November 20, 2020
We are delighted to announce the nine winners of the 2020 Rainwater Innovation Grant. Thank you to our superb selection committee (John Fremgen, Chelsea Burns, and Kristin Jensen) for reviewing all seventeen applications, to Aaron Pyle for his first-rate project management, and to Page Stephens for her attentiveness to logistics and COVID safety policies. Many thanks to all faculty who supported your students in this process, and to everyone who applied. At a time when so much of the world has been put on pause, the following list of projects shows us just how unstoppable creative energy is. In alphabetical order:
Indigo Fisher (MM), $5,000 grant: Space and Time: A Quintessence Multimedia Commission Exploring 2020. Commission and premiere of a new work by Afghan-American composer Seare Farhat. Quintessence Wind Quintet will produce a professional recording and accompanying short film to represent the momentous events of 2020.
Junghyun Kim (MM), $2,350 grant: 2021 Korean Music Series “Voices of Korea.” Organize a traditional Korean music program.
AJ Marks (BM), $4,850 grant: Expanding the PML: Introducing Young Musicians to a New Style. Commission a new work for brass quintet where each part can also function as an unaccompanied solo. Targeted to middle and high school solo and ensemble contests.
Nathan Nokes (DMA), $2,500 grant: The Sound of Paper Words. An evening-length collaborative multimedia operatic work highlighting the challenges of learning with dyslexia. Music and libretto written by Nokes to be staged digitally.
J.A. Strub (PhD), $5,000 grant: El Primer Gran Encuentro de Huapango en Texas. A day-long virtual festival of regional Mexican music, folkways, and digital leadership centered around the celebration of the huapango in Texas.
James Tabata, (DMA), $2,000 grant: Electronic Assembly. Less Than Ten’s concert scheduled for March 2021.
Evan Taucher (AD), $5,000 grant: Changing the Canon: A Collaboration with Black American Composers. Nine Black American composers have been commissioned to write works for classical guitar. This project will fund their creation of orchestral and smaller ensemble arrangements, based on the solo pieces they are writing.
Lizette Wong (BS); Brigit Fitzgerald (MM); Zoelle Wong (BS), $2,500 grant: Creating Opportunity with Synthetic Bassoon Reeds. Ease the financial barriers for students wishing to learn the bassoon by creating an affordable and durable bassoon reed.
Abbey Young (DMA), $5,000 grant: Songs of the Unheard: A Digital Concert Series. A three-part concert series featuring the musical talents of those who have experienced chronic homelessness in Austin, in partnership with Pure Goodness Music Collective and Community First Village.