Advancing the Cause of Music

Yale School of Music grants $100,000 to alumni projects

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In June, 2008, Dean Robert Blocker of the Yale School of Music announced alumniVentures, a bold and innovative program that will provide $100,000 in grants to the School’s alumni. In the first year of what Dean Blocker promised to be an annual program, alumniVentures grants would be given to projects that best followed one simple but transcendent criterion: to advance the cause of music.

Three hundred proposals from 329 alumni (there were several joint proposals) were submitted, including commissions, travel to support teaching and scholarship, recital performances, recording projects, and outreach. The number of responses was remarkable, considering that the Yale School of Music, a small graduate professional school, has just over three thousand alumni. On November 10, the grants were announced.

Schools providing grants to its own alumni are rare in the world of higher education. In explaining the inspiration for alumniVentures, Dean Blocker said, “Since coming to Yale in 1995 I have been inspired by the many ways our alumni advance the cause of music. Knowing how many musicians sacrifice financial security because of their passion for music, I wanted to assist and acknowledge some of these extraordinary contributions to our art. The program I envisioned was one where we could reconnect alumni to the School through their work as musicians and assist them by using part of the annual fund for these awards.”

In evaluating proposals, Deputy Dean Masse asked his fellow committee members, “To what degree does the proposal satisfy the Dean’s charge ‘to advance the cause of music’? Does it do so in a relatively noble and generous way?” Masse also asked them to consider four general guidelines for assessment: mission, feasibility, artistic quality, and creativity. Ultimately there was unanimous committee endorsement for the projects that were chosen. “I think I speak for the entire committee when I state that the impression we were left with was that Yale School of Music alums are involved in some of the most dynamic, creative, and inspiring work that many of us have seen in quite a long time.”