Project Goals
I. The LAURELS project promotes the visibility of contemporary American women art-music composers and role models in the arts, generates interest in and awareness of their work, documents their professional journeys and artistic philosophies, and empowers the aspirations of current and budding artists. Examples of women whose lives and work champion creative brilliance, visionary perseverance, and commitment to life-long learning and excellence abound in contemporary fine arts. Access to these women role models is critical in a culture where fleeting pop stars are marketed and embraced by young talent as primary examples of success and gender identification.
II. The Laurels project supports the commissioning, promotion, and international dissemination of flute literature by American Women Composers. Beginning with LAURELS 2004-2005 and regenerating every two years for a period of twelve years, the LAURELS project supports the commissioning, recording, publication, promotion and international dissemination of flute literature by over 150 twenty-first century American Women composers.
Written by America's finest composers and representing a broad cross-section of twenty-first century compositional styles, the LAURELS commissions offer students and performers of America's most popularly played wind instrument critically needed repertoire expansion and renewed options in the contemporary solo flute literature genre.
"The fact that this project is coming through the instrument of the flute is an added bonus, as flute players are very open to new literature, and are willing to program pieces that they hear on their own concerts, thereby spreading the music even further."
- Jennifer Higdon, Laurels 2004-2005 Roster Composer
III. The LAURELS project assembles multidimensional documentation and curricular reference material critically needed by educational institutions, libraries, media, and concert programming venues. The LAURELS project , addresses a deficiency of valuable present-day and historical information documenting the lives and work of American women composers critically needed by libraries, radio stations, academia, women's studies programs, and the creative arts, through its recording, publication, and multi-media DVD project components, replete with artistic dialogue and contemporary and historical referential resources. The LAURELS project resource materials are annually time-lined for peak publicity during March "Women in Music Month", with public performances, educational outreach concerts, radio interviews, PBS vignettes, and article publications.
"Part of the problem is the lack of viable communication... to make performers, teachers, and music directors aware of what is currently available... this project will do much to assist in the dissemination of music by women, as well as to show the wide variety of styles available."
- Jennifer Higdon, Laurels 2004-2005 Roster Composer
IV. The LAURELS project explores the integration of music and literature affirming the national standards for Arts Education's "Correlation and Integration" goals. The LAURELS' commissions open refreshing new windows for composers, performers, and audiences into literature-based musical sounds expressed through a non-voiced solo instrument-the flute.
"The project idea of tying together literature and music is obviously not new, as music and literature are so closely tied in song and opera genres. This, however, is a more unusual approach due to its linkage of a typically non-voiced instrument, the flute, with literature used either directly or as a basis for the composition. This too has been done, but not with this degree of focus on a specific instrument...and certainly never with a focus on the works of women composers."
- Maggi Payne, Mills College, Laurels 2004-2005 Roster Composer
These literature-based commissions present a provocative challenge to composers and interpreting artists, resulting in an engaged exploration into and a resonant experience with literature and contemporary musical idioms.
"Indeed, as a composer who is an avid reader and who is passionate about words, the opportunity to write a piece that emanates from literature but that does not involve the actual use of text is a wonderful creative challenge."
- Laura Kaminsky, Laurels 2004-2005 Roster Composer
By presenting works that combine aesthetic and message to bridge disciplinary boundaries, LAURELS keeps step with curricular trends blending converging paths of music, myth, poetry, and social history into critical resources for class instruction, and furnishes Arts in Education performers with integrative works currently lacking in contemporary music literature.
V. The LAURELS project fosters audience aesthetic and intellectual connection to twenty-first century art music. LAURELS fosters audience connection to twenty-first century art music through literary and visual avenues of entry and association, implementing the mediums of live performance, recording, multi-media, and printed material to successfully achieve its ambitious and culturally significant objectives.
"The listener, whether familiar with contemporary music or not, seems to connect more readily with word images than with music in a verbal vacuum... stimulated by the scenic or emotional content of the text... how many people who do not go to contemporary music concerts find great pleasure in going to films with contemporary scores?"
- Binnette Lipper, Laurels 2004-2005 Roster Composer
"[Laurels] addresses a number of important issues in the field of art-music today. By bringing together composers and their literary muses [Assimakopoulos] is creating an outreach to audiences, especially audiences who have not had much exposure to new music [and] giving audiences a way to experience contemporary music by pointing out the line of inspiration."
- Ruth Lomon, Brandeis University, Laurels 2004-2005 Roster Composer
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