Singer Nina Worsley ’25 and bassist Calvin Deifer ’26 were recently recognized by the Allentown Symphony for their chamber music compositions. Their pieces will be performed at the New Chamber Music Concert on October 29 in Peter Hall.
Talking music with Nina Worsley ’25 and Calvin Deifer ’26 opens up a world filled with commitment, dreams, discipline, and beauty. Both music composition majors, they each have pieces premiering on October 29 at the New Chamber Music Concert, part of a series produced by the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. Since inaugurating the competition in 2020, the symphony has received nearly 400 submissions from composers living around the world. Worsley and Deifer are in very good company.
Worsley, who grew up in a musical family, laughs as she notes that iPads and iPhones weren’t quite as ubiquitous back then as they are for young people today. When her schoolwork was done, she would sit at the piano “making stuff up! I guess my initial draw to music was boredom!”
Worsley composed her first “structured” song at age 14. It was “the first thing that made me feel like a ‘creative,’“ she says, “and that what I wrote was identifiable.” For the upcoming concert, she worked with Larry Lipkis, professor of music and composer-in-residence, on an energetic piece, somewhat lighter and different from the spiritual and religious tones she more often favors. A Childhood Spring was originally part of a series I started where I’d take songs I wrote as a child and update them…. I struggled a lot with depression in early childhood and music was my way of making sense of my emotions, so going back to my old music I realized a lot of it had that heavy, dreary emotion behind it. I didn’t want to cement that negativity into my history, because in spite of complicated emotions, I found a lot of joy. So I decided to pivot to that joy, and cement it into history, so it wasn’t forgotten.”
Deifer arrived at Moravian with a solid instrumental background (piano, trumpet, tuba, and bass guitar), although he acknowledges, “It wasn’t to the extent of a lot of composition majors here.” While he was always drawn to music, it was later in high school when he realized he wanted to focus on music in college.
Regarding his commitment to composition, it’s much more than a course of study. He agrees with the way a friend and fellow musician describes it: “Music majors don’t choose to be music majors. It’s a calling…like from God? Something personal inside you? For me, I need to do it—it’s almost like a drug.”
As a younger musician, he composed a piece titled Triumph, which he laughingly recalls as “horrible—awful—the arrangement was terrible.” So he is particularly appreciative of his studies with Chase Morrison, instructor of cello, composition, and theory at Moravian, where he focused on “articulations, dynamic markings…small things you don’t think about while composing but they’re all very important.” He’s also learned that when it comes to writing music, “You just gotta do it—don’t hesitate. No judgement. If you don’t like it, you adjust it. You can learn by doing.”
Deifer’s chamber music piece, Scoundrel Sonata, was inspired by an annoying labradoodle named Ziggy, his parents’ dog, which didn’t seem to like him very much and was nothing but irritating. During one particular dog-sitting job, Deifer dealt with his frustration through music and composed what turned out to be Scoundrel Sonata.
Lipkis notes that all the composition students have diverse interests, and that gives breadth to what they do. “I’ve been teaching composition at Moravian U. for nearly 50 years, and I find it endlessly rewarding. My students have a plethora of diverse backgrounds and styles of composition, and my job is to nurture them by giving them guidance on ways to develop their ideas. Since the inception of the New Chamber Music Concert, six of my students have had their works performed. We also present an annual concert of works by student composers, and they rally to support each other and their variety of styles.”
Congratulations to Deifer and Worsley on their success. Our world will become a more beautiful place as they contribute their musical gifts to it in the years to come. —Renee James ’80
New Chamber Music Concert
Tuesday, October 29 at 7 p.m.
Peter Hall, Moravian University
Tickets: $10 (students free)
Inspiration
Calvin Deifer and Nina Worsley find their inspiration in any number of pieces they hear. When asked, “What do wish you had composed?” they shared the following:
Worsley: “This is totally random, but I’m very serious: the soundtrack to Finding Nemo. I watched it recently and realized that everything that was happening in the music was helping me feel the emotions of the story. So powerful—you almost don’t need the dialogue!”
Deifer: “I listen to a lot of jazz, especially by arranger Gil Evans, who worked with Miles Davis and others. He was famous for his unconventional voicings in big band music. He creates beautiful chords—the ‘king’ of weird, crunchy, totally beautiful chords. I also love the music of Japanese composer Joe Hi.