FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Four students and one faculty member at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music are the recipients of the school’s inaugural Innovation Grants.
The grants are designed to support innovative ideas in performance or research for musicians, scholars and dancers with projects that are collaborative in nature and embedded in the Bloomington community.
“Through the generosity of amazing alumni and other donors who share the vision of the Jacobs School, I am very pleased to introduce this new stream of support for innovation activity among our faculty and students,” said Abra Bush, David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean. “It is vital that we cultivate creative activity that is innovating, entrepreneurial, leads the profession in new and unimaginable directions, and enhances sustainability in the careers of the future. Congratulations to this year’s winners—I eagerly await the realization of their projects.”
“As students in the Jacobs School of Music prepare for innovative, creative and successful lives in the performing arts, I’m thrilled to know that more financial support is now available through this initiative,” said Alain Barker, Jacobs director of music entrepreneurship and career development. “There’s a growing sense that interdisciplinarity, deep collaboration and community engagement are key to the future, and I’m hopeful that these grants, along with the upcoming Innovation Competition and other initiatives in the Jacobs School, will increase the practice of innovation within the school and beyond.”
The winners
Amanda Draper
Assistant professor of music education
MusiColAbility Project: IU Collaborative Learning Project
Establish a community outreach program that fosters collaborative music learning and creative music making between IU students and individuals with disabilities.
“I am so grateful to the committee and Dean Bush for their investment in a project that I believe will have value for the students of IU and make a significant impact on musicians with disabilities in our community,” said Draper.
Eliana Barwinski
Doctoral student in voice minoring in music education
The Embodiment of African American Art Song
Present African American art song, student-embodied choreographic research and poetry. This collaborative performance will present Margaret Bonds’ “Three Dream Portraits” and other music by black composers—specifically from Louise Toppin’s new anthology—with choreography and poetry recitation by Ph.D. students from the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center.
“The Embodiment of African American Art Song has been a project of mine for several years, and I could not have done this without the support of Baba Stafford C. Berry Jr. and students of the African American Dance Company here at IU,” Barwinski said.
Aislin Carpenter
Senior in trumpet performance minoring in ethnomusicology with a certificate in arts administration
Conserve Bloomington
A community-integrated environmental education concert program. Using creative resources from the Jacobs School of Music and scientific expertise from IU’s biology/ecology department, the project aims to celebrate the natural world through the commissioning and performance of new music that is inspired by local environmental settings.
“Conserve Bloomington began as a modest response to the overwhelming sense of climate doom that many of us face on a daily basis,” said Carpenter. “This grant will help maximize the local impact of the initiative and help me ensure that all participants are fairly compensated for their efforts. I feel so honored to have been given the opportunity to bring this project to fruition, and I sincerely hope it will encourage people to engage with their natural and musical surroundings.”
Michael Klinberg
Master’s student in music education
Music in Games Society Video Game Music Concert
Create an exciting interdisciplinary platform for students and faculty of IU, as well as Bloomington community members, to express their interests for game sound in a community-centered environment. This project will involve collaboration between, but not limited to, the composition, visual media scoring and performing departments at Jacobs, as well as with communities engaging in video game music participatory culture across Bloomington.
“This exciting project will gather chamber ensembles and composers to create a concert experience centered on the appreciation and championing of video game music, an artform which has captivated many and will assuredly captivate many more who experience it,” explained Klinberg.
Yabing Lyu
Freshman in piano performance
MOOD+
Explore what key factors lead to different musical tastes and how people can be motivated to accept different styles of music. Picking 10 songs very well known through decades in Asia, a group of writers and musicians will work together to write English versions of lyrics for these melodies, and a group of musicians will adapt and perform the repertoire in our concerts.
“MOOD+ is a project based on performing popular songs in Asia from the 1980s through the 2000s, arrangements made by student composers and writers at IU, to explore the possibilities of popularizing disparate genres of music within a different cultural setting,” said Lyu. “MOOD+ will host several seminars, public performances and a final concert.”
Read more about the winners and their projects.