Asher Komor’s career in music began when he started taking piano lessons at the age of five. He joined his elementary school band, began playing the flute, and participated in several musical ensembles. He took a composition class when he was in sixth grade and began writing his own songs.
“I’ve been writing music ever since,” Komol said.
Throughout his evolution as a composer, he has been supported by a team of people, including his mother, Pat Comor. Asher credits her with inspiring him to become a flutist in high school. His flute teacher and member of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Kathy Peterson, also supports him. Usher’s composition teacher, Max Wolpert, pushed his compositions “to the next level,” Pat Comall noted.
As online learning environments became more prevalent during the pandemic, Asher’s heart began to call for an “additional vocation.” A mutual friend connected the family with Wolpert, then a doctoral student, and Asher began taking lessons twice a month to understand the ins and outs of musical interpretation and composition.
Asher’s inspiration in the world of classical music comes from a variety of genres, but he said he is primarily drawn to Baroque music. Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Tchaikovsky contributed background knowledge that Komor uses as a framework for creating his own musical masterpieces.
“For me, writing music is a form of self-expression,” Komol said. “I express emotions that are more complex than words can express. Everything that’s going on in my life, everything that I’m feeling, is input into music and expressed through it.”
Comol’s approach to composition is based on listening and observing the world around him, which inspires him to take what he hears and translate it into music. This includes movements and sounds of nature, other songs, and the people surrounding him. He also sees it as a way to celebrate the diversity of humanity.
“Usually I write the melody first. I’m a melody-first composer,” Komor said. “I play around with the flute or piano and input it into the composition software to create the whole song.”
Major life events also serve as motivations for Comorians to create musical works. This includes traveling from Steamboat to Denver every week to train with Peterson on flute. Those journeys have been transformed into works that translate the sights and scenes of the journey into music.
Komor has found that she writes best when she’s alone late at night. For Asher, the beginning of the process is the easy part. When he experiences a “writer’s impasse,” he steps away from his work and develops a solution organically.
“I tend to write a little at a time and don’t spend[hours]writing,” he explained. “The next time I feel inspired, I’ll write some more. In the end, it all adds up.”
Wolpert also assists Comor with his creations, offering suggestions on how to improve the overall quality of his work or how to make it easier to play on specific instruments.
Komor is also a dancer. That additional art and expression of movement actually became the starting point for increasing his recognition as a composer. His instructor, AvidDance Artistic Director Emily Speed, contacted him and asked him to write a piece for a dance show she was hosting. Komol accepted and ended up performing the song at a show in New York City with two other professional musicians.
“I hope it felt like a harbinger of things to come in my life,” he said. “It was really cool to be able to play with other professional musicians and get feedback. I enjoy performing, so I do it.”
After the show in New York, the dance company held another performance in Denver, and Komor was invited to perform again. The second performance was just as informative as the first, working with a new ensemble of musicians who provided Komol with further support and feedback.
Komor will perform with Molly Aronson at the New York City AVID Dance Show in New York in June 2024.
Jeremy Kyle Gruner/Photo courtesy
Komor, who has already begun his professional music career, hopes to attend university to major in flute performance and further develop his skills as a composer. He also hopes to pursue a career as a symphony orchestra player.
“I want to continue to bring my music to as many people as possible (as much as possible) and use music to spread joy by putting myself out there and connecting people,” Komor concluded. “It has the magic of transcending any barriers people put between themselves. It conveys so much more than words.”
