WHRB Debuts Undergraduate Jazz Series in Cabot House

Boston listened when the piano trio began playing Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in B-flat in the stately Cabot House Living Room yesterday afternoon.

Violinist Jennifer Myung ’02, cellist Laura Bacon ’02 and pianist Jason Leekeenan ’02 inaugurated Harvard Radio WHRB’s new “Live From Cabot House,” a bi-weekly series of live performances Sunday afternoons designed to give greater exposure to undergraduate classical and jazz performers on campus and throughout the Greater Boston area.

“It seems like a natural thing to have: you have all these wonderful musicians and you have a station that reaches out into all of Boston and there’s no reason not to bring the two together” said WHRB classical DJ David Zimmer ’04, who hosted the event.

He has spent the last year developing the program to address the lack of live amateur concerts on WHRB.

“I think this is something that has been needed here for a while,” said Zimmer.

He contacted Bacon, whom he knew through the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra, and she and her trio, originally formed in the fall chamber music seminar Music 180r, “Performance and Analysis,” agreed to perform.

While excited about the opportunity to perform live on air, Leekeenan also noted the broadcast’s challenges.

“The radio is one of the hardest media, because you’re not playing for an audience, so you don’t get as excited. But if you make any mistakes, you can’t do it again,” he said.

This invisible audience increased the pressure.

“We were nervous that our professor for the class was listening, because he listens every Sunday to the radio,” Leekeenan said.

Using equipment loaned by Harvard University Studios Electronic Studios Composition organization, DJ Dan Sedgwick ’03 sent the audio through an MP3 decoder and channeled the feed through an ethernet connection to the radio station’s transmitter. The show was then broadcast over the air with only a three-second delay.

Zimmer attempted to start the program last spring at the WHRB studios, but it foundered because of the studio’s poor acoustics.

Although the show will focus on classical and jazz artists, Sedgwick has considered expanding the program to include ethnic and folk music.

“Hopefully, through this, people around the city will start to realize that there’s a vibrant musical community here,” he said.