COMPOSER SABRINA PENA YOUNG | MUSIC TECHNOLOGY | FILM | CLASSICAL | OPERA

Jack-o-lantern (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Halloween is always my busiest time of the year. For some reason, the stars have it aligned around Halloween. Halloween was supposed to be my birthday, but I missed it by a week. Ironically, my daughter was born on Halloween (10 days after her original due date!). My first real masterpiece, the Creation Oratorio, was brainstormed in an Illinois bar with choral director Michael Engelhardt after the successful premier of my ghostly work virelaan by the Millikin University Percussion Ensemble. This year I created a fun sci-fi homage for the Millikin University Percussion Concert. The premier will be Oct. 25 as part of the extremely popular annual Percussion Concert at the haunted Albert Taylor Theater. If you are in the Illinois area, you HAVE to check out this amazing and unforgettable Halloween event. Costumes and ghosts are encouraged! Check out the event here:  http://www.millikin.edu/kirkland/events/pages/EventDetails...

Encompassed in surreal fog and the dark void of Albert Taylor Theater , surrounded by ghouls, strangely familiar characters, and faux politicians donning masks as unreal as their human counterparts, the patrons of the annual Millikin University Percussion Ensemble Halloween Concert experienced a Halloween extravaganza like no other. Musicians donning costumes both dastardly and deeply disturbing, performed an eclectic mix of works from Dr. Jeremy Brunk’s exceptional rhythmic study, " Dominican Cycles ", to works involving balloons and knives and lighters, and Sabrina Pena Young's eerie intermedia work, virelaan . Intermixed within outstanding percussion performances were interludes beckoning back to familiar horror villians such as the Joker and Saw's John Kramer. The Annual Halloween Concert is the brain child of Brian Justison , Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of Percussion Studies at Millikin University. Justison directed the entire production, from th...

Between packing up my Miami apartment for a move to America's Heartland in Kentucky and tying up all the loose ends at my job, I have been completing my latest composition for Milllikin University in Illinois. The composition, the name of which has been oscillating between Rail Girl to Forgotten, and now is just untitled again, has been a fun break from the usual heavily sci-fi fair that I usually create. Millikin University enjoys the notoriety for being the nation's most haunted (yes, haunted as in GHOSTS! BOO!) university. The ghost of the Rail Girl haunts the concert hall. Musicians and theater students alike try to assuage the wrath of Rail Girl by leaving her an offering of candy. Those that do not have had various catastrophes plague their performances, with one girl even claiming the ghost attempted to throw her down the stairs! You can read more about the Rail Girl HERE. When composing this piece I decided to purchase some "inspirational" items from the local...

The American Music Society has awarded Sabrina Pena Young a music grant for the premier performance of World Order #5 at Kansas State University this November, under the direction of Kurt Gartner. Progress on the commissioned work, World Order #5, has been a otherworldly audio experience. The electronic tape part, heavily inspired by the robotic truisms of Hal from 2001 Space Odyssey, creates a sound texture of an imminent apocalypse. World Order #5 is written for percussion sextet, video, and electronic tape. The instrumentation includes vibes, marimba I and II, and three percussionists. The score and tape will be available through the American Music Society after November's performance. The video for World Order #5 will be a combination of 3D and 2D animation techniques, and is the first time that Young will be using 3D animation for a live performance. Sabrina Young just released her debut electroacoustic album, Origins. Cinematic soundscapes, pulsating rhythms, and enigmatic vo...