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On February 11, I received a call from Gail Gallagher, executive director of the MIT Institute for Events and Protocol. President Rafe just announced that Massachusetts Institute of Technology will once again host its graduation online – and to open the ceremony, we needed a thrilling piece of music that will awaken renewal as we begin to emerge from the pandemic.
After nearly a year of socially distanced teaching, learning and living, I imagined music that not only reflected the losses and challenges we faced, but also instilled optimism about how we can return from darkness to a better and more thoughtful society. Attracting large numbers of music students and singling out the iconic MIT campus quickly became a priority. And the intimacy of the voice was a must.
But what was feasible given the MIT covid protocols? With a few exceptions, students were not allowed to play or sing together in the same room. And who – in the shortest possible time – could create a composition with such a specific intention and for an unusual combination of the forces of an orchestra, brass ensemble, jazz ensemble, Senegalese percussion ensemble and several choirs? We needed a composer with the technical and professional skills to cope with such a difficult task, as well as a heart and humanity to understand why it was necessary at the moment.
I knew immediately that Tony Award alumnus Jamshid Sharifi ’83, with his long history of working with MIT students and his willingness to take on large-scale projects, was the only person who was qualified for the job. Always in high demand – even during a pandemic – as an arranger, producer and composer for Broadway, film and artists of many genres, he agreed to do it right away.
Since there were singers involved in this project, unlike the instrumental collaboration that we have done over the years, we knew we had to find the right lyrics. At Gail’s suggestion, I contacted MIT poet Erica Funkhauser, who has composed several recent poems by her students about the pandemic. And as soon as Jamsheed read them, his vision became clear. “The emotional openness, simplicity and, at times, painful sadness of writing them were my guiding light,” he says, “and influenced all compositional decisions.”
From mailbox to implementation
Although I coordinated other complex, large-scale concerts, this project was uncharted territory. It included arranging recording sessions for five ensembles, off-campus placement for students, rehearsals in person and online, and organizing a 10-hour filming at five locations on campus. The logistics problems were overwhelming – we even had to move a huge sidewalk crane outside 77 Mass. Ave.
May 3 – a month and a day before the premiere – Jamshid’s music and midi file for Pandemic year diary came to my mailbox. I knew well what he was capable of, but what he sent brought me to tears. The fluidity, tone, his word processing and the way he shaped this five and a half minute sonic journey from darkness to light were all just perfect. Since he wanted the vocalists to hear their parts with real voices, he also took on the difficult task of recording them all for an audio file.
My colleagues and I rushed to run to bring the work to life. Multimedia specialist Luis “Cuco” Daglio, who has helped sustain musical performances of music and theater for 15 consecutive months, donned the superhero cloak again, recording seven separate sessions for MIT groups of musicians.
So how did the final virtual performance come about? First, all the instrumentalists and vocalists recorded their playing or singing in Jamshid’s midi file. Jamshid then mixed and mastered all these tracks – over 200 of them – until Pandemic year diary turned into a living, breathing piece of music.
“As I read selected poems by MIT poets, I began to understand the impact of the pandemic on young people — its greater significance given their fewer years on the planet, its limiting power for the time that should be exploratory for them.”
—Jamshid Sharifi ’83
During an epic day of filming – supervised by Clayton Hainsworth, director of MIT Video Productions (MVP) – the source file was amplified through speakers for all performers and singers to perform live. Even with the limitation of playing or singing to a midi track, it was still a revelation. Emmy Award Winner, Best Producer and Editor Jean Dunoyer-87 led the video team, which perfectly conveyed the emotional scope of the composition and the expressiveness of the students’ performance.
“At the end of a long year and a half meeting to create music through Zoom and in separate rehearsal rooms, filming the video gave us the opportunity to perform together in person in a very meaningful manner,” says MIT Wind Ensemble saxophonist Rachel. Morgan, PhD student, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “It meant so much to see what MIT music was capable of!”
While Jamsheed was doing his magic of mixing sound, Jean, whom I consider to be another wizard of the project, creatively translated the music into the film. “I wanted this job to be an invitation for the community to return to campus without a mask and in person,” he explains. “The joy of being together has been what our students have lacked the most in recent months, and when the signal came that the vaccine was working, the urge to get back together was felt.”
Powerful messages for the future
The work that everyone has undertaken to implement Pandemic year diary was a symbol of the central role of music and art in general in the lives of many students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This showed how determined the students, faculty and staff had been to ensure that musical performances continued in very difficult conditions since the beginning of the pandemic.
As Erica put it: “Pandemic year diary to the alumni of The World, it seemed like a musical postcard, although it could only have been created at MIT. “
A few days before the premiere, Jamshid pondered the versatility of the play and its central message. “As I read selected poems by MIT poets and the longer poems from which they were taken, I began to understand the impact of the pandemic on young people — more meaningful given the fewer years on the planet, limiting the power of this impact on young people. a time that should be exploratory and extensive for them, and its inconvenient place in the matrix of unfolding disasters, caused mainly by human inattention and arrogance, ”he wrote. “The moment is full of hope; birds sing about new life. But I feel in the pandemic a warning and an unequivocal proposal that we should not “return to normalcy”, but should seek a developed, fair and holistic way to structure our world. Our youth know this to the core. We must listen. “
Frederick Harris, Jr., School of Music and Performing Arts, is Music Director of the MIT Wind Ensemble and the MIT Jazz Ensemble at the MIT Festival.
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