This Arts Council-funded Project is entitled Making Noise: A Performances Series in the Music Library. The project was proposed by Abby Flanigan, Research Librarian for Music and Performing Arts at the University of Virginia’s Music Library.

The Music Library proposes organizing and hosting Making Noise, a performance series in the Library. This program will increase the visibility of the arts on grounds by facilitating performances, encouraging students to engage with the Music Library in innovative ways, and building stronger relationships between arts disciplines on grounds.

This performance series is based on a program started in Fall 2014 by the previous Music Librarian, Matthew Vest. In its previous iteration, funded by the now dissolved Intellectual Crossroads Department in the Library, the series featured casual performances and lectures by students and faculty from the Department of Music. Vest writes that “[Making Noise] makes the library itself a locus of the types of scholarly and artistic conversations that typically happen in non-library spaces, simply by inviting music and noise into a controlled environment.”

This grant allows the Music Library to start the Making Noise series again with renewed energy and an increased emphasis on innovative programming. With this funding, the  McIntire Department of Music will reinstate Making Noise as a monthly performance series in the Music Library in the 2017-2018 academic year, and use the funds to support guest and faculty artists, library-specific performances, receptions, and a student assistant to curate, publicize, and document the series.

As a centrally located, historical, and arts-focused space on grounds, the Music Library is an ideal venue for a performance series. Located on the lawn in the basement of Old Cabell Hall, it features a Guastavino vault as the ceiling of its main floor reading room, and is home to more than 150,000 books, scores, and sound recordings. While continuing to focus on providing ample performance opportunities for students, the department will anchor each semester with a more formal performance that incorporates the Library specifically.

First, we propose inviting Colin McAllister, Director of the Music Program at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs to perform his recital “The Library at Night,” a performance that draws inspiration from Alberto Manguel’s book of the same name (a series of essays on the idea of the library), to take “the listener on a literary, musical and historical journey through time and place.” McAllister’s recital will be tailored specifically to our Library’s space and holdings, and would be an opportunity to collaborate with Special Collections or the Book Traces Project at UVa on making our music-related collections more visible.

Second, students in Drama Faculty member Doug Grissom’s playwriting course will write and perform a play tailored specifically for the Music Library. Doug is the founder of Offstage Theater, a group in Charlottesville that produces site-specific plays, and this will be an opportunity for UVA students to develop their own site-specific production staged in the Music Library. Depending on the success of the project, this may become a regular assignment in Professor Grissom’s playwriting courses.

These performances will allow students to re-imagine the Library space as integral to the creative and artistic processes and showcase innovative ways to engage with the space and holdings. Besides these two more formal performances, the series will open up performance opportunities to students and faculty in the Music, Drama, and Art Departments. Interested participants will submit a brief performance proposal to the Music Library. Grant funds will support faculty honorariums and receptions at each performance to encourage attendance and foster a collegial and casual atmosphere for performers, students, and faculty to mingle.

We will hire a student assistant to help curate, publicize, and document the series, so that the Music Department can create a more lasting record of this unique program. We will recruit an undergraduate student from the College of Arts and Sciences to work approximately 5 hours per week during the 2017-2018 academic year. This student will work closely with the Music and Performing Arts Librarian to select performances and coordinate logistics, reach out to different constituencies on grounds to publicize the series, and create an online resource documenting the various performances.

Finally, documenting these performances will provide a platform to showcase the creative work coming out of UVA, provide inspiration to students or guest artists who might be interested in participating in the series, and provide a template for other cultural heritage institutions who might be interested in replicating this program.

Check back for more information on this Arts Council-funded project’s unfolding timeline.

The Arts Council provides advocacy, advice, and support in the Arts at the University of Virginia. It strives to develop and strengthen the bonds of interest and participation among the Arts Departments, their associated programs,  and their alumni and friends; to advocate on their behalf; to advise and assist with communications; and to help raise funds in support of academic programs, facilities, and special events. Among its multitude of arts advocacy efforts, the Council awards annual Arts Council Grants. These grants have, and continue to play an instrumental role in a number of  residencies, workshops, project and research-based endeavors proposed across Arts Grounds annually. This series of articles will highlight each funded project and serve to inform the UVA community of their unique timelines, progress and outcome reports.