“Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart are wonderful, but they don’t need anyone to advocate for them,” said Grodrian, 39, of Valparaiso, a native of Florence, South Carolina, who’s been with the university for eight years.
Grodrian’s passion for living American composers is so strong that she’s putting the work of four musicians together in a 56-minute collection, a project that recently received a boost with a $2,000 grant from the Indiana Arts Commission.
Grodrian, who took a sabbatical during the spring semester to work on the project, also received an internal grant from VU and is awaiting word on a third grant.
“I don’t expect to make any money from this project but I’m proud of it,” said Grodrian, who started playing French horn when she was 13 and was inspired to teach music by a college professor.
Most of the composers Grodrian selected for the project are musicians she knows personally. She commissioned a friend to do a piece on Devils Tower in Wyoming, a place both of them had visited.
“I told him I wanted a new piece for horn alone, not horn and piano, just me,” she said, adding he chose to do the piece based on their shared experience. “It has this open, expansive kind of sound to it.”
The majority of the composers are from the Midwest, she said, and each piece is connected in some way to an American geographic landscape. Grodrian started the project about six months ago, and recording began in March.
The piece Grodrian said she is most excited about will be performed in the Brauer Museum of Art in the fall. The free program, which is open to the public, takes place at 7 p.m. Oct. 3, and features “Landscapes,” composed by Daniel Baldwin, and inspired by New England landscape paintings by Frederic Edwin Church. The museum owns one of Church’s landscape paintings.
Her goal is to have the collection complete in February and have it available on Spotify, “otherwise my students will never hear it,” she said.
In all, according to a release, 56 Hoosier artists from throughout the state received career development assistance through the agency’s Individual Advancement Program grants for this fiscal year. Artists could request grant support up to $2,000.
“Artists living and pursuing a career in Indiana are a valuable part of the fabric of their community, and contribute to the local and state economy as they purchase supplies or equipment, or pay utilities and taxes,” Lewis C. Ricci, executive director of the Indiana Arts Commission, said in the release.
“These grants help increase the opportunity for artists to successfully advance their careers and continue to live in and contribute to the economic success of our state.”
Other grant recipients from Region 1 include: Samuel (Love) Barnett, Gary, literature; Andrea Ledbetter, Gary, literature; Marissela Lynch, Portage, dance; Jeffrey Ortman, Michigan City, multidisciplinary; Joseph Rauen, Munster; interdisciplinary; Jessica Renslow, Gary, literature; and Adam John Sedia, Griffith, music.
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