Award-winning composer and violinist Jessica Meyer was commissioned to create a piece for several Long Island school districts, including Bay Shore, Oyster Bay, Herricks, and Manhasset. This piece will be integrated into the Arts programs at these schools. Wind ensemble students, grades 10-12, have had the chance to perform this piece for the spring concert for the local community, and this piece will become part of the repertoire for Wind Ensemble in future years. The Bay Shore Schools Arts Education Fund has approved a grant that partially funded the cost of the commission.
The inspiration for the piece
Meyers was inspired to create this piece after speaking to Scott Dunn, a band teacher at Baldwin High School. He also conducts the youth orchestra, Long Island Youth Orchestra. She was part of this group for years and would attend every Sunday. When determining what the piece should be about, she thought it should be called “From City To Shore” and focus on Long Island. “Metropolis Buzz” is the first movement and was made to capture the life and rhythms of New York City.
“It was kind of like Washington Heights meets muppet show, meets big band music to capture all the big bright and shiny,” said Meyers.
Montauk is a special place to Meyers and she finds a lot of inspiration there. For this reason, she named the middle movement of the piece “Lighthouse Dawn.”
“I try whenever possible to wake up before the sun rises and catch the sunrise on the beach. There is a beautiful time of day in Montauk called the “Blue Hour” when the days are about to start,” Meyers said. “I wanted to capture that with a beautiful mix of wind and brass sounds and percussion.”
The last movement is called “Glacial Tide” because Long Island was formed from two different glacial deposits. Meyers wanted to write something “big and epic,” so she thought of big glaciers and was inspired by the piece Pines Of Rome. Meyers was thinking of how to write this part of the piece and thought about how this land was formed and the different shapes it took before it became a Long Island. She has always been so enamored by the geography of Long island.
“So this piece and three Movements are like my love letter to Long Island,” said Meyers.
Bay Shore beginnings
Jessica Meyer is a Bay Shore alumna who has been inducted into the Bay Shore High School (BSHS) Hall of Fame. It was a seminal moment when she was allowed to choose an instrument back in the 4th grade. She was given the viola even though she wanted the violin, and was told that she could have the viola because she was tall. Meyers recalls being in 4th or 5th grade and sitting on the Gardiner Manor stage playing “Memory” from Cats, and she felt all the hairs on her arms stand up, and that’s when Meyers realized that that’s what she was supposed to do with her life.
“It chose me so early, which I think was a blessing,” said Meyers. “It’s not the easy path chosen, it sort of choses you.”
All of the programs and classes available to Meyers at Bay Shore helped her develop her craft. One of her band teachers had access to the software that allows her to plan marching band configurations. Since her friends were in band class, they would play in the Pit Orchestra for musical theater. At some point Meyers was in choir, which helped influence how she writes songs for other opera singers. Meyers believes she would not have achieved everything she has now accomplished if she had not attended a school like Bay Shore High School.
“It was so rich, the amount of programs and musical aspects that the school had and the settings. I am forever in gratitude for the opportunities” said Meyers. “I would not be here if I had not gone to a place like Bay Shore High School.”
Meyers first experimented with writing while she created different sounds on the high school computers. It was not until Meyers was 40 years old that she had begun to take her writing seriously.
Meyer’s educational outreach and ongoing work
Meyers has received awards from the Chamber Music America and the New York State Council on the Arts. In 2019, her album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart. She values empowering learning artists, and strives to motivate young minds. She encourages young students to believe in themselves by saying “yes and”. Her educational workshops have been featured by institutions such as The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, the Longy School of Music, teaching artists of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as at the Chamber Music America conference.
Arts education programs are the building blocks for cultivating the youth into successful musicians. Meyers understands that when you get older, you tend to play it safe and sees the importance of finding art when one is young and eager. Despite this, no matter the age, it is always possible to pursue a love of art.
“It’s never too late to pick anything up again,” said Meyers. “ If it’s something you desire enough there is always a way to make it happen.”
