School of Music’s creative grants
garner repeated renewals

by Mark McGowan

Paul Bauer is fond of drafting unique and attractive proposals for external funding.

When the director of NIU’s School of Music sought financial support from the Liberace Foundation, which usually backs classical musicians, he banked on NIU’s reputation for jazz and outlined a small jazz ensemble. The foundation blessed the NIU Liberace Jazztet with $10,000.

That was 2001. The Liberace Foundation has renewed the Jazztet’s funding each year since, and in 2003 agreed to boost its annual provision to $12,000.

Meanwhile, the various music students who’ve passed through the Jazztet’s shifting ranks have recorded a CD of mostly original works while lifting the relatively new ensemble’s international stature through performances at conferences and festivals around the globe.

“We’ve been the only jazz group selected for funding by the Liberace Foundation,” said Ron Carter, the ensemble’s grateful director and head of the school’s jazz studies program. “It’s unique because it’s an opportunity for students to actually receive additional funding and tuition while being able to compose, arrange and play their own music in a small group setting.”

The Jazztet’s success is facilitated by Bauer’s work to provide increased student access to high quality music study at NIU during times of limited public dollars coupled with growing enrollment.

“The School of Music’s demonstrated commitment to high quality in its endeavors provides plenty of examples to share with the granting organization,” Bauer said. “Success breeds success, and the granting organization can be assured its support will yield excellent results and touch student lives positively. We know how to stretch a dollar and produce remarkable results.”

NIU is now one of the 50 largest public university schools of music in the country; music major enrollment here exceeded 400 for the first time last fall, and continues above that threshold for 2004. Meanwhile, the school’s non-personnel budget is only at the fifth percentile when compared with the other 49 schools.

Bauer looks for overlapping missions between his school and the various granting organizations, and emphasizes those connections in his grant applications.

External support is “imperative,” he said, “to maintain, and hopefully improve, the high quality of our programs.”

“These grants afford students the opportunity to pursue their professional music studies, and that is changing student lives for the better,” he said. “We all need recognition and appreciation for the work we do, so it is an important morale boost for the faculty and students.”

For members of the Jazztet, who are seeking an “executive producer” to bankroll next spring’s recording of another CD of original works, the Liberace’s backing provides solid workplace skills.

“When they graduate, they have additional skills with which to find employment,” Carter said.

“Each student is required to write and arrange for the group. This gives them the opportunity to experiment with their compositions and arrangements as well as to perform all over the country. The grad students who play in the group get an opportunity to develop their teaching skills as they work to train younger combos.”

For Carter’s department, the outside financing is critical.

“We wouldn’t have a department without it. In the jazz program here at Northern, other than salaries, everything is funded through external sources,” he said. “If we don’t receive outside funding as the Liberace-funded project, an endowment, or get paid for our off-campus performances, we can’t function.”

Another clever Bauer proposal for external funding – born in response to the donor’s invitation – has resulted in five years of financial backing from the Dutton family of Sycamore.

Each year since 2000, the George & Betty Dutton Foundation has paid for graduate students in music who spend part of their time working with children in the Sycamore Public Schools and the rest of their hours in the School of Music.

The school recruits two graduate students: a string player who performs as a member of the NIU Philharmonic as the George & Betty Dutton Orchestral Chair and a piano student who provides accompanimental support to NIU students and ensembles as the George & Betty Dutton Collaborative Pianist.

Both graduate students work in the Sycamore schools, providing weekly string instruction to the orchestra and piano support to the choirs. The Dutton grant pays their salaries, and the Graduate School waives tuition.

“It just seemed to be a terrific solution that supported multiple constituencies. NIU gets a mature performer in our orchestra who influences our students, and we provide instruction to the Sycamore schools at no cost to the orchestra,” Bauer said. “We’re really pleased to have this for a fifth year, and this opportunity has lead us to explore opportunities with the DeKalb schools.”

Intrigued by the Liberace Jazztet arrangement, anonymous donors approached Bauer about creating a similar situation for a woodwind quintet made up of graduate students. Bauer responded with a proposal, and they committed five years of support for the project.

Now in its second season, the group made its debut last fall.

The quintet recruits and auditions talented graduate (and sometimes undergraduate) students who play flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn for a high-quality, faculty-guided chamber music learning and performance experience.

“A chamber music experience is a combination of playing somewhat as a soloist but working in a small group at the same time,” said John Fairfield, a professor of horn and chamber music who advises the group on rehearsal technique, musical interpretation, repertoire selection, professional demeanor and other matters.

“Everyone is exposed. Everyone has to carry their own weight. It gives them some real-world experience, because that’s what it’s like playing in major orchestra.”

Members rehearse at least four hours a week and become musical ambassadors for the school and university in recruiting, outreach and development activities. They perform at least one full recital on campus each semester, and the members are required to play in one of the school’s large instrument ensembles.

Financial commitments are made one year at a time, and students who are in good academic standing and making satisfactory progress toward music degrees can remain in the group. Members receive graduate assistant salaries and waivers of tuition or, in the case of undergraduate students, scholarship awards credited to their bursar accounts.

“It’s pretty novel. We’ve not had anything like this happen here,” Fairfield said. “It certainly serves a need. The idea is to attract strong players for this kind of group to serve somewhat as role models for the other somewhat less-experienced players.”

10-18-04