Compose Yourself! Contest - Round 2 Winner: Scott Senko

The second round of MPLS (imPulse)’s Compose Yourself! Contest is over, and Scott Senko has been named the winner! A veteran of four previous MPLS (imPulse) projects, Scott submitted Un Mundo Bello for MPLS (imPulse)’s Won't You Be My Neighbor? project. As in the first round, submissions were judged blind. After notifying him of his win, we asked Scott to share how his submission came together:

“When I first listened to the excerpts from Bart Buch's interviews with the community members of the Phillips Neighborhood, I noticed a recurring theme. Several of the interviewees described, in their own words, the idea that art, community, and kindness spread and reproduce themselves through the actions of individuals. That good works in the community ripple outward and inspire good works in others.
 
I thought the theme of "rippling outward" would be a good basis for a piece of music. A voice (or section) would introduce a small musical idea that would be continuously mimicked by other sections, blooming into a larger texture. 

I decided that a short simple text would lend itself well to the musical idea I was working toward so I began to search for proverbs about community. I settled on "It takes all kinds to make a world" which I adapted to "It takes every kind of person to build a beautiful world." The phrase "beautiful world" ("mundo bello") is pulled directly from one of Buch's interviews. 
 
Curious about how the phrase would read/sound in a language other than English, I asked a friend to translate it into Spanish. This is the text I ultimately set for the piece. "Para crear un mundo bello, necesitamos todo tipo de personas." 
 
Come hear the second fruit of our New Music USA project grant on July 28, 2017! Time, location and ticket information here.