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M cGILL T R IB U N E
Tuesday, Jan u ar y 8, 2 0 0 2 Issue 15
Published by the S t u d e n t s ’ Society o f M cG ill University since 1981
Classical music for your plugged in ears Panthea Lee These days it seems like every one’s computer is more of a stereo system than a word processor. The average university student has probably downloaded 500 MP3s off the Internet that blare constant ly on random and repeat. But the latest trend in music technology over the Internet brings live con certs to be heard in the privacy of your own home, and McGill’s Faculty of Music has joined the vir tual bandwagon. In the spring of last year the Faculty of Music, in a joint project with the Music Technology and Sound Recording graduate pro grams, began pursuing a new ini
tiative — the broadcasting of facul ty concerts over the Internet. The brainchild of Associate Dean of Information Systems and Technology Bruce Minorgan, the project has evolved into a labour of love for four graduate students— Jason Corey, Ian Knopke, Rebekah Pym and Brian Richards who are all responsible for different aspects of the webcasts. The big pitch for publicity has been this year, with roughly a dozen concerts being streamed per semester. The concerts focus on major faculty ensembles, with a small number of chamber concerts and performances by graduate stu dents and staff also being show cased. Minorgan and Gordon Foote,
chair of the performance depart ment, determine the roster and Geoff Martin, coordinator of the project, emphasizes, "there is an attempt to have as broad a range of musical styles and ensembles repre sented to appeal to the widest lis tening audience." By concentrating on larger ensembles, the program maximizes its potential to serve the largest amount of people, as the listening audience comprises primarily of family and friends of performers who are unable to physically attend the concerts due to geographical restrictions. Although it was not technical ly difficult to begin webcasting (the faculty already possessed most of the equipment and software neces
sary), Minorgan admits the project has not been without technical glitches. The bumps have mostly been recognized through listener feedback and are promptly ironed out. “This year, our streaming serv er and software have been quite reliable,” Martin elaborates. “Technical difficulties are typically on the receive end, rather than the send end — the signal is going out, but the users cannot hear it for one reason or another." To listen to the concerts, users need Apple’s Quicktime, used "both for its broad compatibility with multiple formats as well as its high quality and reliability — plus, it is free for the listeners,” exclaimed Martin.
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The faculty recognizes that while this program serves as a con venience for distant listeners, it also serves as a forum for recruit ment. “It provides our students in Music Technology and Sound Recording with practical experi ence in a medium which will only grow in importance,” Minorgan explains. “ [It] provides members of the Department of Performance a new and exciting venue for their many performance activities. Webcasting also presents the Faculty of Music to an internation al public with obvious benefits to our recruitment initiatives and to development." The entire coricert schedule is Please see CLASSICAL, page 2