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As we reflect on our 2024–25 season, GIVE, we’re filled with gratitude for the many extraordinary moments and gifts we’ve shared with our community. One memory, in particular, stands out. Not just because it was dazzling and ambitious, but because it represented something profoundly full circle!
This past February, two very special projects happened simultaneously, each highlighting the extraordinary journey of young people we met through our education programs, from their very first notes to taking the stage as professional artists and composers.
On one side of town, in partnership with our friends at Austin Chamber Music Center, we presented a brand-new live score for the 1925 silent film classic The Phantom of the Opera, performed alongside Lon Chaney’s haunting portrayal of the masked figure lurking beneath the Paris Opera House. The breathtaking new score was written by Matthew Lyons, an Austin-based composer and guitarist who first crossed our path through ACG’s work with AISD at Anderson High School; back before we were really established in the school district!
Now, years later, Matthew returned to ACG as a professional artist, leading a dream team of performers—his Moontower Guitar Duo partner Stephen Krishnan, violinist Sandy Yamamoto, and cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins—through 90 minutes of heart-pounding, live-performed music that breathed fresh life into a cinematic masterpiece.
Meanwhile, another chapter of someone’s musical story was being written. This one at the very beginning of its arc!
Bowie High School senior Besa Carney, a longtime student in our education programs, was preparing to debut her very first guitar duet composition as part of our play! series. She spent weeks working with our Director of Education, Travis Marcum, and world renown guitarist Randall Avers, on one of her very early compositions in her career which she later got to perform with Randy by her side on stage!
We had the pleasure of speaking with both Matthew and Besa!
Although Matthew was never directly a student of ACG, he was very connected with our community! He shares,
“I went to Anderson which didn’t have a classical guitar program at the time, my journey with the guitar began because I studied privately with Steve Kostelnik in middle/high school. However, growing up playing classical guitar in Austin, ACG provided many opportunities to perform and get to know other like-minded musicians. After leaving to study in San Francisco for a few years and then returning to Austin, many of my musical projects have been fostered by ACG, from writing a guitar trio to be performed in James Turrell’s Skyspace by students from ACG’s Education program, to writing the score for Phantom. Even with smaller projects, there’s such a strong sense of community in this org that I always inevitably end up making new connections with people, and these connections can often grow organically into the next project.
Being a part of this creative ecosystem has been such a privilege and has shaped the way that I view artistic “success”. Being successful is often associated with quantitative measures – how many concerts you play, how many views your videos have, how many followers you have, how many awards you’ve won, etc. I’ve learned through working with ACG over the years that a more meaningful definition of success as a musician can be the depth of creative connections you make over time. There’s something special about getting to build meaningfully on previous projects, establishing a rapport with more and more people in your community while you witness it grow at the same time, and knowing that what you’ve created or helped create is truly “of a place”. Having a sense of home as an artist is vital, an ACG has become that home for me.”
Diving into the massive project that was Phantom of the Opera, Matthew shared a beautiful statement about the process of creating that gorgeous composition,
“Writing 90 minutes of music over a year to be performed live with a film felt like a marathon. Although it seemed like I had plenty of time when Joe proposed the idea in February 2024, I began writing as soon as I could because I knew that it would take hundreds of hours to create something of that scope. The silver lining to that constant pressure over a long period of time was that I didn’t have the usual opportunity to second-guess my work – if I wasn’t entirely happy with a section, I just had to move on and come back to it if I had time. This forced me to trust my instinct more, and in fact having more material to work with sooner gave me more time to see how it all connected at a larger scale. Since I was writing music for a well established film, much was already decided for me. Factors such as pacing, mood, and character development were already inherent in the movie, and it was my job to amplify what was already working!
A challenge to scoring a silent film in general is that the music – being the only sonic element – ends up having an outsized role compared to contemporary film scoring. Acting from the silent film era tends to have exaggerated gestures and facial expressions to make up for the lack of audible dialogue, and it’s hard to know when these gestures are begging for music to accompany them – almost as a duet partner – or when it’s better to let the music percolate in the background at the larger service of the entire scene.
Since people already have the option of watching The Phantom in many different formats, I felt emboldened to write something completely different from what they might expect, although it was difficult to resist the temptation to borrow ideas from these other soundtracks! Ultimately, the great asset of this project was that performing the score live added a dimension to the experience that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
The week of the performances made me realize what an incredible feat of human coordination was required to make this project happen. It was a true honor to watch such talented humans work together to make this insane tightrope-walk of a concert actually work somehow, from the performers to the tech crew.
The last thing I’ll mention is how fun it was to play melodica on stage with Stephen (a melodica is a keyboard-like instrument that you blow into with a mouthpiece or tube – kind of sounds like an accordion but a lot easier to play). I wasn’t sure how I’d handle playing under pressure on an instrument I had just started playing several months before, but it ended up being one of the funnest parts!”
We asked what kind of advice would Matthew, now as a professional musician and composer, give to someone at the beginning of their journey, like Besa. Here’s what he shared:
“There are so many things to say, so I’ll make a list:
Write music that is true to yourself. Don’t worry about trying to impress people – there will always be people who love what you write, and people who don’t. In the end, the most impressive music is that which sounds authentic, and if you write for yourself, it will be. Lean strongly into your influences and learn as much as you can from the music you love. Don’t be afraid to let those influences show in your music. Over time, your individual voice will diffuse throughout your work the way a drop of dye can color an entire glass of water.
Don’t let composing be an isolated activity. Share your work with as many people as possible and try to work directly with the musician(s) who will play your music. This is an incredible way to sharpen your skills and make lifelong connections. As soon as you can, find those few people you trust most to give you supportive and honest feedback, and lean on them when you need advice or affirmation (we all do). Be your peers’ biggest fan. When you show people genuine support, it finds its way back to you.
Identify your artistic strengths and nurture them. Don’t define yourself by your perceived weaknesses. Composing is a lot like digging for gold – you have to sift through a lot of dirt to get to the good stuff. The sooner you get started and the longer you work, the closer you get to finding those few truly good ideas, so learn to appreciate your discarded ideas as a necessary part of the process. Having a compelling artistic voice comes from living life fully. Strike a balance between doing those things that make you a better artist and those things that make you more than just an artist, because sometimes they are one and the same. In the end, being a composer is more a constant action than a state of being. You might only ever feel like a “composer” when you’re composing, and that’s okay!
And finally, take time to feel proud of your work!”
We have come to know Besa Carney deeply through our Education programs! We met Besa when she was in middle school and participated in our Youth Camerata ensemble and we have followed her musical journey during her high school years at Bowie. She shares,
“Being involved with ACG has really enriched my musical capability to not just perform guitar, but to work with others which is such an important skill for people to have! I also had a guitar ensemble piece of mine premiered in New Mexico on our trip there, which was amazing! I am super blessed for all of the opportunities ACG has given me!”
Besa’s composition journey started at a very young age, beginning in 6th grade! She dives deeper,
“I initially composed for the first time in 6th grade when my mom’s birthday was coming up and I didn’t have any money, so I made her a 8 measure piano song. It was really bad, but my mom said she loved it. Then towards the end of middle school I started composing more, and I really liked it!
I have performed and gotten my compositions performed several times, but the one I composed this year was my first guitar duet piece.”
In late February, as part of our play! series, Besa performed this duo piece with Randall Avers! She shares more about the experience,
“Playing with Randy was incredible because even though his part was super hard, he made it sound easy.
Getting to work with Randy was such an amazing opportunity! It was really touching to hear about his life journey that occurred this past year, and how he used his experiences to create music with the people he cares most about. He is such a talented musician and an incredibly nice person, and I am very lucky that I got to work with him on my duet piece.”
Watch their performance of Ancestor by Besa Carney, here:
Looking forward, Besa plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin to major in composition in the Fall! We’re so pumped to see what she does next!
We’re so grateful to connect with such talented people in our community and continue to create beautiful music and experiences with them. And we look forward to sharing more stories like these with you!