NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — One of the only non-profit dedicated to fostering success for women and girls in the music industry, the Institute for Musical Arts (IMA) provides summer rock ‘n’ roll programs for girls at its rural Massachusetts location that focus on performance and recording. Recognizing the importance of IMA’s work, Sennheiser Electronic Corporation has provided MD 421 and MD 441 microphones to fill in some of the voids in IMA’s equipment list.
Founded by June Millington and Ann Hackler in 1986, IMA currently hosts one pre-teen performance program, two teen performance programs and one teen and young adult recording program each summer. A busy schedule of workshops, concerts and recording sessions fill IMA’s calendar throughout the rest of the year, making use of the compound’s 200-seat performance space and its farmhouse, barns and outbuildings. The collection of high-end pro audio recording equipment, coupled with the barn’s beautiful acoustics, puts the projects that come out of IMA in a league with those recorded in the best studios in the country.
Millington reported that the donated Sennheiser mics have already been put to good use. “Not surprisingly,” she says, “we’ve been using the MD 421s for toms and other percussion both live and in the studio. We were dying to get our hands on a permanent MD 441. A friend had let us borrow one here and there, but we never seemed to have it when we wanted it most! Since we received ours from Sennheiser, we’ve been able to use it for live vocals. The sound is natural and the cardioid pickup does an amazing job of rejecting everything but the singer’s voice.”
When asked whether it was important to have professional-quality equipment, Millington was not equivocal. “We’re doing this for real. When I provide instruction on the guitar, it’s real,” she states. “It’s the chops these girls will really need to know to have real careers in this industry. The live sound and recording aspect of IMA is no different. The girls use the real equipment at IMA that they’ll use as professionals in the industry.”
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