The Jacobs School of Music Community Impact Grants are designed to support innovative ideas in performance or research for musicians, scholars and dancers with projects that are collaborative in nature and embedded in the Bloomington community.
MEET THE 2024-25 WINNERS
FACULTY AWARD: $6,000
Natalie Boeyink, Associate Professor of Music in Jazz
Project: IU JazzGirls Day
The IU JazzGirls Day is a free event for young jazzwomen and non-binary jazzers to build camaraderie and play together when they are usually a small minority in their school’s jazz ensemble. Participants will gain mentorship from a network of professional jazzwomen in the state who perform at a high level and are modeling a career in jazz. The JazzGirls Day movement was begun in 2012 by Sarah Cline at Berkeley High school in San Francisco.
STUDENT AWARDS: Up to $2,000
Noam Niv and Francis Bassett-Dilley
Project: Jazz for CF
Jazz for CF is an innovative annual traveling jazz festival that aims to raise funds for and awareness of the Cystic Fibrosis community. This unique event combines world-class jazz performances with a powerful charitable mission, creating a vibrant community experience that celebrates music while supporting a worthy cause. The project eventually aims to create a global network within the CF community, enhancing artistic exchange and inspiring hope.
Lok Yau Lois Leong
Project: BloomingBells
BloomingBells is a one-day event that celebrates handbell choirs in Bloomington, Nashville, and Bedford churches. Focusing on one of the region’s unique musical communities, all ringers will be invited to participate in classes and workshops. The day will culminate in a massed-ring concert, presented free to the public. BloomingBells is also open to “orphan” ringers: those who know handbells but are currently not full members of a handbell choir. It aims to build community between the many ringers in and around Bloomington, and to start a lasting relationship between them in the future.
Grace McKenzie and Daixuan Ai
Ceremony for Our Land
Ceremony for Our Land is an interactive concert experience that aims to draw meaningful attention to the indigenous origins of Bloomington Indiana, and to inspire a curiosity for experiencing our shared land in powerfully new ways. A partnership with both the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington and the Bloomington chapter of Artists for Climate Awareness, the student team will work closely with IU First Nations Educations & Cultural Center. In ways similar to land acknowledgements at the beginning of public meetings, this project is designed to model culturally evocative moments that precede concert experiences.
Jack Hammersley
Bloomington Christmas Caroling Big Band
The Bloomington Christmas Caroling Big Band is a one-day extravaganza in the community with performances that are dedicated to spreading Holiday cheer for those in need. With four bands (or more) each performing four times in different locations on Sunday, December 15, the project will light up joy restaurants, community squares, and other large gathering spaces.
THE 2023-24 WINNERS
FACULTY AWARD: $6,000
Austin Hartman, Pacifica Quartet, and the graduate Balourdet Quartet
A Collaborative Broadcast Platform for the Promotion of Cultural Enrichment & Sustainability
The interactive live-streaming broadcast platform is designed to showcase research and performance while promoting and supporting cultural enrichment of public and private schools, academic institutions of higher education and presenting organizations. The project is planned to include national and international partners as they educate and inspire audiences that vary in age, culture, and socio-economic means. Through a variety of program formats including panel discussions, lecture-demonstration performances, and themed performances, the initiative will interface with curricula of partnering institutions.
STUDENT AWARDS: Up to $2,000
Robert Hurley (cello) with Anne Liao (composition)
Organic Soundscapes
Organic Soundscapes is an art installation that invites audience to consider how they perceive nature in their daily lives through video, baroque cello, improvisation, novel instruments, and audience interaction. By fabricating new electronic instruments using living plants and soil as interfaces, audience members will be invited to play during the performance, fostering a deeper engagement with the installation. A video component allows the project to be iterative, layering performances in different locations highlighting natural and built environments around Indiana. The project will partner with local institutions focused on environmental issues and creative placemaking.
Louise Kern-Kensler (brass)
Breaking the Brass Ceiling
Breaking the Brass Ceiling is a documentary that delves into the lives, stories, struggles, and triumphs of remarkable female brass musicians from diverse backgrounds. Through their personal narratives and artistic journeys, the film aims to explore the systemic challenges and barriers they face, as well as the artistic heights they aspire to achieve. The project aims to inspire, empower, and promote diversity and inclusion within the classical music community. Kern-Kensler is pursuing a dual-degree in Film at the Media School and Trombone Performance at The Jacobs School of Music.
Wes Taylor (saxophone)
Reimagining Classical Saxophone through Film and Saxophone Ensemble
The performance project fosters a connection between classical saxophone and the Bloomington community through the medium of a new saxophone ensemble. In collaboration with the Ryder Film Series, the project will present performances of a 12-member saxophone ensemble alongside three short silent films. The scores will be prepared by current members of the IU Saxophone Ensemble in collaboration with students from the Music Scoring for Visual Media department and the screening will take place at the FAR Center for the Contemporary Arts in downtown Bloomington.
THE 2022-23 GRANT WINNERS
FACULTY GRANT: $6,000
Amanda Draper
The MusiColAbility Project: IU Collaborative Learning Project
Assistant professor of music education
Establish a community outreach program that fosters collaborative music learning and creative music making between IU students and individuals with disabilities.
STUDENT GRANTS: Up to $2,000
Eliana Barwinski
The Embodiment of African American Art Song
Doctoral student in voice minoring in music education
Present African American art song, student-embodied choreographic research, and poetry recitation by Ph.D. students from the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center.
Aislin Carpenter
Conserve Bloomington
Senior in trumpet performance minoring in ethnomusicology with a certificate in arts administration
A community-integrated environmental education concert program, using creative resources from the Jacobs School of Music and scientific expertise from IU’s biology/ecology department.
Michael Klinberg
Music in Games Society Video Game Music Concert
Master’s student in music education
Create an exciting interdisciplinary platform for students and faculty of IU, as well as Bloomington community members, to express their interests for game sound in a community-centered environment.
Yabing Lyu
MOOD+
Freshman in piano performance
Explore what key factors lead to different musical tastes and how people can be motivated to accept different styles of music through writing English versions of lyrics for popular melodies from Asian countries.