“Remember the theme song to ‘Skip It’? That was me.”
As election season kicks into overdrive, we will find ourselves and our ears more and more inundated by political advertisements—and the sound bites they are meant to embed in our brains. For celebrated (and decorated) Wesleyan alum Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, however, political advertisements have a different connotation: To a budding and struggling composer, they served as opportunities to marry music and message. The New York Times‘ Kate Taylor wrote about Miranda’s lesser-known venture in an article last Monday. Check it out here.
As Taylor relates, Miranda’s passion for music has manifested in diverse ways: a hip-hop album devoted to Alexander Hamilton, a repertoire on Sesame Street, and, oh, I don’t know, a quadruple-Tony-Award-winning musical, or something. Add to that a stint as campaign advertisement jingle composer (CAJC for short) for Democratic politicians in English and Spanish, and you’ve got quite the Renaissance man—and quite the resume.
“It’s a little like movie scoring,” Miranda relates. Is he trying to tell us something? A Freestyle Love Supreme movie in the pipeline? Sesame Street 3D? In any case, the article puts to rest some of my questions about who scores campaign ads… although I’m still wondering what key Mitt Romney thinks America the Beautiful is in.
Read up on Miranda’s recent visits to campus here and here.
Pingback: ????? ???? ?????? ????