I was delighted to attend SCS 2024 in Chicago this year as my first ever in-person Classics conference. One of the great standouts of my time at the conference were the many productive panels, roundtables, and discussions about digital endeavors in Classics. I had the pleasure of attending a Digital Commentaries roundtable organized by Christopher Francese of Dickinson College Commentaries. I have co-published one print-on-demand commentary before which I am interested in digitizing, and I am writing a commentary for my MA thesis, so it was valuable for me to connect with so many other scholars interested in the production of commentaries, especially in digital form.
On Saturday night, I had the honor of being one of the performers in the Ancient Music Open Mic organized by John Franklin. Over the course of last year while I was taking Ancient Music with Rebecca Sears, I also attended a hybrid weekly workshop on ancient music hosted by Dr. Franklin at UVM, leading him to invite me to participate in this event. I performed two poems from the Anacreontea, the text I am working on for my thesis. One had a melody I composed based on ancient composition styles in Dr. Sears’s Ancient Music class (and premiered at the WashU Classics end of year party), and the other had a more modern, but metrical, melody I composed alongside my own English translation. I accompanied myself on my reproduction ancient Greek seven-string lyre, graciously carried back from Greece for me last summer by WashU MA graduate Katherine Kopp. I hope that this event becomes an annual occurrence, and I will have another chance to perform alongside such a talented group of musicians making a variety of music based in the ancient world.
Bayla’s performance can be heard here.
The entire evening’s music can be heard here.
Featured in the photo, left to right: Young Kim, Joe Goodkin, Abigail Bradford, Vanessa Stovall, Bayla Kamens, Beau Henson, John Franklin, Chris Waldo, Jamie Levis, Jeannette Chien, Alex Seiler, Julia Irons, Anna Conser, Rachel Fickes
