CMU School of Music students watching as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra plays their original compositions.
Composition & Collaboration
Student Composers Collaborate with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra during a Yearlong Project
School of Music
written by
Dan Fernandez
On a Friday afternoon in the fall, music students filed into the airy rehearsal room for their Composer’s Forum class as usual. What’s unusual this time was the quintet of brass musicians from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) who were there as part of a new collaboration between the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music and the renowned orchestra. By the end of the year, eight composition students would hear their hard work performed backstage at Heinz Hall by some of the best musicians in the world.
“The best teacher for our composition students is to hear their music performed live,” said Assistant Professor of Music Katherine Pukinskis (CFA 2008, 2010). “To be, to borrow the “Hamilton” quote, ‘in the room where it happens.’”
Pukinskis laid the groundwork for this new project in the summer of 2024 by pitching several ideas for a collaboration to the PSO. Tyler Bragg, the PSO’s director of Artistic Planning and Administration, saw the possibilities and enthusiastically supported this outreach effort, which was structured around two visits to Carnegie Mellon by the PSO musicians. There, they played music for the composers to provide inspiration, and they talked about their instruments and answered questions. Five PSO brass instrument players and five string players participated in two sessions at CMU in November and January.
The students then composed drafts of their music and sent them to the PSO’s professional librarians for review. The librarians and musicians provided initial feedback about any possible issues with music notation or the feasibility of each part of each work (for example, if a particular note is too high or low to be played at the indicated volume level by their instrument) and sent them back to the students in March. And finally, the students submitted the completed works to the library for processing, according to their rigorous standards, by their April deadline.
"The students really respected this process and learned from it. In the professional world, deadlines are strict, and all the other moving parts of an organization need to have your contribution, or else they can’t do their job."
Katherine Pukinskis
Assistant Professor, School of Music
The culmination was a trip to Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall during final exam week this spring, where each composition was played and workshopped for 30 minutes by the brass or string quintet for which it had been written. The student composers not only heard but also gave constructive feedback on their pieces, communicating their intent to the PSO musicians to help bring the music to life.
“This was a wonderful experience,” said Leila Gottlieb Hedayati, a 2025 bachelor’s degree graduate in composition. “Writing a piece while considering the high skill level of the musicians really opened a new world for me as a composer!
“During the reading session, the players were very respectful to all the composers' ideas, while making sure to give truthful and meaningful feedback on how we could make our music more idiomatic and fit better to their instruments,” she continued. “As a composer who focuses on Eastern music instead of Western classical music, I think it was a good experience for me and the players to collaborate and find new ways to meld the worlds of Eastern and Western music through methods that acknowledge their differences while making a cohesive sound.”
The School of Music’s recording services captured audio of each reading session at Heinz Hall and provided it to every student so they would be able to listen later and hear the back-and-forth feedback to help further refine their skills.
"The musicians were so kind and supportive and constructive with their time and their feedback."
Katherine Pukinskis
Assistant Professor, School of Music
“In the School of Music, our students are primarily getting their works performed by their colleagues, which is important for their professional development and their networking," said Pukinskis. "But, inherently, because they’re students, their skill set is still growing. And so, to be able to reach for the moon in terms of what a performer can do is a singular opportunity, which is why it's so important for us to bring in collaborative work with professional ensembles.”
While at Heinz Hall, the composers even got to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the music library, where antique copies of Beethoven symphonies share space with contemporary works by living composers, such as CMU’s own Nancy Galbraith, the Vira I. Heinz Professor of Composition.
“This experience was so valuable for our student composers,” Galbraith said. “We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for providing this unforgettable experience.”
