Claudia Escaler: Fitting Unconventional with a Perfect Match.

Not many people can say they started piano lessons at the early age of three, but for senior Claudia Escaler, it’s an essential fact. As a child, Claudia lived in the Philippines where her father would sing and play guitar for her family. Claudia and her siblings all grew to have the same passion for music. She would jam with her brother back in high school and even sang in a song he produced. “It was like a chill, EDM song,” she said. Her sister sings in a band in high school and is part of a jazz ensemble.

Claudia participated in choir and Battle of the Bands in high school despite the school’s lack of educational music outlets. She was not formally training or performing but rather experimenting on her own by listening to music and self-learning song covers. Music’s role in her life at the time was more of a hobby, and school remained her top priority.

However, whether it was her musically-inclined familial influence or an innate passion within her, music remained a large part of her life. She said this desire to pursue music, despite it being only a vague interest and bringing up fears regarding her career path, is actually what led her to Elon.

Now, in college, music is everything to Claudia.

Elon is a liberal arts college and has a great music program, which is exactly what Claudia wanted. Today, Claudia is a Music and Liberal Arts major, a degree designed for people who want to do more than just produce music and work in the music field. The major takes music to other disciplines and unconventional settings. 

 Claudia uses her MILA major and human Service Studies minor to create “a music therapy degree” and an understanding for herself, which she intends on utilizing when pursuing music therapy in graduate school.

Claudia’s unconventional, self-taught vocals from high school fortunately never misguided her but rather provided the opposite. She has participated in multiple Elon ensembles as a vocalist, which has played a major role in her Elon experience. But there was one in particular that piqued her interest—Techtronica houses her expertise, music covers.

The traditional picture of music ensembles that comes to mind may be a vast orchestra of brass and string instruments with the musicians and singers dressed in professional black gowns and suits. While this is often the case, as music ensembles do exhibit these qualities, it is not true for Elon’s Techtronica Ensemble.

Techtronica is an ensemble that uses unconventional music technology to perform popular music live. Claudia said being a part of the organization is “so much fun” because it is a great mix of Elon’s ensembles. The only “traditional” instruments found in the ensemble are a bass and keyboard. All other instruments—such as computers, synthesizers, samples, turntables, digital instruments, loopers, and more—are unconventional. 

Because the instruments and music sections of electronic songs are distinct and limited to one or two musicians, the musicians and vocalists have to depend on each other, unlike in larger ensembles where there are multiples of one instrument or members in each section. 

“If you are doing something,” she said, “you are probably the only person doing it, and then you really have to have it all together because everyone else kind of relies on you for it to sound good. Otherwise, it kind of falls apart.”

Luckily, with such passionate and talented musicians such as the ones in Techtronica, a chemistry between the musicians is generated and the group “clicks,” as Claudia said. 

“We all knew our roles in relation to each other’s roles. So, I think we all flowed really well,” she said. “I’m really excited to see how this semester we’re all going to click because I actually know more people … who were in it last semester,” she said, considering her past and future participation with the group.

“It’s like doing something we all enjoy and collaborating on how to make it better or just brainstorming on song choice,” she said.

This semester, the theme for Techtronica’s spring concert is “musician’s choice.” This theme is unique to the 2020 spring semester, as is Techtronica’s work with Elon’s dance department. Techtronica is accompanying the spring dance concert with music composed by advisor Clay Stevenson. The four pieces for the dance concert are around 12 minutes each, and the group will be performing at multiple shows throughout the weekend.

This opportunity with the dance department is by far the most challenging experience within Techtronica that Claudia has had, she said. But, undoubtedly, she believes, “It’s really fun to work in this way in this aspect with people I am really good friends with.” 

Within Techtronica, there is a lot of room to learn and try new things, she said. Some people walk in completely dry and try their hand with equipment, like turntables and vo-coders. Claudia said setting up the stage and fear before performances was an opportunity to gain skills related to her field of interest, live event planning, when .

Besides the ensemble’s contribution to her love of music while in college and its relevance to her future, Claudia said the single best part of Techtronica is the sense of community it provides, composed of a talented group of people who are just as dedicated to music and their futures.

Be sure to mark Techtronica’s 2020 shows in your calendar!

The Spring Dance Concert : March 5-8, 2020 

Techtronica’s Evening Concert : May 9, 2020 in Taphouse at 10:30pm