Aidan Wiley Lippke Plays New Music Premiere

In the weeks before the Coronavirus shutdown, there was a terrific guitar event which I had to miss. Now that the video has been posted, I thought I’d write about it. The event in question was Aidan Wiley Lippke’s participation in a performance of a new work written for him by a student colleague, Maxwell Addae on March 1, in Fairchild Chapel. This piece was written by Addae as a project for his TIMARA major (“Technology In Music And Related Arts”). It is a fascinating combination of lyrical poetry and musical gesture with technology and multi-media. The composer’s novel idea was to program his laptop keyboard to trigger discreet musical sounds with keystrokes. Then in real-time, on stage, he would type the poetry (La Guitarra, by Federico Garcia Lorca), having it project onto a large screen and triggering sound effects and musical sounds, in duet fashion with the live (amplified) solo guitar part. The effect was gorgeous and compelling. I thought the guitar part was beautifully played by Aidan, and the overall result was uniquely moving.

Bravo to this duo for such an interesting and original presentation! Following are some photos of the artists and the event. Go to YouTube for the performance.

Maxwell Addae at the laptop with Aidan Wiley Lippke at the guitar in Fairchild Chapel.

Maxwell Addae

Aidan Wiley Lippke