Stefan Damian won Silver for his submission in the Modern Studio category.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?
I’m Stefan Damian, I am from Suceava, Romania and I am currently finishing my PhD in Sound Design For Interactive Media at CINETic-UNATC Bucharest – Romania. Previously I studied an MA in Sonic Arts at SARC – Queen’s University Belfast – UK and a BA at UNATC Bucharest – Romania in sound for film.
What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?
My passion for music and sound started when I was around 4 and started piano lessons. This also gradually developed into a passion for mixing, sound design, electroacoustic composition and interactive sound, over the years, by being lucky enough to be exposed to various artistic manifestations, which were based or included sound. At the moment I am interested in pretty much everything that has something to do with audio or sound.
Tell us about the production of your submission. What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?
The song called Tripolar is a hip-hop collaboration between Romanian artist Tranda (rapping & lyrics) and myself (music production & mixing). It was my first entry for this competition. Tripolar was made kind of accidentally when Tranda stumbled upon one of my rather basic instrumental demos and got inspired to write lyrics for it. It was completely finished using 2 bedroom studios (one for recording and another one for music production and mixing). Being somewhat of a perfectionist a vast amount of time was spent for music production, recording, arranging and finishing the final mix (about 2-3 weeks). This was also because I needed to work really hard on the vocals to compensate for the poor recording conditions.
What/Who made you join AES?
I first heard about the AES during my first year at university, but wasn’t really involved in the organization’s events and publications until 2018 when together with my peers Grigore Burloiu and Valentin Mihai published an article in JAES. This made me want to engage more, so in 2019 I went to my first AES convention in Dublin and in 2020 to Virtual Vienna, which is my second time.
Tell us about your favorite experiences at the 148th AES convention online.
There were many good presentations with a lot of valuable infos regarding very specific things, which I hope than in the future will somehow connect in my mind and help me to perfect my working with sound.
Posted: Thursday, July 30, 2020
« Student Recording Competition Bronze Winner… | Main | AES149 Design Competition D-Brief contest »
