November 2022

Dear Friends,

In this issue I highlight some major student performances ending this semester, with the first two programs occurring on Sunday, November 13. All of those programs are in Emerson Hall in the Schwartz Center and are free, with no tickets required. The final choral programs are the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church on December 2 and 3. Tickets are required for those performances, and I assume most of you are familiar with those programs, as they have been a tradition at Emory since 1935.

As you know, the Friends of Music provides scholarships to music students, but we also fund other activities in the Music Department, including grants to faculty. It is a pleasure to have a report on that type of activity in this issue, as Meredith Schweig tells us how she used a grant from FOM to enrich her Seminar in Ethnomusicology. There are also more thank you notes from students who have received scholarship support and it is a pleasure to know that our support is so important and appreciated.

Thank you to those of you who have renewed your support for Friends of Music or are new contributors. That is so important for our continued functioning!

With best wishes,

Gray

The Chamber Ensembles concert will be a great opportunity to hear a number of different student ensembles playing a variety of music. The ensembles are coached by music faculty and artist affiliates and demonstrate the talents of our students.

In this concert, you will hear two different percussion ensembles, a cello ensemble with nine cellists (!), four different string quartets, and a piano quintet. The complete program may be seen by clicking here. The performance is free and no tickets are required.

The Collaborative Piano concert will feature four-hand piano music played by four different duos. We have many extremely talented piano students and the program is varied and interesting, so it should be a fun time for listeners. The program may be seen by clicking here. The concert is free and no tickets are required.

The combined EUSO and EWE concert has a varied program that should be a real crowd-pleaser. The program may be viewed by clicking here. Note that the EUSO ends the program with selections from The Nutcracker, which should be a fine setup for the upcoming holiday season.

One of the highlights of the program is likely to be the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major by Sergei Prokofiev with one of our music students, Colin Song, as soloist. Here is some information about Colin, illustrating the talents of our students:

Colin Song is a junior and a Robert W. Woodruff Music Scholar at Emory University. From Glenview, IL, Song attended Glenbrook South High School and was a scholarship fellow at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy—a training center for advanced pre-college musicians—where he studied piano with Ralph Neiweem. Song currently studies with Elena Cholakova and is pursuing a double major in chemistry and music.

As a soloist, Song has received awards in the DePaul Concerto Competition, Emilio Del Rosario Concerto Competition, Sejong Music Competition, and MTNA Competition. As a chamber musician and previous member of Duo Appassionato, he is a first-prize winner of the 2017 Chicago National Youth Competition for Piano Duos and was featured on WFMT’s Introductions. In 2018, Song was invited to play at the Smith Center in Las Vegas and perform on NPR’s From the Top. Song was a finalist in the 2018 MTNA Senior Piano Duet Competition, held in Orlando, Florida; a quarterfinalist at the 2019 and 2020 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; and winner of the 2020 Rembrandt Chamber Musician Competition. In 2022, he performed Carnival of the Animals with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in Chicago.

The concert is free and no tickets are required.

Note: Paul Bhasin, conductor of EUSO, is also the new music director of the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra, and got a glowing review of his leadership with DSO in ArtsAtl.

Grants from Friends of Music are used in a variety of ways to help support Music faculty and students. One of the most visible means of support is the scholarships we give to students to help with music lessons and fees. Another type of support is grants to faculty, to be used in a variety of ways to enrich the student experience. Following is a report from the faculty recipient of one of our grants.

I write to express my sincerest thanks for the FOM's support of Alex Acosta's visit to my MUS 461w class ("Seminar in Ethnomusicology: Musical Ethnography") yesterday. MUS 461w is being offered this semester in partnership with the Emory Arts and Social Justice Fellows Program (https://www.emoryasj.org/), which brings together Emory faculty and local artists working in a variety of disciplines. My partner—actor and storyteller John Doyle—and I have been working with the students on semester research projects about arts education and social justice in Atlanta. We were thrilled to host Mr. Acosta, the founder and executive director of Soul Food Cypher (https://www.soulfoodcypher.com/), a "non-profit organization that utilizes freestyle rap to transform individuals and communities." Mr. Acosta gave a riveting presentation about his life, work, and commitment to cultivating respect, responsibility, and knowledge through hip-hop, especially among members of this city's most vulnerable populations. The students and I were inspired by his descriptions of Soul Food Cypher's "Activations"—innovative site-specific performance projects designed to foster a sense of place and tradition in a rapidly changing (i.e., gentrifying) Atlanta. It was an incredibly powerful and educational session and one that none of us will forget anytime soon! 

Above is a delightful photo of the students with Alex, in the maroon sweatshirt and cap, and also John Doyle, in the black shirt and jacket. We truly appreciate the efforts of FOM to make programming like this possible in the Music Department! 

best wishes,

Meredith Schweig, PhD

Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology

The following are more of the Thank You notes we have received recently from students we support.  

Thank you so much for the generous Friends of Music Scholarship. This scholarship will support me greatly through my continued studies in vocal performance. I am more able to focus on improving as a musician and less on the financial burden. Once again, I am incredibly grateful to FOM and will use this scholarship to become a better musician.

Thanks,

Ally Mandell

Class of 2025

Thank you so much for awarding me this scholarship. Even though I am not a music major, music plays a central role in my life, giving me joy and the opportunity to connect with others who share my passion for music. The FOM award has allowed me to continue studying music, free of concerns.

Again, thank you so much!

Sincerely,

Robyn Jin

I am writing this letter to thank you and Friends of Music for your assistance in covering some of my lesson costs this semester. Your generosity has had a substantial impact on my intentions to continue to pursue my major in music performance in the semesters to come, by alleviating some of the financial burdens that I am faced with. As a low-middle income student, I depend a lot on scholarships like these to continue my education at Emory, and especially with my family back home recovering from a small financial crisis earlier this year, I am beyond grateful for your donation. Whenever I think of the hard work and numerous hours of fundraising that went into affording this scholarship, I will be motivated to continue to work hard in my music studies.

Warm regards,

A Grateful Student

Thank you for the generous scholarship for my applied music lessons. As I continue preparations for my senior honors voice recital, I am enormously grateful for the support that you have provided the last several years. I continue to love my study of music and vocal performance at Emory and am so grateful for all the opportunities that I have here.

Thank you for making this possible.

Best wishes,

Evelyn Sload

A big Thank You to those who contributed in the 2021-2022 year, and especially to those of you who have even increased your level of support or are new supporters! There is no way to thank you enough. It was the strong level of giving last year than enabled us to substantially increase our grants to music students and faculty for this year.

Much of our support for students and faculty is through grants to provide scholarships for students to help pay for required music fees, to help fund undergraduate research projects, and to provide enhancements for classes. You can see the grants we have awarded for this school year by clicking here.

A special thanks to those of you who are sustaining members, either through payroll deduction, or a continuing contribution on your credit card. After two years of asking, our donations page is finally updated to make it easy to choose to give a one-time gift or a monthly gift.

The list of members can be seen by clicking here.

Please Note: It is surprisingly difficult to generate a list of members who are current in their giving. We measure our giving year from the start of our annual campaign, which is usually in July of each year. Some members give through payroll deduction or give more than one gift per year (thank you to both!) and we want to make sure we correctly acknowledge the level of giving. We don't have a set format for how names are listed and depend on member's preference. Sometimes we make mistakes. Please let us know if you find any errors in the list of members above. You can just reply to this newsletter and we will be glad to correct any mistakes. The date that the list was updated is given at the bottom. Among other problems, we are finding that it can take several weeks for us to get news of gifts.

You can make a contribution online by clicking here.

There is literally nothing like attending live music performances! Many of us are so grateful that we can once again hear so many outstanding performances at Emory and around Atlanta. One of the unanticipated consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is that when it was not safe to gather in concert halls to hear music, music organizations spent much time and resources to make music performances available online. Those resources are continuing to be used in many cases to make livestream and recorded performances available to those who are not able to attend the performances in person.

Who are those who can benefit from livestream/recorded performances? I would say most, if not all of us can benefit. There are certainly instances in which we have wanted to attend a concert but were unable to because of various conflicts. As we age, it can become more difficult to attend concerts at night, or drive long distances. The livestream/recorded option also gives us the option of hearing music performed in distant venues.

This last point is particularly important in the Emory context. Our Emory music students come not only from all over the United States, but from many other countries as well. Their parents, friends, and relatives would certainly love to be able to hear these students perform in person, but for most of them, it is not possible to be able to come to Atlanta to hear these performances. For them, the livestream/recorded option is the only way to hear the students' performances.

It is important to understand that even with enhanced recording equipment in place, there is a significant cost in providing livestream/recordings of performances due to the resources of staff, etc., involved. Because of the excellence of the Emory performances and the benefit to the friends and supporters of Emory music, the Friends of Music is doing all we can to encourage livestream/recorded options for Emory events.



How best to view Livestream/Recorded Music

One note about these performances: One generally accesses the programs via a computer. It is likely that many of us have been watching more movies at home during the pandemic, and it is generally preferable to watch those movies on our TVs rather than on some type of mobile device. Similarly, it is much preferable to watch music programs on a large screen with good sound. The most reliable way to connect your device to a TV is via an HDMI cable (perhaps with an adapter) if both your device and the TV supports such a connection. Another method is to mirror your device screen onto your TV. There are many ways to do that. Clicking on this link will take you to an article that describes various ways to do that screen mirroring.

The Schwartz Center is the hub of most musical performances at Emory. Emerson Hall in particular has greatly enhanced capabilities for livestreaming and recording. However, the decision on what performances will be livestreamed or recorded is made individually for each performance.

Schwartz Center Virtual Stage

The Schwartz Center Virtual Stage is then entry point for livestream/recorded performances at the Schwartz Center. The WATCH AGAIN link on the page leads to a listing of recorded events that were not ticketed. At this point, it is not clear how many events during the coming year will be on this page.

Another link on the Virtual Stage link leads to a login for paid ticketed events. This includes the concerts for the Atlanta Master Chorale (see below); it is not clear what others will be included in this option.

Many student performances take place in the Performing Arts Studio and last year there was a masterful job in making many of those performances available via livestream/recording. We hope that it will be possible to do the same this year. The PAS Virtual Stage is the place where these recordings are posted and some from last year are still available (and worth viewing again!).

PAS Virtual Stage

One useful hint is that program booklets for both Schwartz and PAS performances are available at the same site.  Click here to access the program booklets.

The following organizations all have strong Emory affiliations. Their programs will generally not be listed in this newsletter, but most of them, with the exception of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, are listed in the Music at EmoryCalendar.

I assume that all of our readers are familiar with ECMSA, whose Artistic Director is Professor William Ransom. ECMSA is celebrating its 30th season this year and all of their concerts are free. I am listing them separately because ECMSA has a variety of music series, only some of which are at the Schwartz Center. The full array of their concerts can be seen on the ECMSA website.

Notes about two of the series:

Most of the Bach's Lunch Series are part of the Concerts@First series held in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. These concerts are livestreamed and are usually available for listening later.

The Masterclass Series, is back this year and is an incredible gift for our students. These masterclasses feature outstanding musicians who will teach Emory students in these classes. Moreover, our members are invited to attend these masterclasses. There are twelve masterclasses planned for this year, with an impressive array of artists involved.

The Artistic Director of the Atlanta Master Chorale is Professor of Music Eric Nelson, and the chorale is one of the finest in the country. All of their local performances are in the Schwartz Center, and there is a livestream option for concert tickets.  All purchased tickets include a link to the livestream recording for one week after the concert.  I usually view the recording at least once after attending the concert, surely a form of having one's cake and eating it too! 

Not only is the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra a great orchestra, but our students benefit greatly from the ASO, as many of the Music Department Artist Affiliates are ASO musicians.

The ASO responded to the pandemic in a very creative way, beginning a series of "Behind the Curtain" performances featuring musicians playing without an audience. The "Behind the Curtain" series has continued, featuring a selection of recorded performances from previous weeks.  

The entire ASO concert series is detailed on the ASO website. There is a lot of excitement this year as the ASO welcomes its new Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann.  Information about virtual memberships for the "Behind the Curtain" series will also soon be on the website.