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Sound Source

Sound Source

The Daily Northwestern
Musica, Notizie e Politica

The campus is alive with the sound of music, and it’s not just people playing piano in Willard. Listen to Sound Source to hear the artists you know — and don’t — within Northwestern’s local scene.

34 - Sound Source: Student-produced biblical opera explores womanhood, loss
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  • 34 - Sound Source: Student-produced biblical opera explores womanhood, loss

    “devoted,” a student-produced opera that delves into the backstory of the women in Jesus Christ’s story, will premiere March 30 at Northwestern’s Ryan Opera Theater. The piece explores the motivations and themes in the opera.
    [Singing]
    WILLIAM TONG: Those are the voices of Bienen sophomores Cece Olszewski and Isabel Yang. They’re rehearsing the song “my mess.” It’s part of an opera Olszewski wrote the music and lyrics for called “devoted,” and it’s premiering on March 30.
    Yang is a voice and opera major who plays Mary in the show. It explores themes of womanhood, sacrifice, abandonment and self-love from the perspective of the two women closest to Jesus Christ.
    Olszewski’s main role is music director — she conducts rehearsals, sets up performance logistics and tries to get the show’s sound just right.
    CECE OLSZEWSKI: Because it’s kind of a high-pressure thing to be putting on an opera, especially here, you know. It’s a lot of work for me, so it’s really fun to come to these rehearsals and kind of, almost decompress.
    [music fade in]
    WILLIAM TONG: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m William Tong. Welcome to this episode of Sound Source, a podcast tuning into music at and around Northwestern. Today, we’re following 12 students who are putting on an opera about the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene — as teenage girls trapped in purgatory.
    [music fade out]
    CECE OLSZEWSKI: In “devoted,” the two Marys are these two teenage girls, because mentally, they’re stuck in the age their lives were taken from them — at the age that they decided to drop everything and become fully devoted.
    WILLIAM TONG: Olszewski said that’s why the show is set in a teenage girl’s bedroom.
    The imaginary space represents a mental purgatory — the intermediate realm where the Marys’ souls must wait before they can enter heaven. They’re not in heaven because they’ve been abandoned by Jesus after they died.
    CECE OLSZEWSKI: In this portrayal of the afterlife, they’re not being returned to Jesus. They’ve been kind of betrayed, they’ve been forsaken because he’s not there. And they realize that this whole story, he’s not been there.
    WILLIAM TONG: Yang’s character, the Virgin Mary, also deals with the sacrifices of motherhood. Olszewski, who was raised Catholic, said many sources point to the Virgin Mary being between 12-14 years old when she found out she was pregnant with Jesus.
    The two women played pivotal roles in Jesus’s life, and watched both his death and rebirth. But, Yang said that the opera’s depiction of the two Marys outside of their connection to Christ are especially poignant.
    ISABEL YANG: The plot is centered on these two women — yes, because of their relationship to Jesus — but it also explores themes of their own womanhood as individuals outside of this connection to a man.
    WILLIAM TONG: Technically, the show’s characters are just two nondescript Marys, but Olszewski said she wanted to strongly allude to the two biblical figures. She was inspired by a painting of Mary Magdalene that she saw during her freshman fall art history class, she said.
    CECE OLSZEWSKI: That painting just kind of sparked this idea in me of what it feels like to give up everything for someone else.
    WILLIAM TONG: It wasn’t until April that she got into the nitty gritty of building the piece, though.
    CECE OLSZEWSKI: I had this concept that was kind of brewing at the back of my mind for the whole year — for my whole freshman year. And then, I broke up with my boyfriend, and I immediately called up my three close friends.
    Fri, 01 Mar 2024 - 6min
  • 33 - Sound Source: Exploring music opportunities for non-music majors

    Non-music majors at Northwestern have many opportunities to continue their relationship with music through Bienen and beyond.

    Wed, 24 Jan 2024 - 5min
  • 32 - Sound Source: Deep Dive: Joy Fu’s album “Impromptu Sailing”


    Joy Fu released her first album this past August. We took a deep dive into the album to learn about Joy’s inspirations. Learn how coffee and the SAT influenced “Impromptu Sailing.”
    [music: Joy Fu “99 million”]
    LAURA SIMMONS: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Laura Simmons and this is Deep Dive — a Sound Source series where we hear the stories behind the music on or around campus. Weinberg junior Joy Fu released her first album last August. Fu joins us in walking us through her album, “Impromptu Sailing,” with sounds of water, low-fi, jazz and classical music.
    [music: Joy Fu “99 million”]
    LAURA SIMMONS: Fu said “Impromptu Sailing” is meant to be a metaphor for life.
    JOY FU: I was born in northeast China. And then at the age of three, we moved to Shanghai. It was a very big move. The language was very different, the culture was very different. So I had to sort of make myself adjust to it in a way. And, then for high school, I decided to apply to this international school where people literally come from like more than 100 countries. It was such an adventure. And the application itself was kind of an impromptu choice.
    LAURA SIMMONS: In the beginning, the album is somber and dissonant, while later on the songs become happier and harmonious. The second piece of “Impromptu Sailing” is called “12:28,” named after the time when Fu wrote the piece — the night before her SAT scores came out.
    [music: “12:28” by Joy Fu]
    JOY FU: I have no idea where I would end up, and probably my SAT result coming out tomorrow will completely change my life. So my dorm was next to the library. So I was just looking at the lights of the library and thinking what if I can escape from here to this open sea where I don’t have to worry about anything and possibly save more people in my situation and we can just have fun on this island.
    [music: “coffee cage” by Joy Yu ]
    LAURA SIMMONS: “coffee cage” is the third piece on Impromptu Sailing, but it almost didn’t make it onto the album because Fu thought it might be “too dissonant” or unharmonious. Fu wrote the song based on her uncaffeinated college experience.
    JOY FU: I am personally allergic to caffeine. Coffee is sort of a social cage for me because everyone drinks coffee. It sort of feels like a social stigma because everyone loves coffee. Especially my roommate — during freshman and sophomore year, she would get up at seven and make coffee.
    LAURA SIMMONS: Fu used a sample sound of her roommate making coffee in “coffee cage.”
    [sample of coffee sound in “coffee cage”]
    LAURA SIMMONS: Fu then reached out to her musician friends, asking them to send her recordings based on unique and loose parameters.
    JOY FU: I just put everything together, and the end product was very dissonant because they didn’t know what other musicians were playing. So I was the only person who had control over the end product. It also sounded very mysterious, which I would say reflects the concept of “coffee cage” and how it’s a social stigma.
    [music: “coffee cage”]
    LAURA SIMMONS: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Laura Simmons. Thanks for listening to another episode of Sound Source’s Deep Dive series. This episode was reported and produced by me. The Audio Editor of The Daily Northwestern is Lawrence Price, the Digital Managing Editor is Angeli Mittal and the Editor-in-chief is Jacob Fulton. Make sure to subscribe to The Daily Northwestern’s podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud to hear more episodes like this.
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    Mon, 07 Nov 2022 - 5min
  • 31 - Sound Source: Deep Dive: Syzygal

    Electropop group Syzygal walks us through their song “Shadow Warriors” from their debut album, “Right Path.”

    Mon, 31 Oct 2022 - 3min
  • 30 - Soundsource: Checking the mix: Running down NU’s DJ experiences

    The Daily talked to campus DJs about how they got started and what advice they have for those hoping to get into DJing. They talk about student organizations that have supported them, getting gigs on campus, mixing techniques and more.

    Fri, 27 May 2022 - 10min
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