News of the Center

From the Austin American Statesman

UT Tunes Up for Major Music Endeavor
Research center aims to offer comprehensive study program befitting live music capital

The live music capital of the world is going to graduate school. In a campaign to join the country's top music programs, the University of Texas is opening a research center to study all varieties of American music. At the same time, it has begun recruiting stars from the concert circuit to raise the visibility of its faculty.

"We'll catapult this program to the top echelon in the very near future," said B. Glenn Chandler, director of the UT School of Music. "And we're going to do this by opening the doors to all styles of music."

This week, Texas will announce the formation of the Center for American Music to blend practical and theoretical study of jazz, pop, bluegrass, rock, folk and classical music in a manner not undertaken comprehensively by any other university. Just this year, the school added courses in Texas music and the blues. "Music in America exists under a much bigger tent than in other countries," said Robert Freeman, dean of the UT College of Fine Arts and former director of Rochester's Eastman School of Music, long a hub for the study of American classical music. "And what better fit for the live music capital than such a center?"

The think tank will also serve as an umbrella for related historical, business, law, technical and cultural studies. It will house new programs for film composition, recording technology, music business and a UT recording label. The kickoff is a UT conference, "Popular Culture and American Music," Nov. 20-23.

"We want to create a wider palette of options for the students," Chandler said of the school's 300 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. "Not everyone will want to study all these styles of music, but it will better prepare them for careers in the 21st century."

The school does not plan to increase the number of students -- in fact, the count has dropped from a high of 800 two years ago through competitive selection -- and fresh faculty will be added to the center as additional money is raised. Eventually, Chandler hopes to add new construction to the Music Building, located on Robert Dedman Drive near 23rd Street. The center is not expected to endanger regional music powers, such as the University of North Texas, which concentrates primarily on the practical side of the field.

UT also has raised $4.1 million toward a $6 million endowment to support a premier string quartet in residence -- and many of the field's big names have expressed interest through their agents, say School of Music spokesmen.

In America's top universities, recruitment of string players has always been an unusually competitive matter, often approaching that for top athletes," Chandler said. "The string program is the basis of any university's chamber music, orchestral and operatic programs."

Joe and Teresa Long, the primary benefactors of the planned Long Center for the Performing Arts, made the lead endowment gift of $3 million. With this kind of money, UT should be able to attract a blue-ribbon ensemble, on the level of the Miami String Quartet, Ying Quartet or Takas String Quartet. The musicians would live in Austin and teach half-time but continue to play concerts around the world. Next year, UT will audition the finalists in public performances.

In the past two years, the school has hired 16 new music faculty, including rising stars such as concert violinist Brian Lewis and cellist Bion Tsang. Lewis formerly taught at New York's Juilliard School, while Tsang studied at Yale and Harvard universities; both are multiple award winners with brisk concert careers.

The heavy recruiting fits into a UT strategy to join the ranks of Indiana University and the University of Michigan, the traditional powers among music schools at public universities. Already, UT is home to one of the country's three most respected composition programs. Among the country's 600 music schools, UT consistently ranks in the Top 20, according to U.S. News and World Report.

The school is also trying to shake off controversy. In December 2000, a female student accused the composition faculty of sexual harassment and creating a hostile environment. Dismissed after an internal review, the case is pending before the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. But this has not stopped the school's forward motion.

"It's the right climate and the right time for Texas to become the pre-eminent state school in America," said Lewis of UT's rising stature. "It's a very exciting time to be part of this faculty. That's why I'm here."

"It's not as if Texas was behind in music," said Freeman. "But we are building on a distinguishing characteristic -- an enthusiasm from and for the state of Texas. You won't find that in Michigan or Indiana. Texans' pride in Texas is something to be cherished."

mbarnes@statesman.com; 445-3647

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