McKnight Music Fellowship
2022-2023
Centering musical work around collaboration, community engagement and bringing voice to the absent narratives in the arts.
Winner of 2022-2023 McKnight Fellowship!
MacPhail Center for Music is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2022-23 McKnight Fellowship for Musicians: Jaye Sinkfield aka DIVAJ, Rebecca Merblum, Paula Gudmundson, Lewis McCaleb akaLewiee Blaze.
The journey for these artists began in January, when a pool of 82 solo and ensemble musicians applied for the McKnight Fellowship with recordings, artist statements and resumes. Nine finalists were selected by a national panel of judges, and the finals were held virtually on Friday, May 13. Of those nine artists, the aforementioned four were selected to receive the $25,000 McKnight Fellowship for Musicians.
Paula Gudmundson focuses on centering her work around collaboration, community engagement and bringing voice to the absent narratives in the arts. This includes creating recordings, editions, commissions, and collaborations which push our field beyond the concert stage. Gudmundson has performed at numerous music festivals and events, including regional, national, and international conferences of the College Music Society, National Flute Association conventions, Minnesota Public Radio’s Class Notes Artist, International Flute Festival of Costa Rica, and La Côte Flûte Festival. Recordings include La Flauta of Buenos Aires (2012), Breaking Waves (2019) and Melodies of the Forest (2022). Gudmundson is Associate Professor of Flute and Music Department Head at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Paula Gudmundson focuses on centering her work around collaboration, community engagement and bringing voice to the absent narratives in the arts. This includes creating recordings, editions, commissions, and collaborations which push our field beyond the concert stage. Gudmundson has performed at numerous music festivals and events, including regional, national, and international conferences of the College Music Society, National Flute Association conventions, Minnesota Public Radio’s Class Notes Artist, International Flute Festival of Costa Rica, and La Côte Flûte Festival. Recordings include La Flauta of Buenos Aires (2012), Breaking Waves (2019) and Melodies of the Forest (2022). Gudmundson is Associate Professor of Flute and Music Department Head at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Works by Black Composers!
Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support for Individual Artist Grant This grant focuses on creating ten video recordings of works by Black composers to help insure access to works by these composers, representing works from various time periods and musical styles.
This project was made possible by the voters of Minnesota thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund and the general fund.
Purchase our CD Melodies of the Forest
This recording showcases the concept of program music in adaptations by contemporary composers as well as by artists of former times. Program music, which – in simplified terms – attempts to express a program, story, narrative, or idea, was at its height of popularity in the nineteenth century. Its proponents sought to depart from and create a contrast to purely absolute music, whose aesthetic is primarily concerned with form and technique, free from any extramusical references. This led to great polarization within the spectrum of instrumental music. However, there are many examples of works/compositions in between absolute and program music that draw on both aesthetics. The selections for this recording demonstrate just that. We hear a wide range of programmatic approaches unfold, continually reinterpreting and reshaping the concepts and possibilities of instrumental music.
–Bettina S. Muehlenbeck