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On February 11, I received a call from the Gayle Gallagher Institute’s Executive Director of Events and Protocols. President Reif had just announced that MIT would be back online — and to open the event, we needed a compelling piece of music that would lead to renewal when we started to emerge from the pandemic.
After spending almost a year teaching, learning and living far away socially, I thought of music that was not only a reflection of the losses and challenges we face, but also of hope that we can return from the darkness as a better and more thoughtful society. The participation of many music students and the highlight of MIT’s iconic campus quickly became priorities. And the intimacy of the voice was mandatory.
But what was feasible, given MIT’s hidden protocols? With few exceptions, students were not allowed to play or sing together in the same spaces. And who — in the short term — can make a composition with such specific intent and for the usual combined forces of orchestra, wind ensemble, jazz group, Senegalese drum group, and multi-choir? We needed a composer with technical and professional chops to tackle such a daunting task — and to understand why the heart and humanity were needed for this moment.
I immediately found out that Tony was a former student who won the award Jamshied Sharifi ’83, With a long career working with MIT students and a willingness to do big projects, was the only person to work with. He was always in high demand — even in a pandemic — and immediately accepted Broadway as an arranger, producer, and composer of many film and genre artists.
Since the singers would be involved in this project, unlike the instrumental collaborations we had done over the years, we knew we needed to find the right lyrics. At Gayle’s suggestion, I contacted MIT poet Erica Funkhouser, who collected some poems from her students about the recent pandemic. And once Jamshied read it, his vision became clear. “The emotional openness, simplicity, and sometimes the bitterness of their writing was my direct instruction,” he says, “and I was informed of all the decisions in the composition.”
To be carried out from the inbox
Although I coordinated other large-scale complex concerts, this project was an unknown territory. Organizing recording sessions for five groups involves taking students who were not on campus, rehearsing in person and online, and structuring the 10-hour shoot in five locations on campus. The logistical challenges were wonderful; we had to get a massive crane on the sidewalk 77 Mass. Ave. on the outside of the move.
Jamshied score and midi file on May 3, one month and days before the start of the opening day Pandemic Year Diary has arrived at my inbox. I knew exactly what he was capable of, but what he sent me brought me to tears. The flow, the tone, the manipulation of the text, and this five-and-a-half-minute journey of sound were the perfect way to adapt from dark to light. As the voice wanted to hear their parts with real voices, it also took a lot of hard work to record all of them for the audio file.
My co-workers and I set off to give the piece a lively twist. Multimedia specialist Luis “Cuco” Daglio — who helped keep the Music and Theater Arts music performance going for 15 months in a row — put on his superhero cape again, recording seven separate sessions for MIT bands.
So how did he do it the last virtual performance join? First, all the instrumentalists and vocals were recorded playing or singing in Jamshied’s midi file. Jamshied mixed and mastered all of these tracks — more than 200 Pandemic Year Diary the music became lively and breathtaking.
“After reading the selected lines of MIT poets, I began to learn about the impact the pandemic had on young people. It meant more to me that having fewer years on the planet would be a limiting time for them to be explorers.”
—Jamshied Sharifi ’83
On the day of the epic shoot — supervised by May Video Productions (MVP) director Clayton Hainsworth — the original file was amplified through speakers so that all players and singers could play it live. Even with the restriction of having to go to the midi track or sing, it felt revealing. Emmy Award-winning producer and editor Jean Dunoyer ’87 he directed the video group, which beautifully captured the emotional scope of the composition and the expressiveness of the students ’interpretation.
“For a long year and a half through Music Zoom and at the end of a long meeting to separate the practice rooms, filming the video clip allowed us to work together in a very meaningful way,” says saxophonist Rachel MIT Wind Ensemble. Morgan, a graduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “Seeing what MIT music can do meant a lot!”
While Jamshied was doing the magic of his audio mix, I think Jean, the other magician in the project, was filming the score creatively. “I wanted the piece community to be an invitation to return to campus, without a mask and in person,” he explains. “It was a joy that brought our students together the most in recent months, and when the signal came that the vaccine was working, the desire to reunite was evident.”
Strong messages for the future
It took work to make everyone aware Pandemic Year Diary it was emblematic that music and art in general played a major role in the lives of many MIT students. Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has been demonstrated that the decisions were made by music, teachers and staff in crucial situations to ensure the continuation of the performance.
As Erica said, “Pandemic Year Diary it felt like a musical postcard to graduates of The World, even if it could only be created at MIT. “
A few days before the premiere, Jamshied reflected on the universality of the piece and its central message. “After reading the selected lines of MIT poets and the longer poems from them, I began to know the impact of the pandemic on young people; and in an array of calamities caused by clothing, ”he wrote. “The present moment feels hopeful; the birds sing new life. But in the pandemic I feel a warning and a suggestive suggestion that we should not “return to normalcy” but seek an evolved, equitable and holistic way of structuring our world. Our young people know that to the bone. We should listen. “
Frederick Harris Jr. He is the music director of the MIT Wind Ensemble and MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble of the Faculty of Music and Theater Arts.
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