Archimedes Li (12) began taking violin lessons when he was only 4 years old. Just one year later, Li began to dabble in composing; he would write down music notes in a notebook and attempt to recreate the melodies on his violin. 

“I would describe my music involvement as a tree,” Li said. “The stem would be my introduction to the violin. My musical experience branches out into composition. I’d say my composition was strengthened by my foundations in the violin.”

In second grade, Li’s mother introduced him to the PTSA Reflections competition, an annual PTA-sponsored contest where students can submit a vast array of original art pieces, including music compositions.

“It seemed like a really interesting concept because I’d been composing for a year at that point and I thought that it was so nice that there was a school contest for such a niche event like music composition,” Li said.

For each submission to the Reflections competition, the artist is required to attach a statement describing the meaning behind their piece. But when Li first began composing music, he created music for the sake of it, with no meaning attached.

“I didn’t have a goal in mind when I was composing and wasn’t trying to express any specific idea,” Li said. “After I finished writing a piece, I would try to attach a meaning to it. Because I wasn’t working to express an idea, my music-writing process wasn’t as focused.”

When Li submitted a composition in the third grade, he framed his artist statement around diversity, saying that he’d experimented with lots of different rhythms and note lengths for the piece.

Later, in sixth grade, Li joined the Science Olympiad and discovered his passion for astronomy, leading him to use music as an avenue to indulge in his love for science.

“In middle school, I listened to an audiobook about special relativity and string theory in the car with my mom,” Li said. “The audiobook inspired my piece for both The Quantum Quintet and Special Relativity.”

The Quantum Quintet, a composition Li made in the sixth grade, describes the different stages of matter and the levels of abstraction going down from molecules to atoms to quarks. Another piece, titled Supernova Overture, describes the life cycle of a star. 

Li said that he tried to incorporate a unique quality within the themes of his compositions through music theory.

“​​The piece tells the life cycle of a star going through the different phases,” Li said. “It starts as a nebula, turns into a main sequence star, becomes a red giant, and eventually explodes in a supernova. I tried to convey the progression through imagery with different chords, melodies, accompaniments, and techniques.”

For his most recent submission for Reflections this year, Li composed Dialectic, a piece investigating the contrasts between two vastly different ideas that reconcile at the end. 

“I wanted to explore this concept through different avenues such as dynamic note length,” he said. “Being a string player, I wanted to use this underused mechanic called pizzicato, where instead of using your bow to play on the string, you just pluck the string with your finger, and that creates a vastly different sound. I wanted to kind of use that particular technique to its fullest extent within this piece in order to contrast it with the normal arco style of playing with a bow.”

Although his years with Reflections have come to an end, Li said that his experience has given him an opportunity to share his music with others and he’ll definitely continue to play and compose music while in college. 

“The Reflections program has been a great opportunity to express myself musically and grow as a composer,” Li said. “I realize now how the themes from the Reflections contest have helped me in my continuing search for a musical voice and identity.”