Every parent remembers their child’s firsts; their first tooth, their first steps, their first words. According to Boing Boing, Pennsylvania mom, Michelle Wallace can add another first to that list. Her daughter, Olive Wallace, only ten years old, sketched out her first musical composition in pencil. Days later, the musical piece went viral with musicians and orchestras worldwide bringing Olive’s stunning music to life.
A musical upbringing
Olive Wallace grew up in a musical home. Her grandmother is a retired Californian music teacher. Olive’s aunt also teaches music. Olive herself is a musician and plays two instruments. Michelle tells Boing Boing "She [Olive] has played the violin for 2 years at her elementary school in southern Pennsylvania. She also plays the clarinet and sings in her school's choir and honor choir. She loves music!”
Viral on TikTok
According to Inspire More, when Olive shared the composition she had written with her mom, Michelle shared it with the TikTok community. “So my 10-year-old daughter wrote this,” Michelle explained in a TikTok video. “Could somebody play this? I need to know — I need to know if it’s any good or if it makes any sense.”
Michelle’s video went viral, and six million views later, the composition had been played and shared by hundreds of TikTok musicians, including well-known professionals, and was turned into a full string orchestral arrangement.
For Greatness We Bring
Av Club reports, Christopher T.F. Hanson spearheaded the string arrangement at the NAfME Northwest Conference. Hanson’s video description gives some background about Olive’s inspiration. The description explains that Olive intended her composition as a folktale song for the Elps, an imaginary civilization of her own creation. On her Elpjungle website, Olive writes about Elp-lore in detail.
“For a long time Elps had kings. King after king the Elp kingdom was led, until one king, King Whirlpool, suddenly for unknown reasons, started to go insane, it was later found that there was a flower grown deep in his palace. He was later overthrown and the queens took over. This song was created to show the end of the kings rule and the beginning of the queens.It was titled ‘for greatness we bring’ because shortly after the new queen was elected a whole new kind of elps was brought in.’”
Olive harnessed her unique imagination to bring a civilization and its history to life through music. And the TikTok musical world harnessed their talents to bring her composition to life by playing the composition on a number of instruments. Listening to the string arrangement of “For Greatness We Bring,” while knowing the lore behind it, is quite moving. As the music ebbs and flows, one can imagine the Elp world ushering a new era of peace and Greatness. With her unique imagination and musical ability, it’s clear Olive has a bright and creative future ahead of her.
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