GRAND JUNCTION —Hearing the tune he composed on a piano at home arranged for multiple instruments and played by the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra was an experience 10-year-old Gavin Hart won’t soon forget.
“It was awesome the way they played,” Gavin said at the Avalon Theatre, where the symphony orchestra performed his melody twice on the weekend of March 7-8.
Gavin shut out nearly 30 other children in elementary or middle school to win the symphony’s sixth annual Crystal Baton Composition Competition. Applicants composed a melody with hopes of having it arranged for an orchestra and played for an audience at a symphony concert. Gavin’s composition, “Ghosts and Goblins,” won that prize, enchanting judges with its Halloween-inspired lilt.
This year’s contest garnered more applicants than ever before, said Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra marketing director Jeremy Herigstad.
“We do it to encourage writing music,” Herigstad said. “We give the winner a handmade crystal baton, a copy of the conductor’s score and a recording of the concert.”
Gavin is the youngest winner in the competition’s short history and the first male contestant to take the prize.
Gavin, a fourth-grader at Wingate Elementary School, said he was surprised to learn of his victory on the way home from school. He overheard his mother, Amber, listening to a voice mail message when he picked up on the words “crystal baton.” They were so excited, they drove to his piano teacher’s house to tell her the news.
Gavin got to join the symphony on stage while it performed his tune.
