Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Our Secret Concert

This year Don, Jeff and I organized with some insider students a secret concert. To attend you had to figure out when and where it was to be. We tried to deconstruct the normal composer/performer roles as well as redefine venue to include electronic media.

Basically, the multimedia students became the composers for the music students who worked with them to draft definitions for musical composition and improvisatory performance. We also wanted to share the "musical experience" with attendees by including them in the greater performance ensemble.

It was a fitting final concert for Don and me. We worked from a conceptual premise that changed week to week as we met with our students. And, the students were great! They trusted us and offered new fresh cross currents to our thinking and were unencumbered by traditional curricular trappings. I was incredibly proud of them.

So.... the multimedia students created video scores which guided all of us through performances. We captured the performances on video and produced them on YouTube -- our final venue. Jeff and his students were essential in completing this final step.

You can find the videos on YouTube by searching for "secret avant garde experience."

If you want I have the SLOs for the creation of the content; the performance is the authentic assessment; and the rubric for evaluating our success is the number of times the YouTube videos are viewed. Viral = Success!

Dave

3 comments:

Pamela said...

I watched the videos on YouTube. It looked like awesome fun!

Donald Megill said...

Pam,

So great to hear from you. I thought about what fun you would have had in this concert. I should have found you and invited you. Hope you keep singing and playing.

Pamela said...

Thanks Don, and congratulations (you too Dave!!) on the retirement! I can't imagine Mira Costa without you both full time. I feel so fortunate to have been a part of the Megill legacy!