Students compose for award-winning artists at new Nashville Christmas concert

Tommee Profitt’s Birth of a King moves from album to live orchestra performance through work of Lipscomb faculty and students.

Janel Shoun-Smith | 615.966.7078 | 12/20/2022

The 2022 Christmas season brought a special gift for nine students in the School of Music: a chance to hear their own orchestral arrangements performed live by established artists such as Fleurie, Crowder, Colton Dixon, Rachel Lampa and Jordan Smith.

Tommee Profitt’s The Birth of a King, live in concert at Nashville’s Fisher Center on Dec. 6, not only featured the work of award-winning songwriter and producer Profitt and performances by 21 professional artists, but it also featured orchestral arrangements of the songs by Lipscomb’s Dr. Ben Blasko, assistant professor and director of instrumental studies.

Nine of Blasko’s composition students helped him write arrangements for 17 songs originally included on Profitt’s Birth of a King album release in 2020: Luke Snyder, senior; Vincent Reed, junior; Kaleb Clarke, junior; Tyler Skrove, junior; Brett Boyd, senior; Jonathan Morris, junior; Tyler Lewis, sophomore; Kennoniah Bellile (’22) and Janelle Spiers (’22).

During the pandemic, Profitt spent his time creating a Christmas album featuring traditional Christmas songs reimagined in his cinematic music style and featuring a guest artist for each of the 17 songs. After the success of the album, Profitt decided to create a live, staged version of the songs with guest artists, a 50-person orchestra and a 100-person choir.

Profitt's music has been featured in 24, Quantico, The Good Doctor, The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and many other shows and movies. He has won two Dove Awards and has been nominated for five. In addition he has worked with American rapper NF, Avril Lavigne, TobyMac, Chris Tomlin, Josh Groban and many others.

To arrange the original music for an orchestra, Profitt worked with Blasko, who also conducted the orchestra for the Birth of a King performance. 

Blasko has conducted groups such as the Nashville Symphony, Boston Symphony, the North Texas Wind Symphony and the Agora Brass Ensemble. His music has been played all over the world by groups such as the Nashville, Boston and Colorado Symphonies and the United States Air Force and Navy Bands. Additionally, he has orchestrated music for OneRepublic, Colton Dixon and Disney.

Since July, Blasko and the nine students have been working on the orchestrations, investing more than 600 hours of work on the project.

The students had to first engage transcription skills in listening to and writing down the original songs, Blasko said. Then they had to use creativity in thinking about what instruments were not originally included and how new ones could be incorporated into the music to best effect and still be playable for the musicians. Then they had to write down the new music to the standards expected by professional artists, said Blasko.

“This is the type of work they can do once they graduate as a job,” he said. “They had to walk through this project from first listening to the songs all the way to printing the sheet music for the orchestra. The students were working with established artists, so it added the stress factor that it had to succeed, but they also had my guidance as a safety net. I encourage my students to live dangerously in their creative work.”

One example of the students’ creative process was the arrangement for “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” which Profitt envisioned as having the epic, over-the-top tone of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. The soloist for that piece was Tino Guo, a musician who plays the electric cello and is well known within the film music community. 

“I had to think about how to capture epic,” said Blasko. “I spent a lot of time listening to the version (Profitt) created and the Pirates soundtrack. We thought a lot about brass instruments and the power they bring to a piece and about strings, which are versatile, active and bring a swashbuckling feel. Plus you also have to stay out of the way of the sound of the electric cello. The end result was really special.”

The artists involved in the concert made several positive comments about the professionalism of the students work, said Blasko. Seven of the nine students attended the concert this December, and two additional Lipscomb music school students were involved in the choir: Mary Chandler Hicks, sophomore, and Audrey Veneble, junior.

The Birth of a King performance was sold out. Snippets of the concert are available on social media, especially on the social media accounts of Profitt and some of the guest artists, but the entire performance is expected to be released in 2023.