Silver and Gold Music scholar’s interdisciplinary approach to music

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Silver and Gold Music scholar’s interdisciplinary approach to music Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/25/2022 - 00:00

MarieFaith Lane

South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela once said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Education bridges science, technology, music and many other disciplines; it helps us to understand the advancement of humanity through time while informing and forming the minds that will change the world. However, education costs are rising everywhere and the College of Music aims to defray those costs.

On average, 75% of College of Music students receive scholarships or other financial aid. The Silver and Gold Music Scholarship Program, specifically, provides financial support to student musicians–including first-generation students and those from low-income and underserved communities.

Jennifer Kaphammer is a recipient of a Silver and Gold Music Scholarship and shares the significance of how it positively impacts her future in music and technology.

Originally from Windsor, Colorado, Kaphammer is a first-year student at our College of Music, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music technology. “CU Boulder has allowed me to more easily pursue both of my passions–music and technology,” she says. “Receiving the scholarship reinforced my decision to commit to CU. It was incredibly comforting to know that there was a community supporting me enough to fund my education.

“This scholarship allows me to fully focus on my studies and music.”

Kaphammer describes the College of Music as an environment fostering collaboration and creativity. “I’m in the percussion studio, studying under the guidance of [Professor of Percussion and Jazz] Douglas Walter and [Percussion Lecturer] Carl Dixon.

“It was amazing to walk into studio on the first day, meeting all of these amazing musicians who are now my studio-mates. Seeing the impressive projects the upperclassmen and my fellow first-year studio-mates were working on was immediately inspiring,” Kaphammer says.

As a well-rounded student and musician, Kaphammer is involved in many extracurricular activities. “In addition to classical music, I also enjoy playing in the Latin Percussion Ensemble, where I’m learning a lot about cultural music,” she says. “I’m also playing the drum set in the Basketball Band. It’s fun to make music with other music students and people from other majors in such an upbeat, enthusiastic environment.”

As a part of the scholarship program, all students receiving financial assistance are invited to the College of Music’s Annual Scholarship Celebration Dinner. Kaphammer explains the importance of community among scholarship recipients: “Attending the Annual Scholarship Celebration Dinner, I was able to connect with students I hadn’t interacted with before, especially graduate students.

“I’ve built a strong connection with graduate students I’m taking lessons from. It’s comforting to know the graduate students who are mentoring many of the underclassmen students like us.”

Kaphammer intends to go into sound design, broadcasting, or hardware development. She’s especially passionate about building technologies that make music more accessible. She hopes to create an easy-to-use software that can be implemented in school systems to help introduce music to kids at young ages, especially those in underserved populations.

Learn more about supporting our students through the Silver and Gold Music Scholarship.

Silver and Gold Music Scholarship recipient Jennifer Kaphammer—a first-year student majoring in music technology—shares how the scholarship impacts and inspires her future in music and technology.

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CU Philharmonia honors Florence Price in newly imagined orchestration

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 07:00:00 +0000

CU Philharmonia honors Florence Price in newly imagined orchestration Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/19/2022 - 00:00

John Moore

It was something of a miracle when Florence Price shook up the classical world by becoming the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major U.S. orchestra in 1933. And it was something of a travesty that it received only one play from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

“I think a lot of things went into that, but I can’t help but think racism and sexism and segregation were involved,” says Assistant Director of Orchestral Studies and Instructor of Music Education Joel Schut. “I think she’s one of the great, underrated American composers and it’s time that she gets her voice fully heard.”

Schut, who directs the CU Philharmonia Orchestra, is coordinating a concert on Feb. 8 featuring a full orchestration of “Seven Miniatures for Piano.” The work comprises seven standalone pieces—published in An Album of Piano Pieces and Second Album of Piano Pieces—each of which reveals different facets of Price’s creative personality. Seven CU Boulder student and alumni composers completed the orchestrations.

“For this project, there was a strong interest among faculty, students, researchers and music-lovers to feature voices that have been silenced or overlooked in the past,” Schut says.

Price, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, was a classical composer, organist and music teacher. “But in so many ways, the heart and soul of her repertoire was piano,” says Schut, “so we’re trying to put that into a full orchestra context.”

The program will begin with each of the seven piano pieces performed by seven different student pianists in the original setting that Price wrote them. “It’s really cool that all seven pianists are freshman students new to CU,” Schut says. That will be followed by the 70-student Philharmonia Orchestra playing a newly imagined orchestration of those works complete with strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and harp. “We’re trying to see the work both as it was originally written and then also imagine it in a 2022 context,” Schut says.

The idea to honor Price in this way actually came from a student, “which I think is fabulous,” Schut adds. What excites him most about that idea, he says, are the infinite possibilities.

“A piano gives you the pitches and any detail that the composer chose to put in the score, but hearing it in three dimensions with many different timbres and textures and instruments and family groupings—that’s just a whole other way to do the piece,” he says. “I really love it because it sparks students’ imaginations, and it forces them to listen in multiple directions and dimensions.”

Price’s history-making concert in 1933 was tainted by racism. Her first symphony only made it onto the Chicago Symphony Orchestra program because it was underwritten by Maude Roberts George, eventual national president of the National Association of Negro Musicians. Price once famously wrote: “I have two handicaps: I am a woman and I have some Negro blood in my veins.” Her work largely faded into obscurity after her death in 1953.

Schut says, “I’d like to think that audiences are anxious to hear things in 2022 differently than they would have in 1932.”

This CU Philharmonia concert is part of a full weekend honoring diverse women composers.

As part of a weekend honoring diverse women composers, join us for a full orchestration of “Seven Miniatures for Piano” comprising seven standalone pieces—each of which reveals different facets of Florence Price’s creative personality. CU Boulder student and alumni composers completed the orchestrations.

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