NILES, IL, August 12, 2010 — Shure Incorporated announced today that a four-member team from Drexel University is this year's Grand Prize Winner of the sixth annual “Fantastic Scholastic Recording Competition.” The four-student team of Chris Pollock, Monika Arielle Julien, Justin T. Chapman, and Lenard Reuben Skolnick, with faculty advisor Cyrille Taillandier, won this year's contest with an original composition by Sonni Shine entitled “Just Like Ice.”
“Congratulations to the winning team from Drexel University, and thanks to all of the students who participated in the contest from all of the schools this year,” said Dave Mendez, Market Development Specialist at Shure, who coordinated the competition. “This was one of the most musically diverse and high quality fields of submitted entries in our contest’s history. In the end, though, the project submitted by Drexel won over our amazing panel of judges.”
The judges for the competition were Ed Cherney, Mike Clink, Ryan Hewitt, Tom Jung, and Hugh Padgham. They evaluated the recordings on their overall fidelity, clarity, and sonic balance – as well as creativity in selection and placement of microphones.
"In a world of DI's and samples, it is refreshing to see the use of microphone technology and acoustic recording promoted by the Shure Recording Competition,” said Jung. “Without this type of encouragement I'm afraid that acoustic recording might just become a lost art over time."
“Being a judge for the Shure Recording Contest was fun,” added Cherney. “In every recording and performance I could hear the exuberance and total love and dedication to music. It reminded me of why I pursued this life in the first place.”
In addition to the Drexel team, there were nine other competing teams from Belmont University, DePaul University, Emerson College, Shenandoah University, the University of Central Missouri, the University of Colorado, Denver, the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California (Thornton School of Music), and William Paterson University of New Jersey.
The runner-up in this year’s competition was the team from the University of Colorado, Denver and the students from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, MD received an honorable mention.
Each of the ten student teams worked on a recording project that consisted of tracking and mixing a performance, exclusively using a “microphone locker” provided by Shure for the competition. Teams submitted a stereo mix for review by a panel of industry professionals who were selected by Shure to judge the competition.
“One of the things that is always hard to teach in a music program is the importance of capturing the moment,” said Professor Cyrille Taillandier, the Faculty Advisor for the winning team from Drexel. “I think it offered a unique and valuable opportunity with Shure putting together this contest to put the emphasis on how to do a great job capturing the song, and I thought that would be great for the students to have that experience.”
The winning team used almost all of the microphones in the locker provided by Shure to create their project, which enabled them to gain experience with some microphones that none of them had previously used. Having a wide selection of professional microphones at their disposal also enabled them to experiment with different mics on different instruments and a variety of microphone placements.
As the winning school, Drexel University takes ownership of a selection of Shure KSM recording microphones, which consists of one KSM313 ribbon microphone, two KSM32/SL, two KSM44/SL, two KSM141/SL studio condenser microphones, and one A27M stereo mic stand adapter. The entire microphone package is valued at more than $6,000. In addition, a donation of $3,000 toward a scholarship fund will be awarded to the winning school, and each member of the winning team will receive a KSM32/SL, valued at $686.00.
