For this week, ISU Onstage features recordings from an innovative collaboration between jazz professor Jonathan Armstrong and english professor Susan Goslee. Knowing that COVID restrictions would make rehearsing with a large jazz ensemble impossible, Armstrong reached out to Goslee to brainstorm a new way to approach the fall semester.
It was important to both Armstrong and Goslee that students had the artistic freedom to go anywhere with these projects. Many of them sound like traditional songs, some with lyrics, some instrumentals that were inspired by the writer’s poems or stories. But you’ll also hear some scored dramatic and narrative recordings as well.
They came up with an idea that paired student writers from Goslee’s creative writing class with student musicians from Armstrong’s jazz ensemble to create new collaborative works, which would be recorded and played on the radio. This class actually led to the inception and creation of this program, as a way to feature these works in lieu of a public performance.
Many of the recordings you will hear were also mixed by students of Professor Armstrong’s audio mixing and production class, a new course in the nascent Commercial Music program here at ISU.
PLAYLIST
1. “Meditation”
2. “Dromde …”
3. “Are You On My Team?”
4. “One More Summer Day”
5. “Blind”
6. “Not Too Long”
7. “Paranoia”
8. “A Conversation with an Alien”
9. Joseph Emmaunel/Eli ? - “Dedication to George Floyd”
10. "Jack DeTombe/Beth Curtis - “Radio Show”
