Graduate Music Forum (GMF)
Started in spring 1998, the Graduate Music Forum (GMF) aims to provide an opportunity for Harvard Music Department graduate students in all programs to discuss issues of common interest of concern to them. To date, these have ranged from matters of departmental administration and facilities to the structure of degree programs and the inception of new student projects, such as conferences and wellness programs.
Discussion takes place principally in monthly meetings. Both notification and minutes are circulated to all graduate students. All are encouraged to attend the meetings: however, those for whom attendance is inconvenient or impossible are urged to participate in the Forum via e-mail or other means.
While the aim has been to keep the GMF fairly informal, the organization does have an official role in selecting and briefing representatives to the Music Department faculty meetings and the Graduate Student Council.
Barwick Colloquia, Friday Lunch Talks, Theory Tuesdays, & Composer Colloquia
Each year the department nominates scholars and musicians to invite to campus to give a colloquium, and graduate students are actively involved in this process. Seven speakers are chosen by vote. Graduate student volunteers act as hosts to each speaker. The Department provides the funds that make the colloquium series, now named the Barwick Student Colloquium Series, possible. This is not the only series of colloquia offered by the Department, but it is the only one which gives graduate students the opportunity to request specific speakers whose work is of particular interest, or in fields which are not necessarily reflected by the day-to-day offerings of the Department.
Friday Lunch Talks are a series of informal colloquia where students are invited to give “works in progress.” Theory Tuesdays are informal as well, and are focused around a topic or series of scholarly works. The Composer’s Colloquium is a weekly get-together that meets every Monday at noon. It brings together composers, theorists and musicologists from both within and outside Harvard for discussion.
Southern Pian Society (SPS)
The Southern-Pian Society (SPS), the Music Department’s affinity group for graduate students of color, was named after the two tenured women of color on the faculty of the music department: Eileen Southern (1920–2002) and Rulan Chao Pian 卞趙如蘭 (1922–2013). The society was co-founded by ethnomusicology graduate students Krystal Klingenberg and M. Leslie Santana, who articulated the need for such a group in a letter in the spring of 2016 that addressed faculty diversity in the music department.
While SPS has historically focused on matters pertaining to POC grad students in the music department, SPS has expanded its focus to building, fostering, and supporting future generations of POC music scholars at every level. Specifically, our goal is to develop and sustain congenial relations between POC post-docs, grads, and undergrads, and work towards a more inclusive, connected departmental culture.
The Student Center at Harvard Griffin GSAS
The Student Center at Harvard Griffin GSAS offers social, intellectual, and recreational activities designed to help students make connections outside of the classroom, lab, or library and across the various academic programs and campus locations in Harvard Griffin GSAS. For further information, visit the Student Center website: https://gsas.harvard.edu/student-center.
Fellowships, Grants and Prizes
In recent years virtually every graduate student has received one or more of the fellowships and grants awarded by the University and the music department. Awards given by the department each year include several prizes in composition, John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowships, the Oscar S. Schafer Fellowship, Richard F. French Fellowships, Ferdinand Gordon & Elizabeth Hunter Morrill Fellowships, and Nino Pirrotta Research Grants. In addition, graduate students are awarded six years guaranteed funding (including living expenses) when accepted to a PhD program.
Students traveling abroad on trips funded or arranged by Harvard or who will receive Harvard credit during their travel are required to record their itineraries in the Harvard Travel Registry. https://www.globalsupport.harvard.edu/travel-tools/harvard-travel-registry
Kennedy, Knox, Sheldon, Lurcy Traveling Fellowships
For more information (e.g. guidelines, applications) on the Kennedy, Knox, Sheldon and Lurcy Travelling Fellowships, please see the Director of Administration (Nancy Shafman) early in the year. Applications with letter of recommendation should be submitted to her as well.
Students interested in the Harvard Tower and Ecole Normale Superieure, French Exchange Program, Institut D’Etudes Politiques should also consult with the Director of Administration.
Merit, Whiting, and Graduate Society Fellowships
DEADLINE: January
There are several fellowships offered by the Graduate School:
1. Summer grant A: for language study and/or research, pre-dissertation prospectus (G1, G2, or G3)
2. Term time dissertation research award
3. Dissertation completion award** and Eliot* (full year) awards.
* selected from the winning pool
**If you have received a Dissertation Completion Fellowship you are ineligible for summer funding and should not apply
Please see the Director of Administration (Nancy Shafman) at any time if you have questions or wish to obtain an application for any of these fellowships. Information will also be posted on the graduate board. If you are applying for more than one of these, you will need to include only one copy of your transcript.
You are strongly urged to check with the faculty from whom you are considering asking for recommendations as to their travel plans during late December and the month of January.
Music Department Summer Fellowships
Applications for all Summer Fellowships (listed below: Paine, Pirrotta, French, Morrill) should be in letter form addressed to the Department Chair, and should include a standard FORM (ask Eva Kim for this), a description of and budget for the proposed project. Please see the Director of Administration, Nancy Shafman, if you have any questions. Deadline: Friday, March 24, 2023.
Note: if you have received a Dissertation Completion Fellowship you are ineligible for summer funding and should not apply
John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowships
Each spring, the Music Department awards John Knowles Paine Fellowships for travel and study during the following summer and into the academic year. The Fellowships were established in 1912 by Mrs. Paine in memory of her husband. The Music Department grants these Fellowships to graduating senior music concentrators pursuing post-baccalaureate research, and to graduate students writing PhD theses.
Nino and Lea Pirrotta Research Fund Fellowship
The Nino and Lea Pirrotta Graduate Research Fund was established in 1983 in honor of Professor Pirrotta on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Previous grants have ranged from $400 to $2,000. Each award is given for a research project of well-defined limited scope (e.g. a brief research visit to a domestic or foreign library, archive, or research facility)
Richard F. French Prize Fellowships
Established by Richard F. French, long-time supporter of the Music Department and the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library. The French Fellowship in Music is intended to support the expenses of one or more graduate students in the Department who possess exceptional and distinguished musical and intellectual ability and have been formally accepted as doctoral candidates. Funds are available to support doctoral research in residence or abroad.
Ferdinand Gordon & Elizabeth Hunter Morrill Graduate Fellowships
The Morrill Fellowship was established in 1992 as a gift of Gordon and Elizabeth Morrill to establish a graduate fellowship for research in Italy on music from the 15th to the 18th centuries, with a special emphasis on vocal music and opera. This award covers travel and living expenses for appropriate periods of research in Italy. It is hoped that while they are in Italy the recipients will avail themselves of the resources of the Gordon and Elizabeth Morrill Music Library at the Villa I Tatti in Florence.
The Wesley Weyman Fund
The Wesley Weyman Fund accepts applications from graduate students in the Department of Music for financial assistance with travel and other expenses related to participation in conferences or other professional meetings or events. Subsidies are generally modest, and cover only a part of actual expenses, and vary based on the state of the fund.
Applications can be made before the scheduled professional event by submitting a brief letter addressed to The Weyman Fund, Harvard University Department of Music. Please put them in Eva Kim’s mailbox. The letter should include a line or two about your participation in the conference or other event and a list of anticipated expenses (e.g. air and ground travel, lodgings, conference fees, meals, other incidental costs). Applications made after the event should list actual expenses, but need not include receipts. Please be sure to indicate if you are presenting a paper or having a composition performed.
Since relatively small sums are available, it may be necessary at times to take into consideration whether or how often a given applicant has previously been awarded assistance from the Weyman Fund.
For deadline information or questions about the application procedure write evakim@fas.harvard.edu
Music Department Travel Fund
The Department Travel fund is available to graduate students four times (provided funding is available) during their tenure. It can be used to support travel to attend a conference, give a paper or have a composition performed by a professional organization.
The Scholarship Committee has set the following guidelines:
– Students are strongly encouraged to apply to other funding sources (Graduate Student Council, Weyman Fund, various centers) when applicable;
– One of the four trips must to be used to present a paper or the equivalent, not just to attend a conference; and
– Funding will not exceed $700 per trip; receipts or budget of planned expense required
The award will be based on current availability of funds. Requests should be submitted by email to the Manager of Administration and Finance (evakim@fas.harvard.edu). Please include full information on the specifics of the conference/concert travel (location, dates), your current mailing address & proof/budget of expenses up to $700 to pay the full grant amount. The payment is a grant and may be processed as a paper check or via a Zelle deposit. International students who are not U.S. Residence for tax purposes will have 14% advance tax withholding on grants for use in the U.S.
John Green Fellowships
The Fund was established by friends and family of the late John Green ’28 in support of excellence in musical composition. It is made annually to an undergraduate or graduate student composer.
Composition Prizes
Compositions should be submitted to the Assistant to the Chair for these prizes. Contact the Assistant to the Chair for details. The deadline for this year is Friday, March 24, 2023.
The Bohemians (New York Musicians Club)
By the gift of two thousand dollars from “The Bohemians” (New York Musicians Club) there has been established in the Department of Music a prize in original musical composition. The competition is open to undergraduates or the members of any graduate school of the University. The interest of the bequest will be awarded for an original composition for one or two instruments.
Francis Boott Prize
From the income of the bequest of Francis Boott, of the Class of 1831, a prize has been established for the writer of the best composition in concerted vocal music. The competition is open to undergraduates or to members of any graduate school of the University. The prize is offered for the best composition for chorus of not less than three nor more than eight parts, either a capella or with accompaniment for piano, organ, or small instrumental ensemble, requiring not more than ten minutes for performance. The choice of text, which may be either sacred or secular, Latin or English, original or selected, is left to the contestant.
George Arthur Knight Prize
In 1909 the University received from William H. Knight, of the Class of 1903, a fund for the establishment of a prize in memory of his brother, George Arthur Knight, late of the Class of 1907. On this foundation the George Arthur Knight Prize is offered for the best composition in instrumental music, “preference to be given to compositions for string quartets or trios, though works with piano accompaniment may compete.” The competition is open to undergraduates and degree candidates in any graduate school in the University.
Adelbert W. Sprague Prize
From the income of the Adelbert W. Sprague fund established in 1968 for the Department of Music, a prize is offered to graduate students in a competition in orchestral composition.
Hugh F. Maccoll Bequest Prize
Bequest of Hugh F. MacColl, 1907, this prize was established in 1954. The income from the fund is “to be applied from time to time . . . to the awarding of prizes” in a competition for students in Harvard College “for original musical compositions.”
The Blodgett Composition Competition
This is a string quartet competition for a piece to be performed by the Parker String Quartet during their regular season at Paine Hall.Entries should be submitted to Eva Kim.