Music

Thank you for your continued support of the School of Music.

Your contribution to this unrestricted fund plays a pivotal role in empowering our department to excel in academic pursuits, foster innovation, and provide unparalleled opportunities for our students, faculty, and staff. With your support, we can continue to make a lasting impact on education, research, and the overall experience of everyone within our community.

Thank you once again for your belief in our mission and for being an essential part of our journey towards excellence. Below are just a few examples of the work our excellence fund accomplished last year. We look forward to keeping you informed about the positive outcomes and achievements that your generosity helps us realize.

With sincere appreciation, GO COUGS!

• Created an ensemble repertoire library space, containing thousands of pieces for choirs, orchestra, bands, and the Cougar Marching Band. This space has state-of-the-art shelving to maximize storage efficiency, and will assist ensemble directors with accessing print music throughout the academic year for large ensemble rehearsals and performances.
• Repair many instruments used by our music education majors and students in ensembles. These resources facilitate future educators, who must be proficient on all band and orchestra instruments and help them to understand the challenges of teaching and playing those instruments. These instruments also enhance our School of Music ensembles- when extended instrument families (like bass clarinet or English horn) are needed, quality instruments are made available for students in ensembles to practice and perform with, increasing our programmable repertoire, and giving students invaluable professional experiences.
• Hosted an extended faculty and staff retreat in fall 2022, to build a new Strategic Plan and articulate and align the goals faculty and staff members have for our program. This retreat spanned 1.5 days and allowed faculty opportunities to learn more about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) practices, “warm teaching” methods to create strong classroom communities, and syllabus design to maximize student comfort and confidence throughout the academic year.
• Completed the renovation of the Kimbrough Hall pit filler, a movable platform that serves as the proscenium for Kimbrough Concert Hall. The platform stopped ascending and descending in the previous school year, and repairs allowed for a variety of performing experiences (small and large) in the hall in 2022-23.