Melody Freed
Arts Scholar
Tryathlon
Semester 1
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of three art events during my first semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
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Click on photos to enlarge the gallery.
Tryathlon 1: National Symphony Orchestra with Laufey, Dodie, and Jacob Collier
Event Logistics September 8, 2023; Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Ben Folds' Declassified Series
Tryathlon category #music
Any time I have the opportunity to attend an event at the Kennedy Center, I know it is going to be a magical experience, and this concert was certainly no exception. I have seen the National Symphony Orchestra perform a few times before, for when they have shown movies and played the scores under them, but I’ve never seen them perform with artists singing along! Hearing some of my favorite songs by Dodie and Laufey in this context was just out of this world. Ben Folds, another musical artist, played a few of his originals which I had not heard before, but the NSO added their touch of magic just as they did with every other song. And Jacob Collier was a surprise guest; I’d always seen videos of his choirs that he creates with his audiences, but I never dreamed I’d get to be part of one! He also created an original song live on stage with the orchestra, which was mind blowing to me.
I love being a musician, and I love hearing the orchestral versions of songs that artists sometimes release. Hearing a live orchestra always reminds me of my passion for music, and of the love I have for certain pieces; the NSO also (very surprisingly) played Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, which is one of my favorites. In any setting, hearing normal songs transformed with an orchestra also always reminds me just how powerful art is, and how a specific combination of writing, composing, and musicianship has to come together to create a performance like this one. In Arts Scholars, we always discuss what art is, and I think moments like these prove that there isn’t a solid definition; art is what we make it, through any medium of our choosing, and if it means something to you or to someone else, then that makes it worth it.
Tryathlon 2: The Prom
Event Logistics October 1, 2023; Kay Theater at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; UMD Musical
Tryathlon category #theater
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to see the University’s annual musical, and this year they did The Prom, a story about a young queer person growing up in Indiana. I love musicals, and this one was certainly no exception; the cast was phenomenal (shout-out to fellow Arts Scholar Julia!), and the set design was so impressive! It had such an important message as well, and overall was just a lovely experience. I would definitely recommend it if a local theater department is doing it nearby.
The main reason I enjoy going to see musicals so much is because of the incredible array of art that is combined to get the show off the ground. From the storytelling to the music to the acting to the lighting and directing, every aspect of the show is related to the arts, and the show itself is a combination of all of these different forms of artistic expression into one final product. Like we’ve learned in Arts Scholars, art is so important in people’s lives and expressions, and when seeing a combination of the arts through an outlet such as a musical, it is so hard to leave any performance less than stunned. Art influences art, and that is obvious through events like this. From a historical perspective, the story being told in The Prom is so incredibly important as well: it’s all too common to see the media explode when it comes to queer people existing in certain parts of the country, and stories like this one are often left untold.
Tryathlon 3: Boomwhackers Craft & Chat
Event Logistics October 24, 2023; Bel Air Hall; Scholars Craft & Chat
Tryathlon category #Presentation #ArtsScholars
A few weeks ago, one of our lovely TA’s, Jenna, hosted a craft and chat event where a group of us were able to make music together using boomwhackers! I had never used them before, but I’d seen them online and thought they were a really creative way of making music. This event was really fun, and it helped me with getting to know some other Arts Scholars students, as to use boomwhackers you have to be in sync with the people around you. You have to know when it’s your time to play your note, in order to make the song sound good. I thought Jenna did a great job incorporating a lesson about music and the boomwhackers with fun activities like trying to put together our own song!
Boomwhackers are a very unique instrument, and it’s likely that if it had not been for Arts Scholars, I would probably never have picked them up to give them a try. In relation to Arts Scholars, this event really pushed me to rethink how I define art; who would have guessed that a specifically-shaped hollow tube could be used to make music! This was such a creative form of expression, and seeing video clips of college groups around the country starting clubs for this art form and making incredible music from it was really inspiring.
Tryathlon
Semester 2
As an experiential component of College Park Arts Scholars, I attended a selection of three art events during my second semester. These events ranged in art mediums and each sparked dialogue among my peers.
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Click on photos to enlarge the gallery.
Tryathlon 1: Coaster Crochet Craft & Chat
Event Logistics February 10, 2024; Bel Air Hall; TA Craft & Chat
Tryathlon category #visualart #ArtsScholars
In this Craft & Chat, hosted by the lovely TA Jenna, we were able to create our own drink coasters through the method of crochet. All experiences were welcome, and I had never tried to crochet anything before, so it was definitely a learning experience for me! I didn’t end up making a full drink coaster, but I was able to get started and learn the basic pattern for crochet. It was a lot of fun watching those who already knew what they were doing make their own patterns and crochet circles, and this experience was a great introduction to crochet if I ever decided to pursue it in the future!
In relation to Arts Scholars, learning the basics of crochet will certainly help me later in the semester when we approach the crochet weeks in my workshop, led by Gracie. The Craftivism workshop focuses on crafts that have been used as forms of activism, such as the #YASVB embroidery or the morse code cross stitch pattern, which we have already covered in the first month of class. Later in the semester, we’ll be having a few weeks of time spent crocheting, and this Craft & Chat definitely helped me get started on my crocheting journey! I’m looking forward to learning more skills in the future.
Tryathlon 2: UMD Wind Orchestra Concert
Event Logistics February 24, 2024; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; concert performance
Tryathlon category #music
Whenever I have the opportunity to attend a performance for the Wind Orchestra or the Wind Ensemble it is always a treat! I love being able to support my friends who are in those ensembles and see all of the amazing work they’ve been putting into preparing for the concert. For this concert, they had a guest composer named Clarice Assad, who performed alongside the ensemble primarily by singing. They performed some of her pieces as well, and those ended up being my favorites in the entire repertoire.
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Along with these incredible pieces by Clarice Assad, the orchestra also performed pieces by Bach, Goldstein, Villa-Lobos, and Ginastera, as well as a piece that I wasn’t expecting to hear: an arrangement of three Beatles songs by Luciano Berio. I thought this was a really neat coincidence because I’ve recently been doing a lot of research on the Beatles for my Scholars capstone project. For my capstone project, I am creating a magazine that looks at different songs and artists and explores how they relate to the movements for change in the United States in the decade of the 1960s, and I’m using the Beatles as an example for my exploration of American economics. This piece made me think about other places where I’ve seen the Beatles’ works pop up unexpectedly, and made me want to research a bit more about how their impact on music has had lasting effects on world culture and economics even today.
Tryathlon 3: Laurel Canyon documentary
As we are in the final stretch for our capstone projects, I wanted to rewatch one of my favorite documentaries that is coincidentally on the same topic that I’m researching. This documentary is really what inspired me to start researching music and the 1960s, and it is neat to see everything come full circle as I watch it again knowing everything new that I’ve learned through my project. Laurel Canyon, directed by Allison Elwood, focuses specifically on the Laurel Canyon, California music scene, which includes many of the artists that I write about in my magazine, such as Crosby, Stills, & Nash, the Buffalo Springfield, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
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Laurel Canyon covers the period that I am looking at, with the second episode extending into the 1970s; rewatching this gave me an opportunity to fact-check my research with the people who were actually there and lived through some of the events that I am writing about. As I finished up my project, I was also in the process of looking for quotes to add throughout my magazine, and the interviews that were used in this film provided me with ones that work very well in my research. I love this documentary, and as a history major, this period of American history is one that I have always been interested in; getting to delve deeper not just through the film but through my own research has been an incredible journey, and I am very excited with the outcome of my capstone project and cannot wait for it to be displayed at Arts Fest in April.
