Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award
Jon Vickers is the founding director of the Indiana University Cinema, which opened in January of 2011. He works both independently and in collaboration with IU faculty to curate film screenings, retrospectives, festivals, traveling exhibits, topical programs, and guest lectures. The IU Cinema is considered one of the best equipped film venues in the US, and the program has garnered national attention from scholars, filmmakers, and industry leaders.
Vickers previously served as managing director of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame, home to Indiana's first THX Certified cinema, as well as four live performance spaces. Along with managing the performing arts center and a staff of 22, he programmed the Browning Cinema, which became a model of a university cinematheque with a program deeply connected and relevant to the academy.
Vickers also opened, co-owned, and operated the Vickers Theatre, an independent, single-screen art house in Three Oaks, Michigan with his wife, Jennifer. The Theatre was purchased in the early 1990's and renovated into a boutique art cinema that gained national attention for its success. Vickers has been involved in several additional arts organizations and strongly embraces the community-building power of the arts.
The Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award is designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students in the Composition Department of the Jacobs School of Music unprecedented opportunities to compose new music for films, assuring that they will be premiered to a live audience. It will also provide members of the IU and Bloomington community with the opportunity to view an annual series of films presented with a live orchestra, events of cinematic and cultural value that are not readily available to communities the size of Bloomington, Indiana.
This Award is established by P.A. Mack, Jr. who has been a strong and loyal supporter of Indiana University since his days as Chief of Staff for U.S. Senato Birch Bayh. He was appointed by both Presidents Carter and Reagan to serve as a member of the National Credit Union Administration of which he was ultimately elected Vice-Chairman.
P.A. believes in the importance of the IU Cinema, and it is his belief that music and film enrich the lives of people across the world. Therefore, it is the hard work and high ethical standards of his friend and teacher, Jon Vickers, that is the impulse for P.A.'s support for Jacobs School of Music students majoring in composition through the creation of the Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award.