(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- Mason Gross musicians are set to perform a Facebook Premiere concert featuring instrumental and vocal works composed by women. A Celebration of Women in Music, an annual concert that, this year, also will be a collaboration between the university’s Women in Art Music Research Group (WAM) and the Douglass Residential College, will take place on Sunday, April 18, 2021 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.
The event will be available to the public free of charge through the Mason Gross School’s Facebook page and will feature works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Germaine Tailleferre, Caroline Shaw, and Margaret Bonds, among others. Viewers are welcome to join the performers for a post-performance Zoom conversation curated by the WAM Research Group, made up of Rutgers undergraduate musicians and musicologists interested in exploring and amplifying women’s participation in the classical music sphere, as performers, copyists, instrument builders, and composers, among other roles. Registration for the post-performance moderated conversation is available here.
Music faculty member Rebecca Cypess, also advisor of the WAM research group and associate dean for Academic Affairs at Mason Gross, has helped organize the concert for the last three years.
“We started this initiative as part of a larger project to increase understanding of women's contributions to musical culture,” says Cypess, who has devoted much of her own musicological research to the role of women in music history. “We’ve been thrilled to see how the concert has grown: Each year we have more and more students volunteering to participate, and the energy builds on itself. Students actively seek to prepare music by women composers in their lessons, and the repertoire becomes embedded into the everyday culture of the department. This, after all, is what we want: that music by women become a normal component of students’ experiences.”
Cody Grabbe, director of Experiential Education and Academic Programs at Douglass Residential College, says the concert naturally dovetails with DRC’s longstanding mission.
“As part of our collective efforts advancing women in all disciplines, Douglass supports performers from Mason Gross in engaging the greater Rutgers and Central New Jersey communities as they share music written by composers who are women in celebrating their works and the talents of the performers we have on campus,” Grabbe says.
Organizing the concert is a critical aspect of WAM’s work, says Grace Gardner, a student in the research group who has helped shape the program for this year’s concert.
“In working to make musical study and performance more inclusive, we must both actively create platforms to showcase underrepresented musicians as well as normalize the integration of diverse repertoire in non-specialized settings,” she says. This annual celebration, Gardner adds, is a way to “provide and maintain a space for this work while also taking the next step in encouraging our community to bring diverse music into their own practices.”
Special thanks to the donors to Douglass Residential College, the Douglass Fund, and the Associate Alumnae of Douglass College (AADC) for their contributions that have made this concert and program possible.
About the Music Department
The mission of the Music Department at Mason Gross School of the Arts is to develop well-educated professional musicians who have a deep historical and theoretical understanding of all aspects of music. With access to all the resources of a music conservatory situated within a nationally ranked research university, students receive traditional, well-grounded conservatory training and preparation for the ever-changing world of the arts. The Music Department’s 35 full-time and 83 part-time faculty include principals and members of the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, among other distinguished ensembles. Approximately 512 students are enrolled in the department’s seven degree programs: bachelor of music, bachelor of arts, master of music, master of arts, artist diploma, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of musical arts.
About Mason Gross School of the Arts
Established in 1976, Mason Gross School of the Arts is the flagship public arts conservatory of New Jersey and a division of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Founded in 1766, Rutgers is the nation’s eighth-oldest institution of higher learning, a leading Big Ten public research university with more than 71,000 students, and a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The Mason Gross School is home to the departments of Art & Design, Dance, Music, and Theater as well as Rutgers Community Arts, Rutgers Arts Online, the Rutgers Filmmaking Center, and the Rutgers Print Collaborative. The school has an enrollment of approximately 805 undergraduates and 257 graduate students across five disciplines, supported by approximately 390 faculty and 66 staff. Students at Mason Gross hail from 29 states and territories and 21 countries. Mason Gross is one of the most selective schools at Rutgers–New Brunswick, ensuring that students have the opportunity to work closely with accomplished artists in their fields.
About Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state of New Jersey’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Established in 1766, the university is the eighth oldest higher education institution in the United States. More than 70,000 students and 23,400 full- and part-time faculty and staff learn, work, and serve the public at Rutgers locations across New Jersey and around the world.