Students in Portland State’s acclaimed Chamber Choir, Memorial Day weekend brought the thrill of a lifetime. The award-winning ensemble boarded a plane bound for San Francisco to spend six days recording at the legendary Skywalker Sound, on George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch.
Skywalker Ranch is located 40 minutes north of San Francisco, and along with cows, wild turkeys and bees, it houses world-renowned sound design and editing suites, as part of the audio facility where every Star Wars and Marvel production has been recorded since 1987.
“Skywalker Sound is considered to be far and away the finest recording studio in the United States. We have recorded all of our previous albums in churches. Being in a studio gives us so much more control of choir placement, background noise and so on. There is no better studio for choir anywhere in terms of both the acoustics in the space and the state-of-the-art equipment,” says Ethan Sperry, the Barre Stoll Professor of Choral Music in the School of Music & Theater at PSU.
Ethan Sperry conducting the PSU Chamber Choir at Skywalker Ranch
Led by Sperry, the students recorded several pieces at Skywalker Sound for their upcoming album. The album features an eclectic mix of tracks including arrangements of pop songs by Stevie Wonder and Chloe x Halle, original works by Pacific Northwest musicians and pieces written specifically for the Chamber Choir, among others.
When they weren’t recording in the studio, the students visited some of the iconic sights that make San Francisco so popular with travelers from around the world, and enjoyed the city’s top-notch food as well.
Two members of the group shared this digital postcard to take us behind-the-scenes on their once-in-a-lifetime experience. You'll hear from Jazz Voice major Della Simone, who performed with the choir, and PSU Chamber Choir alumnus Nic Nipp, who accompanied the group to provide support for his arrangement of "Fall."
Della Simone:
This was my first time traveling to the Bay Area, and only my third time in California, period. We rented minivans and had small group carpools, which was such a cool way to get to know everyone in the choir better — like a little home base to return to when we weren't staying in our hotel rooms or recording in the studio.
Skywalker Sound was amazing. The recording studio was huge, and it was just so exciting to be in a professional environment like that, and to get to work with professionals at such a high level to make beautiful music. Getting to see Ethan conducting on the podium while he could hear the quality of the sound being recorded was incredible.
I hadn’t spent much time in a recording studio before, and it was amazing to dive into the incredible detail work we did. We spent maybe 40 minutes perfecting just the same six measures of one piece. The fact that we had the ability as a group to hone in on everything, and adjust our intonation and phrasing in just the smallest ways, is amazing. It required so much focus. This experience will absolutely change the way I look at my own career as a performer.
Visiting the Bay Area was really lovely. On my free day, I got to travel to Alcatraz Island via the ferry and explore the heart of the city. My friend Madi and I spent four hours on Alcatraz, doing the guided audio tour, seeing solitary confinement cells.
Chamber Choir singer Izaak Thomas enjoys the San Francisco Bay from the deck of the ferry.
San Francisco on the whole was so walkable, and beautiful. The residential architecture was stunning, and exploring all the different neighborhoods like North Beach and Chinatown was so exciting. Honestly, just walking down the main streets through the city was wonderful. I really got to see the difference in the culture and vibe of San Francisco as opposed to Portland.
From left: Mikayla Flood, Molly Kerns-Clapp, Kimi Gubler-Davis, Katherine Thomas, Felipe Araya, Ethan Vaughan
The food was amazing too. We had a huge group dim-sum dinner at a restaurant called Osmanthus Dim Sum Lounge that I helped organize, and it was a beautiful bonding experience with the choir (like every tour is). There were so many different kinds of dumplings, it was overwhelming. I had a delicious crab mac and cheese at a little restaurant on the pier. Fresh seafood is like nothing else to me.
From left: Della Simone, Ian Timmons, Rachel Bard, Colin Shepard, Lizzie Soper (Chamber Choir alumna), Shayla Bailey (Chamber Choir alumna)
Before joining the Chamber Choir, I had never been on a plane before, and my very first flight was with the Choir to perform in Greece in 2021. I feel so grateful that I continue to be given these opportunities to go and see new places.
Nic Nipp:
I’m at such a loss of words. Something like this has been a dream for a very long time, and just being here is . . . I’m almost having some serious imposter syndrome right now. I’m in disbelief. Being fresh out of studying my audio degree and all of that, [having such a huge honor] is very fulfilling.
Just getting to sit back and watch these professional recording engineers utilize each other’s skills in so many different ways was valuable. They have a very set-in-stone system that I haven’t really seen before because I haven’t worked on projects of this scale. It feels like engineers piloting a ship in Star Trek or Star Wars, which is very fitting for Skywalker Sound. And so it’s all super surreal; not only as a big sci-fi nerd, but also as a big music nerd and sonic arts enthusiast.
I hope to publish and promote my arrangement of “Fall” more widely. And having the highest quality possible recording under my belt will not only help the PSU choirs, but could potentially help change my life. I mean, it already has. Just getting to be here is an incredibly life-changing experience.”
The choir's new album is now in post-production and expected to come out in 2025. Get updates on the album release, upcoming performances and events HERE.