UMD Meaningful Connections Recital Brings Performers, Audience Closer to the Music

The University of Maryland's Meaningful Connections chamber music class aims to rethink the way musicians perform.

By Tommy Tucker | The Diamondback

A recital combining music, art, speech and poetry held by the University of Maryland’s Meaningful Connections chamber music class on Monday night sought to create a deeper understanding of music.

The class and recital focused on connecting the audience and musicians to the music by combining the performance with other mediums. The students chose the artwork and literature that best reflected the pieces they performed, displaying it on a screen during each performance.

“A lot of times, people give performances and you just walk on stage and you play, and that’s kind of it,” music performance graduate student and student performer Brianne Steif said. “When we have other things for people to look at, like putting artwork on the screen, having poems, people dancing, it makes the music more relatable.”

Having no prior knowledge of the piece they were assigned, Steif’s group needed to research their song to make a connection through the accompanying artwork and text.

“When we went to try and put art with it, it was really about what we were inspired from by learning the piece together, and learning the different movements, as opposed to what the composer told us,” Steif said.

Grouped together by the professors, each ensemble and duet consisted of an atypical pairing of instruments. Part of the goal of the class is to have students step out of their comfort zones and perform in ways they were not used to.

Read the full article in The Diamondback.

Photo by Tommy Tucker/For The Diamondback