Collaborative Ensemble Awarded Grant

The Collaborative Ensemble is a performing group under the supervision of Dr. Sheehan that functions both as an academic class and an ensemble elective. It differs from other ensembles by putting students in charge of all aspects of staging a performance including artistic vision, repertoire selection, music arrangement, rehearsal, promotion, and performance. A Collaborative Ensemble performance reflects the unique choices, skills, instruments, and personalities of the students who are a part of it, and the collaborative journey the class undertook to discover the concert’s final form. To succeed in this complex task, students collaborate in a variety of ways, including individual research, class discussion, and joining teams with specific roles. 

The Collaborative Ensemble also allows students to work with a professional guest artist situated in a particular community whose knowledge is often divergent from academic music faculty. This allows MPSOM students to gain experience making music in genres such as R&B, rock, folk , hip-hop, etc. that are not often covered in depth within academic environments. 

The Foundational Community Engaged Learning Grant aims to support the expenses related to enhancing designated community-engaged learning courses or to develop a new designated community-engaged course offered at the undergraduate or graduate level.  The grant provided visiting guest artist funding for Ms. Anita Levels, a leading performer of Black American Music in the Pittsburgh community. Ms. Levels was able to share her mastery of Black American music with students. She brought spontaneity and creativity to rehearsals that challenged students to always be listening, be responsive and flexible in the moment, and think beyond music notation. In particular, she coached vocal students on the style, expression, and call-and-response techniques idiomatic to Gospel and R&B music.  

"This grant is such an important milestone for our school for many reasons," said David Allen Wehr, Dean of the Mary Pappert School of Music. "Most importantly, it highlights and supports the work that we do—and have done for years—in the greater community. In addition, collaborations with professional artists like Ms. Levels play a crucial part in our students' development by rounding out their education with the real-world experiences that a classroom-only curriculum lacks." 

Dr. Sheehan's course culminated in a Collaborative Ensemble concert on December 14 at the Dr. Thomas D. Pappert Center for Performance and Innovation, featuring Ms. Levels and including music by Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Dolly Parton, Bill Withers, and composer Florence Price. Traversing genres that included pop, rock, R&B, gospel, jazz, and classical music, the ensemble produced a genre-defying concert that negotiated the diverse experiences, ideas, and abilities of its members along with the guest artist. In this way, it served as a mirror to our world, providing students with an opportunity to develop the skills to listen to, respect, and compromise with others to solve complex, interdependent problems.