Aditya Raguram: 2013 Winner of the Herb Pomeroy Jazz Composition and Arranging Contest

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Each year, sponsored by the Berklee Jazz Composition Department and Professional Writing Division, the Berklee High School Jazz Festival awards the Herb Pomeroy Jazz Composition and Arranging award to a high school student for the best big-band composition and arrangement received that year. This year, the Herb Pomeroy Jazz Composition and Arranging award was presented to Mr. Aditya Raguram, a junior pianist and student at Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey for his composition “Remember.”

Born into a musical family, Raguram grew up listening to Indian classical music, which had an impact on his own musical journey. “Interestingly enough, a major part of Indian classical music is improvisation, so I do think being exposed to that type of music has helped me develop my own improvisational style,” says Raguram. When asked to recall specific experiences that drew him to music, Raguram recalls that, “My parents tell me that I first started wanting to play an instrument after watching a music video, ‘Vande Mataram,’ made by a contemporary Indian composer, A.R. Rahman, which featured several instruments playing variations on a classic Indian song.” Now bitten by the musical bug, Raguram began to study piano.

Journey to the Piano

At the age of five, Raguram initially wanted to play violin. His parents felt that violin might be too hard for him to begin at that age, so they suggested piano. It was a match made in heaven; says Raguram, “Once I started playing the piano, I was hooked and did not want to give it up for anything else. I’m definitely glad that I wound up going with piano from the start because, in my mind, no other instrument comes close in terms of versatility and range.” Raguram began playing classical piano, which he still loves to learn and play, and then began to study jazz during his freshman year of high school. In middle school, Raguram picked up saxophone and vibes for the school band, but they ultimately failed to enthrall him the way the piano does and he does not play them as much as he once did.

Princeton High School

The well-respected music program at Princeton High School, under the director of Mr. Joe Bongiovi, has provided an opportunity for Raguram to further hone his musical skill. For the past three years, Raguram has taken part in productions with the school’s orchestra, choir, and bands. Raguram is a member of the Princeton Studio Band, which is the most advanced of the six bands at Princeton High School. Students interested in band audition and are then placed in the appropriate level ensemble. The Studio Band, consisting of 35 of the top musicians at the school, has an eclectic repertoire, ranging from standards, vocal charts, and arrangements of pop tunes. Each month, they perform at a big band dance, where the top two bands from Princeton each play hour-long sets. Most of the beginning of the year is spent working up a repertoire of about 60 standards and pop tunes to be played at these dances.

The members of the studio band dedicate a significant amount of time to the ensemble, rehearsing for three hours on Wednesday nights in addition to the standard 45-minute class time. Much of that rehearsal time, says Raguram, is dedicated to sight-reading new pieces and adding more charts to the dance repertoire. Around December, the band begins to gear up for competition season, focusing on three tunes that can be used for festivals. At this point, “rehearsals become more intense and focused as we try to perfect these three pieces.”

Outside of the classroom, Raguram plays in small ensembles and combos, gigging at coffee shops, bar mitzvahs, and parties. According to Raguram, these “are some of the musical experiences I’ve enjoyed the most.”

Compositionally Speaking

After beginning jazz piano, Raguram realized that there was something else that was catching his fancy: composition. Just like his journey to the piano, his journey towards composition began with the classical realm. Says Raguram, “Like my piano experience, I started composing classical music and moved to jazz, and I feel that my style kind of combines aspects from both genres.”

He cites Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Bill Evans among his primary influences as a pianist, and the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and the Birdland Big Band as some of his favorite big bands. But when asked for his primary influence as a composer, he cites a more unusual name: Frederic Chopin, a 19^th century Polish-born composer known primarily for his beautiful but challenging works for solo piano. According to Raguram, “The way that he turns harmonies into individual melody lines has become a key part of my compositional strategies, such as voice leading.”

Remember

Raguram’s winning composition, which was performed at the end of the festival by Phil Wilson’s Rainbow Band, was based on whole-step motion that Raguram found intriguing. After that, the melody quickly followed. When working to arrange this piece for big band – Raguram’s first foray into large ensemble writing – Raguram “ran into a couple of problems with ranges and certain things towards the beginning, but tried to work around them.”

Perhaps the highlight of the arrangement is the saxophone soli. According to Raguram, “In many of the big band charts I listen to, my favorite parts usually include soli sections, so I knew from the beginning of writing ‘Remember’ that I wanted to take a shot at writing one. I spent a lot of time working on it and tweaking it and I like how it turned out in the end.”

Intersection of Learning

Raguram’s interest in learning is not confined just to the band room. A member of the Science Olympiad since freshman year, Raguram now captains the team, where he says his musical experience has paid off: “Interestingly enough, my musical experiences came in handy during the past two years when we had to build musical instruments from scratch for a certain event at the competition. We built a marimba, a trumpet, and a cello; it was really exciting for me to work at the intersection of two things that I love: science and music.” Raguram also enjoys learning new languages and traveling to places where he has a chance to speak those languages.

From the physics of sound to the intrigue of the art of language, from the Romanticism of Chopin to the Impressionism of Bill Evans, from Indian classical music to post-modern jazz, Aditya Raguram combines each of these elements into his own impressive musical language, was on display on March 2^nd as Phil Wilson’s Rainbow Band performed Raguram’s “Remember” to cap off this year’s edition of the Berklee High School Jazz Festival.