Dahlia Rostom

MEET DAHLIA!

Hello! My name is Dahlia (She/Her) and I was born in Ottawa, but lived in Calgary for 7 years! I am happiest when spending time with my family, but I also have many other hobbies that I enjoy very much, like drawing and sewing. I am a competitive rower as well, but I also love being creative.

As a kid, I spent many years switching between musical instruments, such as violin, piano, and flute. But 4 years ago I began learning the classical guitar and I get more and more passionate by the day! I enjoy the versatility of the guitar and enjoy learning different genres of music that I like, such as rock.

Dahlia's Final Composition
"THE TRAVELLER'S THEME"

For this year’s final composition, we were inspired by the compositional style of Joe Hisaishi, a Japanese composer who created many scores for the Studio Ghibli films. Hisaishi is often composing using traditional Japanese sounds, as well as Western music with big, grand orchestras. In order to mimic his style, my instrumentation included the flute, horn, violin, contrabass, harp, and piano. In addition, my structure follows an ABA form, one typically used by Hisaishi as well.

My composition, entitled "The Traveller’s Theme", was inspired by the heroic and romantic nature of Hisaishi’s compositional style. I was very much inspired by the tone and mood of the main theme from Castle in the Sky, which includes heroic, romantic, as well as naturalistic themes. Additionally, to continue with the theme of nature, I was also inspired by the music from My Neighbour Totoro.

"The Traveller's Theme" expresses an individual journey of a character; though it is not a specific story, I felt as though the A section of my music depicted the wonders of an adventure, whether it is on a small or large scale. As for the B section, I was inspired by nature and intended for an introspective and slow-paced section to offset the A section. Without having a definite theme in mind when starting this composition, I allowed my ideas to form as my music progressed and therefore was able to create three distinct sections that worked in cohesion with one another.

For your best listening experience, we highly recommend using headphones!

Dahlia_Traveler's_Theme_Final.mov

Dahlia's Reflection on the Final Composition

What are your thoughts on having Joe Hisaishi specifically as a reference for your work? How did having his music in mind affect your own compositional decision-making? In what ways do you think you were successful in capturing his style in your composition?

I really enjoyed having Joe Hisaishi as a reference point. Before this project, I have always enjoyed Hisaishi and have definitely taken inspiration from him in previous compositions. For my compositional decision making, I made sure to keep my ideas simple and straight to the point and I made sure to slowly build up in intensity for the orchestration. All of his instruments sound very homogeneous, despite playing different parts, and I tried to achieve that as much as possible. I believe that my melodies and instrumentation worked with the prompt of this composition and sounded similar to Hisaishi. I listened to several of his compositions to understand his orchestration in order to get the best results.

What are some things that you did not foresee? Why do you think some of these turned out differently than what you intended or expected? How did you deal with this?

I did not foresee the difficulties of creating a B section that worked both cohesively with the A section, yet had its own personality. I wanted to follow through with what I had envisioned for the B section, but had great difficulty with following my ideas while also trying to make sure it properly led back into the A section. To overcome this, I stayed confident with my ideas and was able to use two different motifs for the B section. Without realizing, I understood that what I had created led well into the final A section. I learned to not second guess my ideas and to try them out before deciding whether they will work or not.

What worked well for you and therefore is something you would do again in the future?

What worked well for me during this composition was the aid of using pre-existing chord progressions. This allowed me to, firstly, match the style of Hisaishi and, secondly, be able to focus on my melody. Because I was familiar with the chord progressions from having prior knowledge of Hisaishi, I was able to naturally create melodies which worked with the chord progressions. In the future, I would like to do this again; however, to make it more challenging for myself, it would be beneficial to modify the chord progressions to make them my own and ensure that I learn how to create my own cohesive chord progressions.

What did NOT work well for you and therefore is something you would do differently in the future?

I believe that what I would like to improve on in the future would be to add more depth and parallels between the different instruments. A lot of times, most of the sections would be playing in the same/ very similar ranges. This meant that some sections of the music became muddy. Next time, I will learn to not be afraid of going higher or lower, and learning to use the natural range of instruments. For example, both the violin and flute were playing in their lower range (section A melody 2 for the violin, and B section melody 1 for flute specifically). In order to add more cohesion between the parts, I will also add more parallels of melodies in sections in order to add a level of stability. At times when all instruments were playing together, and playing different melodies, it did not match Joe Hisaishi’s style, and lacked stability in the bass especially.

Other Highlights from This Year

Attic_Panic.m4v

HORROR SHORT FILM SCORE

This is a composition scored for the horror short Attic Panic.

I was influenced by the Gregorian chants for my instrumentation, using choir voices, as well as synth and bells to give a creepy and other-worldly feeling to the composition. I used several techniques such as changing tempo, subdivisions, and volume, as well as the use of silence in order to build suspense throughout the composition to complement the actions on screen.

FILM SCORING EXPLAINED

This is the breakdown of my creative process for the scoring of Attic Panic.

The sound for this horror short was created in collaboration with the Film Studies class, as they completed the foley work of the sound effects used while our Music class completed the film scoring of the music.

Film_Scoring_Explained.mp4

LASP GUITAR COMPETITION PERFORMANCE

This is Dahlia's classical guitar performance of "Choro" by Domingo Semenzato and "Rose in the Garden" by Carlo Domeniconi.

Other Highlights from Last Year

Dahlia's Final Composition
"A RISING SUN"

The goal of my composition is to portray the stages of a sunrise in the form of music, hence its title, "A Rising Sun". By structuring the work in the form of ABC, I wanted to represent three different moments: the starry sky before the sun rises; the sky when it begins to change colour and the sun is almost visible; and finally, when the sun is in sight and the sky is full of bright colours. I then created three different motifs for each of the stages listed above which guided me to create full melodies. The first melody is in the key of A minor to represent the mysterious yet tranquil qualities of the night sky. To reflect these qualities, there is a lot of slurring in the flute and also the tempo in this section is the slowest of the three. The second melody uses an A Phrygian Dominant scale which is able to portray a very mystical sound. For this melody, I was heavily inspired by Gregorian chants, particularly in the first two bars. It starts off slow but gradually picks up throughout the entire section to represent the speed at which the colours in the sky shift. Finally, the last melody ends in the key of A Major which modulates to F# Minor at the end. This final section is much brighter and much faster to represent the climax of a sunrise. To give it a light, bouncy quality, this melody includes more detached articulations as well. Overall, the main melody is played by the flute and the harp plays both the bass and the harmony. I think these two instruments have timbres which corresponded with the setting of my piece as a whole.

Dahlia_A_Rising_Sun.mp3

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