Music

DRAC funding is integral to music in a variety of applications, including support for large and small performing ensembles, chamber music, and accompaniment for juries and recitals that serve as a laboratory for music performance, support for student travel to conferences, performances and other events related to the educational mission of the department. DRAC supported performing ensembles are open to all students on campus regardless of major and include: large and small choral ensembles, orchestras, concert bands, jazz ensembles, opera productions and chamber music ensembles.

DRAC funds additionally support guest musicians, conductors and composers, offering students the opportunity to work with, learn from and observe top professionals in the field. It also supports our Viking Band, engaging students in performance and supporting student athletics. The DRAC fund is used to finance musical instruments and equipment that would otherwise be unavailable to students. Finally, these funds support student employment in positions providing professional experience in musical pursuits including music audio and video recording and stage management.

Music students

A group of students stand crowded together with their mouths open, singing.

Below are some of the key ways students have benefited from DRAC funding:

  • Faculty-student trip to SphinxConnect Conference
    • “The Sphinx Organization is the social justice organization dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts. Sphinx’s four program areas form a pipeline that develops and supports diversity and inclusion in classical music at every level: music education, artists performing on stage, the repertoire and programing being performed, the communities represented in audiences, and the artistic and administrative leadership within the field.”
  • Renting and purchasing orchestral music for public performances by the WWU Orchestras. Most orchestral music composed after 1923 is still under copyright, and is only available by rental from publishing houses. Nearly every concert includes at least one rented piece, which can range in cost from $350 to over $1,000.
  • The hiring of adjudicators for the annual concerto competition, which is an opportunity available to every student musician on campus. These judges are always professional musicians from the region with no connection to Western.
  • Several students of the Western Saxophone Studio have won the state and regional MTNA soloist and chamber music competitions allowing them to compete at the national level during the national conferences at Las Vegas, Chicago, Orlando, Spokane, and San Antonio to name a few.  The Western “Equus Saxophone Quartet” won the Frances Walton Chamber Music Competition in which they toured Washington State and performed a live broadcast on KING FM and rebroadcast on American Public Radio. The Western Sax studio has often performed in local schools and opened the studio class to invite local high school students to participate.
  • Guest Artists
    • The hiring of guest artists to rehearse and perform with the orchestras in their public concerts. Sometimes these are major artists traveling from outside the region, and sometimes they are our own NTT faculty.
    • Proposal to invite Joseph Conyers and Sphinx’s professional choral ensemble EXIGENCE to promote and demonstrate our commitment to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within our program.
    • Renowned guest artists have worked with the Saxophone Studio such as Timothy McAllister, Prism Saxophone Quartet, Kenneth Tse, Otis Murphy, and John Sampen to name a few.
    • ONIX is coming in March from Mexico City to work and perform with the students.

(For more information, please visit the website here)