|
In keeping with its commitment to a broad-based education, the Music Department began offering a Jazz Studies Program this year, culminating five years of planning.
Now students with a primary interest in jazz can receive a degree in that discipline. Scholarships also are available. “I’m excited about this because, like folk, mariachi and Native American music, jazz is an integral part of who we are as a society,” says Steve Block, department chair.
Block also is excited about the collaborative possibilities provided by the new Arts in Americas Institute and Arts Technology Center, both of which will further expand the musical exposure of students and faculty. Already last December, Professor Jorge Perez Gomez conducted the UNM Orchestra in a concert of works by Mexican composer Sivestre Revueltas. He hopes to take the presentation, which includes a multimedia slide presentation, to Mexico and El Paso later this year.
“I believe in a liberal arts model of education,” Block says. “The more a person knows and is aware of their surroundings, the more they bring to their art.” As part of this philosophy, Block hopes to build on the transfer of the mariachi program to the Music Department. Currently, the program receives only part-time funding, supporting one part-time professor. Block wants to include the discipline into current school outreach programs and expand the college’s sole Mariachi performance ensemble, Mariachi Lobo, into a beginning and an advanced group.
Also this year, the department worked out the final details for a new string pedagogy program, which will become official in the next academic year. “The idea of the program is not to learn to become a major performer, but to become a major string teacher, in a private setting as well as in schools,” says Block. Albuquerque Public Schools, for example, is in dire need of music teachers, and the most difficult group to keep going is the orchestra. “This is a way to bring string teaching back into APS,” he says.
A different kind of commitment came in this year’s renovation of two rehearsal rooms and creation of a new student lounge. Access to this area requires a proper identification card, making students feel more secure. “When we do things like this, it says to everybody that we believe in ourselves and our unique program,” says Block. “The lounge provides a special place to congregate and exchange ideas, as opposed to walking through the halls. It’s important for how we view ourselves.”
The UNM Wind Symphony viewed itself in a new light this year when it recorded a compact disk with trombonist Joseph Alessi and trumpet player Philip Smith, members of the New York Philharmonic. Eric Rombach-Kendall, UNM’s director of bands, was conductor for the CD, entitled Fandango.
|
