It doesn’t take a secret agent to discover the talent of young View Royal composer Jared Richardson.
The Victoria Symphony has already cracked the case and will include a piece by Richardson in its 007 and Other Spies concert series, starting Thursday and running until Saturday, Jan. 26.
Along with music from James Bond movies, Mission: Impossible, The Pink Panther and other spy classics, the symphony will perform Richardson’s original work “Double Agent.
“It’s pretty amazing because this thing that was previously just inside your head … is going out and that is being transmitted to like 60 people and they’re all doing what you wanted them to do,”
Richardson said. “It’s just this amazing feeling because you have this power to have your ideas magnified so greatly.”
Richardson, a second year music student at the University of Victoria, originally composed the piece for a friend’s short movie about two years ago. He went on to submit it to a Victoria Symphony score reading workshop, where it was selected as one of five pieces the symphony played and recorded for the composer.
The piece caught the ear of symphony organizers and they asked him if they could play it for the spy theme concert. They even offered to pay Richardson to use his music, a first for him.
“I could call it my first gig as a professional composer,” Richardson said. “It’s great. I feel really good that the Victoria Symphony is giving me this opportunity to get my music heard.”
“He understands his orchestration extremely well and has great ideas for writing music that is accessible to audiences and appreciated by audiences,” said Victoria Symphony music director Tania Miller. “We immediately felt that there was a connection there to our own Victoria through a composer of our own community, and a young one at that.”
The piece is a catchy, espionage tinted work that starts out slow and mysterious before slowly building to an action-packed thriller that wouldn’t sound out of place behind a scene from Skyfall or any other spy film.
“It’s kind of a spy movie theme type piece, really fast paced and fun,” Richardson said.
This isn’t the first time the Victoria Symphony has played an original composition of Richardson’s. The orchestra played his “Winds of Kananaskis” at the 2011 Symphony Splash event at Victoria’s Inner Harbour. It was the first time the symphony played a piece by a young composer for the event.
From even before his own memory, Richardson said he has been tinkering around on the piano and coming up with original tunes. He started composing seriously around the age of 12 and is now working towards his ultimate goal of becoming a professional composer for movies.
“My goal with music is always to entertain other people, to make people feel good,” Richardson said. “The kind of music I like to write is mostly music that people can really enjoy.”
To hear Richardson’s music visit jared-richardson.com. For tickets to 007 and Other Spies visit victoriasymphony.ca or call 250-385-6515.