J. B. Clancy The NEC Prep Contemporary Festival is coming up next week, Feb. 3-5, 2017! Composer Judd Greenstein will be in residence and also many student compositions will be featured! Our next featured student composer is John Barron Clancy, who shares his experiences composing and performing his own compositions: Barron Clancy has been taking violin lessons with NEC Prep faculty Susan Jarvis for six years. He is currently playing with Peter Jarvis' 8 am String Training Orchestra (STO) and with Milton's Pierce Middle School orchestra and chamber orchestra, led by Debra Thoresen. Barron has been studying Composition at NEC with Rodney Lister for the past year. In addition to writing music for class, Barron arranged Concerning Hobbits (by Howard Shore, from Lord of the Rings) for string orchestra last year, with input from his teachers along the way. The Milton High School chamber orchestra, conducted by Ms. Thoresen, played his arrangement at their spring concert and invited Barron to play the piece with them. Barron spends much of his free time composing. He adapted a Rondo from his composition class as a wedding gift for family friends who play oboe and cello. They learned it and played it for him - which was much better than hearing it on Finale playback. One of Barron’s favorite memories include meeting Boston Pops conductor, Keith Lockhart, at a Joslin Diabetes fundraiser reception at the Pops – he was coming from a composition lesson and Maestro Lockhart took some time to look at Barron’s work with him. Check out some of Barron’s works this upcoming weekend Feb 3-5, 2017!! #necprep #2017contemporaryfestival #juddgreenstein #todaysyouthperformtodaysmusic #studentcomposers #studentcomposersforthewin (at New England Conservatory Preparatory School)