Adina Weiss

Adina Weiss is an Interactive Multimedia major with minors in Music and Music Technology. She is a video editor, animator, and audio engineer with a specialty in creating virtual performances. She has made more than thirty virtual performances since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Virtual Journey

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my thesis journey began in March 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached New Jersey.  After TCNJ announced classes would be remote for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester, Dr. Leonard, Director of Choral Activities, asked me if there was a way to make a virtual performance for some of the repertoire the Chorale had been learning. Then, the College asked if we would be able to make virtual performances for two of the pieces that the Chorale would typically perform at commencement for the official livestream. It was a new experience for everyone, from figuring out how to use zoom to putting upwards of 30 videos on a screen at once, which begs the question: how can we safely break out of these boxes we’ve been shoved into?

The Process

The first set of virtual performance I made was two movements of Arthur Honnegar’s King David. The Chorale had a performance of the full piece scheduled for late April 2020. Knowing I was an IMM major, Dr. Leonard reached out to me for advice on how to proceed with turning this into a virtual performance. There were two movements that were each about a minute long and all in unison, so they were perfect to experiment with. Dr. Leonard recorded himself conducting and sent the video to James Lubrano, our collaborative pianist. I took the video and the audio and synced them before sending it out to the Chorale. We all filmed ourselves singing along to the conductor video. Around this time, the committee planning the virtual commencement asked Dr. Leonard if it was possible for us to make virtual performances of Baba Yetu and The Road Home, two staples of the in-person commencement ceremony. The King David videos then turned into a sort of audition in order to make the commencement videos. 

For commencement, the student conductors each took one piece and recorded themselves conducting. Luckily, we had previous recordings of these pieces, so we were able to sing along with the recordings which made the audio slightly easier to sync. Dave Muha’s team had a very specific vision of what they wanted these videos to look like, so it didn’t leave me with much room for creativity. Whereas in the King David videos, I panned to show close-ups of the singers and used a picture of Mayo Concert Hall as the background, but the commencement videos had to have a black background and all singers on the screen the whole time. While the videos are still fun to watch a year later, the process left me wondering how I could be more innovative with future virtual performances. 

After the semester ended, my focus shifted to creating two virtual performances for Collegium Musicum that I didn’t have enough time for during the semester. I left everyone as static boxes and focused on making the backgrounds as interesting as I could without taking too much away from the performers. While I was and am satisfied with these videos, there was still the thought of how can we make this better and will we ever get out of these boxes? 

The announcement of a fully remote Fall 2020 semester was certainly a disappointment since I figured it would be more of the same boxes on a screen. Fortunately, Dr. Leonard was also fed up with boxes. He was hoping to be able to do a blend of virtual and live music, with a majority of the choir prerecorded and a few soloists. While this didn’t pan out, we were lucky enough to be able to have one day on campus to film in person. The rules were strict, no more than ten performers at a time, time slots of no more than one hour, and the obvious masks and six+ feet of distance between everyone. Not everyone was able to make it to campus that day, so they filmed themselves at home. Now I had a new challenge of blending the at-home video with the in-person video. For Rollo Dilworth’s Credo, each movement gets slightly more blended until finally it looks like we were all on campus together at once. To achieve this effect, I spent hours rotoscoping out the background of each at home performer and then adjusted the lighting and contrast to make it more believable. This was a really rewarding experience because not only was it a break from the standard virtual performance boxes we had gotten used to, but it was also a break from seeing each other in Zoom boxes. 

 So how does all of this relate to thesis? At first, it didn’t. My original plan was to make an animated kids TV show pilot episode. It wasn’t until the second half of that semester that I realized the scope of that project was way too big for one person. After seeing my previous videos, Warren Buckleitner, my thesis advisor, suggested that I make a virtual performance for my thesis project instead. Admittedly, I was skeptical at first. I didn’t know how I would be able to make this video stand out from the others I had already made. I also knew that I would need an ensemble to have a chance of making this work. When I pitched the idea of doing a virtual performance to Dr. Leonard, he was totally on board. I had been taking the choral conducting classes, so he suggested I take the conducting independent study. This way, I could be involved with every aspect of the performance, instead of just singing and audio and video editing. Now, I was picking the music, teaching it, conducting the final performance, singing, and still doing all of the audio and video editing. It was also a great way to incorporate my major and minors into something reflective of my time at TCNJ.

Jerusalem

I knew I wanted to my piece to have a connection to Judaism. There isn’t a lot of good Jewish choral music, and unless the choir is specifically Jewish, even the good pieces are not often performed. I spent winter break researching music and listening to pieces that were either in Hebrew or written by Jewish composers. I found Jerusalem by Kenneth Lampl, and from the first chord I immediately fell in love. As it turns out, Dr. Lampl grew up in Ewing and had taught some music technology courses at the College. I was fortunate enough to chat with him and get his insight on Jerusalem which allowed me to better connect with the piece. I worked closely with Dr. Leonard figuring out the best way to conduct and teach the piece. I started teaching Jerusalem to the Chorale at the beginning of March. We were still rehearsing remotely at that point, so I could only hear James on piano and had to trust that the vocalists were learning their notes correctly and would ask questions if they were lost. Once the tent was installed and we could rehearse in person, it was easier to make progress on the piece. In April we were able to record all of our pieces in Mayo Concert Hall. For Jerusalem, we used this opportunity to record a baseline audio track for everyone to individually record over at home. Once I had all 30 audio tracks, I brought them into Logic Pro X and mixed it into what you hear now. Mark Kalinowski, Mayo Concert Hall manager, also sweetened the audio to really take it to the next level. The video represents the stages of the pandemic and the evolution of the virtual performances I made over the past year. It starts off with everything empty and desolate and the performers aren’t in any specific attire. The shift to concert attire shows our  growing confidence with performing virtually and sticking together as an ensemble even though we can’t sing together. Finally, following all COVID safety guidelines, we are able to be together again and sing with each other in person.

What I’ve Learned

Virtual performances take a lot of work! The King David renders took 5-7 hours, commencement to 12-15, and one part of Jerusalem took over 10!

Last spring, we captured audio and video at the same time. Someone suggested separating it so we could focus on getting a really good audio take. This ended up working really well and it also made the audio easier to sync.

The other big change from spring to fall was singing to a baseline track. For King David we just had piano, and for commencement we had a full ensemble recording. In the fall, we took turns making the baseline tracks. Dr. Leonard would conduct and James would play piano, then a bass would record their part and send it to a tenor and so on until we covered every voice part. This also made it easy to sing along to since it was easy to hear your part.

I also learned that audio editing is no joke. Mark, Dr. Leonard, and I would Zoom for hours at a time to work on the commencement audio, right up until the night before the videos were due. For Jerusalem, I spent about an hour per track just lining up our consonants so it wouldn’t sound messy.

I have also grown as a musician, both as a vocalist and a conductor. My favorite part about audio editing is soloing a few tracks and hearing how those parts work together. 

To see all 30+ virtual performances from the past year, click here.