Fifth-year Leah Wenger’s senior music recital, “Memory,” went live in unique fashion on Monday, Nov. 23, showcasing the culmination of her semester’s work on a website she created. The music, which spans from before 1750 in the first half of the recital to after 1900 in the second half, explores the interplay between memory, emotion, and a sense of home.
In her Forward, Wenger writes, “When I moved home in March due to COVID-19, a few short weeks before I was to perform, I set aside my music for nearly two months. As I slowly picked each piece up again, they spoke to me in new ways. In experiencing months of loss, uncertainty, and reckoning, I found new expression in the rage, despair, and hope exhibited in the first half of my recital. And similarly, after spending 149 days living in my childhood home, I found new meaning in the memory and imagery of home exhibited in the second half.”
Wenger, both a music and a psychology major, was pleased to make connections between her psychology research and her recital pieces. “I eventually settled on memory for my psych research, and then I noticed, as I was pulling music together, things that really intrigued me … that it all kind of fit nicely into this bubble of memory that I already had chosen,” she said.
The pre-1750 music, some of Wenger’s favorites, became a nice complement to the post-1900 pieces that she added to her repertoire. “I felt like it kind of fit nicely into…the ideas of short term and long term memory,” she said.
By sharing her work on the website platform, Wenger was able to incorporate visual elements to deepen the meaning of her message. Photo galleries were interwoven into her lineup, entitled “Depth and Drowning,” “Essence,” and “Fading Away.” “I feel like visual elements are pretty important for memories,” Wenger explained. “I think that [these galleries] really nicely set the stage between sets of pieces.”
Though Wenger expressed disappointment at not getting to perform in front of a live audience, the website itself has become a tribute to the memory of Wenger’s recital, as well as the year as a whole. “It’s turned into a project that I’m really proud of and that I’m excited to share with the world… It’s something that anybody can access at any time, and so in that way, it reaches so much farther than it would have. And, somebody like a good friend [I have who] wouldn’t have been able to come to my recital, it’s like oh! well now he can experience it in the exact same way that everyone else is experiencing it.”
Wenger’s favorite piece to share was her final 12-minute set, “Four Poems by Tennyson” by Ned Rorem. Since the collection of pieces is not widely known, “it just felt like my baby, that I just released into the world … I really was interpreting it for myself and creating it to be something of me,” she said. “Once you put so much work into something, it’s just so fun to perform.”
As people continue to engage with Wenger’s recital webpage, she hopes that they take the time to ponder their own memories, as well as take the “opportunity to reflect on how the past 8 months has shaped you through exploring different emotions and different images of home.”
In addition, she hopes a key takeaway for others is that “it’s okay to find new ways to do things, and [it’s] often super exciting to find new ways to be creative.”
Many thanks go to the EMU music department and participating artists for making Wenger’s senior recital possible.
Follow this link to experience Wenger’s recital, “Memory,” for yourself, and please leave a note so she knows you attended!
