American Music Research Center

American Music Research Center awarded grants, advances diverse music projects

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 06:00:00 +0000

American Music Research Center awarded grants, advances diverse music projects Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/27/2022 - 00:00

Kathryn Bistodeau

Photo: Soundscapes of the People, a collaboration between the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University Pueblo, has collected 27 oral histories in the past year exploring Pueblo’s cultural music history. AMRC Director and Professor of Musicology Susan Thomas (middle)—who also serves as the College of Music’s Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity + Inclusion—and CU Boulder alumna Xóchitl Chávez (left)—who now teaches at the University of California, Riverside—visited Pueblo last month. Also pictured are musician Joe Bobian (second from left), musician Jason Wilson (middle) and CU Boulder Multimedia News Specialist Nicholas Goda (right). Thomas, Chávez and College of Music Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology Austin Okigbo, along with their team, seek to have the histories digitally accessible to members of the public through CU and CSU Pueblo libraries by the end of the year. Photo credit: Xóchitl Chávez.

The College of Music’s American Music Research Center (AMRC) is bustling with activity as the school year begins. AMRC Director Susan Thomas—who also holds the positions of Professor of Musicology and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity + Inclusion at our College of Music—is spearheading various exciting projects, events and advancements at the center.

The AMRC was recently awarded multiple grants to fund its research, including from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Specifically, this grant is funding the digitization of the Grauman’s Theatres Silent Film Scores Collection, donated to the AMRC by Rodney Sauer, a musician himself.

“Starting this fall, we’ll be hiring a graduate student to begin working with those newly digitized scores,” says Thomas. “They’ll be working directly with Rodney Sauer to start creating premade score packets at the high school level.”

Additionally, in 2023, Thomas will teach a DMA seminar with Sauer on silent film scoring. Students will work with the digitized collection, learn about the history of silent film scoring and learn how to use those materials to make scores.

Another inspiring project—Soundscapes of the People: A Musical Ethnography of Pueblo, Colorado—received funding from a National Endowment for the Humanities Archaeological and Ethnographic Field Research Grant. The team involved has already collected more than two dozen oral histories of Pueblo’s diverse musical traditions from musicians there.

“It’s really exciting to be able to build on the support we’ve received from CU Boulder’s Office of Research and Innovation and the Office of Outreach and Community Engagement who funded the first two years of this project,” Thomas says. “[The NEH grant] allows us to be involved with this community and do this really important music research through the beginning of 2025.”

College of Music graduate students are often involved in the AMRC, working on both the Soundscapes and Grauman’s Theatres projects. Conducting graduate student Kedrick Armstrong, for example, was awarded the Susan L. Porter Fellowship to fund his research focused on Black female composers.

“In the AMRC collections, the Helen Walker-Hill collection comprises music by Black women composers. One of the reasons Kedrick came to CU Boulder was because that collection was here. He was particularly interested in a composer by the name of Irene Britton-Smith,” explains Thomas.

Armstrong created a working score for the orchestra by using a manuscript in the AMRC collection, as well as a few parts housed in the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago. On Nov. 16, Armstrong will conduct the CU Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Irene Britton-Smith’s Sinfonietta.

Thomas herself was recently awarded The Joseph Negler Endowed Chair in Music, which was established in 2000.

“That gift is an indispensable part of why the center is able to do what we do,” says Thomas. “Obviously, it’s a tremendous honor and an important reminder about how we can leave a legacy in our work. What we do doesn’t have to be ephemeral—we can make a lasting impact.”

Negler passed away on June 4, 2022. The College of Music community is deeply saddened by his passing and is grateful for his enduring support.

The American Music Research Center is bustling with activity as the school year begins. Discover what’s new!

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Music student finds inspiration at the gateway to Antarctica

Anonymous — Wed, 04 May 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Music student finds inspiration at the gateway to Antarctica Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/04/2022 - 00:00

Kenna Bruner

Lydia Wagenknecht was 5 when she began taking piano lessons. Although she loved the sound of the music, she wasn’t keen on practicing. So, being from Wisconsin, Wagenknecht’s mom bribed her young daughter with cheese to entice her to practice.

The strategy must have worked since Wagenknecht can now play the piano more skillfully and is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at CU Boulder’s College of Music.

“While singing in a high school choir, I realized I wanted a career as a music teacher,” she says. “Music is something I’ve always been excited about. But I’m interested in a lot of things, not just playing the piano. I’ve been interested in learning to speak Spanish, other languages, history, activism and ecotourism. I love how ethnomusicology brings so many elements together and allows me to work with people and tell stories, which is something I’m excited about.”

Ethnomusicology is the study of music in its social and cultural contexts. Wagenknecht began scholarly work in the field to delve into questions of equity, justice and ecotourism. She has even come to embrace Chilean musical activism. It all makes a good fit for combining her many interests into a cohesive career.

An initial interest in German/Chilean musical interactions from the 20th century piqued an interest in Chilean immigration in general. That interest brought the city of Puntarenas into focus; located in the southern peninsula of Chile, the city has a connection for many researchers who study weather and climate change in Antarctica.

“Punta Arenas is like an Antarctic research hub,” says Wagenkencht, recent recipient of a Fulbright Research Award to conduct research in the area. “Since the Colonial era, it’s been growing into a cosmopolitan area with people of different backgrounds coming and going, especially now since it’s a jumping-off point for travel into Antarctica.

“Musicians in Punta Arenas are becoming climate activists. The direction I’m going with my research now is looking at the many musicians who are changing their artistic focus in the wake of the evolving makeup of that area.”

In addition to her research interests around the evolving Punta Arenas musical scene, Wagenknecht is involved with Soundscapes of the People, a project of the American Music Research Center. Soundscapes is based in Pueblo, Colorado, and is being led by CU ethnomusicologists Susan Thomas and Austin Okigbo, along with CU Boulder alumna Xóchitl Chavez from the University of California, Riverside. The project is documenting the music and culture of Pueblo and the surrounding area, and will result in a digital archive of interviews and performances that will be accessible to the public through the University of Colorado Libraries. Soundscapes was recently awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Archaeological and Ethnographic Field Research program.

“Pueblo has a rich culture and history, and has a very vibrant music scene,” Wagenknecht says. “It’s a steel mining town, and that brought in workers and others from all over the world.”

As an Engaged Humanities and Arts Scholar, Wagenknecht is also collaborating with K-12 teachers in Pueblo using some of the recordings and interviews from the Soundscapes project to create materials for teachers to use in music classrooms. “I have a soft spot in my heart for K-12 music,” she says. “That’s how I got my start.”

Wagenknecht grew up in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. After graduating magna cum laude from Wisconsin Lutheran College in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in wide-range music education, she taught classroom music in Wisconsin. Wanting to teach at the college level plus a desire to live near mountains led her to CU Boulder.

In 2020, she received the Joann W. Kealiinohomoku Award for Excellence at the Rocky Mountain Music Scholars’ Conference. She is president of the Graduate Musicology Society, and has presented her work at national and regional conferences.

In her free time, she serves as a church musician, trains for ultramarathons and works on her self-described “mediocre” rock-climbing skills with her husband Austin, a graduate student in applied math at CU Boulder. He has an interest in the mathematics of music applications and signal processing.

Curiosity drives Wagenknecht. “I’m a curious person and I always want to learn more,” she says. “Doing research about Punta Arenas will allow me to use my skills, training and knowledge to do something that I feel impacts our understanding of how climate change is affecting lots of people. The Soundscapes project will disseminate musical knowledge into classrooms and for public awareness.

“I care about all of this. I care that my research will help us understand something in a more broad-based way that we didn’t understand before.”

Curiosity drives Lydia Wagenknecht, a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology and recent recipient of a Fulbright Research Award. “I care that my research will help us understand something in a more broad-based way that we didn’t understand before,” she says.

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