The UNC Department of Music is finding new ways to celebrate music with UNC Music Replay.
UNC Music Replay, a Facebook series that airs every Thursday at 5 p.m. on Facebook and YouTube, is part of the department’s #ThrowbackThursday series and features past performances from faculty, staff and students. The department plans to continue the series through November.
Cat Zachary, the communications coordinator for the music department, said in a normal year, the department hosts around 200 events, most of which are live performances. She said when UNC decided to go remote, the faculty wanted to find a way to keep the performances going.
“We have this fantastic archive full of wonderful performances from the past,” Zachary said. “So why not bring some of those out? That way, people can get a sense of who we are, even though they can’t come on campus or sit in an auditorium, we can still experience the music together.”
Zachary said to do so, the department asked faculty members to submit different performances that they wanted to feature. The series also gives the performer a chance to make new commentary on the piece.
Juan Álamo, an associate professor in the music department, was featured in episode two of the series. He picked a performance by the UNC Percussion Ensemble, which he directed. The performance also featured a piece written by Álamo titled “Riba-Roja de Túria.”
“I wanted to share a piece that had connections with me,” Álamo said. “This was a piece that I wrote and it was a piece that I premiered with my students at UNC.”
Álamo said he hopes the series will remind students of the excitement that comes along with doing a performance. He said students can still have these experiences, even if they are virtual.
“In a normal semester, we’d be prepping for a concert and then sharing that content with the community,” Álamo said. “We’d get all the excitement of preparing, working and then presenting our work. I hope that these videos are a reminder of that process.”
