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As 2021 comes to a close and I reflect on my first year as Dean, I鈥檓 filled with gratitude for our College of Music family and all we鈥檝e accomplished in a new and evolving hybrid learning environment.听
I鈥檓 especially proud of our progress to ensure an increasingly welcoming spirit within our beautifully expanded Imig Music Building. Achieving Diversity, Equity + Inclusion (DEI) is a deeply thoughtful culture shift sustained over time, yet I鈥檓 already wowed by the early enthusiasm of our faculty and staff to incorporate DEI into everything we do鈥攆rom our academic curricula to our performances, presentations and other programming.
For example, Professor of Flute Christina Jennings now requires a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) piece for all flute auditions and Associate Professor of Collaborative Piano Alexandra Nguyen recently shared that she integrates sight-readings and 鈥渜uick learn鈥� pieces by women composers of the 18th and 19th centuries in her freshman sightreading class. Nguyen is also directing a dissertation project on Black composer Margaret Bonds and coaching students in works by Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke, Valerie Coleman, Gabriela Lena Frank, Adolphus Hailstork, Ulysses Kay, Florence Price and others. Stay tuned for information about Chinese-Canadian composer Alexina Louie鈥檚 residency in spring 2023, organized by Nguyen and including cross-departmental collaborations that benefit both composition and instrumental faculty and students. (Louie is this year鈥檚 recipient of Canada鈥檚 Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award.)
At the same time, our choral program recently organized residencies with guest artists Joan Catoni Conlon (the college鈥檚听director of choral research emerita) and Cheryl Anderson, director of choirs at Cabrillo State University. In April, our choirs also hosted virtual lectures with Jeffrey Murdock, associate director of choral activities at the University of Arkansas and Craig Robertson, choral director at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia. A virtual summer colloquium organized by Raul Dominguez (DMA Choral Conducting) further featured women and ethnically and racially diverse guest lecturers.听
The college鈥檚 composition faculty, too, have hosted Vietnamese American composer Viet Cuong and Castle of Our Skins Founder Ashleigh Gordon while working to rebrand our new music series to be more inclusive of genre, aesthetic and style, and to become more engaged with our larger community. As Assistant Professor of Composition Annika Socolofsky puts it, 鈥淢y number one priority is overhauling syllabi and class structure to make my classroom as inclusive as possible. This includes using compositional examples written by women, trans, gender non-conforming, two spirit, BIPOC, non-European composers and the many intersections of those identities, but it also means reaching outside of the classical genre entirely for musical study and compositional examples relevant to course material. My personal teaching quota is that at least half of the repertoire I teach must be written by composers from underrepresented identities. I have also created my courses in a way that holds space and creates structure for discussions surrounding important, current topics to our field such as cultural appropriation, cause appropriation, historical exclusion and aesthetic bias.鈥�
It鈥檚 inspiring to build upon that kind of passion for progress in every program and department鈥攆rom music education and research to chamber music, opera, jazz and more.听
Indeed, as we continue to spotlight the works of underrepresented composers in our student and faculty recitals and ensemble performances鈥攁nd through culturally responsive academic activities鈥攚e鈥檙e also thrilled to share their impact and influence more broadly, campus- and community-wide. We hope to see you at the world premiere of composer-in-residence Christopher Theofanidis鈥櫶�淥n the Bridge of the Eternal鈥� this spring and perhaps you鈥檒l join us for the 2022 International Double Reed Society Conference at CU 麻豆影院, featuring artists and compositions by diverse ethnicities and genders from around the globe. Not to mention, I can鈥檛 wait for our Tak谩cs Quartet鈥檚 recording next year of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor鈥檚 鈥淔antasiest眉cke.鈥� .听
That鈥檚 just scratching the surface of what鈥檚 underway and what鈥檚 to come. Keep in touch for an announcement in January about new dedicated leadership of our DEI efforts, further formalizing and growing this timely, critical work toward developing the universal musician.听
Meanwhile, I commend and congratulate our winter graduates, and encourage you to practice self-care and wellness this holiday season. After all, 鈥渉olding space鈥澨齣ncludes taking care of each other and ourselves.听
See you in 2022!
