Staff Spotlight: Matthew Champagne, Recording Arts Specialist
In my nearly ten years of professional classical music recording production, I’ve always placed a premium on listening beyond the foreground (the musical performance itself) to the contribution made to the recording by the space in which the performance (and recording) occurs. I believe that the acoustic quality of a space (coupled with its appropriateness for the particular instrument or ensemble to be recorded) is the single greatest determining factor to the quality of any recording made in it.
My path here to DePauw began with the study of music composition at Louisiana State University and the University of Louisiana and musicology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where I became interested in the interplay between music and space. I started recording music as a means of studying this interplay, and became sought after by my colleagues at Stony Brook as a recording engineer. Soon I was able to earn a bit of a living from this work and eventually started a freelance classical recording business, working predominately in Northern California’s San Francisco Bay area. Later I was asked to fill an interim position teaching music technology and audio recording techniques at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, during which time I applied for the new Recording Arts Specialist position here at DePauw. When I started recording in music grad school, it became my hope to one day assume the role of recording engineer at a school of music, so my appointment here at DePauw is really a dream come true.
Fun Fact: I can spin a cafeteria tray on my finger.