ABOUT SCOTT EASTMAN ANDREWS

Meet Scott Eastman Andrews (he/they), the first-place winner of The Choral Project’s Rachel Moore Choral Composition Contest He is a composer, conductor, and vocalist whose music blends inner experience with shared reality through a color-rich language. Scott studies at the University of Delaware, where they develop a distinctive choral voice rooted in both tradition and independence.

What about Walt Whitman’s poem Song of the Universal inspired you to use it as lyrics for your winning composition
"Sing Me the Universal"?

While I do not believe in having a single favorite artist in any medium since each artistic voice is unique, Walt Whitman comes as close as one can to being my favorite poet. His poetry is suffused with a vibrance and vitality that I find extremely compelling. And though his texts can be quite difficult to set to music, they are also some of the most rewarding. Whitman’s Song of the Universal struck a chord with me the moment I read the first stanza, “Come, said the Muse, sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, sing me the Universal.”

We are living in a time defined by divisiveness and dominated by a toxic individualism that obscures the bigger picture from many people’s view of the world. I think it is important and grounding to remind ourselves that the human experience is a universal one.

Can you describe your compositional process for this piece?

This piece was written as part of the See-A-Dot Creative Workshop, which pairs students with professional composers published by them for a month-long cycle of virtual lessons and professional development sessions that culminate in the completion of a choral work. Through this workshop, I was paired with Dr. Sara Rimkus, and she challenged me to work outside my typical writing process. I'm typically a through-composer and rarely ever sketch out ideas. I tend to do this mentally before ever putting notes on the page, and instead work through a piece linearly from start to end. Dr. Rimkus pushed me to work nonlinearly, which I think helped specifically at the moment of doubt around two-thirds of the way into the piece.

Were there any challenges or breakthroughs you discovered in the creation process of the piece?

I think this piece is where I really settled into my own unique compositional voice, which makes me even more honored that it was chosen as the winner of this competition. As for challenges, finding the right balance regarding the body percussion was something I was working on right up to the end of the piece.

What inspired you to begin writing music?

Choral music entered my life in the fourth grade. After quitting cello, my teacher told me to join the choir as my musical activity. Clearly, Mrs. Grant was onto something because I never looked back. While I loved choral music from a very young age, I never even considered that I could be a composer until the pandemic lockdown years. I was taking a gap year before starting college, and began to play with composing, mostly as a hobby to pass the time. It started slowly, but gradually became the prime passion of my life. In a roundabout way, I have Mrs. Grant to thank.

What does winning this contest mean to you personally and creatively?

Winning this competition is an immense honor and a profound affirmation of my aspirations and personal musical ideology. I am a rather private and anxious person, and I can rarely express myself in words as well as I can through my music. I consider each composition to be a small portrait of my inner world, and I am beyond thrilled that my work has been received so positively.

What do you hope audiences take away from the work?

If nothing else, I hope audiences really internalize two lines of text from Walt Whitman's poem. "There is joy, joy universal. The Good is universal."