Nina C. Young

Introduction
Nina C. Young is an American electro-acoustic composer of contemporary classical music born December 8th, 1984 in Nyack, New York. She studied engineering and music at MIT where she received a B.S. in Ocean Engineering and Music. She received her MM from McGill University's Schulich School of Music. Young's compositions are known for the mixture of instrumental and electroacoustic music.

Work Analysis
The piece I will be analyzing is Nina Young's string quartet "Memento Mori." "Memento Mori" is a string quartet piece that was commissioned for the JACK Quartet. The piece was composed in 2013 and was premiered March 12th, 2013 by the quartet in New York, NY. A memento mori is a symbolic reminder of death and Young describes this piece as a meditation on life and the perception of time. The music material is similar to the music from Contrapunctus I from Bach's The Art of Fugue. The piece does not have a key signature but does have bar lines. Many themes are repeated throughout the piece and the tempo fluctuates frequently. The music is rough in sound and incredible dissonant. Because this piece was created with the idea of Contrapunctus I, it follows the first five notes of D minor scale. The occasional use of the Gb and frequent use of the C# make it hard to identify D minor as the all-around main key of the piece. No one instrument is more important than the other however the cello is seen to take more of the rhythmic aspect of the piece.

Comparisons
Young's music can be compared to that of composers like John Cage who pioneered electroacoustic music and Mason Bates who used electronics in an orchestra setting.

Observations
Many of these composers like Nina Young are extremely risky with using electronics mixed with orchestral instruments. Subjectively I was not too fond of the Momento Mori piece mainly because I find that when I can't identify the instruments or the emotion in the piece I become frustrated however I see a great deal of similarities in Young's music with John Cage's music which I found intriguing. Each time I learn about electroacoustic music I become more and more interested in wanted to see it produced I feel that the process would be greatly rewarding and definitely something worth learning how to do.