The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
September 22, 2008
To: UCLA Music Community
From: Timothy Rice, Director, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
I am delighted to welcome you all to the first full year of operation for the new UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Here are a few “headlines” I would like to make you aware of.
1. Convocation on Friday, Oct. 3, 10-11am, Schoenberg Hall We are going to celebrate our new beginning with an informal, musical version of a Convocation, the traditional ritual beginning of academic years. On Friday, Oct. 3, from 10-11 am in Schoenberg Hall, we will combine performances by student ensembles of the work of our faculty composers in Western classical music, jazz, and world music with a couple of engaging accounts of current research by our student scholars. Please plan to attend and help launch us into a bright future.
2. Mark O’Connor, Inaugural Herb Alpert Artist-in-Residence One of the exciting new programs we are initiating this year is the “Herb Alpert Artist in Residence.” Each year we will appoint one or more world-renowned artists, scholars, and other figures from the music world to bring their talent, expertise, and experience to campus for the benefit of our students. For the 2008-2009 academic year, the inaugural Herb Alpert Artist-in-Residence with be the well-known violinist and fiddler Mark O’Connor. He was selected because of his broad-ranging interests in classical music, traditional American fiddling, and jazz, interests that align perfectly with the strengths of our School. He will visit us on three occasions, once each quarter, in October, March, and May for a week each time. He will give concerts, master classes, and lectures, and work in a variety of other ways with our students and faculty. Mark will introduce himself to us in a solo recital on October 21 at 8 pm in Schoenberg Hall. Please plan to attend. If you would like to learn more about him, go to his website http://www.markoconnor.com/.
3.New Course: “Alexander Technique” Music 90P, “Alexander Technique,” will meet MF 1-3pm in Room 1343 in fall quarter and will be offered in winter and spring quarters as well. Jean-Louis Rodrique, one of its leading practitioners, will teach a physical exercise discipline designed to maximize performance, minimize physical tension, prevent injury, improve breath control, and decrease stage fright. It fits well into one of the goals of our School, namely to do what we can to maximize the physical, psychological, and intellectual health of our students. The course is open to students in all three departments of the School.
4. New course: “Internet Practicum for Musicians” Ethnomusicology 188, Lec 3, “Internet Practicum for Musicians,” will meet MW 1-3 in Room B544. Students in all three departments will to learn to design, build, and maintain their own websites as well as work on the design and maintenance of the School’s website (www.schoolofmusic.ucla.edu). They will receive instruction in basic web-design software as well as video and audio recording of interviews and concerts for inclusion in podcasts, webcasts, streaming video, and archived information. The course will be offered in all three quarters by a team consisting of an award-winning web designer, a videographer, and me. The course will also include visiting lectures from a variety of relevant disciplines (Design | Media Arts, Law, Business, Film and Television, and so forth).
5. A New Approach to Music 20ABC Music Theory Music 20ABC Music Theory will be offered all three quarters as a core course for students in all three departments. One of the two sections of faculty lectures, taught by Music Department chair and composer Roger Bourland, will implement an experimental curriculum in which all types of music (Western classical, jazz, popular, and “world”) will form the repertoire from which musicianship skills and compositional exercises are chosen. Funding from the School will allow us to teach six smallish TA-taught sections, each graded according to students’ previous training and background. This will allow us to teach in a way and at a pace appropriate to each section’s skill level. At one end of the spectrum, we will introduce carefully, slowly, and systematically the rudiments of musical notation and ear training to talented performers and intellectually gifted students with little or no background and training in music theory. At the other end of the spectrum, students with perfect pitch who can read string-quartet scores at the piano can fly speedily to new levels of understanding and creativity. We anticipate that this approach to graded sections will mean that all students have the best chance for a successful and rich learning experience in this most difficult of disciplines in schools of music.
6. Courses Related to the Music Industry The School will, over time, develop a rich series of courses, and even an undergraduate minor, related to the music industry and music technology. This fall quarter a new course for graduate students called “Music and Law” will be offered on F3-6 in Room 1421. Look for it under Music 253: Seminar: Special Topics in Composition and Theory. It will be taught by Don Franzen, a well-known lawyer for many leading performers. In winter quarter Professor Anthony Seeger, former director of Smithsonian/Folkway Recordings, will teach Ethnomus CM 182/288 Music Industry to all students in the School.
7. Student Opportunity Fund The School of Music, under the rubric “Student Opportunity Fund,” was able to provide funding for student travel and student-sponsored events during spring and summer quarters of 2008. Our ensembles traveled to Canada, Bulgaria, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Colorado. Student-sponsored events included the Ethnomusicology Undergraduate Students’ “World Fest”; the Musicology Graduate Students’ visiting lecture and conference; and Music students’ creation of a contemporary music ensemble, which gave its first performance in spring quarter. Individual students were given small awards to subsidize travel abroad to research sites, archives, and summer music camps and internships. We will have a similar funding program for summer, 2009, so keep your eye out for an announcement of the application process.
8. Scholarships and Fellowships For the 2008-2009 academic year, the first Herb Alpert Scholarships were awarded. The amount of $50,000 was allocated to each of the three departments for use according to their priorities. In most cases they were used to recruit the best applicants to our degree programs.
These are some of our headlines at this point, the beginning of our first full year of operation. Keep your eyes open for new developments as the year progresses by going to our website,www.schoolofmusic.ucla.edu. We will keep you posted. It is going to be an exciting year, and I hope you will be able to take advantage of our new courses and the wide variety of innovative and entertaining concerts, lectures, and master classes that we all can anticipate this year.
Have a great year!