String Duet Breaks the Classical Rules
Sept. 26, 2016 -- Senior Christina Wynne and sophomore Maria Tarnay can play beautiful classical music duets on their viola (Christina) and violin (Maria).
But that’s not what they’re about.
When they formed the Broken Strings ensemble, their real goal was to create and play their own arrangements of the music they love.
They are both fans of movie and video game scores, like the music from the game Ori and the Blind Forest.
They also enjoy arranging songs like the 1978 disco hit "September" by Earth Wind and Fire, and Led Zepplin’s 1971 song "Stairway to Heaven," for a string orchestra with percussion.
“We love the challenge of taking popular music and arranging it for a string duet,” said Maria.
When they work on a song one takes the lead and the other is the editor, suggesting changes while reviewing and editing the parts. They use scoring software to create their arrangements.
“It’s like a big puzzle,” said Christina, "We take each part and figure out how and where it works for a viola and violin."
As the senior member of the duo, Christina played alto saxophone in the Marching Band for two years and is currently one of the band’s managers. Marching Band Director Brett Baker asked Christina to create an arrangement for "Dance the Night Away" by Van Halen. “There was not a Marching Band version of the song available, so I asked Christina to create one for us,” said Mr. Baker. “We played it twice this year and it was fantastic!”
Christina (red shirt) and Maria (black shirt) play Ori and the Blind Forest Medley. They listened to the musical score from the video game, transcribed the music and arranged it for violin and viola.
Last year she wrote a jazz waltz for the Jazz Band that won a composing award at the 2016 Lakeland Jazz festival. She is principal violist of the Heights High Symphony, President of the Tri-M Music Honor Society, plays tenor saxophone in the Jazz Ensemble, is a member of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra and the President of the Gay-Straight Alliance. She plans to study film scoring next year and will apply to Berklee College of Music and Harvard University.
Maria is the Assistant Concertmaster for the Heights High Symphony and is also a manager for the Marching Band.
Both musicians maintain an above 4.0 GPA.
The Broken Strings duet plays at weddings, parties and other events and can be contacted at [email protected].