Post-Azariah
My thesis show yesterday went well. The singing sounded amazing. There were 55-60 people in attendance at the Old Songs building, including almost 20 shape note singers from as far away as Brattleboro, Boston, and New York City.
People thought the music and the book were beautiful. Some people seemed to get the story, but some others had difficulty comprehending it. And I got some feedback from people who found the story moving. With a few exceptions, I don’t think I could have done anything to make the event go better without going with a substantially different format. But the format has some weaknesses, and I’m sure I’ll get lots of critical feedback over the next few weeks that helps me figure out what kind of work I want to do next.
I think the documentation turned out great. Two people shot video. Bart shot the whole event with a tripod-mounted camera, and Zulma did excellent but unobtrusive handheld coverage. Alex did a four-channel sound recording, as well as a stereo recording for redundancy, and both sound great. As always, my dad shot tons of great photos.
So — I’ll probably never do another event like this again, but I’m quite happy with how it went.