Congratulations to the six winners of the Spring 2025 IML Mentorship grant from the IML!
Qingqing Kong won a grant to support her event, Harmonies of Heritage. This event is a celebration of tradition and culture, In honor of this event, the Chinese Music Ensemble of Rochester will present a recital on the theme of “Family, Unity and Harmony” to share with the Rochester Community the significance of this precious event. It will bring the community together to experience the beauty and richness of traditional Chinese music. By performing classic and innovative works of Chinese music, the event not only honors the cultural value of the Mid-Autumn Festival but also aims to promote community interaction and appreciation of China’s musical heritage. The Chinese Music Ensemble of Rochester is a talented group of outstanding musicians from universities in the Rochester area. Members are passionate about preserving and promoting Chinese music and culture. We invite audiences of all ages to enjoy an evening of cultural exchange, and to connect with each other through the boundless language of music.
The Locus Trio won a grant to support commissioning a new work for violin, clarinet, and piano by Eastman student composer Lisa Ling, to be premiered at the Rochester Museum & Science Center as part of the Sound Bites exhibit. The program will consist of an explanation and live demonstration of our instruments, followed by a performance of the piece which will be designed to showcase the full range of timbres and textures of the ensemble for unfamiliar listeners. In the presentation, we will dive into the physics of sound as an extension of the Sound Bites displays, and show the specific mechanisms of strings, winds, and keyboard instruments. The Locus Trio includes Leona Liu, violin, Harrison Kim, clarinet and Christopher Yao, piano.
Ash Mach won a grant for “Sounding the Philippines”: a digital exhibit on American-colonial/post-colonial Filipino composers and their music (~1897-1997), featuring historical information, newly engraved sheet music, and recordings. Hosted on Scalar, the exhibit uses digital humanities tools like interactive maps and timelines to contextualize each composer in history. While the composers’ lives and artistic output are the centerpiece of the exhibit, it also discusses the impacts of colonialism on Filipino arts/culture. The exhibit uses primary (composers’ writings, manuscripts) and secondary (pre-existing articles and recordings) sources, balancing accessible language, audio recordings, images, and interactive diagrams to reach a wide audience.
Guitarist Eshaan Sood won a grant for The Sonic Alchemists: a multicultural, multimedia initiative that transforms personal and global stories into instrumental compositions and visual narratives. By blending elements of Indian music with jazz and other genres, the project explores music’s role as a unifying language, fostering empathy and cross-cultural understanding. Deliverables include an album, a series of documentary-style videos exploring the stories and processes behind the music, and educational tools for composers
Lutenist and educator Pedro Sperb received a grant to support LUTE4KIDS, an initiative to create a program centered around hands-on activities, promoting young students to experiment on the prototype lute developed in collaboration with the Lute Society of America and the luthier D.Yost. LUTE4KIDS is an educational tool that has been promoting unique learning by displaying small replicas of historical plucked instruments, such as lutes, theorbo, historical guitars and vihuelas. This program was designed to be implemented at educational institutions, oriented by the learning objective of making music directly from Renaissance sources, reading original tablature notation.
Zhilin Zhang won a grant to support her research project “A Pedagogical Framework to Dismantle Musical Stereotypes: Using the Chinese Music Curriculum as a Model.” The purpose of this study is to create a pedagogical framework that dismantles musical stereotypes in non-Western music education by using Chinese music as a critical model. To dismantle superficial teaching methodologies and develop a holistic framework, Zhilin is employing an ethnographic field research methodology grounded in culturally informed teaching to create the model curriculum. Based on this research, Zhilin is developing an eight-week Chinese music curriculum for upper elementary students, to be implemented in two elementary schools in Rochester, NY. The curriculum will include live performances, student engagement with the Hulusi (a traditional Chinese instrument), and the use of music technology.
The IML Mentorship grant supports independent creative projects led by matriculated Eastman students beyond the scope of their degree. The next deadline to apply is October 1, 2025. Learn more here.
