Tiny Desk ‘Cuse launches this week with a short series of Intimate concerts, recorded live at Bird Library. The series, supported by the Blackstone LaunchPad at Syracuse University Libraries, will showcase campus creatives who are music entrepreneurs. The first in the series is Thursday, October 14 at 7 p.m. in the Peter Graham Room (114), first floor of Bird Library featuring Erin Manion, a singer/songwriter from Summit, New Jersey.
While she studies Jazz and Commercial Music at Syracuse University, Manion launched her musical career by writing, singing, playing, and collaborating. Her debut single “Cracks” produced by Nick Fichter was just released in September 2021. Influenced by folk legends like Joni Mitchell, she creates an introspective and nostalgic feeling for listeners with unique melodies and open, airy progressions.
The event is open to the community.
The Tiny Deck ‘Cuse series is designed and curated by Jackson Siporin ’22 (College of Visual and Performing Arts, majoring in the music industry program), who is doing an internship this semester with the Blackstone LaunchPad at Syracuse University. He was inspired to create the series by the popular NPR Tiny Desk series, which encouraged him to launch his own creative series, as well as mentoring other students interested in developing startups in the music industry sector, for his internship with the LaunchPad.
As a musician and writer, born and raised in New York City, Siporin spent his adolescent career playing shows, billing and planning art installations and writing for school publications covering art. At Syracuse University Jackson has applied his music industry courses to build and brand his own band and venue as well as programming for music festivals on campus. Jackson has been a part of planning shows featuring artists such as Khalid, 21 Savage, Michael Che etc.
Siporin is also co-founder and saxophone player for NONEWFRIENDS., a band formed in 2018 by five Syracuse University students, Elizabeth Stuart ’22, Jack Harrington ’22, Jackson Siporin ’22, Peter Groppe ’22, and Scott Greenblatt ’21. The band has a tremendous following on Instagram and Spotify (@nonewfriends.music) and regularly drop songs on Apple Music and Spotify.
In addition to talented musicians, the band has recruited dozens of talented photographers, designers, videographers, publicists, and students with social media experience from across the university.
Siporin picked Bird Library as the venue because he has spent a great deal of time studying, working and recording at the Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive which is part of Syracuse University Libraries. He appreciates its unique assets related to sound and music. Bird Library’s Special Collections Research Center’s collection of sound recordings and related items has grown to over 500,000 items. The collection includes formats from the earliest experimental recordings on tinfoil to modern digital media. The Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive maintains equipment capable of playing back all of these formats, and performs preservation, digitization, and delicate restoration work on deteriorating recordings. The Belfer Cylinders Digital Collection of cylinder records is one of the largest held by any private institution in North America.
The Belfer Laboratory has a Live End/Dead End recording studio and control rooms designed by Chips Davis, nationally recognized acoustic expert and recording studio designer. One control room is furnished entirely with digital equipment by Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music. It is used as a teaching laboratory for students in the music industry program, where they learn the principles and processes of contemporary studio recording.