Zalon
Engineer / Website Manager
The Salon, a renowned performance series modeled after the 19th Century European salons, was founded in September 1986 by composer Andrea Clearfield. The Salon was conceived with the idea of integrating different music genres as well as other arts. "One of the best-known music salons in the country" with "deep bench of topflight musicians" (The Philadelphia Inquirer), and winner of the "Best of Philly Award 2008" (Philadelphia Magazine), this Salon features high level performances of classical chamber music, opera, jazz, original contemporary compositions, electronic, folk, experimental, world music, spoken word, dance and multimedia works. Near the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the Salon reflects the strong tradition of music in Philadelphia, builds audiences and fosters new art forms in an intimate and supportive atmosphere.
During the pandemic there was an urgent need for a virtual live concert engineer for one of the longest running local concert series in Philadelphia. I volunteered my time to spotlight, sound check, and troubleshoot during the monthly shows using sound engineering skills I've learned from music technology, and contributed ideas and media expertise regarding the website using skills I learned in computer science.
As an engineer, I helped to make the show run as smoothly as possible by running through a simulation of the program optimizing sound, testing video, and troubleshooting problems as they arise.
As a website manager on the other hand, I kept constant communication with all the performers involved and curated media resources to display accurate and aesthetically pleasing content on the website which is hosted on Squarespace. I also uploaded and optimized all show replays on YouTube and integrated them to the website. In addition, I was able to flex some creative muscle and used Canva to build collages and other image resources needed for the project.
