Two new initiatives available to students applying for fall 2023 enrollment will offer grant and fellowship funding to contribute to the excellence and diversity of graduate programs at the Peabody Conservatory.

Applicants for the Master of Music are encouraged to consider the new Pathways to DMA program. As part of the larger Johns Hopkins Pathways to PhD initiative, the Pathways to DMA aims to expand opportunities for applicants from backgrounds historically underrepresented in the DMA. Peabody will provide grant funding for two students each year to begin in the MM with a defined and supported pathway for matriculation to the DMA. Students in the Pathways to DMA program will receive full tuition and a stipend for four years—two years in the MM and two years in the residency portion of the DMA.

In addition, new Graduate Jazz fellowships will cover full tuition plus a stipend for MM or GPD students in the Jazz program. Fellowships will be granted to up to three students per year. Fellows will work closely with Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz Studies Sean Jones and, in addition to their studies, will perform together as an ensemble on campus and throughout the greater Baltimore community.

Applications for fall 2023 enrollment in all Peabody Conservatory programs are now open.

Peabody’s academic year began last week with a special day-long orientation for our faculty. These sessions are generally an opportunity to accomplish some business as we enjoy each other’s company, and also ramp up for the new year. This year’s session was all that, but also had a special aura because of our guest speaker. Awadagin Pratt has enjoyed a decades-long career as a concert pianist and teacher, and now has established himself as a powerful voice in what it means to be Black in America, a presentation he first prepared for the higher education division of the Gates Foundation. Awadagin also happens to be a distinguished Peabody alumnus with the unique distinction of being the first alum to have earned degrees in three different performance areas at Peabody, in piano, composition, and conducting. He was a trailblazer then and is now. But it’s more than that. In his presentation at Peabody’s faculty orientation, he gave a stark account of his multiple experiences being stopped by police for “DWB”—Driving While Black—chronicling his life from his days as a music student in Baltimore decades ago through his artistic rise where he has regularly enjoyed playing on many of the world’s great stages. This presentation, interspersed with musical performances, was at once gripping and horrifying, and a master class in resilience. I walked away from hearing his experiences feeling as if no one should endure what he endured, and yet he had no choice. He wasn’t afraid to say he was angry then and is angry today, inviting our faculty to discuss in their afternoon breakout sessions what it must be like for others who didn’t necessarily have his connections or stature, and were routinely subjected to the same treatment.

As I listened to Awadagin’s story, I was reminded of why racism and diversity are existential issues for the classical performing arts. The history of exclusion in the field, coupled with the demographic tidal wave that will make shrinking audiences shrink even more if we don’t change the face of our performers and our audiences, make it so. Awadagin’s presentation underscored the importance of the work that we are committed to doing at Peabody today to change the field from a historically narrow and exclusionary club, to a field where the range of creative voices is as broad and diverse as the world itself, and highlighted why this may be our central task. And while I understand that Awadagin’s experience transcends his chosen field, and is obviously a common experience for Blacks in America, especially Black men, it did reinforce for me what we must do to change our field and in that way, change a piece of the world.

I am grateful to Awadagin Pratt for his powerful voice and courage in helping me and other white colleagues stand in his shoes.

Sincerely,

Fred Bronstein, Dean

University of Cincinnati Professor of Piano Awadagin Pratt (PC '89, Piano; PC '89, Violin; GPD '92, Conducting) blends memory and music in the indelible Black in America. At its core is a devastating juxtaposition of narratives—Pratt’s own experiences being stopped by cops and an 11-minute film montage of representations of Blacks in American media imagery over the past century—bookended by Pratt performances, including the sublime “Praise to the Immortality of Jesus” movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. The Center for Advanced Study in Urbana, IL, presents Black in America in the Lincoln Hall Theater; tickets are available online.

Baltimore native and Johns Hopkins Professor of English and History Lawrence Jackson started the Billie Holiday Jazz Concert at Lafayette Square in 2019 to memorialize a legend who lived in West Baltimore as a kid, as noted in his 2022 memoir Shelter. Peabody jazz faculty have been part of this musical effort from the start; this year drummer and Jazz Lecturer Nasar Abadey leads an ensemble featuring Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair of Jazz Studies Sean Jones, trumpet, Assistant Professor Richard D. Johnson, piano, and Dance Lecturer Brinae Ali, along with bassist Herman Burney, vocalist Navasha Daya, and spoken word artist Lady Brion. The free concert takes place in Lafayette Square Park at West Lafayette and North Arlington in Baltimore.

Her Story, composer Julia Wolfe’s new work celebrating women who’ve battled for equality from America’s beginnings, initially grew out of conversations between Wolfe and Beth Willer, Peabody’s Director of Choral Studies and founding member of the Lorelei Ensemble, about commemorating the centenary of the 19th Amendment in 2020. Pandemic delayed, this theater piece for orchestra and women’s vocal ensemble arrives as women continue that fight for equality. Her Story receives its world premiere by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, one of the five co-commissioning orchestras, with the Lorelei Ensemble at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center; tickets are available online.

Soprano Bonnie Lander (MM ’07, GPD ’08, Voice; GPD ’09, Computer Music) opens the 24th annual High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music with a solo set September 15. Lander, Samuel Burt (MM ’05, Composition), Sarah Manley (’17, Trombone), and James Young (DMA ’14, Composition) are among the 22 musicians/artists coming to Baltimore for this inspired and consistently rewarding festival. Performances take place at the Theatre Project and tickets can be purchased online.

Peabody Professor and Director of Graduate Conducting Marin Alsop leads the London Philharmonia Orchestra through a pair of programs over the month’s last weekend. On Thursday Alsop is joined by cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason for Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan, Joseph Haydn’s cello concertos No. 1 and No. 2, and Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé Suite No. 2 at the Royal Festival Hall, while on Friday Maestra Alsop leads the orchestra through Jessie Montgomery’s Strum, Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 at Windsor Castle. Tickets for both the September 29 and September 30 concerts are available online.

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Peabody Notes highlights select off-campus performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody Conservatory Facebook page.