On May 4 at 4:30 p.m., that big glass-walled classroom at the top of the main stairwell was full of sound. Or, rather, the small studio behind it was. The sound came from Umbraphile, a band composed of Grant High School seniors Logan Hendrickson (guitar/vocals), Sari Isreb (keys/saxophone), Lucian Landey (drums) and Hugo Matthias (bass/guitar), which was performing a set of four prepared songs plus a crowd request to an audience of friends, classmates, teachers and parents.
Teen-y Desk was started in late April by a group of seniors in Grant’s Audio Practicum class who were inspired by the NPR YouTube series Tiny Desk, which they had watched several videos from in class. Umbraphile’s performance after school was the second Teen-y Desk show that was open to all students, staff and family members, after Angel Marie’s the previous week.
Landey’s mother, Nina Landey, was among the parents watching, and has observed Landey’s progression through Grant’s audio engineering and studio sessions courses since his freshman year, when he had never even played the drums before. “I credit this program for really inspiring him,” she says. “Now, he’s really, really into music.” Also in the crowd was Hendrickson’s father, Kevin Hendrickson, who mixes Umbraphile’s songs. “It’s a dream come true to get to work with one of my kids in a band because I love producing and writing music, and it’s just a new opportunity to get involved and share with my kids,” he says.
The Studio Sessions students have already scheduled several more Teen-y Desk performances: Banquet will perform May 5 at 4:30 p.m. and Wasted Providence will perform May 6 at 4:30 p.m., both in room 242. “We’re just trying to get them out as fast as possible,” Grant senior and Pandemonium “Tech Overlord” Cedar Fee says. “Getting them out before we graduate is the goal.”
Fee was one of the pioneering students for the launch of Teen-y Desk, and sat in the engineering booth next door to the studio in which Umbraphile was performing to manage the sound. “I’m glad that Cedar’s research got to come to fruition in this project that combines efforts from studio sessions and audio engineering,” Matthias says.
Fee, the members of Umbraphile and the rest of the students in the Studio Sessions and Audio Engineering classes look forward to the new opportunities for musical growth and creativity Teen-y Desk will bring. “Performing live allows you to expand on the ideas you make in your songs and create new things,” Landey says. “Teen-y Desk specifically makes you really lock down on those things and make everything really intentional.”
A professional recording of the full show will be available in Youtube and linked in this article soon.
