Engaging Campus and Community: A Successful Ensemble
The University of Montevallo Concert Choir has a long-standing tradition of excellence. In May of 2015, this elite ensemble embarked upon a European tour that took them from Prague, Czech Republic to Vienna, Austria. Stops in between included Hodonín, Czech Republic; Budapest, Hungary; and Eisenstadt, Austria. During their 10-day journey, the group, under the direction of Dr. Melinda Doyle, Director of Choral Activities, performed 11 concerts in such prestigious venues as Hlahal Concert Hall and St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, St. Michael’s Church in Budapest, and St. Stevens Cathedral in Vienna.
A trip of this magnitude required a yearlong fundraising effort, an undertaking that involved several dozen student and adult musicians, hundreds of donors, and multiple campus administrators. Doyle worked tirelessly to ensure that the choir members who wished to go on the trip had opportunities to raise the necessary funds for travel. These students performed benefit concerts, worked at the university’s call center, received private donations – one gentleman even sold baked goods. Following the successful funding of the trip, there was a second collaboration involving faculty musicians, members of the library faculty, and a local arts council. This article will recall this latter partnership, which grew out of an effort to document the trip for the campus and the Montevallo community.
After submitting audio recordings of Concert Choir performances, Doyle received formal
invitations to perform at St. Michael’s Cathedral, Peterkirche and Votivkirche in Vienna and the Church of St. Lawrence in Hodonín, Czech Republic. The occasion was historic, in that it was the first such set of invitations for a Montevallo musical group. It was soon realized that there was a unique opportunity to produce a lasting record of this trip for town and gown.
In the fall of 2014, Doyle finalized a trip itinerary with Sechrist travel, a company that specializes in booking trips for educational and performance tours. About 34 student vocalists would travel to sites in Hungary, Czech Republic, and Austria during an eight- day stay. Seven adults, most of whom had an affiliation with the university, were booked to travel with the students.
In January of 2015, when it appeared that the university was close to raising enough funding to make the trip successful, Doyle proposed recruiting an additional individual to document the tour. She wanted to recruit another professional musician to perform to this documentation work. Doyle turned to a colleague on the music education faculty with whom she had already worked on a number of projects. Dr. Becky Halliday expressed interest in undertaking this work, but funding for the trip was a roadblock. A faculty librarian and Concert Choir member, Jason Cooper, who had been rehearsing and performing with the choir over the course of the academic year, decided to seek support from the Montevallo Arts Council, on whose board he sat.
Over the next couple of weeks, Cooper, Doyle, and Halliday drafted a proposal for a community grant to send the trip documentarian to Europe. Counting airfare, lodging, and ground transportation it was estimated that the cost of the trip would be about $3,500. Over the course of several meetings, a strong rationale was
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by Jason Cooper and Becky Halliday
developed for asking the Arts Council board for funding. Board members were looking for opportunities to forge ties with the new Dean of Fine Arts, whose program would benefit from the proposed grant. Among the points made in the proposal was the fact that the documentary project supported two prongs in its mission statement: the promotion and coordination of the arts in the Montevallo area, and the advancement of arts education for the greater Montevallo community.
The obligations of the documentarian began to be more thoroughly defined during this initial drafting period. Halliday would be responsible for recording video, photos, and audio. The grant writers would use their contacts to find equipment to do this work. The recordings would be posted online to share with interested parties and a larger video would be created that could serve as a recruitment tool for the music department.
A proposal was presented to the board of the Montevallo Arts Council in February of 2015. While several board members expressed enthusiasm for the project, it was generally agreed that the plan lacked detail. There were questions about the quality of the recordings that were to be made, as well as what the benefit would be to the larger community. Finally, while the Council had the funding available to meet the request, the cost seemed prohibitive to some. Board members did not reject the funding request at this time, but asked for more information to be presented.
The grant writers regrouped and added details about what the end product would look like. Seeking help regarding technical specifications for the recordings, Cooper turned to Montevallo’s University Archivist, who offered advice on archival standards for audio and photos. While there was no established standard for video, the archivist pointed the grant team to recommendations developed by the National Archives and Records Administration.
The consultation with the archivist yielded other results. In addition to offering microphones and digital recorders for the documentary effort, he offered the use of the
Con’t page 35 May/June 2016
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