Freeman Rabb, a junior at Friends Select, has been composing music digitally since freshman year. He has since become known for it, and can often be heard experimenting in the halls before school or during free periods. “If you’re in the upper school, you’ve probably heard my music at some point,” Freeman says.

When he was younger, Freeman loved to experiment with GarageBand. “Before I really started producing music I was actually really into EDM and Dubstep. Garage band was really good for that,” he explains. So when he decided to further pursue his interest in music, he invested in Logic Pro 10: Apple’s professional digital audio workstation.

Although he has learned some piano as a byproduct of his digital endeavors, Freeman’s laptop will always be his instrument of choice. “I feel like creating digitally gives you such a wide canvas. Being able to go into a thousand different worlds with production just gives you free rein, so much ability to be imaginative,” he explains.

Freeman loves experimenting, and incorporates a variety of different genres into his work. “I want a little bit of everything. I want to have spoken word over beats. I want to have yodeling, you know, whatever,” he says. He also looks for ways to incorporate his music into other art forms. “I’ve never scored anything before, but I love the work of film scorers like Hans Zimmer. 

So when drama teacher and producer of Metamorphoses, Donna Romero, announced in early September that she was looking for student musicians to accompany the show, Freeman reached out.

Since then, he’s been working with Ashley Kerns, the director of Metamorphoses, to score the show. “She is definitely the main director of where things should be sonically. It’s good, because if it were up to me, this would be the jazziest weirdest sounding thing. She’s reining me in,” Freeman explains.

Despite having his music supervised for the first time, Freeman doesn’t feel like his creativity is being stymied. “I feel as though I’ve been able to do a lot,” he says. 

He also welcomes the challenge of tailoring specific songs to properly enhance the mood of the scenes they accompany. “I wanted to stay true to my creative intent but I also wanted to stay true to the intent of the play. It’s finding the balance between the two that’s difficult, but I feel like I was able to achieve that pretty well.” 

With the show less than one week away, Freeman has nearly completed his compositions for the play, and feels prepared for opening night. “I have a lot of confidence in my music. I’ve kind of dealt with the fact that people might not like it. As long as I have achieved what I set out to do creatively, then I’m content,” he says.  

Freeman’s first foray into scoring has been challenging, but he’s grateful to have had the opportunity to work on Metamorphoses. “Connecting music to theatrics is amazing. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”