IU part of consortium offering 2 Music Unwound music festivals, fusing concert, humanities

Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music is one part of a national group of organizations receiving a $400,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

And now two Music Unwound festivals are forming in Indiana as part of a larger series of public programs about early 20th century classical music. To create them, Jacobs will link to IU partners, including the African American Arts Institute, Center for Rural Engagement, the department of African American and African diaspora studies and the department of comparative literature.

Music Unwound is the name of the group of organizations receiving the grant money. American music scholar Joseph Horowitz founded it in 2010. He strives to build bridges among academic institutions and communities.

Music unites people; that we know. But soon it's going to unite colleagues and departments across IU as well as throughout Bloomington, and perhaps beyond.

Halina Goldberg, chair of Jacobs' department of musicology, took charge of getting IU involved and getting others to participate in the festivals. Her enthusiasm nearly pelted the air as she talked about what's coming and why.

"We are deeply, deeply enthusiastic about bringing people together and infusing concerts with the humanities," she said in a Zoom interview. "We are using music as an opportunity to study history, to think about who we are."

The Souls of Black Folk scheduled for 2023-24

The Souls of Black Folk will be the first of the two grant-funded festivals and will take place in the 2023-24 academic year. The history of Black classical music will include William Levi Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony,” as it celebrates the music people don't usually get to hear.

But the programs are not just about accessing music that has lain hidden. Goldberg said that in both festivals we will simultaneously learn about the composers, performers, their eras and histories. Jacobs professor Arthur Fagen will conduct "Negro Folk Symphony."

Fagen's recording (on Naxos) of the Dawson “Negro Folk Symphony” was used by Joseph Horowitz in his film “The Souls of Black Folk and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music.” Horowitz, a concert producer, author and educator, approached Fagen and IU’s J. Peter Burkholder about the fact that he, Horowitz, was applying for a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. It would be for organizing mini-festivals around this and also a Charles Ives project.

A generation after Charles Ives (at the center of the second festival), William Dawson and other Black composers wrote music in the classical style that reflected Black people's lives.

"How important it is to use Dawson's symphony to start a conversation about Black history in the United States!” Goldberg said.

Who's involved in Music Unwound

Some of the other institutions in Music Unwound are Brevard Music Festival (lead partner), Chicago Sinfonietta (partnering with Illinois State University) and Blair School of Music (partnering with Vanderbilt University). Goldberg said that while others must find partners, IU is comprehensive enough to produce its part entirely in-house.

"We have the philharmonic orchestra, the choral singers and so much else."

Betsy Burleigh, chair of Jacobs' choral conducting department, was one of many colleagues whom Goldberg approached.

Jacobs' musicologist Ayana Smith also played a key role in the festivals. As department chair, as of the 2023 fall semester, Smith is organizing events relating to main stage performances.

"I am especially looking forward to opportunities for cross-campus engagement between faculty and students in Jacobs and the broader university community surrounding music by African-American composer William Dawson, whose compositions have been historically marginalized in the Western art music canon."

Additional key faculty from IU include Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, professor of African American and African diaspora studies; David Hertz, chair of the department of comparative literature; and Raymond Wise, director of the African American Choral Ensemble.

Second festival recognizes Charles Ives

The second festival will be Charles Ives’ America, during the 2024-25 academic year, as part of the 2024 Ives 150th anniversary.

"We have the foremost Ives scholar right here," Goldberg said, referring to Jacobs' J. Peter Burkholder, distinguished professor emeritus of music (musicology). Among other things, he is the author of "Charles Ives: The Ideas Behind the Music" and "All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing." He cowrote "A History of Western Music" and "Norton Anthology of Western Music."

“Charles Ives was the first composer to write classical music — symphonies, tone poems, chamber music and art songs — that spoke in a distinctively American voice and captured life in the United States by representing its people, places, holidays, literature and moments of transcendence,” Burkholder said in a press release.

This festival will, of course, include band music. "You cannot do Ives without talking about bands," Goldberg said.

"This is an exciting project for the Jacobs School of Music," said Alain Barker, Jacobs School director of music entrepreneurship and career development and senior lecturer in music (music entrepreneurship), "because it weaves together innovative research and performance, while bringing us closer to the work of our colleagues across the county."

"To know that one of the world’s leading scholars of Charles Ives — distinguished professor emeritus, J. Peter Burkholder — is right here to help with the formation of the latter project is thrilling."

What to expect at the new festivals

Both festivals will offer an invitation to discuss not only harmonies and tempos but, too, the visual arts, American modernism, swing, jazz and Harlem.

Goldberg said audiences will enjoy lectures; concerts big and small; lectures with, perhaps, concerts inserted midway through; and concerts with lectures popping in.

"It's all about relating to another human being. Such as sitting next to someone at a concert."

If you go

WHAT: Two Music Unwound festivals, one centered on Black composer William Levi Dawson, Souls of Black Folk; and the other Charles Ives' America, celebrating Charles Ives' 150th anniversaryWHEN: Dawson, 2023-24 academic year and Ives, 2024-25 academic year.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: IU part of 2 Music Unwound music festivals coming to Indiana