The winner of the Stepping Stones to Mental Health Art Contest was announced to be Taylor Kluck, a Grade 12 student who attends Chestermere High School.
When the contest first began, students from George McDougall, Chestermere High, and Bert Church were asked to submit a piece of art that represented how they de-stress and relax. Students submitted pieces ranging from paintings, sculptures, photographs, and music.
Kluck submitted a piano piece that is in E♭ Major and titled, ‘Pleasant Peace’. She created the sheet music all on her own and submitted the song as her work of art.
“The piece is meant to sound calming, smooth, and it’s slow,” says Kluck, “playing piano is a big part of my life, and it’s what I use to escape from the stress of life for a bit.”
The Stepping Stones to Mental Health program has been urging students at the schools where it operates to deal with their stress in a positive way. Teenagers are under new levels of stress due to increasing demands of post-secondary admittance mark requirements, homework, and social media.
Kluck started playing on the piano when she was two years old, and started taking piano lessons at the age of seven. Fast-forward to now, she is a phenomenal piano player and is currently in piano Grade 11. The prize of the contest was a $100.00 gift card to CrossIron Mills Mall, but Kluck has decided she wants to spend a fraction of it on a nice dress to donate to charity, and keep whatever is leftover for her own use.
“I had the pleasure of meeting with her the other day and she is an amazing young lady,” says Project Coordinator Jodi Neetz, “she told me that she decided she was going to do this act of kindness before she even knew that she had won. Her kindness melted my heart.”
On having a talent that helps her to relax, Kluck says that is the beauty in music. “It gives you something to focus on. When you play music, you have to sit down and focus. It promotes good concentration, determination to learn a piece or technique, and it boosts your self-confidence as practicing over and over can only make you better.”
The technique she used in her piece follows a ‘Question and Answer’ style, where the parts of the music sound like they are responding to one another. According to Kluck, this is one of her favourite ways to make a song flow.
If you would like to hear Taylor Kluck’s beautiful and original piece of music, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzSpZYvVLJk.
