Music for his peers

Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky about Mike Finney.

For the second time in two months, Finney, a Coon Rapids High School senior, will hold the conductor's baton for the premier of a new piece of music -- composed by Mike Finney. The occasion will be a high school band concert on Friday,

Finney, a percussionist, recently wrote "Lilies in the Rain" for his bandmates to perform; he also has coached them through rehearsals for the past two months. He describes the composition as "very energetic, very high energy, fast tempos, very emotional ... aggressive" -- in short, written from the perspective of an 18-year-old guy.

In March, the same group performed "Daydream," a ballad Finney began writing in ninth grade, based on his dashed hopes after an unrequited love. It's at turns playful, and moody, with the swirling sounds of high hopes turning to dark disappointment and emptiness.

"It was fantastic," he said of the performance. "It was just everything I wanted. For me as a composer, it's all about conveying the feeling. It doesn't have to be perfect, or seamless, as long as the audience feels what I was feeling. As long as the emotion comes across, my job is done."

Finney said he's been playing music since he was 7 or 8, when his parents brought home a piano.

It wasn't until he was starting high school, when he discovered an old cassette tape marked "Mike's Song," that he realized that the "tinkering" he did back then was composing.

That's the way the music comes to him.

"A lot of times, when I get an idea about something, it's when I am feeling a certain way about it, and the music, I hear it in my head," he said. "When I do get a writing spree like that, I don't pay attention to anything. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't do anything."

Last fall, band director Andy Richter encouraged Finney to put the final touches on "Daydreams" and aim for a performance at the March concert. The teacher signed off on the composition, and gave Finney the task of teaching it to the rest of the band.

"All of a sudden it was like here's the baton, let's go," Finney said. "At first, I was definitely very nervous. I'd never conducted before, never rehearsed a band before."

But Richter said his student was a natural, both at managing the class and at communicating what he wanted to the rest of the students. Richter took notes during Finney's sessions, and offered feedback.

Finney, who plans to study music at the University of Minnesota in the fall, hopes someday to teach music, and to continue composing.

"It's been my dream, to teach and to write," he said. "It was almost overwhelming for me to have both of those things come true as a senior in high school."