Meet the Seattle-area teen who won a national music composers award

Aaron Zhang was so inspired by the movements of his first grader and their implementation in percussive, melodic music that he got a piano for his seventh birthday and started taking lessons.

“In every class, I’ve watched her play the piano with her fingers flying so gracefully, and I really wanted to learn that,” said the 16-year-old Lakeside School junior.

When he sang in the American Choral Directors Association’s Northwest Children’s Honor Choir, he was amazed that the sound was more than just the sum of the individual voices.

The mixing and reaction of tones and timbres impressed him.

After listening to a friend’s piano composition, he was impressed.

“It amazed me that in theory I could do the same thing as Mozart, Bach and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and it amazed me even more that my friend was already doing the same. I wanted to do it! I wanted to cut out melodies and let my material, the material of the masters and new material flow into the writing. “

And that’s what the Bellevue teenager has been doing ever since.

After his composition “Interstellar Clouds” won first place in the state, it took second place in the Junior Composers Contest 2021 of the National Federation of Music Clubs.

The award comes with $ 175 in prize money and comes after a series of NFMC competitions for Zhang. He had already won first place in his state and advanced to the district level in the competitions. Zhang hopes to use this award on his trip to Vienna in July, where he will perform his composition as part of the Golden Key Music Festival in the Ehrbar Hall.

After graduating, Zhang believes that he will keep playing and pursuing the arts and their interfaces with business in some way, perhaps starting a music-related company that could make classical music education more accessible.