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Harmony in Diversity – Mason's Jazz Vocal Ensemble Hits the Global Stage

Lakin Raybuck — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 17:13:48 +0000

Harmony in Diversity – Mason's Jazz Vocal Ensemble Hits the Global Stage Lakin Raybuck Tue, 03/26/2024 - 13:13

In This Story

At ��AV Dewberry School of Music, the Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble, directed by Dr. Darden Purcell, has notably marked the past year with accolades that spotlight not just their musical aptitude but the inclusive spirit that defines the university.

This ensemble, distinctively open to auditions from across the university's diverse student body, stands as a living testament to George Mason's core ethos of inclusivity and the unique opportunities it fosters, perfectly embodying the "all together different" spirit that pulses through the campus.

The ensemble's journey through the year was nothing short of remarkable, crowned by winning the prestigious DownBeat Student Music Award for "Outstanding Performance—Large Vocal Jazz Ensemble, Undergraduate College" in spring 2023. This accolade, recognized globally, spotlighted the ensemble's exceptional talent and unwavering dedication, setting them apart in a fiercely competitive field with submissions spanning the globe.

Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble. Photo Credit: Joyce Boghosian

The ensemble's journey of achievements gracefully flowed into another standout moment as they carried the banner for ��AV at the Virginia Music Educators Association (VMEA) conference in November 2023. Standing as the university's singular musical voice at this event, they beautifully embodied the spirit and talent of Mason. The crescendo of their narrative hit a thrilling peak during their performance at the Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference in New Orleans, LA, in January 2024. Amidst a global gathering of talent, they stood out as one of only six Vocal Jazz groups chosen to perform, solidifying their place as a beacon of excellence in the international jazz community.

The ensemble's composition—comprising 15 dedicated members, including 11 vocalists alongside a rhythm section of piano, guitar, bass, and drums—mirrors the university's academic diversity. With students from Music Studies to Business and Creative Writing, the group exemplifies the rich tapestry of George Mason's student body, their varied backgrounds adding layers of depth and perspective to their music.

Preparing for such esteemed stages involved an intense rehearsal schedule, pushing the ensemble to explore a repertoire that was as challenging as it was rewarding. This included premieres written expressly for them by Mason Jazz faculty Dr. Shawn Purcell and pieces that demanded a high level of improvisation and professional skill, truly stretching their musical capabilities.

The ensemble's path to these prestigious platforms was paved by the generous support from the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR) and the Dewberry School of Music Jazz Studies program, alongside proceeds from the annual Jazz4Justice concert. This backing is crucial, reflecting the university's investment in nurturing creative and scholarly pursuits.

Entering these highly competitive events required a submission process that mirrored the professional music world's rigor, emphasizing "live" and unedited performances. This stringent selection criterion underscores the ensemble's excellence and aligns with the university's dedication to authenticity and high standards.

For those within the Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble, the year was transformative, filled with opportunities beyond performances to personal and professional growth. The shared experiences, from rehearsals to stage, fostered a profound sense of unity, highlighting the ensemble's role as not just musicians but ambassadors of ��AV's inclusive culture.

Reflecting on the ensemble's achievements, it’s clear that their story is more than a sequence of musical triumphs. It's a narrative that celebrates the power of opportunity, diversity, and collaboration, reflecting Mason's supportive, dynamic, and diverse environment. Through their musical journey, the ensemble showcased their formidable talents and the rich, empowering backdrop of George Mason, where every student is encouraged to explore, perform, and excel.

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Dewberry School of Music

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NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie examines U.S. political inequality in annual Wilkins Lecture

Colleen Rich — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 18:16:57 +0000

NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie examines U.S. political inequality in annual Wilkins Lecture Colleen Rich Wed, 04/06/2022 - 14:16

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie delivered a thought-provoking look at the U.S. political system as the featured speaker at Mason’s Roger Wilkins Lecture. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

American Democracy is “severely lacking” in political equality, and the problem is only going to worsen unless steps are taken to help the nation fully realize our democratic aspirations, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie said Tuesday.

Bouie delivered a thought-provoking look at the U.S. political system as the featured speaker at ��AV’s Roger Wilkins Lecture, created in honor of the late Mason professor and civil rights leader.

Mason President Gregory Washington welcomed Bouie as “one of the most exciting political minds of our time.”

Speaking at the Fenwick Library on the Fairfax Campus to an audience that included inquisitive students, faculty and staff as well as members of the Wilkins family, Bouie gave his take on the current American political system in which the voices of every citizen are not treated equally.

“It is the moral promise of democracy and the reason why democracy holds any appeal in the first place,” he said. “If you don’t believe in a self-governing society with political equals, then, in a critical sense, you really don’t believe in democracy. You may believe in something else, but it’s not democracy.”

From left, Jamelle Bouie and Schar School professor Jennifer Victor with a Mason student following the lecture. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

Bouie, a 2009 University of Virginia graduate who joined the New York Times in January 2019, cited the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College as institutions systemically hindering true political equality.

The U.S. Senate, he noted, empowers each of the nation’s 50 states equal representation with two votes apiece. Wyoming, the nation’s least populous state with roughly 600,000 residents, is on equal footing with California, the nation’s most populous state with nearly 40 million residents. That means that Wyoming residents have 67% more voting power than their counterparts in California.

That disparity will become each more pronounced over time as densely populated states like California, Texas, Florida and Georgia continue to see major population spikes, he said. By 2040, roughly half of the nation’s population is projected to live in just eight states, meaning that half the nation’s residents will get 16 votes in the U.S. Senate, while the other half of the population spread across the remaining 42 states will account for the remaining 84 votes in the nation’s highest legislative body.

“You can’t possibly say in that scenario that Americans have equal political representation,” Bouie said. “They simply do not.”

In noting that the Electoral College has five times awarded the presidency to candidates who lost the popular vote, Bouie pointed out that such a scenario was hardly an accident. The Founding Fathers, he said, intentionally designed a system where everyone was not treated equally so as to protect the hierarchy of the time, which favored wealthy white men.

Partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010 that allowed unlimited amounts of money into the political system, and the steps taken in some states to limit to access to voting have only further exacerbated the gap in true political equality for all, Bouie said.

Bouie, who is based in Charlottesville, Virginia, suggested a number of possible solutions. Chief among them was amending the U.S. Constitution to lower barriers to access and even the playing field for as many citizens as possible.

“We have spent nearly 250 years trying to shoehorn a democratic political system into a decidedly un-democratic document,” Bouie said. “There’s only so far you can go with that.”

Other possibilities he mentioned included enlarging the U.S. House of Representatives beyond its current 435 members, developing new political parties, removing U.S. Senate authority to propose national legislation and possibly introducing Australian-style compulsory voting.

Bouie’s youth and fresh perspective resonated with Mason student Bennett Freeze. The senior Government and International Politics major from Chicago said he came away impressed with what he’d heard.

“It was incredible,” he said. “I think Jamelle has a voice for a new generation of Americans who understand that the Constitution—as it currently stands—is inadequate to resolve the problems we now see.”

The Wilkins Lecture was presented by Mason’s Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program, the Schar School of Policy and Government, the African and African American Studies Program and the Scalia Law School.

Previous featured speakers at the Roger Wilkins Lecture have included Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Forman Jr. (2018) and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kegan (2019).

Wilkins was the nation’s first African American assistant U.S. attorney general, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. An accomplished journalist, he was part of the team at the Washington Post that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973 with his editorials about the Watergate scandal.

Wilkins was a Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at Mason for nearly 20 years. The Johnson Center’s North Plaza was renamed in his honor in 2017.

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The Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial is dedicated in ‘a landmark day for the university’

Melanie Balog — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 21:59:30 +0000

The Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial is dedicated in ‘a landmark day for the university’ Melanie Balog Mon, 04/04/2022 - 17:59

Wendi Manuel Scott addresses the crowd gathered for the dedication of the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial on Monday, April 4. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

Kye Farrow had previously walked through the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial, and felt proud.

Farrow, BA History ’19, MS Management ’20, was one of the five Mason students whose research into the enslaved children of George Mason IV led to the construction of the memorial, which is the cornerstone of the reimagined Wilkins Plaza on ��AV’s Fairfax Campus.

But on Monday, as several hundred people assembled on the plaza for the monument’s dedication, Farrow, who would later speak at the event, said he was “just happy overall.”

“Studying history is what makes history not repeat,” Farrow said. “Being aware of history is what makes people have informed decisions and do things from a thoughtful perspective. So to have the opportunity to learn about the namesake of our university and for what it means to the student body, that’s the biggest thing for me.”

The event on Wilkins Plaza, named for Roger Wilkins, the late Black former civil rights leader, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and beloved Mason professor, was uplifting and reflective, and kicked off Mason's 50th anniversary celebration.

Mason President Gregory Washington called it “a landmark day for the university,” and praised the students who were involved in the original research — Farrow; Alexis Bracey, BA Global Affairs ’19; Ayman Fatima, BS Systems Engineering, BA Government and International Politics ’21; Farhaj Murshed, BS Statistics ’20; and Elizabeth Perez-Garcia, BS Criminology, Law, and Society ’19.

Those students joined a project launched in the summer of 2017 by Wendi Manuel-Scott, a professor of integrated studies and history; Benedict Carton, a faculty member in History and Art History; and Mason alum George Oberle, Mason’s history librarian and a term faculty member in the Department of History and Art History.

All are leaders in the Center for Mason Legacies, an interdisciplinary and collaborative research center established by the University Library and College of Humanities and Social Sciences that encourages student research to preserve and examine the legacy of George Mason IV. The university’s namesake penned the Virginia Declaration of Rights but also enslaved more than 100 people at his home, Gunston Hall.

Associate Professor of Public History Gabrielle Tayac and Mason students from the University’s Native American and Indigenous Alliance Domi Hannon, Sara Jefferson, and Kayleigh Seng participate in a traditional Native American Water Ceremony during the Dedication of the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

“The Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial represents so much about who we are as a university,” Washington said. “Inquisitive students who seek truth, undergraduate research programs that support these academic pursuits, faculty who collaborate, nurture and challenge our students, and a university community fueled by the shared thrill of discovery and the determination to turn their efforts into positive and sustainable change. … We grow wiser from examining our full truths, no matter how complicated or messy or discomforting they might be.”

Added Trishana Bowden, vice president of Mason’s office of Advancement and Alumni Relations, and president of the ��AV Foundation: “This project has allowed our students to educate us, to enlighten us and to teach us how to keep moving forward, and how to remember our past.”

That included a water ceremony in which water from the Potomac River was poured into the Wilkins Plaza fountain, which contains stones in a pattern that symbolize an African custom of gathering and prayer. The ceremony, led by Gabrielle Tayac, an associate professor of public history and a Piscataway tribal citizen, also acknowledged that the land on which the university was built was originally inhabited by indigenous people.

"The memorial for all of us was about replacing erased history through silenced voices of the enslaved people in relation to and in dialogue with the traditional voices,” Manuel-Scott said. “We hope that folk who visit the memorial, that it forces them to think about the relationship between the past and the present."

Rev. Jeffrey O. Johnson Sr., pastor at nearby Mount Calvary Baptist Church, said he hopes the memorial will push other universities and institutions to move forward and “that we will not bring the founding fathers down, but in pride and dignity, we will lift their servants up.”

Ayman Fatima (left) and Kye Farrow, both part of the original team of five students researching the enslaved people at Gunston Hall, greet each other at the Enslaved People of George Mason dedication ceremony. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

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Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial to be dedicated

Colleen Rich — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 16:08:11 +0000

Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial to be dedicated Colleen Rich Mon, 03/28/2022 - 12:08

It was the summer of 2017, and five ��AV students and three faculty members were beginning their research into the children enslaved by George Mason IV, the university’s namesake.

Wendi Manuel-Scott, a professor of integrative studies and history, and one of the faculty members on the project, recalled how the students at one point “began to talk about how it would be awesome if years from now they came to campus and there’s a plaque that honors the enslaved people held by George Mason.”

As it turned out, they got much more than a plaque, as what was the Enslaved Children of George Mason project led to the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial, a focal point of how the university is addressing its identity as it relates to a complicated Patriot.

“The purpose of the project was to raise awareness about George Mason IV, the man, the patriot and the slaveholder,” Manuel-Scott said. “Our goal was to focus on expanding our community’s understanding of Mason, and to focus on the people he owned and what they thought about freedom.”

The memorial on the Fairfax Campus (see the video) is the centerpiece of the newly renovated Wilkins Plaza, named for the African American civil rights leader, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and beloved Mason professor.

One panel is dedicated to to Penny, an enslaved girl given by Mason to his daughter. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

It will be dedicated at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, April 4, as part of the university’s 50th anniversary celebration.

“I started that project the summer after my sophomore year, and it sounded cool to have research that maybe would contribute to a memorial on campus," said Mason alum Kye Farrow, BA History ’19, MS Management ’20. "But it was really difficult at the time to see how it would get there. So, yes, still today, I'm absolutely amazed the work we did went to the product that's there today."

Other students on the project were Alexis Bracey, BA Global Affairs ’19; Ayman Fatima, BS Systems Engineering, BA Government and International Politics ’21; Farhaj Murshed, BS Statistics ’20; and Elizabeth Perez-Garcia, BS Criminology, Law, and Society ’19.

It was important each student came from a different academic discipline, Manuel-Scott said.

“Each brought a different way of seeing and thinking, and a different way to analyze and explore records,” she said. “That interdisciplinarity created a richness in terms of the project.”

Mason faculty Gabrielle Tayac and Wendi Manuel-Scott gather water from the Potomac River to use in the fountain on Wilkins Plaza. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

The project was launched by Manuel-Scott; Benedict Carton, a faculty member in History and Art History; and Mason alum George Oberle, Mason’s history librarian and a term faculty member in the Department of History and Art History.

The Enslaved People of George Mason project “shows that Mason is striving to be an exemplar institution in relation to the idea of promoting student inquiry and being open to where that goes and takes us, even if it’s not always a happy story,” Oberle said.

The memorial includes the iconic statue of Mason. A new pedestal includes four quotes which highlight the different aspects of his life, including the penning of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the foundation of the U.S. Bill of Rights. But Mason also enslaved more than 100 people at his Gunston Hall plantation and did not free any upon his death.

Memorial panels are also dedicated to Penny, an enslaved child given by Mason to his daughter, and James, Mason’s personal attendant. A fountain contains stones in a pattern that symbolize an African custom of gathering and prayer.

To acknowledge an altar that was constructed next to the Potomac River by the enslaved at Gunston Hall, and to acknowledge that the land on which the university was built was originally inhabited by indigenous people, water from the Potomac River will be poured into the fountain.

“It’s a way to interconnect the worlds, between the place of enslavement, the place of difficulty, but also a place that’s life-giving,” said Gabrielle Tayac, an associate professor of public history at Mason, and a Piscataway tribal citizen. “To pour the water into the fountain that recalls those connections and all of those hopes and dreams and memories the people had, it’s a way of awakening and blending those intentions.”

Said Carton: “Our project sought to guide students’ sense of moral duty, as they branched out to discover hidden histories. This duty is focused on reconstructing the everyday humanity of enslaved people whose lives had deep meaning, despite the cruelties of enslavement.”

“The moral duty,” he said, “is in the learning.”

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Dominion Energy partners with schools on STEM diversity initiative

Melanie Balog — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 19:16:53 +0000

Dominion Energy partners with schools on STEM diversity initiative Melanie Balog Mon, 03/14/2022 - 15:16

Mason is one of the universities participating in the initiative with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. The three-year, $2M initiative will create summer bridge programs for high school students interested in careers and enrichment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Learn more from the Associated Press.

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