Gifted Young Composer Earns Princeton Fellowship

By AMANDA MEDRESS Palisadian-Post Contributor As 21-year-old Sean Friar plays his composition “Elastic Loops” in his Pacific Palisades home, his hands leap deliberately across the piano. His sandaled feet rest atop the pedals, his eyes close, and his arms tense. It’s no surprise he describes his music as energetic. This fall, Friar will begin his doctoral degree in music composition at Princeton University, as part of a four-year Roger Sessions Fellowship. The contemporary classical music program, which accepts only four students a year, normally admits students who already have a master’s degree. Friar, who is soft-spoken and articulate, has other honors on his resume. In June, he won a prestigious Morton Gould Young Composer Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, an award he accepted at Lincoln Center in New York. In 2003 he won the PTA’s national Reflections contest in composition and received his award in Charlotte, North Carolina. Friar was Mr. Palisades as a tenth grader at Palisades High and still has a picture with then-Honorary Mayor Anthony Hopkins pinned in his room. The experience of being the youngest person at monthly Chamber of Commerce mixers gave Friar valuable social skills. “It was a pretty different social environment than what an average teenager is used to,” he says. “You learn to schmooze. I was a lot more confident and comfortable talking to with all kinds of people after that.” A graduate of Marquez, Paul Revere, and PaliHi, Friar received bachelor’s degrees in music composition and psychology from UCLA, where he graduated summa cum laude in May. Although he applied to numerous graduate programs, Princeton’s proximity to the New York music scene, performance opportunities and freedom of composing style made the school his top choice. Last week, Friar drove cross-country to Princeton with his older sister, Christine (also a Palisades High graduate) and a friend. At Princeton, he hopes to gain teaching experience, which is one of the few ways to make a living as a classical composer. “I won’t hold out for being famous,” he says. “Even the most famous classical composers now aren’t really famous.” Instead of focusing on fame and awards, Friar plans to hone his compositional voice, and continue experimenting with different music styles. “It is especially important for young composers not to get stuck doing the same thing too early,” he notes. Friar started his career as a musician when he was five. “I got really impatient practicing piano when I was young,” he recalls. His mother Linda, a pianist herself, “worked out a lot of deals with me–like ‘practice for one minute and I’ll give you a nickel, practice for twenty minutes and you can go down and buy a pack of cards.'” As a young pianist, Friar focused on blues and rock and roll–in middle school, he played “Great Balls of Fire” at a recital, and dressed up as Jerry Lee Lewis for Halloween. His first teacher emphasized the importance of rhythm. “We would get up from the piano and she’d have me walk around and march and clap rhythms. I have a lot of tapes of me playing really frenetic blues, wild and almost uncontrolled, but it was what got me excited about music.” From early on, Friar’s teachers encouraged him to improvise, which eventually led him to composition. Although Friar began jotting down ideas in late elementary school, he started classical composition in high school. His pieces transitioned from a traditional style similar to Beethoven, then to a Romantic style, and eventually to more contemporary pieces. Friar, who currently writes most of his music for solo piano and small to medium chamber ensembles, says there’s no instrumentation he doesn’t like to write for. “A lot of composers say, every time you start a new piece, it’s like how do you do this again? You forget how it goes,” says Friar, whose pieces are technically rigorous, rhythm-oriented, and contain bluesy references. “I have my ways of building pieces, but really that’s all just a means to an end. I don’t want people to pay attention to how I put a piece together, I just want them to enjoy it, whether they know anything about music or not.” In his spare time, Friar enjoys playing tennis, reading about astronomy, and traveling. Since he was three, his family has exchanged houses every summer in Europe. Switzerland is one of his favorite countries, but not all destinations are clear in his memory. “A lot of places I’d like to see again. When you’re five you just want to play Gameboy in the car, even if you’re in the Alps with some incredible views.” Friar relates well to fellow musicians. “Musicians are all a little weird–they work really hard, spend a lot of time on music at odd hours. Being with musicians, there are a lot of things we already know and understand about each other,” he says. Furthermore, being a composer allows Friar artistic freedom. “Even though I think there are a lot of pianists who are better than me, I just really understand my pieces. I may hit some wrong notes, but I’ll always have the character right. I get a little nervous playing–that’s why I like composing. Once you’ve finished it, the piece is done and nothing can ruin it. With playing, a bad performance can erase a lot of hard work.” To listen to Friar’s compositions, please visit www.seanfriar.com.