AES Student Blog

Students passionate about audio gathered in San Francisco for another dose of AES experiences: education, professional development, networking, and just plain fun. The AES is largely run by motivated, generous and talented volunteers, and the education streams within the AES program are no exception. Students of the AES have a very strong group of four elected leaders more than willing find the time and apply the effort to make the convention a rich experience. Your North and Latin America student leaders are MeiLing Loo, Chair, and Philip Parenteau, Vice Chair; Europe and International are Daniel Deboy, Chair, and Magdalena Plewa, Vice Chair. The successful Student program is the result of much hard work from these leaders. In addition to his year-round contributions to all education activities, Vice Chair of the AES Education committee, John Krivit, led the significant effort for the recording competition, securing volunteer judges, and attracting the participation of our many generous sponsors.

The first meeting of the Student Delegate Assembly, run by Philip Parenteau, attracted some 80 students from more than 30 different schools from throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, England, Germany, Japan and elsewhere.

The Student Recording Competitions attracted 66 student submissions from all over the world, competing in seven categories: Stereo Pop/Rock, Stereo World/Folk, Stereo Jazz/Blues, Stereo Classical, Surround Non-Classical, Surround Classical, and Surround Sound for Picture.

The real heroes in the competition are the judges, who volunteer significant time to the cause, offering expertise of the highest level: Jim Anderson, David Bowles, Betty Cantor-Jackson, Vince Caro, Dana Jon Chappelle, Shawn Everett, Malcolm Fife, Akira Fukada, David W Hewitt, David Miles Huber, Leslie Ann Jones, Jim Kaiser, Richard King, Lolly Lewis, Dave MacLaughlin, Glenn Lorbecki, Andres Mayo, Ronald Prent, Mark Rubel, and Alan Silverman.

The generous sponsorship of the following exhibitors enriches the experience for the students, adding a bit of hardware and software to the honor of being an AES winner: API, Cengage Learning, Focal Press, Genelec, Izotope, Massenburg Design Works/Avid, Melodyne/Music Marketing Canada, Merging Technologies, PMC Monitors, Schoeps Mikrofone GmbH, Solid State Logic, Sonivox, and Sound Toys. These sponsors are donating a valuable, high quality product to the recording competition, showing an inspiring commitment to keeping the next generation of sound recordists involved in the AES and pursuing the highest production standards. The entire SDA and every member of the Education Committee very much appreciate their support.

Student winners include:

Stereo Rock/Pop
Tim Hall Middle Tennessee State University
Kyu Sik Chang Chung-Ang University
Kevin Harper Ithaca College

Stereo World/Folk
Brad Delava The New England Institute of Art
Christopher R. Conover Middle Tennessee State University
Meining Cheung Ruiz The Banff Centre

Stereo Jazz/Blues
Tim Hall Middle Tennessee State University
Gonzalo Garcia The Banff Centre
Bryan Lovett & Brett Long Hartt School of Music

Stereo Classical
Yao Lu Johns Hopkins University
Kevin Harper Ithaca College
Justin Shelton University of Texas at Arlington

Surround Classical
Scott Strathman Indiana University
Tetsuro Kanai Tokyo University of Arts
Kevin Harper Ithaca College

Surround Non-Classical
Jeremy Dudman Middle Tennessee State University
Kevin Harper Ithaca College
not awarded

Sound for Picture
Alejandro Yllarramendy Vancouver Film School
Piper Payne The Banff Centre
not awarded

Alex Case chaired the Education Forum, “Achieving the Out of Class Experience.” A tight structure was presented: three institutions that had recently invested in innovative and unique pedagogy outside of the typical classroom each presented a 20 minute summary of their new efforts, followed by 20 minutes of thoughtful Q&A. The participants created excellent summaries of their benchmark work:

“Production In Action: An Innovative Educational Approach to Collaboration with the Industry” John Murray and Bernie Mac, Recording Arts, Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, Chicago.

“Studios and Labs for Future Music Technologists” by Agnieszka Roginska and Paul Geluso, Music Technology, New York University, and John Storyk, Architect/Acoustician/Co-Principal, Walters-Storyk Design Group, New York, NY, USA.

“Summative Assessment in the Studio: Building a Curriculum That Is More than the Sum of its Parts” by Nathan Breitling, D.M.A., Director, Audio Production, and Ryan Kleeman, MFA, Faculty, Audio Production, AiCA San Francisco.

MeiLing Loo and Philip Parenteau organized the Career Fair and the Education Fair. The Career Fair was packed with students lining up 8 to 10 deep to meet with representatives of each of the participating companies. The Education Fair filled the corridor of the Moscone Center with students visiting representatives of more than a dozen audio schools.

David Greenspan and Ian Corbett organized the Recording Critiques, offering non-competitive discussions of student recording projects. In the room generously provided by PMC, two one-hour sessions were created, each attended by two judges. Students signed-up for 10-minute slots in which they each played their piece and received constructive criticism. The 12 scheduled timeslots filled up immediately. Each Critique Session packed the room, with students eagerly taking notes as feedback was offered on other students work. As with the recording competition, the event is designed to be of benefit to all members, not just the participating student whose work is being studied.

The education portion of the convention wrapped with the second meeting of the Student Delegate Assembly, where recording competition awards were given and students posed for photo ops. Lastly, six impressive students, nominated by faculty, made brief speeches outlining their qualifications and plans for contributing to the activities of the Student Delegate Assembly. The candidates were all so strong that a second, run-off election became necessary. We are pleased to announce that Ezequiel Morfi of Argentina was elected as new SDA Vice-Chair, North and Latin America. He shall serve in this capacity for one year, working closely with Philip Parenteau and the other officers so that his subsequent year as full Chair is as productive as possible. Students are encouraged to reach out to their elected student leaders to stay current on AES matters, and to find ways to contribute to the steady effort.

Lastly, it is my great pleasure to announce that Vice Chair John Krivit will now become the Chair of the AES Education Committee, by appointment of AES President Jim Kaiser. It is an understatement to say that my tenure as Chair of the committee could not have worked without him. He has been essential to most of the many education activities underway and we should all be quite pleased to have him take the reigns.

Respectfully submitted,
Alex U. Case
Chair, AES Education Committee
6 Dec 2010