Commissioned New Works for Classical Guitar by Women Composers, Performed and Recorded by Guitar Ensemble “Duo Noire”, New York, New York

The world of classical guitar is an overwhelmingly male enterprise. Flippin feels this omission of 51% of the population is unacceptable, and addressing underrepresentation in this field has become a raison d’être for his guitar ensemble, Duo Noire. The Clifford-Levy Creativity Grant partially funded the commissioning and promotion of two new works by extraordinarily talented North American women composers—resulting in concerts, promotional videos, and submissions to various guitar and New Music media outlets that recognize Diller-Quaile for its role in supporting the project and its ongoing commitment to commissioning new works.

The culminating work of this project, the critically-acclaimed album NIGHT TRIPTYCH, has received numerous reviews and mentions in the international press, including Stereophile Review, The Arts Fuse Review, Textura Review, I Care if You Listen Review, and All Music Review.

NIGHT TRIPTYCH is available on Amazon and available for download on iTunes. You can also learn more about the music of Duo Noire at www.duonoire.com.

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To Attend and Perform at the Contemporary Music Conference: “New Music Gathering”, Baltimore, MD

The New Music Gathering is an annual four-day conference dedicated to the performance, production, promotion, support, and creation of new concert music. Taking place at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the focus of this conference was on “Communities.” The conference featured concerts, lecture recitals, roundtable discussions, and talks. The Keynote address was given by Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony, whose outreach initiatives include ‘OrchKids’, a program providing music education, instruments, meals, and mentorship to Baltimore’s neediest young people. Isabelle believes it is important to keep the classical music tradition alive and relevant through the music of today’s living composers. The theme of this conference made it relevant to the community music setting of Diller-Quaile, as it involved building musical communities through teaching, faculty concerts, and outreach. At the conference, Isabelle identified possible new repertoire for students by today’s living composers, and shared these discoveries with piano faculty through a workshop or presentation.

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To Complete The Suzuki Teaching Training Course, Year One, New York, NY

The Suzuki Teaching Training Course for violin is a two-year program at The School for Strings. The first year is taught by Allen Lieb. Each weekly two hour seminar involves in-depth discussions and problem solving strategies used in the Suzuki Approach for teaching musical materials. Students are also required to observe lessons for at least two hours each week and write reports on them. With this grant, Lila hoped to grow as a teacher in order to give students the positive experience that she benefited from through the Suzuki Approach. At this time of this grant, Lila was the teaching assistant at Diller-Quaile for Book I and II Violin Group Class. She hoped that a complete knowledge of the Suzuki Approach would enable her to provide more support to both students and teachers, as well as help her to carry out Diller-Quaile’s mission: to inspire participation in music for a lifetime.

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To Attend the 2015 Take A Stand Symposium, Los Angeles, CA

Take A Stand, a partnership between the Longy School of Music of Bard College, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Bard College, is a biennial symposium focused on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in the El Sistema movement in the United States. The conference included presentations from internationally renowned music educators, performances from the acclaimed Simon Bolivar Orchestra, and opportunities for U.S. students and teachers to collaborate with colleagues from Venezuelan El Sistema programs. Eun has experience with an El Sistema based orchestra program in Queens, was eager to implement any teaching or community engagement strategies that she gained from the conference. She hoped to present what she learned at the symposium, and keep colleagues informed of new developments in this rapidly expanding field of music education.

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