- [Announcer] In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

(soulful music) (orchestral music) - [Meghan] Aiyana was very young like seven years old saying, "I really wanna be a musician, but I don't really know how exactly, will you help me?"

I said, "Yeah."

She goes, "No, you really have to help me.

I don't know, but this is what I want, I really want this mom."

She was so in it full with heart and soul.

I mean, there wasn't a decision to make except to help make it work out.

- "Drop a Pebble in the Water" is a piece which is all about ripples.

I was excited by the imagery of the title, and in writing the piece, I was interested in incorporating section, which itself sounded like water.

(slow orchestral music) I started studying with a composition student at Curtis when I was about 10, and so from right then I knew I wanted to do this professionally.

I didn't really realize that there was a different career path to be a musician or to be a composer, it was just all inclusive to me and practicing piano I just love to improvise, that was my most favorite thing to do.

(piano plays) - I know how she started piano, when I was a kid, my father wanted me to learn piano.

I didn't last too long but I learned like one tune.

And so that tune I remembered until today, I can still play it.

And so I played the tune and she sat next to me and we got the keyboard and I played it and I taught her that tune, and then she said she wanted to learn piano.

- We saved up for a few years to afford a piano and so we were finally able to around eight, nine, and that was when I was all in.

I was like this is what I've been waiting for, this is everything to me, and it was very clear at that time I just really loved it.

(piano plays) - Well, I was born in Poland and during the second world war we escaped Poland and went to Russia and stayed in Uzbekistan for the duration of the second world war, then we came back to Poland and then we immigrated to Israel.

Marta Graham came to Israel to create a dance company, and I auditioned got in and I was with this company for five years, then I went to New York to study jazz dance.

Then I came to Israel and created a dance company called Jazz Plus.

Then they came to the States, I created here The Waves Dance Company, where we met.

- I studied dance most of my life and I kind of connected early with what I wanted to do.

Dancing was so transformative for me, and I think my first early experience of in the studio the hard work, the discipline and the performance value.

Also sharing that experience with so many others in a dance company was for me something that I connected right away with and wanted to continue and pursue the rest of my life.

- Shirina and I, my twin sister would sit in class basically as they were rehearsing with the dancers.

And so it was always how they work with people is the thing that has left the biggest impression on me, how to really not just coordinate such a huge group but how to bring out something really special each person.

But I also remember our garage is a converted studio where my dad paints, and so we would paint with my dad and he would explain what he would do, his process, and it's an interesting one because he starts basically putting together just a wash of colors, and then the piece emerges slowly from that, from this abstraction.

I feel like I was able to receive a lot of tools just by being around them creating.

I feel like music has always just been my way of translating impressions of things and a way to make myself understand what unconsciously I'm trying to understand, and so I think it's become in recent years an important part of my process for myself to discover sort of the impetus that became a piece.

Because whether or not I'm consciously recognizing it, there is one I found at least in my music.

And so it's something I've been trying to more consciously bring to the surface because I feel like it's a part of the entity of what the piece is, and so it should be discussed.

(soulful music) (slow orchestral music) (rainfall sounds) - [Meghan] The sun and the moon and the stars all aligned for this to happen, we're very, very grateful and so happy at the occasion honoring Maya Angelo and Mr. Norman Lear.

- We have friends in California and Meghan and Aiyana went to visit them.

And that was the time that Aiyana was practicing a lot of piano and practicing some kind of compositions that she started.

The person that they were visiting they did not have a piano.

And so Aiyana said, "Oh, I really need to practice, where do I have a piano?"

She said, "Go to my neighbor, Norman Lear, he has a piano."

So she went to Norman Lear and she played piano.

He was not home.

- The next day, he was actually came in as you were practicing.

And he says, "Don't let me stop you, continue on."

And he says, "Aiyana, I hear you're a composer, play me something."

And she went, "Hurray."

And she started to play what became "Keys to Heaven".

He was getting the Marian Anderson awards with Dr. Maya Angelou, and so he said would it be okay if he extended the invitation and have Aiyana play?

- The real catalyst from that event was getting teachers, and they were teachers from Curtis.

- Studying composition at Curtis is very desirable if you're interested in being a composer.

I would like to get the concert started by welcoming Aiyana Braun to the stage who will introduce her piece, welcome.

(audience applauds) - Hello, thank you all for coming.

So during my time at Curtis I was really interested in creating a long form piece, and they really wanted to create a work which was reflective of what's happening in the world right now.

(audience claps) I wanted to also maintain a certain amount of subjectivity within the piece and to not say something too particular because I wanted it to be universal enough that people could just be affected by how we speak to one another.

And so I reached out to a writer friend who shared me this poem by Philip Larkin called "Ignorance", which I was really moved by how beautifully it just captured everything that I was feeling the need to speak about.

"Ignorance" by Philip Larkin.

Strange to know nothing, never to be sure of what is right or true or real but forced to qualify or so I feel, or, well it does seem so someone must know.

Strange to be ignorant of the way things work their skill at finding what they need, their sense of shape and punctual spread of seed and willingness to change, yes, it is strange.

Even to wear such knowledge, for our flesh surrounds us with its own decisions and yet spend all day our lives on imprecisions, that when we start to die have no idea why.

And so the piece for me is basically this musical personification of ignorance of what is happening currently.

(slow orchestral music) - [Shimon] She sees the injustices and everything else that's happening around and she's become conscious of it, and it's her way in music to express it.

(audience applauds) It's not like she's looking for a pretty melody, but she's looking for something that expresses something deeper that she feels and her tool to express it is her composition.

(violin plays) - I love writing this type of music, contemporary music.

For me it lends itself to create a sonic landscape which is so inclusive and is able to really express the layers of what we experience as people like our human condition.

We're many different experiences and so for me, I feel like this type of music also lends itself to expressing something that is inherently complex and deep and is tied to who we are as people and as a society, because those are not simple questions or simple things to speak to.

(orchestral music)