Dabbling is at the heart of composing for Andrea Reinkemeyer, assistant professor of music composition and theory.
“I tinker. I improvise across the keyboard. I scratch things out,” she says. “If I come back to it three times, I know I’m on to something.” As she writes, she makes notations, sketches ideas, plays her violin and sings a lot, too. It’s practical advice she passes on in her classes. “I tell my students to use every tool at your disposal. Sing into your phone, use your laptop, save your ideas however you can.”
A world-class composer, Reinkemeyer’s most recent commissioned piece, Water Sings Fire, was commissioned for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) by the League of American Orchestras’ 2017 Women Composers Readings and Commissions program, administered by American Composers Orchestra, and supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. It will premier in January with Carlos Miguel Prieto conducting the LPO. The 13-minute movement was inspired by a feminist re-telling of The Little Mermaid, and includes rich chords that “sink down into the depths of the ocean.”
