By Danielle Bettendorf Staff writer
Musician Mark Snyder presented a multimedia performance on loss and the passing of time in Stretansky Concert Hall on Sept. 6.
He was accompanied by fellow musicians Becky Brown and Paige Naylor on harp and vocals respectively.
Snyder performed six works, which featured the use of multiple instruments and devices. All of the pieces were composed by Snyder with the exception of one.
The performance was composed of music, video and poetry aspects. The recital included the usage of a harp, accordion, theremin, tuba, clarinet, guitar, singing, synthesizers and video.
“I think it was really mind-blowing,” first-year Hayden Stacki said. “I haven’t been exposed to a lot of electronic music, and seeing how his life had influenced his music and how his music had influenced his life was really something incredible.”
Patrick Long, professor of music, brought Snyder to campus.
“I know him from music festivals,” Long said. “I’ve performed in festivals where he’s also performed, and he hosts the festival at Mary Washington University. I got to know him that way, and I know that he is capable of showing up and doing a whole concert that has a lot of variety and interest.”
In Snyder’s multimedia performance, imagery played a supporting role to the music, which Long said is an inversion of what audiences are used to.
“Almost every movie we watch has music, but the music is subordinate to the image,” said Long.
Snyder’s performance was the first of the “21st Century Tuesdays” series, which will take place on the first Tuesday of every month.
“When I started this series, it was just going to be things on Tuesday nights, and it was going to be things that, for whatever reason, could not have been done before the 21st century,” Long said.
Long also emphasized the importance of new technology on the spread of multimedia performances.
“Most of the concerts [have] very freshly written new music, and it’s very often music that’s not even in traditional forms,” Long said. “It’s in new forms: live multimedia performance is very new, [because] people didn’t used to have computers fast enough to do live multimedia.”
“It’s a kind of music or performance that could really only happen now,” Long continued. “This is the world of experimental computer music and multimedia.”
Despite the emphasis on new technology, Long said the music presented is not the popular type that those in attendance may commonly hear in other areas.
“This kind of music generally occurs in classical concert halls like Stretansky. This is not music for clubs, it’s not music for the radio, it’s definitely music for the kind of concentrated listening that goes along with the classical concert hall,” said Long. “Usually when we think of the classical concert hall, we think of string quartets and piano pieces and acoustic things, but this is the attempt to bring the computer and video into that realm.”
Long also said the music presented will be different in style than what attendees may be used to.
“In almost every concert they will hear something that they’re unlikely to have ever heard before: something that is very, very new and something that is not pop,” said Long. “Pop music is great, but in that realm there’s so much money and style and coolness, and that’s fine, but this is the kind of music that doesn’t traffic in those things.”
