Retired Nicolet Middle School band director Christine Richardson of Banning was inspired one day after taking a hike near Big Bear, to compose a musical piece aptly named after the trail she had meandered.
Her first orchestral piece “Champion Lodgepole Pine” reflects the trail of the same name.
“I accidentally discovered Bluff Lake Preserve nearby and was inspired by the lake, tall trees, frogs, blue Hilda butterflies and birds,” she says.
Her inaugural orchestral piece depicts the sounds of frogs, crickets, birds and butterflies “and the rutted dirt road.”
“Champion Lodgepole Pine” will debut at Mt. San Jacinto College’s spring concert on May 10, to be conducted by Angela Brand of California Baptist University.
Vanessa Fountain will conduct Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1.
Richardson has continued taking music lessons, and has been a music mentor for others.
And she continues to produce musical pieces. Though “Champion Lodgepole Pine” is her first-ever orchestration.
“I just finished submitting a French horn quartet for the Quadre Horn Quartet contest” titled “Still I Rise,” Richardson reports.
That piece reflects the contest’s theme of gender and racial equality, and was inspired by May Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise.”
The May 10 concert begins at 7 p.m. at Mt. San Jacinto College Theatre, 1499 N. State St. in San Jacinto.
Admission is $6 general admission, $4 for students, $5 for veterans and seniors.
