Intern Spotlight: Tristan Willcox
Meet Tristan! Tristan Willcox is a senior at Spartanburg High School. He has studied piano for ten years (both classical and jazz) and percussion for six years. Since he was a child, he has been fascinated with the transcendental nature of music. “Music is one of the purest forms of human communication. When you speak through music, language becomes irrelevant.” Tristan’s hope in life is that someday he will be able to transcend words and reach people with his music.
Though he has been trained in piano and percussion performance, Tristan’s primary outlet is composition. You may even recognize him from his previous engagement with the Spartanburg Philharmonic, when he wrote a piece entitled Battle at Byrjun that was performed at the Homegrown concert. Tristan has been passionate about writing music since he was eleven years old and plans to continue composing in the future at a university — and eventually professional — level.
During his internship, Tristan has worked with Dr. Peter Kay on transcribing and editing music for the upcoming ‘Burg Bound concert and is excited to be involved in many more future projects. He hopes to gain some experience with the more practical side of composing — proofreading scores, making sure there are enough musicians to perform a piece, making sure those musicians have time to breathe during said piece, etc — as well as with scoring visual media. Tristan aspires to write music for film and looks up to composers such as John Powell, John Williams, and Howard Shore.
Random Questions:
What is a favorite movie?
There are a few movies that I hold in very high esteem, but if I had to choose a single favorite film it would be Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon. It is an extremely well-crafted story, and every aspect of its production is of the highest quality — the voice acting is genuine and interesting, the visuals are incredible, the writing is thematically very strong, and the score ties all of it together wonderfully. It’s an animated masterpiece.
If you were stranded on a deserted island what would you bring?
A Yacht.
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
I’d definitely have to go with the ability to control the elements. In terms of survivability this power would be infinitely useful. Couple that with its practical convenience and elemental control is clearly the most informed choice.
If you could write your own future what would you be doing professionally in 10 years?
I would love to be scoring a film or video game in the next ten years. Preferably one that has a cool story and makes me millions and billions of dollars.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
The city I’ve always wanted to live in is Tokyo, Japan. I’m so fascinated by Japanese culture and the cityscape is so beautiful that it’s hard to resist dreaming about buying a house there someday. All I need is those millions and billions of dollars and a Rosetta Stone account.
Grace Hammond is a rising senior at Wofford, and an intern at the Spartanburg Philharmonic.