Keslie Pharis awarded 2021 Austin B. Caswell Award

Congratulations to Jacobs School of Music student Keslie Pharis whose paper entitled “The English Anthem from the Reformation to the Restoration: The balancing of Catholic and Puritanical influences in English church music” was awarded the 2021 Austin B. Caswell Award. 

The essay, submitted for M401 History and Literature of Music I, addresses the English anthem as the musical middle ground between Catholicism and Protestantism following England’s separation from the Vatican. Amidst staunch Puritanical reformers and lingering Catholic influence in the sixteenth century and beyond, the Anglican anthem musically merged these two traditions in beautiful and theologically appropriate forms. “The English Anthem from the Reformation to the Restoration” explores the background, definition, and purpose of the anthem and discusses compositional examples by Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons, and Henry Purcell.

Keslie Pharis is graduating this spring from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with a B.M. in oboe performance under the instruction of Linda Strommen. Recently, she has performed with the IU New Music Ensemble, New Voices Opera, and the IU Chamber and Symphony Orchestras. At the Jacobs School, she also serves as a Project Jumpstart Student Affiliate and as the President of Classical Connections, organizing and performing outreach concerts and facilitating mentorship of local middle school and high school musicians. In the fall, she will be attending The University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Paul J. Collins Distinguished Graduate Fellow to pursue her M.M. in Oboe Performance.

AUSTIN B. CASWELL

The Austin B. Caswell Award was established in 1998 in honor of Caswell, a devoted teacher and member of the musicology faculty at Indiana University from 1966 until his retirement in 1996. Each spring, the award recognizes the best undergraduate music history projects submitted at the Jacobs School.

Caswell was born in Minneapolis, MN, the son of Austin B. Caswell Sr. and Corice Woodruff Caswell. A graduate of West High School (Minneapolis, 1949), Caswell received his B.A. in History from Amherst College (1953), and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Minnesota (1957, 1964).

His early years of teaching included the Vermont Academy and the University of Minnesota General College. But the bulk of his teaching career was as Professor of Musicology at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music (1966-1996) where he served as Chairman of the Musicology Department for several years. He also taught for the IU Honors College (1973-2006) and the IU Intensive Freshman Seminar program.

A lifetime choral musician, Caswell also served as Music Director for several churches including Wayzata Community Church (Minneapolis, MN, 1961-1966) and First United Church (Bloomington, IN, 1966-1971).