GFS composers Joseph Block (left) and Shyam Natarajan.

The Germantown Friends School fall drama production of Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” featured incidental music composed by students Joseph Block ’17 and Shyam Natarajan ’16, with music teacher Andrew Westerhaus. Drama Department Head Lisa Burns initiated the collaboration, and Westerhaus and the students were eager to take on the project.

“We’ve never written music that goes along with a tangible story,” said Natarajan, an accomplished pianist who has been composing music for almost two years.

A senior, Natarajan has applied to colleges with “very serious music programs.”

Block started playing piano when he was two years old. He has been performing jazz music since Middle School and began composing in classical styles just two years ago.

“The experience exposed me to new ways of thinking about music,” Block said. “Understanding the plot and the characters in the play was as important as making the music. We studied the play for a full week before we even touched the music.”

Once they understood the play and consulted with the cast and director, they explored the sequence of scenes and how to capture the two time periods depicted in the play. To understand musical styles drawn from each era, they studied pieces by Franz Schubert and Philip Glass, as well as Erik Satie, Béla Bartók and Claude Debussy, for inspiration.

“Our process was somewhat unconventional,” added Westerhaus, “because we worked backwards, composing the ending music first and the overture last.”

The students formed connections between the music and the play in many ways. A character in the play recites Lord Alfred Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty,” so they used an opening melody by composer Paul Mealor, which is based on that poem, for Block’s piece titled “Byron Paraphrase (nos. 1 & 5)”.

Mathematics is a central topic in the plot of “Arcadia,” so Westerhaus, Block and Natarajan used the Fibonacci series — a mathematical sequence in which each number equals the sum of the two preceding numbers — to set the pitch and rhythm in two of their pieces.

They also used “musical cryptography” to convert notes into letters based on pitch names and German note names.

“We discovered that the word ‘Arcadia’ could be written out entirely in musical notes,” said Westerhaus, “so this became the basis for the Entr’Acte fugue.”

The central composition for the play was the final dance song, titled “Arcadia Waltz (no. 7),” which Natarajan and Block co-wrote.

“This was an impressive undertaking,” said Westerhaus. “It is difficult to write a single piece of music with another person, but they collaborated very well.”

The Fairmount String Quartet, which includes head of the GFS music department Taia Harlos and GFS music teacher Renee Warnick, recorded the music. The students appreciated having their score recorded by professionals and being a part of that process.

“The best part” said Block, “was watching the play and experiencing how everything fit together.”