SANDY, Utah — Writing a song from scratch is no easy task, much less composing a score for multiple instruments. But Albion Middle’s Spencer Schmidt did just that.
“I wrote a song called the Pond,” said Schmidt, an eighth grader at Albion Middle School.
It only took the Schmidt, who plays 5 instruments, six weeks to compose the percussion ensemble.
And his talent and passion for music has been recognized by the National Parent Teacher Association, through their national contest called Reflections.
“He's one of the hardest workers you'll ever meet,” said Jenni Perkins, band and orchestra teacher at Albion Middle School. “He just, yeah, he's overcome a lot. And he to put everything he put down and just all the feelings he put into it.”
The contest accepts submissions from any school with a PTA organization.
“So the Reflections contest goes over all the different art forms,” Perkins said. ”They have a theme every year. And they reflect on that theme and how they can connect to it.
This year’s theme ‘I’m hopeful because” and Schmidt won the top prize out of thousands of students across the country.
"I had a picture my mind that I tried to draw," Schmidt said. "But that didn't really work. So I just tried to like put it through music, because that's what I'm good at doing."
For Schmidt, music isn’t only a passion but a way to cope with a rare health condition. The 8th grader has a rare disorder called hypokalemic periodic paralysis.
” I take potassium a bunch of times a day to keep my muscles working," Schmidt explained. I'll get paralyzed and just get weaker. It's just something fun that I can do that doesn't like drain my energy.”
And his energy was full as he performed his song “The Pond" at the school’s year-end concert his song with 17 of his classmates.
“We're really excited to get to play his piece and to share what he's done with our community and make sure that they get to see the awesomeness that he is,” Perkins said.
