(From the Burnaby Now website)

Ask him how he got interested in music composition, and Remy Siu will grin.

“I really liked video game music growing up,” he explains with a smile.

For Siu, video game music is the folk music of the younger generation.

And, though he’s since developed a taste for the work of composers ranging from Bartok and Stravinsky to Steve Wright and R. Murray Schafer, the music of his childhood will always follow him.

“It’s still in the back of our minds,” he says.

Siu is just finishing up his third year as a music composition major at Simon Fraser University. Together with classmate Alex Mah, he recently took part in Phoenix Chamber Choir’s Young Composers Development Program - which gives emerging composers a chance to learn more about choral writing in a hands-on (or, more accurately, voices-on) setting.

The two 20-year-olds took time out of their end-of-year schedules to sit down with the Burnaby NOW for coffee on a recent Monday morning. (I must insert an author’s disclaimer here: I’m currently singing with Phoenix Chamber Choir and have had the pleasure of being personally involved in the young composers program, as a singer, since January.)

For those unfamiliar with the group, Phoenix is a Burnaby-based choir that has earned acclaim on the national choral scene with 12 first-place wins in the CBC National Choral Competition.

Its young composers program is spearheaded by artistic director Ramona Luengen - a Burnaby resident and herself a noted composer - and is designed to give the young composers a chance to have their pieces workshopped by a choir of experienced singers.

The young composers, ranging from one Grade 8 student to one in graduate studies at the University of British Columbia, started working with the choir at a workshop in January and had a chance to attend rehearsals with the choir through March, having their work explored at various points during the creation process. An all-day workshop in early April gave all the composers a chance to have their finished pieces sung and recorded.

From there, seven had their pieces selected by the choir for inclusion in its upcoming Revelations III concert, set for this coming Saturday, April 30, at Shaughnessy Heights United Church in Vancouver.

Both Siu and Mah - though their pieces aren’t in the concert - say the experience was invaluable for them.

Siu notes that it was different having his work sung by 24 voices, rather than the quartet of singers that he’s had a chance to work with through school.

“Having an entire chamber choir, there were so many different things involved,” he says. “It allowed us to play a lot. We had the opportunity to take risks.”

He notes that the hands-on work with the choir throughout the term gave him a chance to hear his piece evolve, and each time he heard the choir perform it, he learned something new about what worked and what didn’t.

“It became a lot about solving problems,” he notes.

Mah notes that having the chance to work with a composer as experienced as Luengen was a blessing to the students.

“She was really, really knowledgeable,” he says. “I learned a lot of valuable stuff about writing for choir.”

Siu notes that Luengen was generous with her time to the young composers, giving them a chance to email and talk to her whenever they needed advice or encountered obstacles. And, he says, she was quick to spot areas of the composers’ work that could be problematic in a choral setting.

“She knows her craft so well that she can point them all out,” he says. “It’s a really good program for helping composers develop the voice they are trying to write in.”

Mah agrees.

“It helped a lot in seeing the full scope of what I’d actually written,” he says.

And, they both note, having such an in-depth program available to them for free was an added bonus.

Both are also quick to give a great deal of credit to the SFU music composition program, particularly teachers David MacIntyre and Janet Danielson.

Siu notes that the SFU program is unique in that it’s not secondary to a performance program but, rather, a stand-alone entity of its own.

“It’s a really interesting program,” Siu says. “You’re composing from Year 1.”

He notes that the program’s focus on electroacoustic work also makes it stand out.

Throughout their studies, he says, students have a chance to survey what happened in composition throughout the 20th century.

“You learn where a lot of the music comes from,” he says.

“It makes you ask, ultimately, the question, What do we do now? As composers, what do we do to move forward?”

He notes that students also benefit from a chance to work with those studying in other areas of the arts, including film and dance, and seeing how composition can be a collaborative work with those in other disciplines.

Mah, who recently had a chance to work on sound for a film project, agrees.

“I think I’d like to do collaborative work,” he says, noting that he’d love to find himself writing music for dance and theatre. “I think it would a lot more fun to pursue a career composing things with other people.”

Siu is eyeing the possibility of graduate studies in composition and agrees that he, too, would like to collaborate with other artists.

“Working with dancers is a really good experience,” he says.

In fact, Siu has work in the SFU dance students’ grad show, being held May 4 to 7.

Both also had work in a recent electroacoustic show at SFU Woodward’s and in the IGNITE! Youth Festival at the Cultch.

Siu notes that one of the most important things for composers is to listen to as much music as possible, so both he and Mah spend as much of their spare time as possible taking in concerts - the Music on Main series is one of their favourites, and they also have an all-access pass for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

“The more live music you listen to, the better a composer you’ll be,” he points out.

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For more on music composition studies at SFU, check out www.sfu.ca and look for the links under School for the Contemporary Arts.

For more on the Phoenix Chamber Choir and its Young Composers Development program, visit www.

phoenixchamberchoir.bc.ca.