Berkeley Leader

Goose Creek High and Berkeley Center for the Arts strings students had a special opportunity last week to work with someone new on the conductor's podium.

Chris Pilsner is a music composer and conductor from Colorado. He came to South Carolina last week to work with the Summerville Orchestra on its performance of “Snow Falling in Autumn,” which he composed.

During his visit to the Charleston area, Pilsner stopped by GCH to conduct students as they practiced Elliot Del Borgo’s “Slavonic Legend.”

Pilsner served as the Director of Orchestras at Windsor High School in Colorado from 2014-2019. He is now a full-time composer and conductor, and has made music for orchestra, wind ensemble and chamber ensembles. 

However, his teaching background has made him an avid supporter of music education, and he continues to work with high school orchestras like Goose Creek High’s.

In addition to conducting the students, Pilsner allowed the students to ask him questions about his work.

Pilsner talked to the students about “Snow Falling in Autumn,” which he recorded for his Windsor High students as a way of saying “goodbye” when he was leaving the teaching profession. There is a YouTube video  of Pilsner conducting it in front of his students, and students got visibly emotional as they heard it.

“That’s the wonderful thing about music – it is bringing out emotion,” he said. “I’m all about bringing out the emotions, and I love when people are able to connect…one way or another, through my music.”

One Goose Creek High student asked about his visit to South Carolina. This was Pilsner’s first visit to South Carolina, and he joked that it was also his first experience with a tropical storm! However, perhaps somewhat ironically, he has another piece of music called “Dum spiro spero,” which happens to be the state's motto (Latin for “While I breathe, I hope”).

Another student asked what made him decide he wanted to be a full-time composer. Pilsner said he had met composers as a high school student himself, and he said it just clicked that making music was what he wanted to do.

“I just love music,” he said. “It runs through every single bone in my body.”

Monica Kreberkreberm@bcsdschools.net

Original source can be found here.