Sofia Mazo '01, a future physician, gathered more than insight into medicine during last summer's National Health Systems term abroad. She returned with a stack of musical snapshots from Belgium, England, Austria, and Hungary, and her impressions took the form of a composition for orchestra, Memories of Europe, which was premiered by the Union College Orchestra this winter.
Mazo, a trained pianist, attended music schools in her native Belarus beginning at age six. She immigrated to New York City with her family when she was twelve, and has continued her work with music since then. A participant in Union's accelerated medical education program, she will enter Albany Medical College this summer and plans to become a pediatrician.
Mazo says that 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.”
Those possibilities have been nurtured by Hilary Tann, professor of music, herself an accomplished composer. Tann encouraged Mazo to create Memories of Europe and even shipped a computer to Mazo's home in New York City so that she could complete the composition over winter break. Tann also has opened her office to Mazo, who admits pulling a number of all-nighters there while finishing her piece. “Eventually, I will be overwhelmed with medicine, so I can overwhelm myself with music now,” she says.
It is a bit intimidating to have your work performed alongside works by some of the world's most famous composers, Mazo says. (The orchestra performed Beethoven's “Coriolan” overture and Mozart's Symphony no. 41 in addition to Mazo's composition.) “It really struck me at a rehearsal when Professor 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?”
It took Mazo about five months to complete the composition, which is about fifteen minutes long. The four movements that represent Belgium, England, Austria, and Hungary are tied together by the theme of a train traveling from city to city. Wire brushes on a snare drum represent the train, while a lyrical tune gradually emerges from the train's hum.
The first movement expresses the ethereal sounds reflecting the tranquility of the canals and the echoes and rustling willows and horses' hoofs of Brugge, Belgium, and the second movement uses fanfares to introduce the stately regality of England and the “beautiful but foreign” sounds of peeling bells.
In the third movement, Vienna is portrayed with — what else? — a waltz. “Watching costumed couples dance to the famous waltzes – all while sipping champagne under the darkening sky – wouldn't it inspire you to write a waltz?” Mazo writes in the program notes.
The final movement draws from her visits to the Dohany Synagogue in Budapest, one of the largest synagogues in Europe and a powerful reminder of the Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. After visiting many cathedrals, the synagogue had special meaning for Mazo, who is Jewish. Its minor key reflects the sadness for those who perished in the Budapest ghettos, but by the end, it moves into a lively Hungarian Jewish folk dance.
Tann calls the piece “extraordinarily impressive” and “an expansive, passionate portrayal of her Europe experience.” But perhaps the most satisfying remark came from an orchestra member who told Mazo, “I play the Mozart and the Beethoven, but it's always your tune I come away singing at the end of rehearsal.”