Sunday, November 3, 2013

Ideas for Wikipedia article

In planning for the final project, the Wikipedia article, I've come up with 3 possibilities that I'd be most excited to write on.  None of these three have any Wikipedia page yet that I've been able to find.

1.  My friend, Ken Ludden, runs the Margot Fonteyn Academy of Ballet in New York State.  He was entrusted by Margot Fonteyn to carry out her vision of ballet education and it includes education in several art forms, including a thorough instruction in classical music.  The ballet students are even taught music composition, which is largely lacking even in most music schools for non-composition majors.  In his career, Ken has worked with Leonard Bernstein, Phillip Glass, Dominic Argento, Stephen Burton, and John Cage.  One thing I know that the academy has done is an exchange program with a popular dance group called Fanny Pack, who became well known through MTV's "America's Best Dance Crew."  Fanny Pack came to the academy, took ballet classes, and put together a dance performance with the students of the academy.  The whole thing was filmed as an intended TV special, though it has never aired.  I think that it is a good example, though, of a sort of branching out that has been spoken of a lot in our class and in our blog postings.  I have to interview Ken to find out more about the academy and what might be the most relevant aspects of it to the future of classical music.

2.  I would also be very interested to make a Wikipedia article for my undergrad composition teacher Bonnie Miksch.  She is a really wonderful and accomplished composer who is the head of the music composition department at Portland State University.  She's not big on the self-promotion side of things though, so she's a little under-represented on the internet I think.  I'd love to help her in this way and, at the same time, help others learn about some music that's very much worth their attention.

3.  Lastly, I found that a musician, whom I spoke of on a post some weeks back, does not have a Wikipedia article.  This musician is Morgan Sorne.  I really admire what he's doing, both in terms of making some really high quality indie/experimental pop music that stretches the genre, and in thinking so big that he's made his music part of a multimedia epic story he's telling, through illustration, video, writing, and performance, in addition to his impressive album releases.  I appreciate someone in the quais-popular music scene doing work to raise the bar and I'd like to use this opportunity to help him have a bigger presence.

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