 So that's the way it goes, the star lost your, what a sight, where's the line from me. Welcome to the show, Meeting Interesting People. Today my guest, Beau Connistmark, who is a composer and DMA candidate at Hart Music School. So, welcome to the show. Thank you. We put on our screen, your website, that people can get information in general. But I would like to introduce to our viewers a little history from your bio, like why music was so important in your life and how it started. It's a big question for most people I would imagine, but I'd say the earliest memory I have is waking up in the morning and my mom playing hymns on the piano. And I wasn't really into music as much growing up in my younger days, although I did play piano and guitar and sing a lot just in like church and youth programs and things like that. But sports was my main focus, just loved athletics. But around about college time, 18, 19 years old, I started to fall in love with music much more because I had taken a theory class and it opened up my perspective a lot more to see what was out there. And I kind of knew that my trajectory with sports, particularly soccer, that was my main sport, was going to probably end. And even if I was fortunate enough to play at some kind of higher level that that would also end quickly. And I knew that music was something that I could put creativity into in a similar way in a kind of a competitive and interesting and driven way. So I'd say for about the last 20 years I've dedicated every day of my life to it, whether it's learning new material to practicing my own abilities with writing and composing. Yeah, but how you become a composer? Well, before I came I started at Berkeley in Massachusetts in 2016. My wife and I decided to move. So where you were born? Marietta, Georgia. Yeah, I lived there for 18 years and I went to school in Tennessee for a soccer scholarship. Wow. Yeah, for four to five years. And yeah, like I said, I was there mostly for sports. That's what I cared about. But then I started to transition into music and spent a couple of years just creating it on my own, practicing on my own. And my wife and I decided to get me, that it would be good for me to go to music school. So I did and it was great. I went to Berkeley for two years for an undergrad in composition. And then I went to Tufts for a master's degree for two years. And now I'm at heart studying for a DMA and it's great. I've been very fortunate and one thing has just led to another. So you got the award for one of your compositions just in 2018. Which one is that? I don't know. Maybe you got many, not just one. I think, yeah. I mean, there's a competition that I became a semifinalist for. I'm also a semifinalist for it now called the American Prize. And yeah, you submit your works for various things that you feel are ready to go. And people want to perform more. When you started composing, who was more influenced you in this way in the composition? It's pretty big and open. I think I really loved all the orchestral music that started developing out of video games. And then also film music that I grew up watching like John Williams and Land Before Time. Just all the amazing film scores. And then the songs that are written within them. I enjoy all of that too. So the first song you just, we start our interview, I see you wrote lyrics by yourself also, right? So what was the trigger for such a kind of mellow for one way and sad to another way of this lyrics? I try to make sure that if I'm going to write a song that I have some kind of lyrical mission. If I'm going to compose my own text, I need to feel like something has happened and there's some kind of conflict. Not necessarily a conflict, but there needs to be a reason why I want to take the time to write a song. Other than just putting together chords and harmony and melody and just doing things that I enjoy musically. After we're getting words down that start to take meaning to me personally, that helps to also drive. So the lyrics come first? Not really. I think what I would do is, yeah, at least the origin, I would sit there to myself and say, this thing kind of bothered me a little bit and I don't know how to process it exactly. I don't necessarily want to discuss it with anybody necessarily. But I want to express myself exactly to kind of feel a sense of dignity about whatever I'm kind of struggling with. And make yourself free. Yeah, yeah, so that's what I meant about needing to have something that I really do want to say. I don't know exactly what it is yet. So yeah, I fumble around and I'm like, cool, I like the way these little things and then you get serious about putting down some structure. And then once there's some structure, just some four bar phrases and some repeating chord patterns, maybe change the place where you do the same thing, but it's different sounds. That all kind of informs this ride that begins to come about. Yeah, so the words start to follow along, but I went through probably another five or six stanzas like this. I scratch them out. You just keep kind of working out and you say, okay, like the way it's, because you want to have a good structure. You want to have some good rhymes. You don't want to be too obvious about things. You want to have an honest way of saying what you want to say. But it's not all of your music has your own lyrics. No, no, some vocal music that I have composed uses preexisting texts. So mostly you do the vocal music or I know you do the chamber. And for me, that piece I heard at Topps years ago, it just for me was impression like it's a mini opera. That's how I accepted the way it was performed on the stage. And then I know you create a new ensemble. So can you tell about this a little bit? Yeah, the Into the Light Ensemble has been wonderful. Like I said, as I started attending Berkeley back in 2016, towards the end of my program, I was introduced just to a whole group of wonderful musicians there and just started to create a network. Essentially, and as I went to Topps, that was still in town, you know, Medford. So it was nearby and a lot of the people that I still knew from Berkeley were still, I could still make contact with them. And then we could collaborate and do performances at Topps. And then, you know, of course, with the pandemic coming, things were not quite as easy, collaboratively speaking. But still, you know, here in Massachusetts and still working with a lot of the same wonderful people. And that has opened up much more than what I'm able to do with what you've seen here. But from the opera, you know, dramatic side of having fun and writing for the stage, all the way to me writing a personal song to kind of just keep in my own suitcase, I like everything in between. Yeah, so, and I know you just mentioned you're playing guitar, you're playing piano, and you're playing flute. So did you, like, polish all this mastering, all these instruments with certain teachers or just again by yourself? Mostly by myself. I wouldn't say master, but I would say, like, functional in certain contexts. Oh, you're modest. Just before I moved to Massachusetts, I was working as a band director, middle school band director, and I taught myself as much as I could with trumpet, flute. The wind instruments, brass instruments were easier to kind of get, like, basic techniques down. But I did, you know, work on some cello and violin. Wow. That'll take a lot longer to get any kind of grasp on. So do you have time for any other hobbies? We know that you love soccer and you're playing still, right? I don't know. Unfortunately, no. I have three daughters. I have three daughters together who are six. I know. Congratulations. The last one just was recent one. Yes, yes. But I guess now almost seven, five and two in just two or three months. But that is basically my hobby. I see. To be a dad. So is a kid playing any music instruments? Not yet. We try and not push it on them. Well, like, you did yourself at 12, right, you said? Yeah. You know, it took, it was a different kind of journey. And it was not. I mean, I was enrolled in lessons when I was a kid, but I was not as comfortable sitting down and reading music. So you said mom was playing him when you were little. So she's a music teacher? She never was. I mean, she was a teacher, an elementary school teacher, but she never, she just was really serious about taking lessons for a while and just got pretty good on her own. And just her who was playing the dad is not musician? No, my dad, it's funny. He has a very, very pretty sounding singing voice. But my mom says he can't like stay in tune or can't follow. She's just criticized. I see. So the girls are singing maybe, right? Your daughters. Oh, singing and dancing with all of their hearts. Yes. So are you writing music for children? No, really, no. Oh, you should write. I have, yeah, you're not the first to bring that up. Actually, some of my into the light friends said I should write an opera for kids. Right. Well, unfortunately, Massachusetts doesn't have children's theater or children's opera. I mean, they have some Willick theater where kids performing, but not the opera. I mean, some, some groups were performing some operas. I think it was a combination of adults and kids. So, yeah. Well, we, I think we've given a lot of hope for parents and kids. Like, like you said, we're involved much in sport and all of a sudden you turn to music. And we in the century when the music is very important and to be a creator is more important. I mean, you need to be a healthy person for sure. And so the sport will help, but the music and I like that the schools here in the States, they have this musical program and orchestras and bands, which is very nice also. So, well, you know, and I think we were talking about mostly about everything, what I would like to know in and our viewers will be interested. So if you want to add something, so it will be interesting to our viewers. You can do that, but if not, we have a good time, I hope. Yeah, sure. I could just say a parting thought and that because, you know, in driving over here, I'm thinking to myself and considering lots of days before this, the question that continues is why are you doing this? Why do you compose? Why do you make music? And you know, I asked myself that when I'm sitting in my kitchen writing down these words that I wonder if it's ever going to mean anything to anybody at some point. But, you know, it's just it's a journey and it's one it's one foot in front of the other and it's learning new skill sets that essentially help to expand one's own abilities, whether it be from a health perspective, from an intellectual perspective, artistic, all of those things. But one of the biggest things and as you had said about into the light is the ability to create chemistry with people and how music can bring people together as an ensemble. It can as a group of friends say it who, you know, want to work hard toward a goal together. And the goal is into the light. Yeah, yeah, to stay in the light and especially during a time like we've been facing. It's not that's not an easy thing and you get a lot of these and there have not been as many opportunities to go out onto the stage. But, you know, there's the music is it's alive and it's there every day and there's not always moments when I'm right on it with anything, whether it's like grueling score editing or if I just want to like be very lyrical and sing. Maybe it's not there on one day, but it is it's still, you know, it's still available. That's part of the reasons one of the reasons why I love it so much. And as I said, it's, you know, hopefully I can still swing a tennis racket when I'm older. But, you know, I'm definitely hoping I'll still be playing and singing for all of my life. Well, thank you so much for coming and thank you for sharing your talent. And I hope that viewers will be following your website and listening to concerts right now, maybe only in recording, but maybe in future on the stages. Absolutely. Thank you so much.