Will Raymer '09 has been working on a project. Some people whisper about the symphony he is composing. Others say that he is producing a theatrical show or creating an opera. The truth, however, is that each rumor is accurate: Raymer is working on a major project, and it embodies elements of all three musical forms.
Raymer's production, "And I Shall Stand Here Like a Shadow," is the end result of his senior fellowship in music, which serves as the culmination of Raymer's long music career at Dartmouth.
Raymer, in an interview with The Dartmouth, said his interest in music was first sparked when he began singing in an opera for children and joined a boys' choir at age six. When he arrived at the College, however, he said he did not intend to major in music.
"I believed that music wasn't as important as, for example, politics, because a really good piece of music won't feed you," Raymer said.
A life and death experience early on in his college career, though, changed his opinion. During his freshman winter, Raymer was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"One of the things that I would have regretted is not having music as much as possible in my life," he said. "Music can do good things that are hard to quantify, but that are absolutely real."
From then on, Raymer stopped ignoring his passion for music. He has been actively involved in several musical ensembles at Dartmouth, including the Dartmouth Aires, the student-run Dartmouth Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Singers.
"[The Aires is] very much like a family with all of the bickering and in-fighting, but also all that comes with love," Raymer said.
He gained experience with other aspects of music by serving as director of the Aires and conductor of the DCO.
Raymer pushed his musical skills even further by beginning to compose music.
In Fall 2007, he wrote a choral arrangement based on poems from William Blake's "Songs of Experience" that was performed by the Chamber Singers a year later. After completing an independent study in composition, Raymer said his interest in the area was solidified.
Raymer said the composing process is both "weird and difficult."
"It takes so much extra work to get it to the audience, because you need people to get together and work on it for a long, extended period of time," he said. "The more creative energy goes into it, the better the end result is."
Indeed, composing "And I Shall Stand Here Like a Shadow" has been a long process for Raymer, who started working on the project last fall.
Raymer said the piece was prompted by his long-standing interest in mythology. It is based on a portion of Louise Bogan's poem "Medusa," which begins when Poseidon rapes Medusa at Athena's temple and ends when Perseus assassinates Medusa.
Raymer said that when he first started talking to his senior fellowship adviser, he intended to write a musical. Later, however, he decided to combine music and theater in a less traditional manner. As a result, the production is comprised of five "blazes" in which a quartet of singers deliver choral arrangements, mixed in with four scenes in which performers deliver emotions through physical movement, with instrumental music in the background.
Incorporating the theatrical elements was difficult because the various genres included in the production are so disparate, according to Adam Frank '09, who directed the four scenes.
"None of the normal steps of the process that people are trained to follow applied, so we were making a process as we went along," Frank said.
The performers also found that the genre-bending quality of the piece posed difficulties.
"It was the most challenging piece I have ever worked on," actress Elise Hogan '09 said.
As she delved further into the piece, however, she said she began to find it "striking and very intelligent, with a lot of interesting recurring themes and aesthetic harmonies."
The production, according to Raymer, is "bound up in discussion of how power and justice intersect with gender and space."
"When you walk into Sig Ep or walk into KDE, you don't need to see a single person and you can still recognize the space is gendered," Raymer said.
But just as important as the issues addressed in the piece are the aesthetic qualities of the music.
"I try to do things that are beautiful, but I don't know if I succeed," Raymer said. "Every now and then I do, and when I get it, it's really cool."
The production will be presented May 24 at 5:30 p.m. and May 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Rollins Chapel.
Raymer said he hopes to continue his studies in composition in the future, perhaps attending graduate school in the field after taking some time off to work.
