Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • SUMMER 2016 • sai-national.org 4 D E I J K O P T U Y Z Jennifer Lawrence and Rose Hegel received SAI recognition awards at a luncheon held at the Eastman School of Music on Wednesday, May 4. As creative and enthusiastic members of the Eastman community, these two SAI women certainly made a difference. Jennifer Lawrence, who received the SAI Collegiate Honor Award for service and contributions, successfully led a used music drive this spring and brought together the entire membership in support of this effort. A voice major, Jennifer has extended her undergraduate degree studies to a fih year by being awarded a Kaufmann Entrepreneurial Year fellowship at the University of Rochester. is is a competitive program, and Jennifer proposed to develop a new opera outreach project during the coming academic year. is KEY project allows her to take courses in business and marketing during her fih year. She is currently developing an advisory board, connecting with the Rochester City School District to identify schools for the project, and developing curriculum materials to support the Eastman students as they initiate their involvement in the schools next year. e Eastman Opera Outreach program's mission is to connect Eastman School of Music voice students to the local Rochester community. e program will target public school students and inner-city community members of all socioeconomic classes and ages. e organization aims to bridge the gap between Eastman Opera students and the Rochester community by educating individuals who are unfamiliar with this artistic medium, exposing opera's accessibility to young students and community members, to create a stronger connection to and appreciation with the audience. Eastman Opera Outreach will benefit the opera department by providing rewarding teaching and performance opportunities for voice students. e program will be divided into two smaller programs: Opera Scenes on Location and Opera in the Classroom. Opera Scenes on Location will feature Eastman voice students performing scenes from the operatic repertoire in local Rochester hotspots. Opera in the Classroom will be a multi-faceted musical curriculum for 3rd grade students in the Rochester City School District led by Eastman teaching artists. Rose Hegele, a voice major, received the SAI Scholastic Award for the highest GPA in the chapter (4.0). Rose is planning to attend Boston Conservatory at Berklee next year for a master's degree. She is a double major; in addition to the voice performance major, Rose is completing a self-designed Musical Arts major that is focused on Icelandic pop music. Her innovative approach to this ethnomusicological inquiry has drawn the attention of many faculty and students, and she spent summer months last year studying the Icelandic language in preparation for her research. When asked what started her interest in this topic, she replied: "My Musical Arts Degree thesis germinated from years of listening to Icelandic artists and bands such as Björk, Sigur Rós, and Ólafur Arnalds. Aer being exposed to more Icelandic musicians, I started to ask questions such as: 'What makes Icelandic music distinctly Icelandic? How does a country of 320,000 have such a thriving musical scene?' I realized that I could explore these questions through a Musical Arts Degree major at the Eastman School of Music, and thus embarked on a two-year thesis project. I started my research by taking courses in Ethnomusicology and Viking History, and I supplemented my research by traveling to Iceland twice in 2015: the first time in August for a three- week Icelandic crash course, and the second time to attend the Iceland Airwaves 2015 Festival in November. My final thesis presentation focused on how core Icelandic values of land and nature, language and literature, were presented through musical performance at the Iceland Airwaves 2015 Festival, and how these values are used to position Iceland on the global economic stage." Contributions by Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Hegel, and Donna Brink Fox, Senior Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs at Eastman School of Music. MUSIC NOTES SAI Awards Received at Sigma Theta Sigma Theta members Jennifer Lawrence and Rose Hegel received awards at an Eastman School of Music luncheon in May. Chapters winning the first-ever SAI Collegiate Recruitment Video Contest will be featured in the next edition of Tempo!, the national newsletter of SAI. Be sure you are current with national dues so that you won't miss this exciting "reveal"!

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