Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Apply for the Undergraduate Library Research Award!

The Research Award recognizes undergraduate students for excellent research and scholarship that demonstrates creative use of scholarly materials.

Students may submit any research project they've completed between Spring 2011 and Spring 2012. In addition, they are asked to submit a short reflective essay about the research process.

  • *Deadline*: Monday, May 14, 2012
  • Winners receive $1,000
  • Categories: Senior Thesis/Honors Thesis, Senior Non-Thesis, and Non-Senior
  • Any media (project format) accepted

Application information, previous winners, and selection criteria are available at:

http://www.lib.washington.edu/researchaward

The award jury is comprised of librarians and faculty evaluators, crossing disciplines and the three UW campuses.

Questions? Email: libaward@uw.edu

Friday, February 24, 2012

Digital project on American Bandstand now online

Digital project on American Bandstand now online, featuring video clips, 100+ images and preview of forthcoming book "The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia" (University of California Press, American Crossroads series, Feb 2012).

Counter to host Dick Clark's claims that he integrated American Bandstand, this project reveals how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years and how black teens and civil rights advocates protested this discrimination. The project also brings to light the civil rights activism of black deejays like Georgie Woods and Mitch Thomas, whose locally televised teen dance show debuted fifteen years before "Soul Train" and influenced the dance styles on "American Bandstand."

View "The Nicest Kids in Town" digital project at: http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/nicest-kids

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Do Jazz Musicians Really Earn $23,300 Per Year?

"Last year, we reported on the Future of Music Coalition's initiative to determine how musicians make money — especially jazz musicians. While not all of the data has been released, the FMC presented a few interesting early findings in a recent blog post."

For the full story, please see npr.org

Justin Bieber was found on YouTube, why not a conductor?

"YouTube has been called into service by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra as it sets out to find a new conductor."

For the full story, please see toronto.com.

In Korea, more women than men in orchestras

For the full story, please see musicalamerica.com.

First ever musicians' dystonia conference Mar. 9

Find out more at musicalamerica.com.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Extended Hours for Finals Week

Dear SoM students,

Thank you very much for participating in the survey on extended hours during the exam period. There was overwhelming support for the Saturday and Sunday slots listed below. (NB: We did not poll the Monday and Tuesday slots). Below are the extended hours from March 10 (Saturday) to March 13 (Tuesday); the extended hours will be posted on the Libraries web sites as well:

Saturday 3/10 -- noon to 7 pm
Sunday 3/11 -- 1 to 9 pm
Monday 3/12 - 8 am to 9 pm
Tuesday 3/13 - 8 am to 9 pm


Good luck with your exams and final papers (if you need help in your research, contact Verletta Kern vkern@uw.edu or jstsou@uw.edu)

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Canadian Music Centre BC Region announces a Call for Proposals

The Canadian Music Centre, BC Region announces a Call for Proposals to participate in a national festival celebrating the centennial of Canadian composer Barbara Pentland (1912-2000), composer, teacher, university professor and musical nationalist.

Barbara Pentland, a Vancouverite, was a dedicated supporter of the CMC and special friend of the CMC BC Regional office. Upon her death a bequest to CMC was made to support Canadian composers, her own music and the ongoing work of CMC. The Canadian Music Centre is proud to celebrate and recognize throughout 2012 this outstanding Canadian composer and her music contribution during this her 100th anniversary year.

Pentlandʼs musical life spanned most of the 20th century and included piano performance, post-secondary education, and teaching in Europe, the United States, and her native Canada. From Winnipeg to Montreal, Darmstadt to Munich to Vancouver, Pentland acquired a musical voice of her own. Her public statements on music, culture, and politics were important and influential in the pivotal 1960s and 1970s.
The festival celebrates Canadaʼs record of musical performance and creation, and
Pentlandʼs contribution and legacy. Throughout 2012, the festival will facilitate performances, broadcasts, and new music.

In addition to potentially releasing recordings of Pentlandʼs works on CMC'S own CENTREDISCS LABEL, the festival calls for proposals for events in these two categories:
A. Chamber/Instrumental/Choral Events
B. Education and Outreach


A single proposal may apply to both A and B, but this is not necessary. The festival will consider subsidies of up to $5,000 for a single proposal, expecting that applicants may seek supplementary or matching funds to increase the total amount available for a festival project. Non-financial participation by educational and cultural institutions would be considered a “matching” contribution.

A. Chamber/Instrumental/Choral Events
Canadian chamber groups, instrumentalists, choral groups, and vocal artists are invited to submit proposals to create and produce works combining music by Pentland with choral/vocal and/or chamber music of the period 1930 to the present day, mainly, but not exclusively, by Canadian composers.
A proposal may include new or existing commissioned works.

B. Education and Outreach
The Festival invites Canadian universities, music schools, composers and teachers to submit proposals for (i) lectures, (ii) exhibitions, (iii) multi-media and social media events, and (iv) public-school events.

APPLICATION PROCESS
Proposals must include a background description, project timeline and complete budget, as well as support materials that should include two example recordings of the applicant’s work for category A, or work in other media for those proposing in category B.

Deadline for proposals: March 31, 2012
Announcement of results: April 10, 2012

The subsidies made available to successful applications, through this call, are being awarded from the Barbara Pentland Fund, a generous bequest made to the Canadian Music Centre BC Region by Barbara Pentland, in order to support the promotion of performing, recording, and publishing Pentland’s works and promotion of other Canadian contemporary music.

About Dr. Barbara Pentland
Born in Winnipeg, Dr. Barbara Pentland studied composition in Paris, at the Juilliard Graduate School in New York, and at the Berkshire Music Centre. She became an instructor at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto during the Second World War and would go on to receive honourary doctorates from Simon Fraser University and the University of Manitoba and be named a member of the Order of Canada. To learn more about Barbara Pentland and her music, please visit www.musiccentre.ca.

About the Canadian Music Centre
The Canadian Music Centre holds Canada's largest collection of Canadian concert music. The CMC exists to promote the works of its Associate Composers in Canada and around the world. The Centre makes available on loan over 22,000 scores and works of Canadian contemporary composers through its lending library. The CMC sells more than 1300 CD titles featuring music of its Associate Composers and other Canadian independent recording producers. The Centre also offers an on-demand publishing service, music repertoire consultations, and is easily accessible through five regional centres across Canada, as well as through its website at www.musiccentre.ca.

Music for Vermont Youth: Domoto’s New Challenge

News on a UW SOM alum!
"Meeting the educational needs of talented young instrumentalists in a rural, sparsely populated state with few musical resources in the schools is a challenge. And it’s a matter of paramount concern to Jeffrey Domoto, now one year into his job as music director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association. The VYOA, based in the Burlington area of northern Vermont—the largest population center in a state that ranks 49th in the U.S., with about 620,000 residents—serves approximately 500 students up through high-school age, who are enrolled in three full symphonic ensembles ranked by experience and technical level (Vermont Youth Orchestra, Vermont Youth Philharmonia, and Vermont Youth Sinfonia) plus two groups for younger string players, a chamber wind ensemble, and two youth choruses."

For the full story, please see symphonynow.org.

Monday, February 13, 2012

‘Tuba Raids’ Plague Schools in California

"When thieves broke into the high school music room here this week, they cut through the bolts on all the storage lockers and ripped two doors off their frames. But they didn’t touch the computer or the projector or even the trumpets."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.

Pa. symphony seeks soloist via YouTube contest

"Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra officials insist it's not "American Idol" meets Mozart.
But its new video contest on YouTube does have at least one similarity: voting by the public. Videos submitted by instrumental soloists will be up for anyone to watch. The top four vote-getters will get a chance to audition for musical director and conductor Manfred Honeck. The winner — if Honeck picks one at all — gets $10,000 and a paid trip to perform with the orchestra at Heinz Hall this fall."

For the full story, please see The AP.

Airline Instrument Policy Set by Congress

For the full story, please see MusicalAmerica.com.

The Perceived Delicacy of the Female Conductor

"Many factors influence the way classical music fans respond to a recording. The expressiveness of the composer. The virtuosity of the musicians. And, it seems, the sex of the conductor."

For the full story, please see Miller-McCune.com.

At The 54th Grammys, A Short But Eclectic Classical List

For the full list of classical winners, see NPR.org.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Finals Week Hours Music Library Hours Survey

We are responding to requests to extend the Music Library hours on selected days during the exam period. We are happy to let you know that the School of Music has agreed to fund these extended hours. We will open 3 more hours on Monday 3/12 and Tuesday 3/13; the hours will be 8 am to 9 pm on those days.

We need your help to determine the hours for the weekend (Saturday 3/10 and Sunday 3/11) before the exam week, so we have a short survey (2 questions) to see which time blocks are the best for you.
Please go to https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/jstsou/157961 for the survey.

The survey will be available until Monday, February 20. We will announce the extended hours after we get the results.

Thank you for your help!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Register NOW for 2012 the Women Who Rock UnConference and Film Festival!

Please register for the Women Who Rock UnConference and Film Festival March 2-3, 2012.

Bring your:
  • Instruments
  • Paintbrushes
  • Beats
  • Ideas
  • Tshirt for screen printing
  • Recording tools
  • Knitting
  • Art Supplies
  • Jarana
  • Dancing Shoes

For more information on the UnConference, please see http://womenwhorockcommunity.org/

Purcell and a pint - welcome to a new kind of classical concert

"The 'rules' of concert-going today - sit still, keep quiet, concentrate, only applaud at the end of a piece - often make us feel uncomfortable, and produce a less than authentic experience. And, of course, the other way most of us tend to listen to music - on headphones, sealed into our private own world - would be similarly incomprehensible to composers, musicians and audiences of previous centuries."

For the full story, please see The Guardian.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Are You Really A Musician?

"We've come a long way from banging a couple of rocks together to make music. Apple's version of Garageband for the iPad, for example, includes "smart" instruments that play all the keyboard, bass, guitar and drum parts for you with the push of a button.

It's pretty cool. But if you use something like this to make music, does it really count? If you don't know how to play an instrument such as the piano or guitar or whatever, and you can't read or write music, but you have an app or synth that does the work for you, can you really call yourself a musician?"

For the full story, please see NPR.org.

Seeking Proposals for "MUSIC OF THE SEA" Symposium

Mystic Seaport's 33rd Annual Symposium
"MUSIC OF THE SEA"
Sponsored by Mystic Seaport Museum, the University of Connecticut at Avery Point,
and The United States Coast Guard Academy
June 8 & 9, 2012

We are seeking proposals for papers in History, Literature, Folklore, Ethnomusicology, or other appropriate disciplines that address any aspect of music or verse of the sea or inland waters from the Age of Sail through the present day. The two-day symposium is part of a three-day event whose focus celebrates the lives and work of sailors through musical performance.

The Friday, June 8, session will be held on the maritime campus of the University of Connecticut at Avery Point in Groton, CT, and the Saturday session, June 9, at Mystic Seaport, in Mystic, CT.

Topics of interest have included: shipboard work songs, songs of maritime or other occupational trades, songs of rivers and lakes, seafaring cultures and cultural change, ethnicity and ethnic influences, cultural exchanges, ballad and broadside traditions, technology, regional interests, the use of sea music in literature, and popular culture.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE is March 1, 2012. Audiovisually illustrated presentations welcome.

Graduate students are encouraged to submit a proposal.
Proposals should be 1-2 pages and should include a thesis, an explanation, and a list of sources.
PLEASE SUBMIT PROPOSALS and a brief curriculum vita or resume to Dr. Glenn S. Gordinier via e-mail at or via standard mail at:
Dr. Glenn S. Gordinier—Attn: Symposium Munson Institute—Mystic Seaport
75 Greenmanville Ave.
Mystic, CT 06355-0990

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Finally: U.S. Post Office To Issue Miles Davis Stamp

"It’s about time. Here is a link and snippet of text below from the news item via TheTelegraph.com. Linn’s Stamp News announced that stamps honoring Davis and French singer Edith Piaf would be issued in 2012 as part of a joint issue with French postal service, La Poste."

For the full story, please see milesdavisonline.com.