My Project at the Rockefeller Bellagio Center will spread international goodwill and creativity worldwide, emphasizing the global and cross-cultural impact of the arts, especially music. The Project will harness, enlist, and elevate global creativity as a bond across nations and cultures. As an avid proponent for global communication through the arts, my Project is twofold.
First, as a Senior Fulbright Specialist, and speaker at international forums presenting American Studies in Music, I will seek and obtain endorsements via Fulbright alumni and colleagues. As Director of my nonprofit H Project Performing Arts Association, I will obtain funding and connections through its website. I will organize this influential group of artists to impact and solve language barriers across nations and cultures, influence critical global problems, and promote the harmony of nations through musical performance. The team members will be developed from my network of Academic Artists from all over the world who meet in Athens at the ATINER Annual International Conference on Visual and Performing Arts. This is a great opportunity to meet and share with artists on a global level at the very birthplace of freedom and democracy. As a featured performer and educator/recruiter at the JEN Jazz Educators Network International Convention, I will acquire artistic support from international jazz educators to benefit the Project.
Second, the Project will produce concert performances internationally to share the music cultures of people across the globe. Nothing more nourishes the roots of all world cultures than art. The Project goal of joining forces in arts communication worldwide is enthusiastically endorsed by George Abufhele B., Rector, Instituto Profesional Projazz, Santiago, Chile. Affiliates include Antonio Campaña, executive director Fulbright Chile, and Larry Corwin, Public Affairs Officer, United States Embassy in Chile‘s Chargé D´Affairs. A partnership between my Texas State University School of Music and Instituto Profesional Projazz to create institutional linkages and faculty led programs and performances will share the music cultures of South and North America. As the MacDowell Colony Norton Stevens Fellow in Composition, I will actively pursue MacDowell fellows to contribute new music to the Project. Personally, I have been composing music to create a new, signature American sound, from a synthesis of contemporary art music, jazz, and world music. A global approach and unique blend of influences gives my music a brand, its own distinctive place in the international scene. I wish to focus my music on programming directly related to my Bellagio Project. My recent compositions are based on Native American and South American folk music. My orchestral piece Puerta de la Luna – “Door to the Moon” will be in the final phase of work and completion while at the Bellagio Center. Plans are for a performance in 2016 or 2017.
I want to especially thank three individuals who have made the Project possible:
Cheryl Young, Executive Director
The Macdowell Artist Colony
Dr. George Abufhele B., Rector
Instituto Profesional Projazz
Dr. Major Leonel Peña, Commander & Director
U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Band
