Author: Bill Lord, Executive Director

A big “thank you” to the Independent Educational Consultants Association Foundation for providing Global Z with the first grant from their fine organization. We have put these funds to immediate use to the direct benefit of our student musicians, composers and audio engineers!

Episode 34 – 2023: The Year in Review takes a look at the numerous successes achieved by Global Z in 2023, and acknowledge those who partnered with us in the adventure as well as the sponsors who made it all possible. For Mic Talk Time, the Aston Spirit 5 Year Special Anniversary mic is in the spotlight.

Global Z just wrapped up a major project that captures oral histories of people from all walks of like across the state of Maryland. The project, Living & Dying with COVID-19: The Maryland Stories, was conceptualized and managed by Global Z. With a generous grant from Maryland Humanities, we facilitated the recording of personal and moving stories of how COVID-19 has impacted Marylander’s lives. It is an important and eye-opening body of work that involved a large number of people and partnerships with 15 library branches throughout Maryland. The audio files are live in the Digital Maryland (Enoch Pratt Free Library) collections, and will soon be part of the Maryland State Archives. While this is atypical of the work we usually do, we felt compelled to push this project forward for the benefit of scholars, as it provides rich data about the pandemic, the impact it has, and how we respond. With this data, scholars may better understand the human dynamic as it pertains to global pandemics, assisting us in better preparation and response activities for future pandemic events.

You can access the collection here:  https://collections.digitalmaryland.org/digital/collection/gzrp

Our thanks once again to the Delaplaine Foundation for providing financial support as we roll over into a New Year! We are honored to be represented by such a fine organization.

This past weekend, we successfully hosted an incredibly exciting teaching, learning, and cultural bridge-building project titled, The Frederick Circle of Musical Unity (FCoMU). FCoMU is a partnership with FCPS’ Academy for the Fine Arts (AFA), Frederick County Public Schools, Abbey Road Studios (ARI – London, UK), YMCA of Frederick County, Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and the Hood College Broadcast program.

On December 2nd and 3rd, eleven highly diverse, talented Frederick High School student musicians gathered at the Y Arts Center Recording Studio to record an original composition written by two AFA students. A culturally diverse team of student producers and audio engineers from ARI collaborated remotely with the student musicians and engineers in Frederick to successfully record the song. Next steps include mixing/mastering at ARI, and the creation of a documentary-style video produced by Hood College Broadcast program students.

My thanks to the many people and sponsors who contributed to this amazing project! More to come…

Sloan School of Music of Urbana and Hagerstown, is our latest Frederick Circle of Musical Unity (FCoMU) sponsor! Our thanks to Sloan Music for providing us with a quality drum kit to use during recording sessions in support of FCoMU.

Many thanks to Wegmans, our latest sponsor of the Frederick Circle of Musical Unity project. Wegmans is kindly funding lunch for the Frederick student musicians and audio engineers on the weekend dates we are recording our tracks at the Frederick YMCA Recording Studio.

This video explores how recording with several XLR to USB adapters colors the sound. Mic Talk Time features a look at the recently debuted sE V2 Switch.

We are incredibly excited to announce an educational, cross-cultural partnership between The Global Z Recording Project and the educational arm of the world-famous and historic Abbey Road Studios, the Abbey Road Institute. The project – Frederick Circle of Musical Unity – is delivered in a hybrid format, with participants being in Frederick and London, connecting and recording synchronously via cutting edge remote recording technologies. The project features the innovative application of Audiomover’s exceptional product, Listento. This past week, Frederick and London stakeholders conducted a successful tech-test between the Frederick YMCA’s Recording Center, and Abbey Road’s Angel Studios in the UK. More on this amazing partnership soon!