Arts Student of the Week Drew Moore

Niwot High School senior Drew Moore has many talents, but he is particularly proud of the fact that he once built a guitar with Legos. "I took the fretboard from a real guitar. And all the hardware. And it worked for a moment, but the nut wouldn't stay on the plastic," he said. "Legos are so much fun. You build whatever you want."

Moore developed a love for music when he was about three years old, playing piano and xylophone. At the age of seven his parents got him his first guitar. He remembers thinking, "This is way better than piano. I want to do this now." After a year of playing both instruments, he made up his mind. He moved fully to guitar and began private lessons.

Moore spent his early childhood in Oklahoma before his family moved to Colorado in 2018. When he started attending Sunset Middle School, he was placed in the guitar class. "But I had already been playing for many years," he said. "They were learning the G-chord. I was already playing 'Master of Puppets,' and I was a little bit more advanced."

His teacher, Kenneth Stotts, convinced him to take up bass for the school orchestra. "He was a fantastic person. And when I got to high school, I met Mr. Chen. He taught me a lot about what music is and how I can really express myself." Moore grew even more excited about music, and now he said that it is all he does, all day, every day.

Moore's freshman year at NHS was completely online. "It was really difficult to understand how to be part of a group," he said. "I was just playing the notes. It took me until junior year to understand that playing orchestra is not just playing notes and rhythm, it is far more. It's understanding a composer and his intent, and trying to get your emotion into it as well."

At first, Moore started in the Concert Orchestra rather than the Symphony, because he could not play a three-octave scale. "I only knew two," he admitted. "And then once we got back in person, and I learned how to play a three-octave scale, I moved to symphony. I've been in that for three years."

Although Moore has not played guitar for class, he has performed a few songs in the orchestra that feature guitar. He will be performing "Master of Puppets" for the May concert. "I started in the small ensemble, Pro Arte, the highest-level orchestra in the whole state. I'm in the Mariachi Band, Symphony, The Advanced Jazz Band, and Tenor Bass Choir." He also plays bass in the orchestra pit for the theater program, and he will be performing for this year's musical, "Shrek."

Moore is inspired by many classical composers. One of his favorites is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Moore has performed "Marche Slave," a piece in B-flat minor that Tchaikovsky published in 1876. Giacomo Puccini is another favorite. "Puccini is just so beautiful," Moore said, "and can put so much into music." He is currently practicing "The Carnival of the Animals" by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns with the Longmont Youth Symphony, performing the part of the elephant. He is also proud of the fact that he played the "Flight of the Bumblebee" on the bass.

Popular musicians who have influenced his music include Eddie Van Halen, and his favorite band is Iron Maiden. Steve Harris is his favorite bassist. "You know, I can't play that fast," Moore said, "but I can sure try."

"Music is less of an art, and more of a literature," Moore explained. "Because you have to think about what the author is putting down in these notes. It makes you feel a certain way because the composer purposely puts each note where it's supposed to go. The crescendos, all the dynamics, all that adds to their personal story. It's like when you're writing a book, you choose certain words. You try to tell a story the way you want to tell it. So that's how I think composers should be writing music."

On his way to the performance for the second night of "Beauty and the Beast," Moore was in a traffic accident, rolling his car over multiple times. Fortunately, the car landed upright, and he came away with only minor injuries. "I said to myself, 'It's only a scraped ankle. I can still play a bass, so get to school.'" But when he got there, Moore was still unsettled. "I told a friend to tell everyone not to talk to me. Just leave me alone." He managed to get through the performance without incident.

With his friend Gustave Kuhlman, Moore has formed a band called PSB. The duo plays what he calls "multi-genre" music-original tunes they perform with Kuhlman on vocals. Together they have played for The Peter Fund, in Fort Lupton at the Silver Moon Bar & Café, and at Oskar Blues, which is where Moore currently works.

After high school, Moore plans to pursue his career as a recording artist with PSB. His vision is to play stadium shows. Although he admits that PSB is an acronym, Moore will not reveal what it stands for. "That is a secret. I could tell you, but..." he says with a playful smile.

As a songwriter, Moore is close to completing his first album. He plans to finish composing the songs and begin recording soon.