Lakes High senior shines at music contest

A Lakes Community High School senior recently earned second place in the Music Institute of Chicago's 2011 Generation Next Young Composer's Competition.

Jared Hedges won a $150 prize for his piece, “The Wanderers,” which was written for soprano, cello and piano.

The song originally was supposed to be an arrangement of the Polish carol “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly,” but evolved into something more, English teacher/newspaper adviser Kellie Doyle said in a news release.

Hedges wrote the song for the Christmas program at his church, the Village Church of Lincolnshire. He has written three other pieces for the church's Christmas program in previous years.

“One thing that I appreciate most in any piece of music is when it pleases the ear to be heard, provokes the mind afterward and prompts one to come back to it and find something new,” the 17-year-old said.

“I have no pretensions that I was able to create anything like such in this or any piece I've written, but it is what I strive for and admire in music.”

Hedges studies violin privately but also is involved in the LCHS music program as a member of pit band for the upcoming musical “The Wizard of Oz.” He also took the AP Music Theory class last year.

Although this admirer of Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Mozart, and Bach still is uncertain about where he plans to go to college next year, he does intend to major in music composition.