By Ashleigh Rowe | MN Original
Over the years, the MN Original team struck up a close working relationship with wonderful people at McNally Smith College of Music – so the recent news of the school’s closing has hit close to home. More than anything, we want to say thank you to all of our dear friends at McNally Smith; there are simply too many to name.
Most recently, we had been working together with accomplished jazz pianist and musician Sean Turner, McNally’s Department Head, Keyboard and Interim Department Head, Composition and Songwriting. Last month, Sean brought his international class to visit Twin Cities PBS to meet our technical staff and to discuss MN Original’s digital and broadcast production process. Sean’s new class of composition students had been composing music tracks to be considered for MN Original as part of their curriculum.
Since MN Original premiered in 2010, our soundtrack has exclusively featured Minnesota musicians in all their multi-faceted glory. Hundreds of artists have contributed thousands of songs and instrumental tracks to our music library for credit on screen and online. Our producers, editors and post-audio team have masterfully selected and mixed music cues from every genre, in every scene of our featured artist stories. Three years ago, Kate Westlund, our friend and former MN Original Production Coordinator, first had this brilliant idea to partner with McNally Smith students. We could offer students professional experience by including their music in our individual stories and full episodes.
We are in awe of and heartbroken for the teaching artists whose music we’ve listened to for decades and whose contributions are immeasurable. They’ve shared their passion for craft and have connected us to thousands of students, new classes of creators, every year, through that collaborative spirit our music and arts communities are known for.
A MN Original piece scored exclusively by McNally Smith students
Check out more MN Original stories scored by McNally Smith students featuring poet and LGBT activist, Andrea Jenkins, and paranormal artist, Brandon Kuehn .
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