Burlington Musicians Perform with Chattanooga Musicians, Without Leaving Their Libraries
Press release by Big Heavy World. Photo courtesy Cultural Chemistry.
Futuristic Internet Connection Makes Joint Performances Possible During International Music Festival
BURLINGTON: The Fletcher Free Library in Burlington will connect with the Chattanooga Public Library in TN on June 21 in a whole new futuristic way, and in the name of music. Both libraries have been experimenting with an Internet2 link between each other, which is a next-next generation network connection that can be a hundred times faster than Burlington’s public state of the art Gigabit network provided by Burlington Telecom. By connecting with specialized software and equipment called ‘LOLA,’ musicians in each library can perform WITH one another — there is almost no delay in the network connection, so they hear and see each other as if they were in the same room.
Dennis Moynihan, Director of BTV Ignite, says, “LOLA – low latency internet technology – can help people across the world collaborate and create together as if they are in the same room. Make Music Day is a perfect example. Using Burlington’s high performance networking technology to partner with arts organizations, both locally and in Chattanooga, takes this celebration of music to a new level of possibility. It is our hope that this will be just one of many opportunities for Burlington to collaborate globally.”
The libraries are participating in an International music festival on June 21 called ‘Make Music Day’ which is held in more than 700 cities in 120 countries around the world. Big Heavy World brought Make Music Day to Vermont for the first time in 2016 as Make Music VT, and Vermont has made history as the first entire state to participate in the festival. The LOLA event is made possible by sponsor BTV Ignite, with support from Advance Music Center, and is coordinated by Big Heavy World, Burlington Telecom, and the Fletcher Free Library. Information about Make Music VT can be found at http://www.bigheavyworld.com/makemusicvt. Make Music VT is sponsored statewide in part by The NAMM Foundation of the National Association of Music Merchants.
Free live music programming, connected by Internet2 during Make Music VT on June 21 at the Fletcher Free Library and Chattanooga Public Library includes Girls Rock Camp participants in both states, and Hip Hop as well. Girls Rock Vermont, empowers a new generation of female musicians with week-long summer rock camps for girls. Hip Hop artists Cultural Chemistry in Burlington are fronted by Scott Lavalla, a performer with Linguistic Civilians and producing music independently as Mister Burns. The program runs 6pm-8pm on June 21, is free and all ages.
Cultural Chemistry is a Vermont Hip Hop collective comprised of musicians, emcee's, dee jay's and producers. Featuring members Learic and Tha Truth (The Aztext), Sky Splitter, Jay Be (Silent Mind), Mister Burns (The Lynguistic Civilians) and DJ Kanga (Self Portrait). A group of musicians who have played a huge part in Vermont's Hip Hop scene for years through different outlets came together in the summer of 2016 to keep the chemistry of the culture alive. Since their first show in July of 2016 Cultural Chemistry has shared the stage with the likes of Talib Kweli, Zion I, Grouch & Elijah, The Perceptionists, Termanology and more! See https://www.facebook.com/culturalchemistrymusic/
About LOLA: LOLA stands for LOw LAtency Audio Video. LOLA is an open source audio visual streaming system developed by the “Conservatorio di Musica G. Tartini” in Trieste, Italy, in collaboration with GARR, the Italian Academic and Research Network. LOLA allows for near real-time synchronized musical performances to occur with musicians across distances of up to 1500 (network) miles with extremely low latency. Depending on how the connection is routed, this could be anywhere from 800 to 1500 geographic miles with the greater distances producing more latency. The effect of having this low latency gives musicians the feeling they are performing together in the same room. LOLA uses specialized audio and video devices (machine vision cameras, for example) and optimized software that taps the power of multi-core CPUs and GPUs. To achieve the lowest possible latency, packet loss, and jitter, LOLA relies on the data transmission capabilities only available on research and education (R&E) networks such as Internet2 and its regional R&E partner networks in the United States and other national research and education networks around the world such as GARR and GÉANT. The Fletcher Free Library and Big Heavy World are each anchor members of Vermont UCAN, the regional arm of the U.S. Unified Community Anchor Network, which connects over 90,000 community institutions (schools, museums, libraries, community centers, healthcare, etc.) to Internet2.
About Burlington Telecom: Burlington Telecom’s mission is to provide every customer with an exceptional service experience that you can only expect to receive from a local business, while providing you with access to the benefits of the most advanced fiber optic network in the US. For more information about Burlington Telecom services, visit www.burlingtontelecom.com or call (802) 540-0007.
About Big Heavy World: Big Heavy World is an independent nonprofit music development office working to archive and promote the original music of Vermont. With a crew of mostly high school and college-aged volunteers, it publishes information about Vermont’s music industry, loans a tour van to bands, archives thousands of Vermont-made recordings and photographs, and operates 105.9FM, a radio station highlighting the region’s creative community. bigheavyworld.com
About The Fletcher Free Library: A department of the City of Burlington, the FFL is an urban public library serving the Greater Burlington area. Founded in 1873 with a gift from Mary L. Fletcher, it has occupied the expanded Carnegie building at 235 College Street since 1904. The library collection includes more than 143,000 items, and programs of the library responsively serve the evolving cultural and educational needs of its community. Contact Mary Danko, mdanko@burlingtonvt.gov, (802) 865-7214. http://www.fletcherfree.org
