Soka University Hosts Student Composers Recital

Create a piece of music using a caged bird as the theme. That was the only direction student composers of Soka University were given to complete a recent assignment.

"Basically, I came up with a theme that had lots of ideas," said professor Michael Golden. "It's intended to be open-ended to they can express themselves."

With short deadlines, the students composed new music synthesized by a computer. Students presented their creations during Monday night's recital. 

"The deadline inspired me," said Rohan Narasimhan. "I had massive writer's block and messed around with a few sounds at first. I mixed a few genres together to give it a modern touch."

Student composer Nitesh Sil was in India before the assignment and had to work quickly to meet the deadline. 

"Everything is just so confusing in this phase of my life. The caged bird offered me inspiration because all my emotions were in the song," Sil said. "While I wasn't able to complete the song, I wanted the audience to hear where the bird is finally set free."

For more information visit Soka University on the Web. To hear samples of the students' songs, check out the video above.