Communities: South-central Indiana
Launched: 5-episode video series
Engaged: Elementary schools around rural south-central Indiana
Involved: 13 JSoM Students, 4 JSoM Faculty
Funding: A grant from the IU Center for Rural Engagement provided support. Additional funds from the Jacobs School of Music’s Office of Entrepreneurship.
Summary
The Carnival of the Animals Active Listening Project is a series of five episodes that introduce viewers to five movements from Camille Saint-Saën’s Carnival of the Animals. Each episode features a performance by students from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, along with strategies for engaging with the music in an active way. The experiences and accompanying visual materials, designed by Jacobs Professor of Music Education Brent Gault, focus on helping listeners engage with musical elements from the piece (the form, rhythmic content, and musical phrases) as they are listening. After modeling the active experiences in conjunction with the music, each episode ends with a final performance of the piece on its own.
Accompanying each episode is a lesson plan for teachers that provides the instructional goals of each experience, identifies the Indiana Music Standards (General Music K-12) that are addressed, and includes a list of procedures from the episode, suggestions for assessing skills and information, and possible ways that that activities modeled in each episode can be extended in a given music learning setting.
The recording took place at the end of October 2022 and a voice-over recording by Music Education professor Brent Gault shortly followed. Through a collaboration with film maker Garrett Poortinga of Green Hat Media, LLC, five episodes of The Carnival of the Animals Active Listening Project are being made available to elementary schools in rural communities around south-central Indiana. Inspired by a Covid-19 era conversation between a group of faculty members, Alain Barker, Brenda Brenner, and Brent Gault, the project includes accompanying lesson plans and plans are in place to release the series throughout the entire state.
Update (September 2023): The project elements have been completed and the first phase of field testing in local elementary schools has begun! The project will be released to schools as an offering from the IU Jacobs Academy.
For information on how to participate in this project, please contact Brenda Brenner, Professor of Music (Music Education), Director of the Jacobs Academy.
EPISODES
- Introduction and Royal March of the Lion
- Elephants
- The Aquarium
- Fossils
- The Swan
PRODUCTION
Curriculum Design: Brent Gault, Professor of Music (Music Education)
Narration: Brent Gault
Jacobs Academy Director: Brenda Brenner, Professor of Music (Music Education), Director of the Jacobs Academy.
Producer: Alain Barker, Director of the JSoM Office of Entrepreneurship & Career Development
Video direction and editing: Garrett Poortinga, Green Hat Media, LLC
Audio direction and editing: Garrett Treanor, Jacobs School student in audio engineering
JSoM STUDENT MUSICIANS
Xinyuan Wang, violin
Maria Cherkassova, violin
Charles Kane, viola
Sarah Dabin Baek, cello
Javier Hernandez, bass
John Sevy, percussion
Lilah Senibaldi, flute
Li-Jie Yu, clarinet
Daeun Han, piano
Ha Eun Hyun , piano
Yeonju Lee, celeste
PARTNERS AND FUNDING
IU Center for Rural Engagement
Office of Entrepreneurship & Career Development
IU Jacobs School of Music
