The Music of Merrifield Hall

I was tied up in a meeting last night and was not able to attend the premier of some pieces that my buddy Mike Wittgraf prepared from recordings that we made in Merrifield Hall a few years ago before it underwent renovation.

We did this as part of a larger project to commemorate Merrifield Hall prior to it undergoing a massive renovation. To mark this transformation of a key building on campus, we published a book edited  by Shilo Viginia Previti, Grant McMillan, and Samuel Amendolar called Campus Building which you can download here.

Mike added video effects to the audio recordings which capture in his inimitable way the acoustic character of the building and use it as a foundation for a deeper exploration of campus change.

These videos are in some way a sequel to Mike’s earlier work “Hearing Corwin Hall,” which we published with some exegesis at Epoiesen in 2021. They represent and manifest the complex changing taking place on campus and the tensions between looking forward toward the future and recognizing the importance of continuity, history, and tradition in the past. They also communicate the anxieties inherent in these transitions.