“Repressed Memory is a piece I wrote in my second semester of freshman year, and was my second piece for acoustic instruments and electronics. I wrote the piece in a very quick span of time, it was inspired largely by the experience of remembering a traumatic memory and attempting to relive it through sound as a sort of therapy. It’s been performed twice: first at Oberlin, and recently at the SPLICE Festival at Bowling Green State University. Now having it selected for N_SEME, it’s incredibly exciting to be able to hear it played again. It’s also wonderful to see such a strong TIMARA presence at the event, I think it’s really a testament to the program, having such a supportive environment from both students and faculty.” – Drew Smith (TIMARA second-year Major)

“Electronic Music Midwest (EMM) 2018 took place at Lewis University from Thursday, Oct 11 to Saturday, Oct 13 and over the course of one weekend boasted 9 concerts with 61 pieces. Unfortunately, I was only able to make it to the last two concerts on Saturday, but that didn’t stop it from being worthwhile. The curators of the program did a wonderful job at filling the concerts with a variety of quality pieces that were both interesting enough and different enough from each other to keep me awake through more than two hours of new music in the same evening–which is an achievement considering my attention span. 

Aside from the music, what really surprised me was the warmth of the community that I found at EMM. I had never been to a new music festival before, so it was a very pleasant surprise just how invested everybody there was in everybody else’s work. Even people who weren’t able to make it to the concert my piece was in asked me about my work, exchanged contact information, and welcomed me into the community with open arms. I don’t know what I was expecting to come out of the experience with, but the new friends I made were a great surprise. Many thanks to the conservatory dean’s office for their financial support in letting me attend the event!” – Tori Ervin (TIMARA fourth-year Major)