The Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester and affiliated organizations are pleased to announce three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) totaling $70,000. The grantees are Eastman Performing Arts Medicine (in collaboration with the University of Rochester Medical Center); Gateways Music Festival in association with Eastman School of Music; and Eastman’s Department of Music Teaching and Learning.
Here are the specifics pertaining to each award:
Eastman Performing Arts Medicine: The grant will support updating the communication equipment used in the chapel at Strong Memorial Hospital adding a camera and microphones directly connected to the hospital television service. This will enable patients to view live programming from their rooms, which was previously impossible due to outdated and irreparable technology.
“This investment by the National Education Association is a tremendous, national recognition for UR’s Eastman Performing Arts Medicine initiative,” said URMFG CEO Michael F. Rotondo, M.D. Gaelen McCormick, Director of Eastman Performing Arts Medicine, adds, “The beautiful and historic chapel will be a place for music, dance, storytelling and spiritual services. Livestreaming the arts from our chapel to our hospital community of patients, families and staff will make a positive impact on their health and well-being.”
Eastman’s Department of Music Teaching and Learning: “Thanks to the funding provided by NEA and our respective institutions, we will compare three approaches to facilitating music creativity,” shares Alden Snell, Associate Professor of Music Teaching and Learning at Eastman. “While running this research study, entitled ‘Web-Based Measurement of Individual Students’ Creativity-Based Music Achievement,’ we will use a web application my colleagues and I developed in response to remote instruction during the COVID pandemic, providing teachers with a meaningful way to engage students in creating, performing, responding and connecting to music.”
The research team includes faculty from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia: David Stringham ‘03E, ‘07E (MM), ‘10E (PhD), Professor of Music, and Michael Stewart, Assistant Professor of Computer Science. Current Eastman doctoral candidate Benjamin Guerrero is assisting with content development for the project.
This project aligns with the team’s ongoing attempts to provide music educators with access to a free web-based platform wherein individual and student-level data can be measured in context of creating, performing, responding and connecting to music – the four artistic processes that ground national learning standards.
Gateways Music Festival in association with Eastman School of Music: The grant will support the portions of Gateways’ 2023-24 season that take place in calendar year 2023, specifically, the next festival which runs from Tuesday, October 17 through Sunday, October 22, 2023, in Rochester, NY and New York City. The Festival will release the complete schedule and artist lineup in mid-February of this year.
Gateways’ President & Artistic Director Lee Koonce said, “We are grateful for this support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Arts organizations from across the country apply for NEA grants and they are extremely competitive. Gateways’ receipt of this award is a testament to the high level of artistry of our musicians and the impact the Festival continues to make in the communities we serve.”
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects in communities nationwide,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D. “Projects such as this one with Gateways Music Festival strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice, and contribute to the health of our communities and our economy.”
For more information on other projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, totaling more than $34 million in funding, visit arts.gov/news.
Media only: Lauren Sageer, Assistant Director of Public Relations and Digital Content,
(585) 451-8492, lsageer@esm.rochester.edu
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About Eastman School of Music:
The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854–1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company. It was the first professional school of the University of Rochester. Mr. Eastman’s dream was that his school would provide a broad education in the liberal arts as well as superb musical training.
More than 900 students are enrolled in the Collegiate Division of the Eastman School of Music—about 500 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. They come from almost every state, and approximately 23 percent are from other countries. They are taught by a faculty comprised of more than 130 highly regarded performers, composers, conductors, scholars, and educators. They are Pulitzer Prize winners, Grammy winners, Emmy winners, Guggenheim fellows, ASCAP Award recipients, published authors, recording artists, and acclaimed musicians who have performed in the world’s greatest concert halls. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 900 concerts to the Rochester community. Additionally, more than 1,700 members of the Rochester community, from young children through senior citizens, are enrolled in the Eastman Community Music School.
About the University of Rochester:
The University of Rochester is one of the nation’s leading private research universities, one of only 62-member institutions in the Association of American Universities. Located in Rochester, N.Y., the University gives undergraduates exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary study and close collaboration with faculty through its unique cluster-based curriculum. Its College, School of Arts and Sciences, and Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are complemented by the Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business, Warner School of Education, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, School of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Nursing, Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and the Memorial Art Gallery.
About the University of Rochester Medical Center:
The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) forms the centerpiece of the university’s biomedical research, teaching, patient care, and community outreach missions. A leader in biomedical research, clinical care and professional education URMC and its affiliates employ more than 22,400 people.
Building on a history of breakthrough discoveries in disease prevention and medical treatment, URMC employs more than 3,000 researchers in basic, translational and clinical science. URMC is creating multidisciplinary programs of excellence in focused areas including aging, cancer, infection and immunity, musculoskeletal research, neuroscience, and RNA biology. Annual research expenditures are approximately $350 million across the University.
Operating under the “UR Medicine” brand, clinical services have grown more than 30 percent over the past four years. The six-hospital UR Medicine health system is anchored by Strong Memorial, an 846-bed, University-owned teaching hospital located on campus. Strong is the state’s only hospital outside New York City to provide liver and heart transplants, a maternal-fetal medicine program for congenital birth defects, and a range of pediatric surgical subspecialties. The system is part of an accountable care organization with 500 primary care providers and 1,500 specialists serving more than 500,000 patients across upstate New York.
About Gateways Music Festival:
The mission of Gateways Music Festival is to connect and support professional classical musicians of African descent and enlighten and inspire communities through the power of performance. Founded in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1993 by noted concert pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani, the Festival was brought to Rochester, NY in 1997 when Hummings Dumisani joined the Eastman School of Music faculty. Approximately 125 musicians—players in major symphony orchestras, faculty from renowned music schools and conservatories, and active freelance artists—participate in each Festival. In 2016, while remaining an independent non-profit organization, Gateways formalized its longtime relationship with Eastman and the University of Rochester. Among other mutual benefits, this deepened relationship provided many of the resources and infrastructure necessary for Gateways to increase its programming capacity, appoint its first paid staff position and broaden the impact that the organization has made in and beyond Rochester, New York.
In addition to the annual full-orchestra festival held in the Spring, other Gateways initiatives include a yearly chamber music festival each fall; the Daily Showcase, a social media campaign featuring a Black classical composer every day on Facebook and Instagram; the Gateways Brass Collective, the only all-Black professional brass quintet in the country; the Gateways Residency which presents renown Gateways artists in recital, master classes and community-based activities throughout the year and across the country; and, starting in January 2023, Gateways Radio, a one-hour syndicated radio program featuring Black classical artists on radio stations across the United States.