Dean Mark Wait

This issue of the Quarter Note goes to the very heart of what we do at the Blair School, and why we exist: our students. In these pages, we will focus on the critical moments in the lives of Blair students, from their auditions for admission to their professional lives after graduation. You will also learn why we emphasize chamber music in our undergraduate curriculum, and how that emphasis contributes to greater musicianship generally, and to the training of seasoned professionals. In addition, you will learn about one example of what makes life at the Blair School quite special: the opportunities for our students to encounter intensive experiences that are rarely found at other institutions. In this case, that experience will be the performances and seminars around the music of John Cage, whose centenary is being observed this year, with choreography from former dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which is being disbanded following Cunningham’s death. It is a wonderful opportunity for our students and audiences to witness a fusion of music and dance that is already both historical and contemporary.

In all these activities, our primary focus is on students—preparing them for lives in music, whether as professionals or as amateurs in the best, literal sense of that term. It is affirming to see that Blair training and a Vanderbilt education have served both types of students well. The breadth of education is important. As you may know, the Blair School is one of the few schools of music where students are encouraged (by their dean, anyway) to pursue a double major. I like to say that they have the best of two worlds at Blair: the intensity of conservatory training and the breadth of a superb liberal arts education. As you will see in these pages, that combination has served alumni Bzur Haun and Jonathan Chu very well.

Ultimately, of course, a focus on students is really about the future: preparing the artists, scholars, and composers of the mid-21st century, and therefore creating still-evolving art forms. That is an exciting and noble mission, one that we at Blair embrace with enthusiasm and fervor.

Mark Wait, Dean and Professor
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

First, Jane and Frank Kirchner have retired from teaching at Blair. Jane taught flute at Blair for more than 40 years, and Frank was our saxophone instructor for many years. They provided expertise and inspiration to generations of Blair and Vanderbilt students, upholding the highest standards and guiding the Blair School in its dramatic progress. Now they will pursue their love of traveling and spending time with their grandsons. Although we will miss them terribly, we have the consolation of knowing that they will continue to live in Nashville and plan to attend events at Blair.

In addition, Cynthia Estill and Cassie Lee, who have taught bassoon and clarinet, respectively, in our collegiate program for more than 20 years, are making the transition to our Pre-college Program, which was the foundation of the Blair School and continues to be our anchor. Our pre-college students will be fortunate to have the benefit of their wisdom and expertise.

Joining the faculty of our collegiate program will be Brian Utley, adjunct associate professor of saxophone; Philip Dikeman, associate professor of flute; and Bil Jackson, associate professor of clarinet. You can read more about them in this issue. They join the Blair School as the result of extensive (and highly competitive) national searches. We are delighted to have these wonderful artists joining the Blair family.

I should add that we have an outstanding new class of 57 first-year students at Blair. These students continue a trend of the Blair School’s upward trajectory, a trend that confirms the artistry and dedication of our excellent faculty.

There are other transitions, as well. After helping lead the transformation of the Blair School as chair of the KeyBoard for the past 16 years, Martha Rivers Ingram has stepped down. We are presenting a special concert in honor of Mrs. Ingram on September 18. I am pleased to announce that Nashville attorney Jim Harris, JD’67, now serves the KeyBoard as chairman, and we welcome him and his leadership in the coming years.

Mark Wait, Dean
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

For some years already, Blair students have been able to spend a semester abroad in Vienna and Sydney, and we have recently added Amsterdam as a place where they can live, study and earn academic credit—all while paying Vanderbilt tuition. We are now working on developing musical opportunities in Aix-en-Provence, where the Vanderbilt-in-France program affords academic excellence in conjunction with the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud, a government-supported music conservatory.

Our international profile has assumed another important dimension in Costa Rica, where Blair is working with the Sistema Nacional de Educación Musical (SiNEM) to help train teachers who work with students throughout the country. Nearly all of these students are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and music proves to be a lifeline for many of them. During the coming year, five Blair faculty members will travel to Costa Rica, working with the teachers and students there. In addition, two Blair students will work with SiNEM. In February, four SiNEM instructors were in residence at the Blair School for three weeks. SiNEM is in its infancy, but it already holds extraordinary promise for the future of these students and of music generally. It is a privilege for Blair to play a role in this great effort.

Elsewhere in this issue, you will read of the achievements and important work of our alumnae Blythe Bonnaffons and Amanda Earnest. Their work in Egypt and Afghanistan represents a new dimension for Blair—one that will expand dramatically in the coming years.

Mark Wait, Dean
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

Next year, the Blair School will observe the 25th anniversary of the inception of its collegiate program leading to the bachelor of music degree. Among music schools, that is relatively young, and such youth carries a number of advantages.

To begin with, one can readily measure a young school’s progress, for much of it occurred while current faculty members were there. Indeed, it is those very faculty members who are responsible for this progress and for the quality we have achieved.

This is particularly true of Blair’s voice program, which is featured in this issue of the Quarter Note. In recent years, this program and department have enjoyed dramatic progress and success. There are many reasons for this success, but let me cite one especially.

From the time Professor Jonathan Retzlaff came to Vanderbilt in 1997 as chair of the voice department, he was determined to raise the standards of the department (and, by extension, at the Blair School) by accepting only those students who were highly qualified. He was not concerned with meeting any arbitrary enrollment quota. Rather, he rightly saw that the department could make progress only if it adhered to the highest standards. As a result, the voice program at Blair immediately saw dramatic improvement in its voice students, and with the inspired teaching of the voice faculty, those students attained remarkable achievements during their four years at Vanderbilt. They have been accepted into many of the finest graduate programs in the nation.

It was only two years after Professor Retzlaff joined the Blair School that another important milestone in our history was achieved: the construction of our expanded facilities, including the magnificent Martha Rivers Ingram Center for the Performing Arts, whose 10th anniversary we celebrate this year. These improvements—one academic, one physical—have enabled Blair to present such fully staged operas as The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, and to achieve a higher level of quality that benefits our students and the entire community.

Mark Wait, Dean
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

In October, the faculty of the Blair School of Music approved the first major revision of our core curriculum for music majors since the inception of the collegiate program in 1986. This marks a major milestone in the Blair School’s evolution and continuing maturation.

It is really more accurate to say that the curriculum was overhauled rather than revised. When the planning committee that developed the new curriculum was organized in 2005, I asked them to consider not merely what changes we might make to the existing courses, but rather what today’s students will need to know—and be able to do—in 2030. In other words, what skills and knowledge will they need when they are at the point in their careers that we, the faculty, are right now?

Over the past four years, the planning committee and the faculty discussed these questions carefully and thoughtfully. For many of us, meeting the needs of the future meant that we had to distill the most essential features of what we had learned of the past. This can be (and often was) a wrenching exercise, for we were sometimes forced to turn our backs on concepts or repertoire that had been part of us for many years. On the other hand, it was bracing and exciting to learn of global developments and new horizons that have changed the world we inhabit and to develop ways of sharing that with our students.

The planning committee finally decided upon new curricula and approaches in three vital areas: music theory and musicianship (aural skills), music history and ensembles/chamber music. You will read of these changes in future issues of the Quarter Note. Meanwhile, this issue describes the new approach we are taking in musicianship under the dynamic leadership of its new director, Marianne Ploger, who joined the faculty in fall 2008.

The skills that Marianne and her associates, Joshua McGuire and David Williams, teach to our students are far-reaching and essential to continued music study and professional success. These outstanding faculty members have brought a thrilling vitality to their classes. Marianne has already captured national attention with her methods and success.

Thanks to Marianne and our other dedicated faculty members, the Blair School is maintaining its exciting trajectory. As readers of the Quarter Note know, we have made dramatic progress in recent years, and the new core curriculum for music majors marks a further advance, one in which our faculty, students and friends can take great pride.

Mark Wait, Dean
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

Dean Mark Wait

This issue of the Quarter Note features a broad range of subjects reflecting both the achievements and expanded mission of the Blair school.

You have read in previous issues of the Blair Commissioning Project, funded by the James Stephen Turner Family Foundation, which is producing major works for the school’s leading chamber ensembles. This issue deals with one of the most ambitious commissions: Susan Botti’s Gates of Silence, composed for the members of the Blakemore Trio. As I write this, the work is approaching completion. Plans have been made for the Nashville premiere performance in February 2010, and the subsequent New York premiere will take place at Merkin Hall in March. Gates of Silence already promises to transcend several boundaries of the traditional piano trio, and we anticipate its rehearsals and performances with special pride and great pleasure.

Just as our faculty are creating and performing the music of the future, so are our students extending the art of music into parts of the community that might not otherwise have access to instruction and performance. The W. O. Smith Music school in Nashville holds special importance, for its faculty teach entirely on a volunteer basis. Students and faculty from the Blair School are an essential part of this mission; it affords us the opportunity to give back to the art form which has nourished us for many years. I hope that you will derive the inspiration from this article that we have felt at the W. O. Smith school and in other ventures.

Finally, I hope you will read carefully of the achievements of our students—both collegiate majors and alumni of the pre-collegiate program. They have distinguished themselves in a remarkable array of accomplishments which clearly demonstrate the degree to which music itself, and its place in the world, have been transformed in recent years. These are all signs of an art form and a school that are vitally and integrally involved not merely in preserving the monuments of the past, but in creating a bold future that will guide, instruct and inspire generations to come.

Mark Wait, Dean
Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair

There is another element to music, however—its actual creation. Of course, the Blair School, like most schools of music, has several wonderful composers on its faculty, and we take great pride in their work. Three years ago, however, we decided to commission works for three of our finest ensembles—the Blair String Quartet, the Blair Woodwind Quintet, and the Blakemore Trio—from nationally and internationally renowned composers. With funding from the James S. Turner Family Foundation, these commissions are becoming a reality. In addition, the Dean’s Office is funding commissions of solo works for several of our individual faculty members at Blair.

These commissions are vitally important for several reasons. First, of course, they culminate in the creation of musical works that expand and enrich the repertoire. Too often, we concentrate on music of the past while ignoring the fact that engaging new works is part of our work as artists and musicians. Secondly, these new works will bring attention to the Blair School and its excellent performing faculty, who will become the proponents of these works. All of these works will be performed not only at Vanderbilt University, but at important musical centers elsewhere. Finally, by making possible the actual creation and performance of these new works, we are reminded of the importance of music as a means of expression, as an art form in itself. And that, ultimately, is the very reason we exist as artists and as a school of music.

Dean Mark Wait