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Into the Sun: Gabriel Medina

Jiyang Chen

Gabriel Medina: A southern gentleman from Houston, Texas.

And more.

He’s a young composer, working on his master’s from Juilliard.  His undergraduate work was in piano performance, and something inside wasn’t settled with that.  He knew himself well enough to recognize he didn’t enjoy the spotlight, but the creative process and composing.  He took composition classes which turned out to be the road to his calling.

In that vein, he’s struggled with finding his authenticity as a composer, because honesty is one of the most important, if not the most important thing.  He’s wrestled with what kind of music to write, does he mold to outside pressures that push for high art or highbrow “meaningful” music, or does he follow his inner voice that draws him to accessible music? 

Gabe is a young man finding his way to all he was created to be.  For now, that means staying in New York, but maybe someday, he’ll follow the journey to the West Coast where he thinks of composing for movies and television.

Here are his words about composing for American Fusion: Into the Sun:

As a composer, I’m most interested by collaborative projects.  When Kristen explained her idea for the American Fusion Project to me, I was intrigued by her desire to combine multiple artistic disciplines into a common programmatic theme. 

The theme – Creativity and Artistic Inspiration – is especially important to me as a young artist. I often struggle with artistic merit. Does what I write fit into the mold of contemporary aesthetic ideals? What will my colleagues think of the piece I’m writing? Is the piece really me?  These are questions that face every young artist, and they are all addressed so sincerely in Frank O’Hara’s poem A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island. For a long time now, I’ve taken comfort in this poem during periods of self-doubt. As such, this project is what I consider a personal tribute to this poem.  

The tour starts in Garden City on Tuesday, September 2, at the Garden City High School, continues in Lawrence on Thursday, September 4, and ending on Saturday, September 6, in Kansas City.  

More about the project, the tour, and the performers can be found online at Arts Fusion Initiative.