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Projects

Projects showcases an amalgamation of things such as the full concerts/recitals where Williams' works are featured as well as concerts/recitals that showcase her skills as a performer.

The Composer

77th annual Feast of Lights

Starting the spring semester of her Junior Year of undergrad, Mena composed a piece for SATB Choir and Orchestra for the 77th production of Feast of Lights. She was inspired to take on this challenge after performing in a former students' work that was premiered in Feast two years prior. 

For her Feast of Lights composition Mena composed her own rendition of the 1958 classic Christmas carol The Little Drummer Boy.

Twisted Spruce Music Foundation 2024 Symposium
Guitar & Composition Competition

Mena recently became a participant for the 2024 Twisted Spruce Symposium Guitar and Composition Competition. During the Symposium she collaborated with one of the guitar participants and composed a piece for unaccompanied solo guitar. The guitarist will then perform and record the piece for the competition portion of the Symposium.
 

NATS & Cincinnati Song Initiative-- Let it be New 

In 2023, Mena was accepted to participate in the NATS Mentoring Program for Composers. During the program she received guidance from Composer Tom Cipullo and was given a chance to better understand how to write for solo vocalists. The piece she composed during the program used the text from poet Christina Rossetti's poem "Echo". Due to heavy influence of the themes, death and mourning within the text she titled the piece "An Abandoned Woman's Lament" which she believes was a rather fitting title that represented the reoccurring theme of loss in the text.

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"I was so thrilled with the quality of the applicants. Each applicant had a distinct style, but all displayed an innate understanding of how to write for voice, as well as a great imagination for crafting the accompaniment."  -- Lori Laitman

Green Orange Recital: 11.2023

Jehsica and Tim are friends and colleagues of Mena who also attend the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music. During their sophomore year of undergrad Jehsica and Tim commissioned Mena to write a piece for them to perform for their joint undergraduate junior recital. "When the Day has Gone" is a piece that beautifully showcases the range of both the Clarinet and the Trombone with a fun jazz-like rhythm and melody. The duet premiered the piece at the Green Orange Concert hosted by the University of Redlands Composition Studio on November 8th 2023 and performed it again at their recital on February 18th 2024.

Somerset Peede Virtual Recital: 08.2023

Mena met Violist Somerset Peede at the 3rd Season of the Mostly Modern Festival hosted at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York in the summer of 2022. Peede commissioned Mena to write a piece for solo viola for her virtual Graduate Recital. "A Reoccurring Dream" was premiered on Youtube Live on August 15th 2023. Somerset Peede was located in London, England  pursuing her Masters Degree in Viola Performance as a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the time of this premiere. So even though the performance was Digital Only, Mena likes to count this recital in the books as her first international premiere.

Young Women's Composer Camp Virtual Concert: 08.2021

In the summer 2021, Mena attended the then virtual festival formerly known as the Young Women's Composers Camp (now known as the WildFlower Composers Festival). During the festival, Mena was mentored by Composer inti-figgis vizeuta and was given the opportunity to compose a piece for the violin and viola duo, andPlay.

The Performer 

The Timeline -- Mena Williams' Junior Recital: 03.2024 

Per the requirements of her degree, rather than have a recital to showcase her talents as a composer; Mena's undergraduate junior recital showcased her proficiency and skills as a performer. At the University of Redlands she has been studying classical piano under the guidance of Artist Professor, Louanne Long. Who helped tremendously in creating a program that best represented her.

Mena had been planning since her second year of undergrad to program a recital that honors the African American Female Composers that came before her; this recital focused on the Black Female Composers of the 20th century such as Margaret Bonds, Florence B. Price, Zenobia Powell Perry, and Undine Smith Moore. It was an eye-opening experience to research and locate music from these underrepresented composers and Mena is very excited to be a part of the movement that brings the works of these composers to life after years of being disregarded due to racial and gender-related oppression.

Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin: 03.2024

In 2023 the University of Redlands received a grant to program and perform the Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin under Music Director & Conductor Murry Sidlin. The purpose of Maestro Sidlin's project; The Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin, is not just a performance of the Verdi Requiem but a tribute to honor the legacy of Rafael Schächter, one of many people who were imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II. The Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin is a concert-drama that tells the story of the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt (Terezin) Concentration Camp during WW2 who performed the Verdi's Requiem sixteen times under the guidance of Maestro Schächter despite the oppression of the Nazis. The performances have become a symbol of defiance and resistance, thus demonstrating the prisoners courage to confront the worst of mankind with the best of mankind.
The premiere of Maestro Sidlin's project was in the year 2002 in Portland, Oregon; since then there have been over 40 performances.

"We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them."
-- Conductor Raphael Schächter

University of Redlands Piano Studio Showcase

During the 2022, 2023, and 2024 fall semester of her undergraduate studies at the University of Redlands; Mena has participated in the Piano Studio Showcase directed by Artist Professor Louanne Long. 

During all three years Mena has performed in the showcase, she has performed in a 2 piano 8 hand group who titled themselves the Counterpoint Four. This group is comprised of herself, and fellow piano students in professor Long's studio: Noah Larabee ('26), Emma Lindeman ('25), and Hayleigh (Kae) Yeoh ('26).

University of Redlands Symphonic Band

During the 2023-24 school year of her undergrad; Mena found herself in the Percussion section of the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music Symphonic Band conducted by trumpet professor Dr. David Scott. Since then, Mena has played percussion in other large ensembles such as the Redlands Community Orchestra conducted by James Benanti. She also plans to play percussion in the U of R Wind Ensemble for her last semester in Spring 2025.

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