School of Music

to:Shirley WillihNganZ, Executive Vice President and university Provost

from:christopher doane, Dean

subject:School of music annual report for 2012

date:11/08/2018

I appreciate the invitation to provide an assessment from the School of Music outlining the activities of the school over the past year with regard to the multiple foci of the university’s strategic plan. In providing these comments I will organize the points under the five broad headings of the strategic plan.

Educational Excellence

  • The ratio of music major students to full time faculty ratio improved in 2012 from its recent high of 11.8:1 in 2010-11, to 10.4:1 at the beginning of 2012-13 based on data reported to HEADS for the academic year. Comparative data from other NASM universities of our classification (public, 200-400 music majors) suggests that the school’s profile comparesfavorably with current national data (average in the classification at 11.2:1, and average for institutions offering the masters program at 10.8:1). In examining data for total FTE to music majors, UofL is at 7:1 which compares to the current 50th percentile of 7.1: 1 and national average of 7.7:1.
  • In 2010-11the school began to again trend positively in the number of new students enrolling, a trend that in 2011 resulted in the largest number of new music students enrolling in ten years and the largest enrollment in the school in its history. The total enrollment mark was eclipsed in 2012, marking the second consecutive year that the school set new enrollment marks. Average ACT scores for entering freshmen in music eclipsed the university average in 2011 and 2012 (26 vs. 24.4 and 25 respectively). Numbers of music students qualifying for National Scholar awards from the universitycontinued at a very competitive level, with additional music students qualifying for the prestigious Brown Fellowship, Porter Scholar, and Fulbright Scholar programs.
  • The year was remarkable for the school’s studentensemble program with invited performances for the University Chorale as the only U.S. collegiate choir invited to present at the 2012 Cuba –United States Choral Symposium in Havana, the University Symphony Orchestra at the 2012 meeting of the Kentucky Music Educators Association, for the New Music Ensemble and Chamber Winds program in Atlanta for the 2012 College Band Directors National Association regional meeting, and the Jazz Ensemble I for the 2012 national meeting of the Jazz Educators Network. Notably, the Cardinal Singers continue to rank among the top mixed choirs in the world based on Musica Mundi published rankings. Also worthy of mention, 2012 marked the only time in recent history that all the principal student ensembles were invited and performed for their respective national associations, an unusual series of opportunities for the school and for most music programs nationally.
  • Further, the UofL Wind Ensemble accepted an invitation to present feature concerts at the Jungfrau Music Festival in Interlaken, Switzerland for the summer of 2013. Planning for the second collaborative opera project in Poland proceeded with performances planned for that country and Czechoslovakia in November, 2013 and Louisville in 2014.
  • The school completed the partnership with the Provost’s Office in the appointment of Harry Pickens to teach his Musical Mastery course on personal performance enhancement. This initiative was followed by the continuation of lecturer Jennifer Potochnic’s seminars on musical entrepreneurism.
  • Faculty in the school continued to integrate concepts from the Ideas to Action initiative into music course syllabi. Through grants provided to the program, faculty members in music were supported in creating new syllabi and projects consonant with i2a. Additional projects creating videos of six music faculty exemplars in teaching for critical thinking in a variety of instructional settings were proposed, set in motion and completed. Development of a new model for student course evaluations for music classes were developed and implemented for CY 2012, including items related to thinking critically in the context of a variety of music instructional settings.
  • The fifth year of the music fee program enabled the school to provide a subsidized ticket to all subscription concerts in the classical music series of the Louisville Orchestra, all productions of the Kentucky Opera, Chamber Music Society, Speed Music Series, selected productions of the Kentucky Center, and Louisville Ballet. Access to other events presented by the Kentucky Center and the Metropolitan Opera in HD were expanded. Student music fee income provided access to 8 subsidized services of a piano accompanist for each music student for the academic year, as well as secondary instrument study, classroom technology updates, and a summer grant program for students. For 2012, forty six proposals for projects were submitted by music students, with twentysix awarded funding by a student selection panel to pursue projects sited regionally, nationally and internationally.
  • The school continued its collaboration with the Kentucky Opera Young / Studio Artist program that provided opportunities for graduate students in voice to spend one of their five semesters of study in residence with the Kentucky Opera. Additionally, the school engaged with the opera for a fifth year to bring a noted opera composerto Louisville for a week-long residency and workshop performance of a new opera with the cooperation of the school’s applied vocal studios and opera theatre programs.
  • The music therapy program initiated the school’s first real-timeclasses conducted by means of distance education technology to bring faculty members from California and Florida to students in a regular classroom setting on a weekly basis. Further, the school initiated its first asynchronous, web-based classes in music literature and music education foundations.
  • New courses in Suzuki Violin Pedagogy and Dance Performance and Fundamentals were approved by the music faculty in 2012 and will go into the academic schedule in 2013.
  • The school continued its collaboration with the UofL Audiology program to offer hearing screenings, lectures, and research opportunities as part of the school’s initiative to prevent noise-induced hearing loss among students and faculty.

Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

  • The school continuedthe international classical guitar festival and competition in late May under the sponsorship of classical guitar professor Stephen Mattingly, as well as initiated a successful proposal to bring the national meeting of the Guitar Foundation of America to Louisville in the summer of 2013. The International Horn Competition will again meet in at the university in September, 2013, as will the national meeting of the Jazz Educators Network in January 2014.
  • The school and music therapy program under the direction of Darcy Walworth joined the National Research Network for Infant and Child Medical Music Therapy with a collaborative agreement with Florida State University to establish the FSU / UofL NICU-MT & Pediatric Research Consortium. Following a successful grant proposal to the Kosair Foundation, construction was undertaken in the school facilities to create a new clinic to deliver music therapy services on campus.
  • The annual New Music Festival featured a high percentage of students enrolled in the school and many of the performance and conducting faculty members in performances of the music of composer Sidney Hodkinson. Planning for a former winner of the award, Brett Dean, to be the guest composer for the 2013 NMF. His appearance will include performance of a new piece for wind band that Mr. Dean has been commissioned to write by the school.
  • The school collaborated with the board of the Chamber Music Society of Louisville to commemorate its 75th anniversary by commissioning the 2007 winnerofthe GrawemeyerAward for Music Composition to create a new piece for the society for premier by the faculty GrawemeyerPlayersin April, 2013.
  • Faculty recording projects were produced and distributed by Ansyn Banks, Mike Tracy, Stephen Mattingly, and Mike Tunnell.Additional recordings were produced by the university choir program, as well as a recording project for music from alumni composers in a CD series was continued with recordings / editing of music alumnus Paul Ramsier.

Multiple research articles, conference presentations, articles and reviews were published by music faculty members (Acklin, Amchin, Shadle, Ertz,, Wallace-Boaz, Kern, Walworth) along with original music compositions and arrangements (LaBarbera, Satterwhite, Mattingly, Speck, Tolson, Wolek, Rouse, Banks, Ritz, Tracy, King).

  • The school continued its consortium grant with the federal Department of Education / FIPSE program for exchange of students in jazz and popular music between UofL and the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, the Federal University at Brasilia and State University of Campinas in Brazil. This program began in the Fall of 2010 and will continue through 2013.
  • Many faculty presented in international settings throughout the year, including Scotland, Japan, Poland, China, England, Germany, Ecuador, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, and Finland (Acklin, Byrne, Biran, Walworth, Tracy, Amchin, Rafferty, Hatteberg, Mattingly, Oliphant, Weeks, Wolek. Wallace-Boaz, Ramach).

Diversity and Opportunity

  • The school sponsored the African American Music Heritage Festival under the leadership of Jerry Tolsonin February 2012 that included public events as well as workshops for regional public school students. Events of the World Music Series expanded in 2012under the leadership of faculty lecturerSean Mulhall.
  • Choral ensembles and the University Symphony Orchestra entered into extensive planning for annual MLK celebration at St Stephen’s Church along with choral ensembles from that church in the world premiers of 2003 music alumnus Andre Wilson’s cantata From the Mountaintop based on text from Martin Luther King.
  • The school continues to enroll an increasingly diverse and international student body, with data provided by the university suggesting that minorities enrollment in the school comprised 20% of the student music major enrollment, withstudents from South America, South Korea, Australia, Poland and Japan. Students from UofL’s music therapy program entered into an exchange program with students in therapy from the Karol Szymanowski Academy in PL. Additionally, undergraduate students in jazz prepared for a semester of music study in Brazil by studying Portuguese for the year as part of a FIPSE consortium program followed by a semester of study in Brazil in the fall.
  • In a survey of undergraduate students in the school conducted as part of the annual Diversity reporting process, 73 percent of respondents suggested that the prevailing atmosphere of tolerance and diversity was “Favorable to Highly Favorable”. Evaluations of “Unfavorable – Highly Unfavorable” were made by 8 percent of the respondents. Subsequent surveys were prepared for distribution in the spring 2012 with expanded items related to diversity and climate.

Community Engagement

  • In the Signature Partnership area of Louisville, the school continues to support Suzuki string programs at Sanders Elementary School and expanded the program at Atkinson Elementary, providing subsidized study for more than sixty students combined at the two locations. The piano pedagogy program began an outreach program at Portland Presbyterian Church to provide free class piano instruction (Portland Piano Project).
  • Students from Louisville Central Community Center continued to attend ballet classes under the sponsorship of the Center and the SODA organization that supports the Dance Academy in our pre-collegiate program. The Dance Academy and Community Music Program continued to offer classes on the Belknap Campus, Louisville Skating Academy (dance), and Oldham County Arts Center (CMP only).
  • The school organized and presented a special music event at the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center in September, 2012 in association with President Ramsey’s statewide outreach tour. In addition to the music event that drew 1000 guests to the center, student musicians and faculty members visited public schools in the region and hosted workshops for area music students.
  • A substantial role of service to the public schools continues through the work of faculty and graduate students who present clinics and workshops throughout the region on a regular basis. Examples of these include the continuation of the Jazz in the Schools project which takes the International Jazz Combo to public schools on a periodic basis to perform and teach about the origins and basis of jazz repertoire. This program was joined by the Graduate String Quartet whose members presented workshops and concerts to secondary public school programs and the UofL String Academy, a new program led by lecturer Brittany MacWilliams with the sponsorship of the Community Music Program and presented in cooperation with the string faculty of the school..
  • Faculty and students have a substantial presence in music classrooms throughout the state. This presence is part of the school’s initiative in student recruiting, but an equally significant purpose is to promote music study in Kentucky’s public and private schools. Hundreds of students are seen in this manner every year. Additionally, there are very significant events sponsored by the school each year that bring thousands of students to the UofL campus. Our sponsorship of district and state music contests in our facilities, the organization of music events that invite hundreds of band, orchestra, jazz, and choral students to campus for events at the school, and the dozens of contacts each year between individual faculty members and students are all examples of the critical and ongoing outreach efforts that support music study among young people in general, as well as the central role that the school has established for itself in this part of the state and beyond.
  • The school continues to play a major role in the cultural life of the region by providing musical events featuring students, faculty, or guest artists at no or low cost to the community. The facilities of the school are an important resource for organizations and arts presenters throughout this region that present events and concerts regionally.

Stewardship

  • For fiscal 2012, the school received $310,000 in gifts, with an additional $500,000 in pledges.
  • A new music composition competition for young composers with separate tracks for digital media and acoustic media was begun two years ago through the support of donor Frank Abell. Through a bequest of $1.3 million received in February of 2010 from Mr. Abell’s estate, an endowment has been established to fund this award program in perpetuity.
  • The school collaborated with the Louisville Suzuki String Association to fund a violin teacher trainer position through the establishment of an endowment and a multi-year commitment to fund a part time position in Suzuki pedagogy.
  • The school was successful in securing a four-year grant of $252,000from the federal Department of Education FIPSE program for a collaborative program in Brazil.
  • Additional grant funds were received through the National Endowment for the Humanities through a partnership with the Louisville Orchestra and a separate grant through Kosair Crusade for Children to establish a music therapy clinic for services at the School of Music building.

Summary and Challenges

The School of Music enjoyed a generally positive year during the past twelve months. The faculty and students performed at a high level, with many opportunities for developing educational excellence and recognition coming to multiple elements of the school in a variety of ways. This breadth of achievement over so many areas is one of the notable characteristics, and source of challenge, that distinguishes our school from other similarly-sized university programs.

Reflecting on the status and potential of the School of Music to progress toward meeting the promise of its vision statement, “…becoming a preeminent school of music in the Midwest and the first choice of students in Kentucky”, there is much to be proud of with regard to the successes of the music program and value that the school has brought to the university and to the Louisville community. Reflecting on the activities of the faculty and students over the past several years, I do not believe it to be an exaggeration to observe that few university music programs of similar size and location could exceed the achievements and recognition that the faculty and student musicians of the school have earned. So, there is a record of excellence about which the university, school, alumni, and community should take justifiable pride. New generations of faculty and students at UofL will have this record of success to build upon, but will face new challenges in keeping the resources to build successful programs and the encouragement to aspire to and achieve the level of excellence and leadership in music study that we have come to expect and deserve in our institution and community.

C. Doane, Dean

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