Skype bridges the distance

Conductor Tom Lloyd recently used Skype to communicate directly with the composer about a work he was performing – a practice that is certainly to become more widespread as composers and conductors become more conversant with technology:

 

The Bi-Co Chamber Singers have traveled all over the world—from Turkey and Poland to Ghana and Costa Rica—but on November 9, they sang in Switzerland without ever leaving MacCrate Recital Hall on campus. The 37-person chamber choir, led by Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral and Vocal Studies Tom Lloyd, performed “There is Another Sky” (video) for its Swiss composer, Ivo Antognini, over Skype.

“We thought it would be great to sing for you over the Internet, since we found your piece over the Internet,” said Lloyd in his introduction to Antognini.

And then with the composer seated in his darkened kitchen—it was 10:30 p.m. in Aranno, where he lives in southern Switzerland—and the sun just starting to set on a late fall afternoon in Haverford, the Chamber Singers launched into their version of the piece, which is based on the Emily Dickenson poem of the same name and features handclaps, percussive body taps, dance moves and animal noises in certain sections. (It is a song they recently performed in Thomas Great Hall as part of Bryn Mawr College’s Friends and Family Weekend.)

“It went well in the most important ways,” said Lloyd of the video teleconference rehearsal. “I think the students felt like they had a real encounter with the composer and gained some new insight into the music they had learned.”