The Alumni Recital Hall at the Redfern Arts Center was bustling with students and locals on March 12 for a virtual recital.
Corey Hamm, associate professor of piano at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and piano faculty at New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston, performed a video live stream accompanied by a Spiriocast.
Hamm broadcasted the live performance from NEC using the self-playing feature of the Steinway & Sons Spirio/r grand piano, of which Keene State received the third one ever made. The piece performed was “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” by composer Frederic Rzewski, a piece Hamm said he has performed roughly 80 times when introducing the piece to the crowd.
KSC Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of Keyboard Studies Christina Wright-Ivanova organized the performance for the Music Foundations class, leaving it open to the public as well.
Wright-Ivanova was looking to utilize the Spirio, saying, “The Spirio comes with all these incredible tech capabilities, one of them is what Steinway calls a Spiriocast. A pianist can play from anywhere in the world, and it’s broadcast in real time into our piano as if the person is sitting right here.”
While Wright-Ivanova was away, Heather Gilligan, professor of music, hosted the performance. Gilligan announced a “disclaimer” at the beginning, saying this was the first time the Redfern had held a performance like this.
“I think there are some logistics we can figure out for future times, but the performance itself was very good and very strong,” added Gilligan after the performance. “The video matched what we were seeing, and the sound was excellent.”
Senior Victoria Young and sophomore Killian Bailey both said they were surprised about how well the performance went.
“We were both just shocked at how successful it went because of the technology needs that it required,” said Young.
Bailey added, “It went off without a hitch really. I’m surprised how well everything went down, with no real technical issues.”
Young continued with her praise of the performance. “It’s beautiful, it’s so cool because it’s not like it’s a recording. It was exactly what he was playing there [NEC] but in our building.”
The two students said they were interested in the capabilities of the technology used in the performance. “It was very fascinating and moving to be able to hear someone play live without them being live [in-person],” said Bailey.
“There was no delay with the camera. I was expecting a little delay with the video, but it was perfect,” added Young.
After the feedback about the performance, Wright-Ivanova said she was interested in continuing having this style of performance as a Spiriocast series.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
