Lowellville senior creates, conducts full-length composition

LOWELLVILLE

In her many years as an English teacher at Lowellville High School, Betsy Smith has seen her share of unique senior capstone projects — each of which required the yearlong pursuit of something the student had never attempted.

She’s had students try the bagpipes and baton twirling, skydiving and steer roping, to name only a few.

It’s been a “hugely wide variety” of projects, she explained. Still, she’d never had a student decide to compose a full-length piece of music, then conduct as the school’s 80-some-member concert band performed it, until this year.

That project was “one of the most phenomenal ... we’ve ever had,” Smith said.

The student behind it was Nick Frank.

Music is “such a beautiful thing,” said Frank, 18. “It’s a great way to express yourself.”

Frank premiered his 73-bar, two-minute-long piece, named “Flightline Aurora” after the aurora borealis and the aircraft that fly past it, at the band’s May 20 spring concert. His work on it began much earlier, however, stretching all the way back to the start of the school year.

He admitted that though he’d written songs before — Frank’s been playing guitar since age 6, and became involved with Lowellville’s marching band as a percussionist in seventh grade — he hadn’t actually put them down on paper.

Read more about this talented young man and his composition in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.