When Ethan Hanzlik isn’t feeling effectively, everybody round him is aware of.

“We acquired a name from a center faculty instructor one time who requested whether or not the whole lot was OK with Ethan,” his father, UConn trumpet professor Louis Hanzlik, says. “We advised her he appeared all proper, possibly a little bit down, and puzzled why she was asking. She mentioned he hadn’t been singing within the hallways like he often did, as a result of Ethan would stroll round and simply sing.”

Now a 17-year-old junior at E.O. Smith Excessive Faculty, Ethan Hanzlik at all times has turned to music whether or not he was joyful or unhappy, indignant or scared, annoyed or harassed. Immediately, on a foul day he’ll flip up Beyonce’s “Virgo’s Groove” or “Three Dots and a Sprint” by the Punch Brothers to struggle a funk.

Music has been an outlet – in a lot the identical method that it’s impressed Louis Hanzlik, a Grammy-award profitable musician and coordinator of brass and percussion within the music division, and mother Amanda Hanzlik, E.O. Smith choral director and president-elect of the American Choral Administrators Affiliation Japanese Area.

Smiles had been throughout, then, when Sandra Chafouleas, not simply the household’s neighbor but additionally a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in UConn’s Neag Faculty of Schooling, approached them with the concept for a musical collaboration – write and report the theme track for the Really feel Your Greatest Self program she co-created and not directly assist younger youngsters channel their emotions, just like the best way younger Ethan had realized to specific himself.

“It was a melody I had tucked away, and I introduced it again,” Ethan says of the track that took him lower than 10 minutes to write down. “I began from the start and crammed within the phrases that they actually wished, as a result of they’d a highlighted checklist of phrases they had been adamant I exploit. From there, the track developed naturally.”

Louis says that whereas Chafouleas approached the household about engaged on the track collectively, he and Amanda agreed the challenge was higher suited to Ethan, who’s taken skilled music classes on the cello, French horn, guitar, and voice and throughout the pandemic added on-line classes in track composition.

“It’s not as intricate as my different items,” Ethan admits of the Really feel Your Greatest Self theme that spans 1 minute, 14 seconds and might be the shortest he’s written. The longest is about 5 minutes.

Chafouleas says she and co-creator Emily Wicks, supervisor of operations and collections on the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, had been targeted on writing the scripts for 13 episodes of the puppet-centric program and hadn’t initially thought of their musical choices.

“However as we acquired nearer to the shoot dates, we began speaking about inserting music at first and on the finish, and at first thought we might use canned music,” she says. “However as we talked, Emily and I didn’t assume that was fairly proper. It appeared that we should always have music that was particularly related to Really feel Your Greatest Self.”

The 2 talked about phrases and concepts that matched the purpose of the video collection – like “take a break,” “get some relaxation,” and “it’s simple” – and approached the Hanzlik household, realizing the track would have to be a fast turnaround as filming dates neared.

“Given the challenge already represented a collaboration between the Faculty of Advantageous Arts and the Neag Faculty, it appeared pure to increase collaboration from Puppet Arts to the music division,” Chafouleas says.

“That has been considered one of my favourite elements of this work,” Wicks says. “A energy of this challenge has been it growing from an interdisciplinary collaboration on the College. With the ability to create partnerships between training, puppetry, music, and even know-how has helped to make this challenge successful.”

Ethan produced the track in his dwelling recording studio including in a xylophone and marimba electronically. Then got here filming it with a trio of puppets.

“They had been all crouching beneath me,” Ethan says of the puppeteers. “I used to be seated above everybody else, so there was an area beneath the place individuals might crouch and slide on scooters. It was actually fascinating to see the method. The puppeteers are very critical about their craft and it’s unimaginable how they maneuver and create these characters out of nowhere.”

Amazed by the entire course of, Ethan says he’d gladly work on one other youngsters’s challenge regardless that that style is nearly tougher to create as a result of the product must be accessible, and it must be easy.

“It must be one thing youngsters can perceive, and never simply understanding lyrics and phrases. They should have an emotional understanding and emotional connection to the music. It must be singable. These melodies are catchy, they get in your mind,” Ethan says.

Chafouleas says she and Wicks have obtained many constructive feedback concerning the theme track: “We’ve heard the whole lot from ‘what a brilliant cute jingle’ to ‘my co-worker walks round buzzing it on a regular basis’ to the tune completely will get ‘caught in my head, like an earworm.’”

And that’s good for Ethan, who expects to review music in faculty and pursue a profession in music composition and manufacturing. Already, he’s written lots of, if not 1000’s, of songs, he says, not less than one a day – even throughout research corridor.

“Lately, I had my first choral piece printed and it’s being premiered this March,” Ethan says.

“And the place is it being premiered,” his father prompts.

“It’s being premiered at Carnegie Corridor with the E.O. Smith Chamber Singers,” Ethan says, proud however reserved. “I’m very excited to have the chance to go there not simply as a singer, however as a composer and have my piece premiered there. It’s being printed by Hal Leonard, which is the biggest sheet music publishing firm on the earth. That’s the place I’m targeted, vocal arranging and manufacturing.”

It’s a occupation during which Louis Hanzlik says he has full confidence his son will excel, not simply because he’s proficient but additionally as a result of he’s levelheaded and pushed.

And in loads of methods, he’s an instance of learn how to Really feel Your Greatest Self in a human world.

 

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