Winner: Silver, 2021 CASE Circle of Excellence Awards; Silver, CASE District V Awards

From the Judges: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's video “Recognizing Generations of Illinois Impact” is a shining example of a COVID pivot. The university created a truly moving piece that clearly resonated with their alumni base. Creating a new arrangement of “Hail to the Orange,” was smart, unique, and brought a modern twist to the standard slideshow. Combined with the thoughtfully chosen historical images, this video feels truly unique to this organization. The impeccably timed editing and the inspiring copy were spot on and, altogether, created a piece that, while simple, was truly powerful.”

This morning, the University of Illinois sent out a video to recognize the impact Illinois has had on the world and the support of more than 150,000 donors during the current fundraising campaign. Watch the video below, and read more about the inspiration for the music further down.

The video itself was inspired by this Apple commercial, and I was given a few tracks as reference material for the mood the art director was looking for:

Naturally, I once again looked to the university’s Alma Mater (some day I’ll have to put out an album of all of the arrangements I’ve done of that tune). After working out the initial structure of the piece on piano alone, I added tubular bells at the beginning (to reference the iconic Altgeld bell tower) and a washy analog pad in the back half, and pulled out the low end for a feeling of lightness and movement. I think the final product is really effective, and I’m super proud of this one!