Frost is buzzing with high energy. But there's nothing broken or impaired in the power supply; on the contrary. The noise is coming from the music engineering program. It started three years ago when several alums and graduate students began to get recognized by some of the industry's most prestigious awards and scholarships.
Just last Fall, Lindsey Alvarez, BS Music Engineering, '05, won an Emmy for "Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) And Animation" for her work on "Only Murders in the Building," "The Boy From 6B" episode. This Hulu original is a comedy-drama starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez.
Alvarez began her music career in 2005 when she graduated from Frost. "I always wanted to get into TV or film production, so right from the start, I kept in touch with other MuEs [music engineers], which is what we called ourselves when we attended Frost together," says Alvarez. She took her inspiration from Frost's Friday Forums at nine in the morning. She remembers the guests who came to speak at the forums, and whose portfolios are impossible to exhaust in one paragraph.
Networking. Building relationships. Those words stood out to Alvarez, who took their cue and stayed in touch with many of them. Sound engineers like Jessica Park, who works for Sony, and others playing iconic figures at Dolby, Warner Brothers, Fox, Apple, Microsoft, Disney, and a long list of production companies all around the globe, but mainly in Los Angeles and New York.
From Lime Studios, where she began on her path to today's film and TV dub or mix stages, Alvarez looks to invest and encourage many other ladies to join the profession and contribute to the increase of ladies in the music industry.
"The music engineering faculty and program are inspired by the career and work of people like Lindsey Alvarez," says Dr. Bennett, Director and Associate Professor of the Music Engineering Program at Frost School of Music. "She exemplifies the standard of excellence that all MuEs take with them when they leave Frost."
Then & Now
For obvious reasons, Bennett enjoys paying tribute to sound engineers, who may be one of the music industry's least-appreciated groups. He looks to the past and then quickly pivots to the present producers, engineers, and multi-instrumentalists taking part in significant projects. People like, Akshada Bandekar, MS ‘23. She's about to leave Frost but is already taking inspiration from other female recording engineers like Alvarez. This bright young woman is not lacking in talent or resolve. Most recently, Bandekar won the 2022 Arup x AES Diversity in Audio Scholarship and the 2021 AES Educational Foundation Emil Torick Award.
"As a graduate student in music engineering at the esteemed Frost School of Music at UM, I am truly blessed to have been able to experience the best of both worlds—delving into the creative and musical aspects of the program while also gaining a scientific understanding of audio," says Bandekar.
Her part-time co-op with the audio team at Motorola Solutions, Inc., since the Fall of '21, has allowed her to bring her music engineering training to the field. After experiencing an exciting summer internship at Motorola last year, Bandekar says she's "thrilled to graduate this semester and eager for the audio and musical journey that lies ahead." As this story went to press, she'd accepted a full-time position with Motorola.
Right beside her are Nathan Erthal, the Brazilian-born MS '23, awarded the 2022 AES Saul Walker Student Design Competition, Silver Medal, and the 2022 AVIXA Foundation Mosaic Scholarship. Jigar Rajpopat, MS '22, winner of the 2021 AES Educational Foundation Scholarship and the 2021 National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) President's Innovation Award. Aiman Belmokhtar, MS '23, recipient of the 2021 Fulbright Fellowship, and Hyunjoung Yang, MS '22, winner of the 2020 AES Educational Foundation Tom Kite Scholarship.
These awards are serious business, Bennett says. The Audio Engineering Society, best known as AES, is the only professional society devoted exclusively to audio technology. Founded in the USA in 1948, the AES is now an international organization that unites audio engineers, creative artists, scientists, and students worldwide by promoting advances in audio and disseminating new knowledge and research. According to AES, more than 12,000 members are affiliated with 90+ AES professional sections and 120+ AES student sections around the world that provide members valuable opportunities for professional networking and skill and career growth.
The Frost Method
There is much to be said about the Frost Music Engineering Program, which started in 1977. It has continued to innovate between sound and technology. It provides students across their courses with access to flexible production and innovation spaces where they can produce material, construct devices, and develop audio software. The program's main facility is the newly renovated Weeks Recording Studio, the first in the world to house three full-size consoles in the control room.
"We train our students to write the audio software that goes into digital audio workstations used by all commercial engineers," explains Bennett. "Our graduates go to companies like Universal Audio, SoundToys, Dolby, Sonos, Apple, Shure, and many more . . . There are programs as technical as ours in engineering colleges, but those students don't necessarily play instruments or have music production experience. If you're here at Frost, music comes first."
In Frost's music engineering program, Bennett explains, students exercise both halves of their brains. "They could be sitting in a rehearsal, which is a very creative, artistic expression —working the right side of their brain. And an hour or so later, when they change classes, they start designing an amplifier for a guitar—switching over to the left side of the brain. Very analytical."
Frost's Music Engineering has been designated as a STEM program. This is very attractive to international students, as it provides two additional years on their visa after graduation. Day in and day out, they are taught and mentored by an award-winning faculty, who teach them what it takes to succeed in the music industry.
And that all goes back to the program's rigor and high standard of excellence. It's about the culture that Frost offers in its program. It's not competitive per se, as it doesn't pit the students against each other. Frost is much more like a community, and it encourages that—like the Friday Forums at nine in the morning.
"We encourage collaboration—working together and succeeding together. And now, we want to let the world know about what's going on down here," says Bennett, who stresses how the program has made a conscientious decision to have the students publish, submit to competitions, apply for awards, and get more exposure to the great work that they're doing. "We don't want it to be this secret corner," he adds. "We want the world to know about what we're doing. And I think that's brought a spotlight over the past three years."
"And that's attracting the next batch of top-caliber students, people like Akshada. And then they win more awards, people like Lindsey. That's the dream, right?"
