Sofia
Mazo '01 returned from last summer's National Health Systems term
abroad with a stack of musical snapshots from Belgium, England, Austria
and Hungary.
While she learned about the practice of medicine in
those countries, she also filled her head with musical impressions that
now take the form of a four-movement composition for orchestra, Memories
of Europe, to be premiered by the Union College Orchestra on Saturday,
March 4, at 8 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. (The program also includes Mozart's
“Jupiter” Symphony, No. 41; and Beethoven's Coriolan
Overture.)
Mazo, a seven-year med student who majors in biology and
music, may seem an unlikely candidate to score a composition for
orchestra. But she enjoys the fact that the accelerated medical program
requires students to pursue a non-science major. “There is almost a
duty to do something else,” she says. “Sometimes I feel like I
am a music major and a biology minor.”
“Eventually, I will be overwhelmed with
medicine,” she says, “So I can overwhelm myself with music
now.”
On an afternoon during the last week of rehearsal, Mazo
sits at the piano with her mentor, Prof. Hilary Tann, as the two delight
over a raft of scribbled notes and words that were a first draft of her
composition. “Start with an idea!” reads the scrawl at the top
of the first page. Below that are scribbled Tann's five steps for
writing an orchestral composition. As if it were that easy.
Together, they laugh as Mazo plays various sections,
noting the many changes she has made over the last few months. “This
is my favorite part,” she exclaims as her right hand plays an
ascending scale, her left a descending one. Tann, a proud smile on her
face, nods in agreement.
A pianist by training, Mazo attended music schools in
her native Belarus beginning at age six. She immigrated to New York City
with her family when she was 12, and has continued her work with music
since then.
Mazo says she saw at Union the opportunity to pursue her
dual interests in music and medicine. “I love that Union is not a
music school – it makes it so much more personal. You have small classes
and endless possibilities.”
Mazo, who will enter Albany Medical College this summer,
plans to pursue a career in pediatrics. She acknowledges that her music
and medicine may not intersect, but plans to continue music as a serious
hobby. Music, she says, “is something that completes me.”
Mazo admits a huge debt to Tann, who has encouraged her
to “see the colors of the orchestra.” Tann meets with Mazo
several times per week. She shipped a computer to the student's home on
Staten Island over winter break so that she could write her score. Tann
also has opened her office to Mazo, who admits pulling a number of
all-nighters there while finishing her piece.
It is a bit intimidating to have your work performed
alongside works by some of the world's most famous composers, Mazo says.
“It really struck me at a rehearsal when Prof. Tann had the orchestra
put away the Beethoven (score) and say, 'OK, now Mazo.' This is my
first composition and it is performed right away,” Mazo says.
“Where else can that be done?”
Perhaps the most satisfying remark came from an
orchestra member who told Mazo, “I play the Mozart and Beethoven, but
it's your tune I come away singing at the end of rehearsal.”
Photo above: Sofia Mazo, right, rehearses with Prof.
Hilary Tann.