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Natasha Kolchevska, 277-7363 |
October 1, 2001
UNM WINS GRANT TO EXPLORE OPERA, RUSSIAN CULTURE
25 high school teachers to be recruited for 2002 national summer institute
UNM Associate Professor Natasha Kolchevska has won a National Endowment for
the Humanities (NEH) grant to conduct a national institute exploring the music
and performance of Tchaikovsky's opera, Eugene Onegin, and its relation to Russian
culture. The premise and outcomes of the institute will help create a national
model.
The $122,772 grant will fund an interdisciplinary, four-week institute for
25 high school teachers at UNM in summer 2002, directed by Kolchevska, faculty
in the UNM Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures since 1978.
The teachers will make several trips to the Santa Fe Opera (SFO) to attend
performances of Eugene Onegin and take part in backstage seminars led by Andrea
Roberts, SFO education director.
The institute, "Opera, Giving Voice to Culture: Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin,"
will offer "direct and personal contact with opera as a lens for examining
Russian society and culture in the 19th century, and its enduring, and at times
problematic legacy, into the 20th," says Kolchevska.
"The back stage seminars are crucial to show teachers how performance
can be primary source material," says Kolchevksa, adding that a tour of
the Fechin Institute in Taos is also planned to give participants a look at
one of Russia's premier émigré painters and a turn of the century
working studio.
Institute faculty will include scholars from UNM's programs in Russian Studies
and music, including Richard Robbins and Karl Hinterbichler, as well as visiting
specialists in art history and music of Tchaikovsky's era. The teachers selected
will bring insights from varied interests and backgrounds.
Each week of the institute will be organized around an interdisciplinary topic
such as culture and its many forms. Teachers will focus on two texts that span
a fifty-year period from the 1820s to the 1870s - Alexander Pushkin's novel
in verse "Eugene Onegin" and Tchaikovsky's opera with libretto by
Konstantin Shilovsky - both a part of Russia's social fabric.
"Opera cannot only move our hearts and touch our spirits, but also serve
as a portal to understanding Russian culture," Kolchevska says. "As
with Verdi, Mozart and Wagner, Tchaikovsky is instantly recognized as the voice
of his era and his nation."
The status of visiting scholar will be extended to each of the teachers who
will have full access to UNM libraries and research centers including the Center
for Institutional Research and Technology.
The institute web site will feature a digital album and chat room to help bring
teachers' experiences to their students and peers. At the institute's close,
the site will be linked to Opera America, a national advocacy group for opera,
and include a compilation
of the institute's content and pedagogy. Examples of classroom implementation,
curriculum development and student work will be displayed online. Opera America
will also disseminate information about the project through its education programs.
The teachers, who will come from high schools across the nation, will be encouraged
to partner with nearby operas and their education departments.
Kolchevska, past chair of the UNM Russian Studies Program and a widely published
scholar and translator has won numerous grants and awards. In 1996, she participated
in an NEH seminar for college teachers on gender in Russian culture and society
at Amherst College.
Terry Beckmeyer, a high school arts teacher from New Haven, MO, will serve
as associate director for the institute.
Teachers will receive a $2,800 stipend to cover expenses and will be housed
in the new UNM student dorms.
K-12 teachers and librarians who instruct or mentor students in the humanities are eligible to apply to the institute. Call 505-277-7363 for information.
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