Alternative Spring Break helps BU make Honor Roll 16 BELLARM INE MAGAZINE News on the hill Responding to increasing student interest, Bellarmine added two new destinations this year for Alternative Spring Break. In all, 50 Bellarmine students spent their weeklong break in four locations: Sandy Valley, Ky., where they helped Christian Appalachian Project WorkFest build and repair homes, Lake Charles, La., where they repaired damage caused by Hurricane Katrina; and the two new locations, Kiptopeke State Park in Virginia, where students improved park facilities, and Washington, D.C. In D.C., 14 students from the Brown Scholars Leadership Program volunteered at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, toured the Capitol and other sites and heard speakers describe their own experiences with homelessness. One of the big takeaways, said Ailise Delaney, a senior from Arlington Heights, Ill., was that “people are not their circumstances.” In part because of Spring Break service trips, Bellarmine University earned a spot on the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, which was created by the Corporation for National and Community Service in 2006 after college students nationwide traveled to the Gulf Coast to support relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina. “Civic engagement should be a key component of every student’s education experience,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in announcing the Honor Roll. Service to others is a key component of Bellarmine’s mission statement. In addition to Alternative Spring Break, students also engage with the community in efforts such as the Knights in Action: Day of Service at the start of the academic year and the Department of Physical Therapy’s Service-Learning Clinic. Music tech major wins national award Zack Stefanski, a junior music technology major from Aurora, Ill., won a national award for sound/music design at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in April for his work in Frida Kahlo: A Portrait, a play written by Bellarmine’s Carlos Chavarría (writing as Carlos Manuel) and produced by the Bellarmine University Theatre Program last fall. The prize included $500 and a weeklong trip to New York City to meet some of the top sound and music designers in the business. Not bad – especially considering this was the first time he had ever written music for a play! Zack got involved in the project at the recommendation of Richard Burchard, associate professor in the Music Technology Program. After reading the play and studying Kahlo’s paintings and the 2002 film Frida, Zack eventually wrote 14 pieces of music, ranging from short scene-setting effects to full themes for the characters. What is the job of the sound/music designer? Zack: We are not the primary artists in this setting – the actors are. As a secondary artist, I had to write music that would complement what was going on onstage, to set a mood and help the actors reach the audience on a more emotional level with background noises and sound. How did you decide on a musical style? Zack: Since Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter, I tried to use instruments that accented her culture. Being a guitar player, I primarily wrote music to be played on my instrument. But since she was a surrealist, her paintings have some unrealistic attributes. So I took the liberty to use unnatural noises, like cymbals, and melded them together. Other instruments I used to embellish my work included castanets, marimba, bongos and the piano. Is this what you’d like to do as a career? Zack: I’m still figuring that out. This is the first play I’ve ever done music for and I ended up winning this national competition. It all happened so fast, and I didn’t expect any of it. The Kennedy Center is paying for me to take a trip to New York for a master class in sound and I’ll get to meet all these people – I hope that will open up a lot of doors to getting more into this sound design thing. Hear The Music of Frida on Zack’s website, http://zackstefanski.bandcamp.com
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