Oct 18, 2012

Dissonant chords, eerie melodies and wolves’ howling filling the air, this year’s Monster Musik performance will feature a composition by College of the Mainland student Jonathan Mireles, “Schimbarea Univers.”
 
“The song is kind of its own style,” said Mireles. “I take a lot from different genres.”
 
For this piece, Mireles drew from ancient melodies. Though it is impossible to know exactly what music sounded like then, some chords have been passed down through generations, allowing Mireles and other composers to guess what audiences may have heard years ago.
 
After he formed his idea, he spent about three weeks writing the song for Electric Guitar Orchestra director John Kiefer’s composition class at COM.

“Schimbarea Univers,” which means “changing universe” in Romanian, is not the first piece that Mireles has composed, though it is the first he has written for electric guitars.
 
Besides composing music in international styles, the music student also performs music from around the world.
 
Mireles and several other COM students formed a band that played Japanese rock music, which sounds similar to American rock but is “a little more technical,” said Mireles. The group played for about a year and a half until school and work took them in different directions.
 
Playing music since the sixth grade, Mireles credits his early interest in music to his father. Like Mireles, he plays trumpet, piano and guitar, and he used to play in a classic rock band.
 
“He taught me to play the majority of my music,” said Mireles.
 
Mireles recently earned an associate degree from COM and plans to attend the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Arizona.
 
He credits Sparky Koerner, who taught him music theory, with helping prepare him for acceptance to the school.
 
“I had really good music background in theory. It’s one of the key things,” he said.
 
Mireles regularly plays freelance gigs and at Moody Methodist. This past summer he performed with the Galveston Beach Band, which has been in existence since the 1930s.

Mireles’ goal is a career in audio engineering or post-production for movies and TV shows.
 
The Electric Guitar Orchestra will perform “Schimbarea Univers” and other selections at the Monster Musik performance at the College of the Mainland Recital Hall Oct. 25 at 8 p.m.