Amy Norton nationally recognized for her original composition

Amy Norton ‘19, a member of the HBHS Honors Jazz Band, plays her very own self-composed jazz piece, entitled Ecuador. Ecuador received the first place for high school large ensemble jazz compositions in the DownBeat magazine Student Music Awards. Being featured in DownBeat magazine is “a very big deal,” says Dave Umstead, the band director at HBHS, since it’s a national award. HBHS’ Honors ...

Norton is practicing her piece, Ecuador, which received an honorable mention at the New Hampshire Music Educators Association (NHMEA) Competition Contest. This year is the third year that Norton has participated in this contest. The NHMEA’s rules for entering the contest are flexible, so all types of music can be entered. ...

Norton is working on her piece entitled Great Blue Heron, which was performed by HBHS’s concert band at the Spring Concert. However, this wasn’t the first time a student-written piece was performed at a concert. “We’ve performed student pieces in the past,” says Dave Umstead, band director at HBHS. Norton is the first student from HB to participate in the NHMEA Composition Contest, but not ...

Norton was featured in DownBeat magazine. Her piece, Ecuador, was the winning composition for a high school large ensemble jazz piece. “I started [composing] a few years ago. In eighth grade, I started arranging music just for fun,” she says. “Once I got to sophomore year, I took music theory with Umstead, and that got me into composition.”...

Norton works on a new piece. Her writing process differs for each piece but follows the same basic steps. “It’s like a pyramid structure,” Norton says. “I usually start with a melody or a bassline and build from there and fill the whole piece out.” She uses different styles of music to help her create new pieces. For her piece Ecuador, she wanted to write a samba piece. “I used Latin music i...