Final thoughts on collaboration

Reflecting back on last week's presentations, I am pretty impressed with not just the talent in our class, but also the willingness to explore different ideas, take risks, and collaborate. I was especially impressed with the way all projects integrated different performance mediums in an innovative and seamless manner.

If I had one request for the class, it would be that we would have had it in a different location. My experience as a freelance accompanist and conductor throughout New York has taught me that, obviously , we have to take what space we can get, and that certainly applies to the spaces for our classes at NYU. I've had my share of classes in less-than-ideal locations, but all credit to Dr. Gilbert, Chianan, and our class for making it work.

My question, is as technology continues to advance and long-distance collaboration in the arts becomes more and more commonplace, how much will the "setting" matter? I noticed that so many of our collaborators seemed to have trouble making out the kind of space we were in--of course, that could have been due to the use of two cameras. If only we had a larger open space, say, the choral rehearsal room on the 3rd floor, the possibilities for expanding our work (in a literal and artistic sense), would be great!