked, thought, spoke, found the music of life and the music of language, and one day crossed an ocean — yet already I was bruised with the remembrance of crossing it back.

Wedged between gratitude and that premature remembrance, I lived in love with and yet doomed by the world’s music. When I was in London, Big Ben sent its percussive notes dissolving in the air, and I was grateful for their leaden melody — and then I took them and hung them in my memory with cello-string nooses. In Iceland, my money almost gone, I stood on the slopes of a volcano and flooded my lucky senses with the syncopation of the northern sea and the movement of the midnight sun squashed like a whole note against the horizon — then I shattered the moment and buried it, so I could erect the headstone

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I knew was coming. It was gratitude and remembrance, gratitude and remembrance that spurred the urgency with which I climbed Ben Nevis, that put my feet on the Isle of Skye, that plunged me into glacial Icelandic waterfalls. I wanted the world because I wanted to be grateful for all of it; and I wanted the world because I was scared of its imminent tomb.

The year ended, the summer faded. Excited, but broke and mourning my year, I came to Princeton, entered academia, and replaced vistas with visionaries, color with canon. Symphonies became only about what they were on the page. Eventually spring bloomed. Cherry blossoms mingled in the air with magnolia petals and trilled against the stained glass windows of Richardson Auditorium as I walked into the Dover String Quartet concert. Their first two pieces — Haydn and Shostakovich — were both in D major, the second piece remembering the first. And late in the Shostakovich, a note leapt upwards, a violin note floating there like a tern against the wind. Delicious, colorful, the sound bubbled up like magma to tickle my lucky senses.

And that was the shift.

The relative major of B-minor — the one composed of all the same notes — is D-major. Almost exactly a year had passed since I had listened to the Dvořák concerto, and though I was now living the locked life I had dreaded during my gap year, with that switch in key came a switch in mindset. I suddenly remembered that year’s gratitude; and I suddenly became grateful for that year’s preemptive remembrance. By prematurely remembering the present, I had known to push it to its limit. By being grateful then I knew to be grateful now, to always, not only when living a dream, let gratitude give things life, give them place, let them grow.

Hand in hand, gratitude and remembrance could finally walk out of the white noise of memory and morph their B-minor tension into the D-major truth: That here is one time. And here is another. And marching forward doesn’t kill life’s harmony — it creates it. Unlike the writing I tried to do then, unlike even the Shostakovich I listened to now, life achieves that great unification, that act of triumph: it carries the phantasmagorical concerto of the world beyond instants, beyond minutes or months or years of beauty. From notes, life makes a chord.

From moments, a melody.

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POOR FUNES... A DIALOGUE Alejandro Virue • Graduate Student Persons. Alejandro and Eugenio

“the chimpanzee,” but that each chimpanzee is a world. Rosen

Scene. El Establo, a restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey

concludes, “Sonatas are like chimpanzees.” But both Gould and Rosen finally make certain concessions and devote themselves

ALEJANDRO. I’d like to participate in the writing contest about this

to studying “the chimpanzee” or “the sonata.” That’s what Funes

concert. I have been re-reading Borges’ “Funes the Memorious”

seems unable to do.

and there couldn’t be a better opportunity to write about

ALEJANDRO. True. Funes is a nominalist without concessions. If

remembrance than reflecting on “Funes...” The thing is, I have

Rosen were like Funes, his book would have a million pages. He

never written about music.

would spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing each bar of

EUGENIO. I’ll help you with the music part, but refresh my memory

each sonata.

on “Funes” first—it’s been a long time since I’ve read it.

EUGENIO. Not only that. If Rosen were an uncompromising

ALEJANDRO. Funes is this gaucho who remembers absolutely

nominalist like Funes, he couldn’t even really listen to a sonata,

everything. Every blade of grass he sees is engraved in his mind

or to any work composed in sonata form for that matter.

as the most important of events. But there is a flip side to this.

ALEJANDRO. Why not?

Funes is incapable of thinking. Thinking requires establishing a

EUGENIO. The main idea of the sonata form is that a theme or

hierarchy, putting the stress on some things and leave others out.

set of themes is presented in a certain key, then another theme

In brief, in order to think one needs to know how to forget—and

or set of themes is presented in another key. Sometimes, it

Funes can’t forget.

can even be the same theme, as in the first movement of this

EUGENIO. Go on.

evening’s Haydn quartet—as long as the key changes. After

ALEJANDRO. Funes’ mind is an infinite repertoire of impressions.

the theme or themes are presented (in what’s known as the

For example, he’s not only annoyed that the word “dog” is used

“exposition”), they are presented all over again, without changes.

to name animals that are so different from one another, but

We’re supposed to retain them in our ears and our minds. Then

he’s even annoyed that the dog at 3:14 (seen from one side) is

the development comes, where those themes are dissected,

referenced using the same noun as the dog at 3:15 (seen from

mixed, toyed with, and the music goes through many keys, not

the front).

only the two from the beginning. When the development ends,

EUGENIO. That’s wonderful. It reminds me of something Charles

after a transition usually filled with expectation, the culminating

Rosen says in his book “Sonata Forms.” First, he quotes

part of the movement arrives: the reprise. There, the theme or

Stephen Jay Gould, who explains that there’s no such thing as

themes of the beginning are presented again. And the return is

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twofold: not only are they presented again, in the order in which

program. All of them feature sonata form to one extent or the

they first appeared and to their full extent, but they are presented

other. You might not even call it a theme, because you don’t know

in the same key, the tonic, so that the longed-for sense of stability

it as such, but I can assure you that you were thrilled each time

is produced and the movement can end.

the “Lark” theme reappeared in Haydn’s first movement.

ALEJANDRO. I think I see where you’re going...

ALEJANDRO. I understand. The sonata form, this idea of the

EUGENIO. Is there any mention of music in the story?

themes “repeating” themselves—this would be like the dog at

ALEJANDRO. No, the story is based mainly on visual impressions.

3:14 and the dog at 3:15. They are not exactly the same sounds;

Funes remembers absolutely everything he sees. But I can add

they could never be, if only for the minuscule differences in

two things: the first is that at one point the narrator says that in

the vibration of the air in one case and in the other. These

Funes all those visual memories were accompanied by “muscular,

differences, which we either don’t even perceive or we forget in

thermal sensations, etcetera.” So, he actually remembers

pursuit of something “more important,” are absolutely crucial for

everything he perceives through the senses. The second is that,

Funes. The sense of gratification we get from the sonata form

in fact, Funes himself says at one point that before suffering

is obtained by our memory of those themes, a memory that is

the accident that led him to this condition, he “heard without

paradoxically forbidden to Funes the Memorious. If in sonata

hearing.”

form there’s a longing to “return home” and that longing is finally

EUGENIO. That’s interesting. We could say that what Funes can’t

fulfilled, this fulfillment produces in us a feeling of gratitude—

do is listen: he hears everything but listens to nothing. Listening

gratitude to the music itself for allowing us that satisfaction. All

implies paying attention to some things more than others,

that is impossible for Funes. Poor Funes...

discerning what in everything our senses perceive is relevant

EUGENIO. Poor Funes, yes.

and what isn’t. This is impossible for Funes, condemned as he

ALEJANDRO. This is all very interesting, but I wonder if we’ll be able

is to total perception. Funes would be deprived, in this concert

to write something even remotely interesting about this...

and in any other, of any feeling of remembrance and gratitude. In

EUGENIO. I think we should give it a try.

music, remembrance and gratitude go hand in hand. Funes would never accept that what is coming back after the development are the same themes as in the exposition. For him, there’s no such thing as repetition. If you can’t accept that, you can’t enjoy the Haydn, Mendelssohn, or Shostakovich quartets of this evening’s

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STUDENT AUHJANAE MCGEE First place winner Auhjanae McGee, Class of 2023, from Detroit, MI, has always been sensitive to sound and deeply loved music from a young age. To this day, she can often be found strolling through campus with her purple headphones on, caught up in an inner sound world — which is where most of her relationship with music has grown, although she is also an amateur pianist. The song that Auhjanae wrote about for her first foray into the Creative Reactions Contest is Alicia Keys’ “No One” — a Grammy-winning single that has had a profound impact on her through the way that it reminded her of her mother. To evoke the timelessness of that feeling, she decided to write her winning submission from the perspective of a six-year-old girl. In addition to music, Auhjanae is also passionate about movies, media, journalism, educational access, and social equality — to name just a few of her interests. Adding to her unique talents, she has hypermobility in her shoulders, allowing her to bend her arms back over her head! At Princeton, she is concentrating in English, and pursuing Certificates in Journalism and African American Studies.

But honestly, what captured the girl’s heart when she first heard the song on the radio was its story. This heartwarming tale of two people loving each other unabashedly, even defiantly, while the world seems to be turning against them, was so powerful to the girl. It reminded her of her own life.

It reminded her of the first face she saw when she woke up in the morning and the last face she saw before she went to bed at night, one of the only faces whose features she could etch in her memory when nearly all the others were subsumed into a never ending blur. It reminded her of someone who felt constant, reliable, immovable during a time when all she knew was confusing, constant change. It reminded her of her Mom.”

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WILL HARTMANN

ALEJANDRO VIRUE

Second place co-winner Will Hartman, Class of 2025, from Boulder,

Second place co-winner Alejandro Virue, a second-year graduate

CO, grew up surrounded by song and instruments as the son of a

student from Entre Ríos, Argentina in the Department of Spanish and

music teacher. After many years on the piano and a brief stint on the

Portuguese, co-authored his winning entry with his husband, Eugenio

trombone, he now primarily sings, and is a member of the Princeton

Monjeau Solari. Their first joint creative endeavor, “Poor Funes…A

Footnotes a cappella group. A passionate writer, and already interested

Dialogue” was inspired by a dialogue between them after attending

in attending the Dover String Quartet’s concert at PUC, he decided

the Dover String Quartet’s concert. Their conversation, reflecting

to enter the Creative Reactions Contest in order to try using music

on musical memory and imagining how a character from Jorge Luis

as a foundation for writing for the first time. For Will, writing is “a

Borges’ short story, “Funes the Memorious,” might listen to music, was

commitment to diving headlong into the world in order to interpret

inspired by Alejandro’s preparation for his General Exam as he spent

and illuminate it in new ways — and hopefully, thereby, change it.” In

a lot of time reading. Alejandro’s own relationship with music extends

his winning submission, Will reflected on his time abroad during a

to his childhood singing as part of a choir in Argentina and listening

gap year prior to coming to Princeton. An adventurous spirit, he likes

to all kinds of music with his family and friends. This relationship

to backpack, and looks forward to trekking to Everest Base Camp in

strengthened after meeting his husband, a music appreciation

Nepal this summer.

professor, with whom he began to attend concerts and operas at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. After moving to Princeton, they recreated

Gratitude smelled like cherry blossoms and sounded like D-major and felt like

this ritual by attending Princeton University Concerts events.

thick ribbed cello strings. I was eighteen, overseas, living a gap-year utopia, spending my hard-earned money in boatloads. I was grateful mostly for the coins of afternoon sun. For the crescendo of wind in my face. For the dream I was in.”

The sense of gratification we get from the sonata form is obtained by our memory of those themes, a memory that is paradoxically forbidden to Funes the Memorious. If in sonata form there’s a longing to ‘return home’ and that longing is finally fulfilled, this fulfillment produces in us a feeling of gratitude—gratitude to the music itself for allowing us that satisfaction.”

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