Iris Hu is a ten-year-old pianist and fifth grade student at The Blake School in Minneapolis. She started playing piano at age 4 under the guidance of Jennifer Geise, and continued her training with Dr. Irina Elkina at MacPhail Center for Music. She began composing at age 9, under the guidance of Dr. Sarah Miller, also at MacPhail. Nirvana is her first composition, and was placed first in the Minnesota Junior Composers State Contest this year. Iris has performed at numerous MacPhail recitals including the Honors Recital, Master Class, and Crescendo Gala. Iris is a member of her school’s choir and recorder ensemble. In addition to music, Iris has many hobbies including art, drawing, digital art, semi-realist art, photography, fashion illustration, and math (to an extent). As a ballet dancer, she has performed in Loyce Houlton’s Nutcracker Fantasy and the Strawberry Festival.
Iris is the youth winner of Zeitgeist's 25th annual Eric Stokes Song Contest. Named in memory of late composer Eric Stokes, the contest is designed to encourage and celebrate amateur composers throughout the Twin Cities. Iris will perform her winning composition, Nirvana (for solo piano), at Zeitgeist's annual Playing it Close to Home concert, March 6-8 at Studio Z.
Iris explains her winning piece, Nirvana:
"It wasn’t the kind of peace that came with material pursuits. It was peace in a new form, peace as you’d never seen it before, peace transcending money, happiness, and life itself. The peace blinded you with white, the little plane of existence on which you lived blank, waiting, ready for a new world to spring from the old world’s ashes. You forgot everything unimportant in that moment, the memories rushing out of your still body, lifeless yet so full of lively energy. Only the most profound whispers from your past remained, agreeing to stay until it was time to say goodbye. As you lay there, barely aware of your body and the cold, smooth surface beneath you, you let go. Finally let go, of the sentimental things in your old life, the hopes for your new one. You could feel yourself leaving the floor, floating, hovering above the ground, whooshing through the air, going to a new place beyond death, but you didn’t care anymore."
Iris is the youth winner of Zeitgeist's 25th annual Eric Stokes Song Contest. Named in memory of late composer Eric Stokes, the contest is designed to encourage and celebrate amateur composers throughout the Twin Cities. Iris will perform her winning composition, Nirvana (for solo piano), at Zeitgeist's annual Playing it Close to Home concert, March 6-8 at Studio Z.
Iris explains her winning piece, Nirvana:
"It wasn’t the kind of peace that came with material pursuits. It was peace in a new form, peace as you’d never seen it before, peace transcending money, happiness, and life itself. The peace blinded you with white, the little plane of existence on which you lived blank, waiting, ready for a new world to spring from the old world’s ashes. You forgot everything unimportant in that moment, the memories rushing out of your still body, lifeless yet so full of lively energy. Only the most profound whispers from your past remained, agreeing to stay until it was time to say goodbye. As you lay there, barely aware of your body and the cold, smooth surface beneath you, you let go. Finally let go, of the sentimental things in your old life, the hopes for your new one. You could feel yourself leaving the floor, floating, hovering above the ground, whooshing through the air, going to a new place beyond death, but you didn’t care anymore."
Playing it Close to Home
March 6-7, 7:30 p.m. • March 8, 2 p.m.
Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul
$15 / $10 students & seniors
Tickets/Info
With winning songs from the 25th annual Eric Stokes Song Contest plus music by local composer Randy Bauer, Zeitgeist’s Playing it Close to Home concert celebrates the wealth of musical creativity found right here in our own backyard. The program includes music by Eric Stokes Song Contest winners Katie Condon, Kirsten Hanninen, Samuel William Novak and Iris Hu, plus the world premiere of Holding Patterns, a new multi-movement work composed for Zeitgeist by Randy Bauer.
Studio Z: 275 East Fourth Street, Suite 200, St. Paul
$15 / $10 students & seniors
Tickets/Info
With winning songs from the 25th annual Eric Stokes Song Contest plus music by local composer Randy Bauer, Zeitgeist’s Playing it Close to Home concert celebrates the wealth of musical creativity found right here in our own backyard. The program includes music by Eric Stokes Song Contest winners Katie Condon, Kirsten Hanninen, Samuel William Novak and Iris Hu, plus the world premiere of Holding Patterns, a new multi-movement work composed for Zeitgeist by Randy Bauer.
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