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Indiana Alumni Magazine

Ever Relevant

Jacobs School of Music is poised to be a "shaping force" in the cultural life of America

At the turn of the decade, IU’s renowned School of Music was struggling financially. A budget deficit of close to $2 million threatened to overpower the model established by former IU President Herman B Wells, BS’24, MA’27, LLD’62, and former deans Wilfred Bain, DM Hon’81, and Charles Webb, DM’64. After the resignation of David Woods, who led the school for a little more than two years, Gwyn Richards took over as interim dean in December 1999. He was appointed dean on a permanent basis in July 2001. Five years later, in an interview with Indiana Alumni Magazine Editor Mike Wright, BA’78, Richards reflected on the current status of the school and its future.

MW: How would you rate these first five years as dean? What are some of the highlights?

GR: Financially is probably the biggest difference from five years ago. With the Jacobs gift ($40.6 million from the family of David, BS’47, and Barbara Jacobs, BS'48, LHD’00) and the support from the university, we’re OK. We haven’t solved every issue before us, but we have bettered a number of things. The Jacobs gift has allowed us to contemplate planning well into the future. We’re looking ahead to 2020. It’s really exciting to think that long term.

Five years ago there was a question about the faculty and what was possible in the way of attracting faculty to Bloomington from the profession — would we be able to do that as we needed new faculty? I think the profession has been surprised at the interest those in the music profession have for Bloomington. I think they look at us and wonder how does a non-urban area attract the people that we have? Aand they have been numerous, starting with André Watts, Arnaldo Cohen, Sharon Robinson, Jaimie Laredo, Carol Vaness, Mark Kaplan, Marietta Simpson, and this next year Alex Kerr comes from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. So many have joined us in these last two years, it really has made a statement to the profession that Bloomington is a viable community for professional artists.

There are many reasons for that. One is the university. We are a school of music in a university setting. We’re awfully glad. The conservatory was the old model that was borrowed from Europe, so when America started educating musicians, particularly on the East Coast, they borrowed the European model of putting performance in a conservatory and scholarship in a university. But when music education came to the Midwest, they came together in a university. That was the Midwest’s great contribution to the study of music. We are at the right place at the right time, in a community and a state that has a set of values that appreciates this. In Bloomington, there’s no separation between the professional and the student. We are very fortunate to influence the cultural life of a broad geographic area, and there’s no distinction between the professional and what happens in the academy. And we also have the benefit of our faculty being full time and residential, unlike a lot of urban schools where the faculty are part time. That’s atypical.

MW: When you were appointed in 2001, you had served as interim dean for 18 months. A primary goal was eliminating a budget deficit. How did you get it under control, starting even while you were interim dean?

GR: With the university’s help, and with the understanding and patience of faculty and staff. We had to eliminate nine positions. Jan. 4, 2000, was an enormously difficult day for us, and I’d have to say the lowest day we’ve had. It was the beginning of trying to eliminate the deficit, and the university provided great guidance and wisdom on how to handle it. We were able to climb out of it, and I think the November announcement of the Jacobs gift was an incredible swing. The distance one traveled from Jan. 4, 2000, to Nov. 17, 2005 — those two specific dates, landmark dates in our history — demonstrate the place to which we have come.

In 2000 there were lots of questions about us, questions we were asking about ourselves about where we were going and how serious the situation was. Now the questions are different. The questions now are about our future and how we want to be increasingly relevant in the American culture and the means by which we are going to take to get there. Knowing how basic and fundamental the questions were in 2000, and how visionary and future-driven the questions are now, I can tell you that no one takes for granted the ability and the opportunity to have the chance to contemplate those questions. We’re very grateful for the opportunity to change the set of questions we now face.

MW: That seems like just one example of the kinds of pressure you face. Heading one of the highest profile units in the university, how do you deal with that and keep things running?

GR: You have the feeling that what you do matters. I take that as an asset. You could, in this day and age, work in the arts and with entertainment being so dominant in our culture, you could feel that what you do doesn’t matter. Yet we get the opportunity to have the feeling that what we do does matter. That is a great place of departure. It leads us to a different quality of life as artists in a community that cares, in a university that sees the role of the arts and humanities. We don’t take that for granted for one minute, because many of us have been places where that’s not been the case. But Indiana has always been special about that from the era of Chancellor Wells working so closely with Wilfred Bain to make certain that the arts were going to be a central aspect of life at this campus and in this community. On the other hand, we do feel there is pressure to make certain we’re doing well. But that’s OK. The good thing is we’ve got 160 very well connected full-time faculty, and if we need to get something done, we can get it done. The faculty know the players in the profession; they come from the profession. That’s one of the great assets of this faculty — they’ve had professional careers on the stage, in the recording studios, or in classrooms around the world. As a result, they can help make things happen. So when we decide to do something, it’s rare that we are not able to do it. Plus there are about 70 staff who are completely devoted to this institution and to serving the needs of the faculty and students.

MW: How is the school coping with the plane crash in April that killed five promising students?

GR: The suddenness of this incident was a shock to everyone. The immediate loss of all these students was the first and upsetting aspect of it. But then there was the realization that the students, who were on the verge of entering the profession, now were not going to do so. And so, what was anacrucic had become cadential, and it’s been very difficult for everyone to accept that, to get their mind around the notion that it’s cadential. I think we’re all still struggling with that notion. The weeks since the crash have been sad, but there have also been some incredible and inspiring moments. They include seeing our students comfort each other. The students also interacted with the families, providing them with things they needed or that they thought might be appropriate for them to have. So the first thing we have is incredible pride for our students, and I think all alumni can take inspiration from the fact that the students at Indiana really, truly care about each other. Seeing our students rally around each other at a time like that was completely inspiring. And to see some of them work through their grief to perform was also inspiring. To see the university and the community so frequently offer forms of assistance, exprssions of condolences, it was really remarkable. It reminds us how much Indiana and this community are connected, and it reminds us how the university functions much as a family.

MW: The School of Music has long been ranked among the world’s best. Where does it stand now?

GR: I believe the faculty at the Jacobs School of Music are the single greatest gathering of music faculty in the world. Their accomplishments, their careers, the careers they are having — almost everybody is still engaged in an ongoing career — is testament to the strength of this faculty. This faculty attracts three-fourths of its undergraduates from outside the state of Indiana and 40 percent of its graduates from international countries representing 55 different nations. The student body is talented. In addition to that, a good percentage of our undergraduates are in the honors division and relish the academic challenge of a bachelor’s degree in music and an outside field or major. They continue to distinguish themselves in the university and their pursuits after Commencement. When you look at the scope and the scale of this institution, what it is able to do, what it influences, educationally and artistically, you have to think that we are near if not at the top of the profession. Other anecdotal evidence we have lately suggests that as well. The faculty who join us suggest that. The students who choose us and travel such long distances to be with us suggest that. And the accomplishments of both students and faculty suggest that.

MW: How has technology been used to keep the School of Music on the cutting edge?

GR: It affects our recording program and the recording program’s ability to serve the school, not just the majors. There are two very large responsibilities: to serve the majors in the recording arts and also to serve the school and all of its recording needs. That’s one very significant way. Thanks to a gift made possible by Peg Thompson, the recording abilities of the Musical Arts Center are moving from analog to digital, which will make possible much more immediate accessibility to recorded performances in the school. In fact, we envision in a time not too far into the future that a student who plays an orchestra concert on Wednesday night or a band concert on Tuesday or a jazz concert on Monday will be able to access that concert and download it to his or her iPod the following day. We hope at some point that we’ll be able to archive performances. Our library, of course, is the first digital music library in the world. And the big news there is the ability of the students and faculty to have that same technology at a workstation in their office or dorm room. That’s just happened this year.

In terms of instruments, there are advancements we are taking advantage of.

So, it’s pervasive. It's with us. I don’t think technology is going to replace the things we are doing, but I think it will sit alongside things that we now know and will be an additional asset and tool for us to use in the future.

MW: Since the financial problems, what has the school done in the areas of faculty recruiting, retention, and salaries?

GR: The Commitment to Excellence program (funded by a $1,000 tuition boost beginning in the 2003–04 school year) allowed us to add luminaries to an already luminous faculty. That was one of the early steps that made it possible for us to advance. It also allowed us to create funds for faculty to feel more supported in their research and their activities within their departments. One of the things we have consciously done is to bring more guest artists to the campus. It seems only appropriate, when the opportunity arises, to assist the faculty in bringing a guest artist to campus, to do master classes and recitals. We’ve also tried to raise the profile of chamber music. The residencies of quartets have been one means by which we’ve tried to do that. Then, with the university, we’ve tried to address issues of faculty salaries. It’s a concern of everybody in the university.

MW: As people come and go, have the new hires in the school maintained the faculty at the elite level at which it’s been known?

GR: I believe that’s resoundingly yes. There have been appointments in the academic areas — music education, music theory, music history — and appointments in the applied areas that I think absolutely keep us pre-eminent in faculty. That’s why I feel so confident in saying we have the single greatest gathering of music faculty. There was definitely that question in the early part of this decade. I think people were worried about the aging of our faculty, and fortunately many of them are continuing with us, and that’s a good thing. Some faculty will be with us, hopefully, as long as it’s possible. That’s one of the great things about the School of Music. For some faculty, it’s what they do. They have such a bond with the students and their colleagues that they don’t see giving that up. We have the great advantage of that climate. But the new people who have come in the last two to three years, in particular, have joined this faculty with such great camaraderie. It’s been a wonderful melding of those new to those who are established. We hope that with appointments like Yuval Gotlibovich, ArtD’02, MM’04, Alex Kerr, and Otis Murphy, MM'98 — individuals below 40, and others in music education — that they will have equally long tenures in the school. I can say that the early response from the colleagues on the faculty has been extraordinary to these people. And the student reaction to that has been outstanding.

MW: What are some of the ways alumni and the general public can take advantage of IU having one of the finest schools of music in the world?

GR: You can stay in touch with us through the IU Music magazine. We publish this twice a year. And we have a very active Web site that is going to be even more dynamic in the months ahead. That’s a great way to connect.

You can keep up with our performances through the Web, or we have a publication called Prelude. And then, we’re going to come to you. Through the Moveable Feast, we’re going to take performances throughout the state of Indiana. As we get closer to our 100th anniversary in 2010, we’re planning to do a nationwide tour. Before that, the IU Music Ensemble is going to the East Coast next March. This December the Philharmonic is going to be in Fort Wayne and Chicago, and perhaps Gary. And the Singing Hoosiers are out a lot throughout the country. So we hope that we will come to where alumni are, and they will have an opportunity to see and hear what we are doing. And we have about 1,000 concerts a year here, so that’s about three concerts a night. Most of them are free, and if we charge, it’s nominal.

MW: What are some of your plans for the future?

GR: We’ve done a space analysis, and it is near the end. The applied faculty are in a building that was built in 1960, and we need to provide them environments more conducive to what they are trying to accomplish professionally. Remember, as an applied faculty member, your studio is your office, your teaching space, and you do your research there. It’s important for us to have state-of-the-art studios. So with the help of the university, in particular Bob Meadows, university architect, we want to create an environment to the north of Merrill Hall unlike any we’ve ever had as a school. We’re looking at creating a quadrangle-like area that would be parallel to the Wells Quad next door. That would address many of our future needs and hopefully double what the annex building, the music addition, is providing us now. If we’re able to do that, we will not only create a heart to the school, we will create opportunities for us to do things out of doors and to grow programs. We’re hoping to build the first building just to the north of the annex, and it is my hope that by our 100th anniversary we could have that. It would be a wonderful birthday moment for our faculty. Menahem Presser tells me that in 1960 he had been here two years, and he moved into his brand new office. It is my hope that he will move into another new office.

There are a lot of other plans. Certainly, in the opera and ballet seasons, we love what commissioning did for the school last year. We want to be doing works for the first time in the collegiate arena, works that have only been done in the professional world. We also want to do the commissioning ourselves. We want ballet to be able to develop three full-length spring ballets. We have one right now, Cinderella, which we will repeat in March 2007.

We hope that with all of the other music constituents in this state, the music industry, the profession, we are able to develop Indiana as a role model for music education, and we hope to do that in a way that makes the rest of the nation sit up and take notice. The dialogue so far has been good. We’re looking at planting seeds locally. We’d love to see every youngster by the end of fifth or sixth grade have a hands-on relationship with music. We want to make certain to get to those parts of the state that are not necessarily interacting with us now.

Another way in which we increasingly want to be relevant in the American culture, we hope to develop our summer program, which is now the premier collegiate summer music program in the nation, to make that the equivalent of professional festivals. One new development is the premiere of the IU Festival Jazz Orchestra, borrowing the festival orchestra concept, which puts students and faculty together in an orchestra. We’re very excited about it. This is the first of several developments in jazz in the Jacobs School of Music.

We hope to name the Musical Arts Center after Wilfred C. Bain. It seems fitting for us to remember him and the important relationship he had in bringing the MAC to IU. It would honor him, we believe, to bring it to the same cutting-edge status that it had when it opened. We think among the things we can do, and we’ve already done quite a few things, is to develop a plaza, a gathering space in front where we can have performances during the summer months. We hope to bring the lighting from analog to digital. Those are just some of the plans.

The bottom line is, the resources in the Jacobs School of Music are the greatest of any music school in the world. The ability to apply those, to develop the cultural life of this nation, is enormous. We see that cultural issues increasingly matter to the American population. It’s said that a country focuses on its infrastructure, but at some point it turns to the life of its citizenry and to its sustainability as a culture. Often mentioned is the difference between Sparta and Athens. Sparta, this great war machine, was very successful at that. But we speak very little of it today, whereas Athens developed itself culturally, and we speak of it all the time.

So we wonder about America taking notice that cultural issues seem to matter. We’ve seen it in our international relationships. Perhaps it’s more important to build on people to people and their exchange of cultural ideas and works as opposed to nation to nation or government to government. It seems as though the connections are more powerful when they are people to people than if they are government to government. When you have people to people, they seem to last, and there’s a better understanding about other nations through their culture. And I think we’re starting to awaken to the fact that in good times and bad, we need to focus more on culture. The life sciences can’t attract the kind of people they want in a community unless there is a cultural environment, a strong educational environment. They may not go to the opera, but they want the opera in their community. They like a symphony and chamber music and choral music in their community. They want jazz. I think people are starting to awaken to that, and we see the nation moving to those issues.

We think we are in the right place at the right time to be a significant shaping force in the cultural life of our nation. And we want to make sure that we’re not only in the forefront but that we are a major shaping element in America’s culture.

 

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