The Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award

 

Terri Lyne Carrington portrait By Michael Goldman
Drummer, composer, producer, educator and justice advocate Terri Lyne Carrington is the Fall 2023 recipient of the Vosgerchian Award. Photo: Michael Goldman
Terri Lyne Carrington is recipient of the Fall 2023 Vosgerchian Award.

Drummer, composer, producer, educator and justice advocate Terri Lyne Carrington received the Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award Nov. 27 at Paine Hall at Harvard University. The free event was produced by the Office for the Arts in partnership with the Harvard University Department of Music. The event featured comments by Vijay Iyer, professor of music at Harvard, a performance by student musicians from the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, a Q&A with Carrington with singer Somi Kakoma, and the presentation of the award by Jack Megan, director of the Office for the Arts, and Carolyn Abbate, chair of Harvard University Department of Music. Watch the livestreamed video at Harvard Arts

Carrington is an NEA Jazz Master, Doris Duke Artist and three-time Grammy Award-winning drummer.. She serves as founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, as well artistic director for both Next Jazz Legacy program (a collaboration with New Music USA) and the Carr Center in Detroit, Michigan. She has performed on more than 100 recordings over her 40-year career and has toured and recorded with luminaries such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Stan Getz, Esperanza Spalding and numerous others. Her artistry and commitment to education has earned her honorary doctorates from York University, Manhattan School of Music and Berklee College of Music, and her curatorial work and music direction has been featured in many prestigious institutions internationally. The critically acclaimed 2019 release, Waiting Game, from Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science earned the esteemed Edison Award for music and a Grammy nomination. In fall of 2022, she authored two books, Three of a Kind (about the forming of the Allen Carrington Spalding trio) and the seminal songbook collection, New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets By Women Composers, accompanied by the album New Standards Vol.1 (Candid Records) and installation, New Standards, at Detroit’s Carr Center, as part of the Jazz Without Patriarchy Project.

The Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award honors a nationally recognized educator. The award was established by Professor and Mrs. Ray A. Goldberg and the Max Goldberg Foundation in order to perpetuate the values and teaching skills represented by the late Professor Vosgerchian, who, at her retirement from Harvard University in 1990, was the Walter W. Naumberg Professor of Music Emerita in the Department of Music.

The guidelines require that the recipient embody the following qualities: selfless commitment; artistic conscience; a constant renewal of approach to subject matter; ability to motivate in a positive and creative way; a sincere interest in the development of the whole person; and the ability to present musical knowledge in a way that is applicable to other disciplines. The award provides an honorarium and arranges for recipients to conduct tutorials, classes, lectures and other forums engaging Harvard undergraduates and the public.

The Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award honors individuals who reflect Professor Vosgerchian’s values and dedication to music and arts education. Recipients have included:

Gustav Meier, Music Director, Greater Lansing (MI) Symphony Orchestra and Greater Bridgeport (CT) Symphony

Joan Panetti, professor of music at the Yale University School of Music

Curt Cacioppo, professor of music in the Music Department of Haverford College

Phyllis Curtin, opera singer and Dean Emerita of Boston University’s School for the Arts

Lowell E. Lindgren, professor of music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Elma Lewis, arts educator, activist and founder of Boston’s Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts

Claire Mallardi, Lecturer on Dramatic Arts and Artistic Director Emerita of the Office for the Arts at Harvard Dance Program

Robert Mann, founder and first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet and a member of the Juilliard School Music Division faculty

Co-recipients Mark Churchill, educator, conductor, cellist and Dean of New England Conservatory’s Division of Preparatory and Continuing Education, and Marylou Speaker Churchill, violinist and member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music (College and Preparatory School) and the Heifetz International Music Institute

Thomas G. Everett, Director of Bands at Harvard University and Jazz Advisor to the Office for the Arts at Harvard

Aaron Dworkin, Founder and President of the Sphinx Organization, which focuses on youth development and diversity in classical music performance and education

Sweet Honey in the Rock, the a cappella vocal group founded by Bernice Johnson Reagon that is committed to creating music out of the rich textures of African American legacy and traditions

Marin Alsop, Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra

Gustavo Dudamel, Music and Artistic Director, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Music Director, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela

André Watts, legendary pianist, Grammy Award winner and professor at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University

Rosephanye Powell, influential choral composer, educator, performer and professor of voice at Auburn University

Tania León, composer, conductor and educator -- and inspiration to Harvard students and faculty through the years