Plenty of young musicians would have seen the global pandemic of 2020 as a colossal setback. However, not for a teenager in Jackson Hole who had his heart and mind set on expressing himself through music. During the quiet, lonely months of 2020, a 14-year-old Vonn Vanier forced himself into a rigorous, self-prescribed course in music theory, compositional practice and piano improvisation. When the world woke-up and he emerged on the other side, Vanier was well on the way to becoming a fully-formed composer armed with a comprehensive technical toolkit and a passion for the craft. Now 18, Vanier has released his first album of music on the Montclair Records label, produced by Jeremy Cohen. 

Vonn Vanier was born in 2007. He grew up in San Francisco and sang for five years as a member of the renowned Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys. His first composition was a hymn performed by this choir at his eighth-grade graduation ceremony. But Vanier was already setting his sights on bigger things. He was determined to learn the art of the composer, just not in any standardized way. When his family moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he combined his own personal studies with the day-to-day inspiration of living in one of the most spectacular and inspiring natural environments on the American continent.

It was quite a leap from there to the prestigious surroundings of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, where Vanier found himself in the summer of 2022 in the selective program that has produced countless admired composers. Mentored by Drs. Martin Amlin, Len Tetta and Justin Casinghino, Vanier was invited to return for two more summers.

Vanier’s strong musical voice was coming to the fore, aided by his solidifying technique, his gifts as an improvising pianist and his own fascinating with a range of musical styles from classical to film music, jazz and salsa. This compellingly talented musician – now 18 years old – has now presented his debut album on Montclair Records, distributed by The Orchard.

Dawn is an eclectic mix of chamber and orchestral music that profiles Vanier’s musical personality with influences ranging from Brahms to Hans Zimmer and the American minimalists. Its seven tracks are testament to the composer’s elegance, quiet confidence and thoughtfulness as well as his strength of artistic expression. ‘In all the different pieces and approaches I’ve used,’ says Vanier of the music featured on the album, ‘I’ve sought a middle ground between atonality – the style that might be considered intellectual or technical – and the popular side of Classical and Romantic music, even film music. I’ve taken influences from various traditions and I hope I’ve found a way to create something novel that all audiences can enjoy and appreciate.’

The opening work, Lost at Home for orchestra, immediately demonstrates a Shostakovich-like intensity. The music was inspired by a passage from Erich Maria Remarque’s 1928 novel All Quiet on the Western Front and reflects on the horrors of the First World War. It draws upon themes from Shostakovich’s Symphony No 11 and Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn in conveying contrasting feelings of ferocity and familiarity, even if the latter are strangely tainted.

The piano quintet work Shimmer presents a journey through glimmering textures under which a complex combination of scales and modes (Lydian, Dorian, Whole-Tone) continuously stimulate surface lustre. ‘I sought to highlight the versatility of these distinct styles by creating large contrasts in the tone, energy and volume of the work,’ says Vanier.

Schoenberg’s influence is once again apparent in the piano work OPCI, though despite its immediately engaging nature, the work’s conception is greatly theoretical. Each of the five movements is based entirely on a set of ordered pitch class intervals (hence the title), with elements of symmetry and imitation pervading the work. This is a work at once crackling and fresh, using nearly the entire range of the piano in its alternation of urgency and stillness. Also for string quartet is the genteel ‘danse macabre’ that is Witching Hour for string quartet composed at Tanglewood in 2023 and Bloom, which blossoms from its opening clarinet solo into a full wind quintet and whose charming harmonic layering evokes ‘the colour and expansive nature of spring,’ in the composer’s words.

By far the largest piece in both scale and ambition is Vanier’s Rhapsody in C minor, composed in 2023 and performed here by the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daria Novo. This piece is also one of contrasts, drawing influence in that regard from Beethoven but in whose orchestral sheen Vanier also points to his own regard for film composer Hans Zimmer. Intriguingly, the entire piece is structured as a response to its opening motto – a rising contour of C, D and E flat and a sudden drop to B. ‘With this piece came emotional highs and lows as well as great excitement,’ says Vanier of the six-month composition process in 2023. The assured confidence of the Rhapsody alone, and its vivid performance as the high-point of his debut album, is enough to herald Vanier as a composer to watch.

Listen now: https://lnk.to/vonn-vanier-dawn