Music in Two Places at Once

USC Thornton and Manhattan School of Music embark on a new partnership by co-hosting a vocal arts master class using Internet2 technology

By Evan Calbi

Cynthia Munzer during the Internet2 master class with Notre Dame, November 2009.

While music education has long been built on the personal relationship between teacher and student, new technology is allowing lessons to grow beyond the face time necessary in the past. This Friday, February 19, USC Thornton co-hosts a vocal arts master class with the Manhattan School of Music that will allow faculty and students from both schools to interact over the Internet.

USC Thornton vocal arts faculty Cynthia Munzer organized the event. Munzer, who has taught at Thornton for over 10 years, has a long resume as a performer including over 200 roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and 20 recordings from the MET Broadcasts with Pavarotti, Milnes, Sutherland, Caballé and others.

"Last fall, I presented a master class on site in New York to the opera graduates and undergraduates at the Manhattan School of Music," Munzer says. "I proposed at that time that we collaborate on an Internet2 vocal master class and they immediately accepted."

Munzer and Gordon Ostrowski, director of opera studies at the Manhattan School of Music, will work with students from both schools in a cross-country exchange using Internet2, a not-for-profit networking consortium made up of more than 200 U.S. universities.

Brian Shepard, assistant professor of pedagogical technology at USC Thornton, has been a pioneer in using Internet2 technology for music education. In 1999, he conducted the first demonstration of an Internet2 musical video teleconference. Recently, he created groundbreaking new software, EchoDamp, designed specifically to improve the network’s audio technology.

"The issue is that the technology works against itself," Shepard says. "With high audio components—really good microphones and loudspeakers—the sound from the loudspeakers is sent back through the microphones. So, if you’re performing, you hear yourself with a little bit of delay. It’s really distracting."

EchoDamp is specifically designed to eliminate the echo that musicians encounter. The application was made possible by support from USC Thornton and with assistance from the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation. It is available free of charge to non-profit educational and performing arts institutions.

Munzer, who has presented vocal master classes throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia, collaborated previously with Shepard on an Internet2 master class with the University of Notre Dame in November 2009.

"The master class took place one week before the USC-Notre Dame football game," Munzer says. "I presented it from Brian’s compact studio while Notre Dame’s singers responded from their on-campus auditorium. They had invited an audience which served them well when, at the end of the master class we Trojans sang the USC Fight Song and were almost wiped out by an auditorium of Notre Dame students singing their own fight song. Of course, we won the game."

The success of the Internet2 master class with Notre Dame has Munzer excited about her upcoming virtual exchange with the Manhattan School of Music. "Collaborating with my colleagues here at the Thornton School and the professional team at the Manhattan School has been a delight. We all view this as the beginning of many future collaborations."

The Inaugural Internet 2 Vocal Master Class
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 9:30 a.m.
Lucas Production Building (LPB) Auditorium
Free Admission
Click here for more information on the event.