The Caswell Family Scholarship provides scholarship support for a graduate student in the Department of Musicology in the Jacobs School of Music. It was established in 2006 to celebrate the many connections family members Austin, Judith, Rachel and Sara have to Indiana University.
Austin was Professor of Musicology at IU’s Jacobs School of Music from 1966 until his retirement in 1996 and served as Chair of the Musicology Department for several years. He also taught for the IU Honors College (1973-2006) and IU’s Intensive Freshman Seminar Program. He was a devoted teacher, referred to by many students as “my favorite professor,” and was recognized for his teaching with IU’s Herman Frederic Lieber Memorial Award in 1996.
Judith was an Associate Instructor for the IU Music Theory and Musicology Departments in the 1970’s as well as a piano accompanist for the IU String Academy (2006-2020).
Rachel and Sara both attended IU on full scholarship as Wells Scholars, and while working toward their respective degrees in the Jacobs School of Music, performed in a multitude of musical settings. Rachel has also worked for Indiana University in a number of capacities and presently serves as an Adjunct Lecturer for the IU Jacobs School of Music.
Academic achievement has been an underlying value of the Caswell family. Judith, Rachel, and Sara each graduated Valedictorian of their respective high school classes. Austin earned a BA in History from Amherst College (1953) and M.A. and Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Minnesota (1957 and 1964). Judith has degrees in organ from Wheaton College (BM, 1962) and the University of Minnesota (MFA, 1967) and an MA and PhD in Musicology from the University of Minnesota (1964 and 1973). Rachel completed her BM in Cello Performance and Jazz Studies at Indiana University (1995) and an MM in Jazz Voice at the New England Conservatory of Music (1998). Sara earned a BM in Violin Performance and Jazz Studies and an AD in Violin Performance at Indiana University (2000 and 2002) and an MM in Jazz Arts from the Manhattan School of Music (2006).
The Caswell family has exemplified a lifelong love of performing and teaching music.
Austin and Judith were born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They met in 1965, eloped in 1966 and moved that year to Bloomington, Indiana, where Austin joined the Indiana University Music Faculty. Prior to that move, he held teaching positions at Vermont Academy and the University of Minnesota General College. Austin’s early years as a choirboy instilled in him his lifetime love of sacred choral music. He served as Music Director for several churches including the Wayzata Community Church in Minneapolis (1961-1966) and the First United Church in Bloomington (1966-1971).
Following college graduation, Judith was on faculty at Northwestern College in Minneapolis (1962-1966) and taught piano lessons for many years in both Minneapolis and Bloomington. She served as organist at Trinity Covenant Church in Minneapolis (1962-1966) and First United Church in Bloomington (1967-1971) where she and Austin led a highly successful choral program of four choirs and many instrumentalists. In recent years Judith has remained musically active as a piano accompanist for the IU String Academy.
Rachel Caswell began her musical journey as a classical cellist, eventually finding her true path as a jazz vocalist. During her developmental years she took both classical cello and jazz lessons, the latter with IU jazz pedagogue David Baker. She performed in a variety of musical settings including school orchestras (cello), concert band (oboe), marching band (drum line and drum major), and jazz bands and combos (piano) as well as playing cello in the family trio for weddings. As winner of the Indianapolis Symphony concerto competition, she soloed with the ISO in 1992. As a professional jazz vocalist, Rachel has performed concerts and conducted clinics at colleges and universities nationwide as well as doing numerous club dates and several appearances for the conferences of the International Association for Jazz Education/Jazz Education Network. She has often performed with her sister Sara as The Caswell Sisters, including a series of after-hour sets at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola” in New York City as part of the 2008 Women in Jazz Festival. Rachel has recorded three notable jazz vocal albums as a leader, and she and Sara produced a highly-praised album, Alive in the Singing Air (2013), with pianist and composer Fred Hersch. Over the years she has shared a musical partnership with bassist Jeremy Allen who is featured on her album of duos, All I Know (2015), which also highlights her collaboration with guitarist Dave Stryker. Rachel currently teaches music courses and jazz voice lessons at Indiana University.
Sara Caswell began classical violin lessons at IU at age 5 and progressed quickly. She won many competitions and awards in the following years, during which time she also took jazz and Baroque violin lessons, performing in multiple musical settings of orchestras, bands, combos, and family trio. Sara studied several years with Josef Gingold, and in 2002 she was the first Indiana-born violinist chosen to participate in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis that he had helped found in 1982. Since moving to New York City in 2004, Sara has focused primarily on jazz violin, teaching and presenting concerts, master classes, and university residencies nationwide as well as touring internationally with many well-known jazz artists such as Esperanza Spalding. She has performed as a featured artist in Carnegie Hall and is a member of the New York Pops Orchestra. She was featured on the cover of Strings Magazine in 2014 and has been recognized in Downbeat Magazine’s Critics’ and Readers’ Polls every year since 2013, winning the “Rising Star-Violin” category in the Critics’ Poll of 2017. Her teaching career includes many years on faculty at Berklee College of Music in Boston and Manhattan School of Music as well as the New School and New York University and many private students. She has released two albums under her own name and contributed to over 50 albums, collaborating with jazz artists such as Brad Mehldau, Linda May Han Oh, and the WDR Big Band. In 2018 Sara received a Grammy nomination in the category “Best Improvised Jazz Solo” for her work with Chuck Owen & The Jazz Surge.