When the term “rock band” is brought up, many may think back to the multitude of rock groups that took the music scene by storm in the 1970s. Here at NC State, a group of faculty seeks to bring some of the hit songs from that time in music history back for all members of the Wolfpack community to hear.
The Quadrivium Project is a NC State rock band featuring five of the university’s faculty. It was founded in 2015. The group will be performing this Thursday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in Stewart Theatre, with tickets for the event available for purchase online. The tickets are $8 for students and $15 for all others.
“[Rich Holly] is really the one who came up with the concept of creating a faculty rock band that wouldn’t just simply be a rock band, but something more,” said Tom Koch, the associate director of NC State’s music program who plays the keyboard for the band.
For each of their performances, the group selects classic rock songs from groups like Genesis, Led Zeppelin and The Who to perform in each of their sets. Rich Holly, the executive director for the arts here at NC State, is the group’s drummer, and spoke about the songs that the group bases each of their performances on.
“Each year, we choose a different theme,” Holly said. “A year ago, we did concerts that were a tribute to Led Zeppelin. We did some historical research into each of the songs, and each member of the band took turns and talked about what we had learned about the songs.”
Gary Beckman, NC State’s director of Entrepreneurial Studies in the Arts and a guitar player for the group, commented on what typically goes into planning each of their performance.
“We’re all professors, so we’re busy,” Beckman said. “We don’t always get to rehearse as much as we’d like. I think we’ve done fairly well this time around, though. It’s a lot of work on our own first, and then we come together and work things out. There’s also lots of tech people and design people in Stewart Theater who do fantastic work on their end, and they have their own set of planning to do as well.”
The other members of the group include Kate Annett-Hitchcock, an associate professor in the Department of Textiles and Apparel, who is the group’s vocalist, as well as Tommy Holden, a professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Studies, who plays the keyboard, guitars, and bass.
According to Holly, their performances on Thursday and Saturday have been inspired by late night FM radio programs from the 1970s.
“AM radio stations at the time were fond of playing two and a half or three minute songs, but FM had gotten into playing the full length versions, sometimes even the entire side of an album before there would be a commercial break or before the DJ would talk at all,” Holly said.
The Quadrivium Project will be bringing in Donna Halper, one of the first women to break into the radio DJ scene in the early 1970s, to perform with them. In addition, Halper will also be giving a talk in Broughton Hall 1403 at 10:30 a.m. this upcoming Friday, Sept. 7, which will focus on her career in broadcasting and how it relates to social and aesthetic changes in media as a whole.
“She is going to be up on stage with us doing what a DJ in the 1970s on a FM station would have done, which is to tell a story about the next song that you’re going to hear.” Holly said. “This year, we did research on each of the songs like we did last year, and between her knowledge and the things that we discovered we created what she’s going to say. Back in the 70s, she would then drop the needle on the record to play the song, but for our performance we’ll be performing each of the pieces live.”
In addition to covering a multitude of rock groups’ songs, The Quadrivium Project also seeks to provide research opportunities related to entrepreneurship and the music industry for NC State’s students.
“It’s part of the goal of the group,” Koch said. “We’d like to provide students with research opportunities in a variety of avenues. Particularly student-driven research, but also band research, and what we’d like to do is to use this band as a kind of public forum for forays into research in popular music, research into technology and research into entrepreneurial activities and is really bringing in multiple disciplines.”
Through both their performances and research-related ventures, Holly hopes that students can be inspired by The Quadrivium Project
“I think it’s great for students to know that they have faculty members that aren’t just professors all the time,” Holly said. “We really enjoy and are passionate about the music we grew up with, and we love paying it. It’s important for students to see that faculty members can get together and create a really high-quality product by doing something they’re passionate about, and that doing something you’re passionate about with friends makes it even better.”
According to the their ncsu.edu website, “The mission of The Quadrivium Project is to engage faculty and students in a collaborative model based on creative destruction and renewal.”
