Student news from the Carnegie, Bridgeville area for the week of March 27, 2021

Performed in spring musical

Seton Hill’s Department of Theatre and Dance presented streamed recorded performances of the music of Goldrich and Heisler in two parts last month – “I Believe in Love” and “Make Your Own Party.” MacKenzie Hartnett of Bridgeville was a member of the student cast of “Make Your Own Party.”

Residency match

Alexander McGeough of Carnegie – along with other medical students at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine (Geisinger Commonwealth) – learned his residency placement during the National Resident Matching Program’s “Match Day,” an event at which all fourth-year M.D. students around the country simultaneously open their envelopes to learn where they will spend the next three to seven years training in specialties. Residencies typically begin July 1. McGeough matched into Pathology at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Virtual duet

“Hansel and Gretel” is a fairy tale that was adapted for opera, but how would the German siblings adapt to physical distancing to sing a duet? Thanks to a collaboration at Slippery Rock University, the answer is in front of a bright green screen with even brighter faculty and students improvising despite remote learning.

Katherine Frontz, a sophomore music performance major from the area, was in the studio to sing the part of Gretel.

Timothi Williams, a first-year music instructor at SRU, reached out to the University’s Strategic Communication and Media Department for help producing the performance aspect of her opera performance class. The seven students in her class have yet to gather as an entire in-person group this semester because of covid-19 safety measures.

Luckily, Brittany Fleming, an assistant professor in the SCM department, and one of her student workers were able to help bring together not only the music and communication disciplines, but also students singing duets, in a virtual setting. Fleming provided use of technology in the Maltby Converged Media Center, including cameras, microphones and a green screen. Green screens are used as backgrounds in front of which moving subjects are filmed to allow a separately filmed subject, also in front of a green screen, to be added together in a final video.

In this project, students in Williams’ class are being filmed performing one part of a duet in front of a green screen. Their singing partners are filmed separately and the two pieces will be edited to produce a final video that will appear as if the students are performing on stage together.