Music department at CSUSB receives $15,000 grant

California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB) recently announced they will receive a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the Music department.

CSUSB will use the grant for the department’s “New Frontiers: Multimedia Monodramas,” a series of multidisciplinary, multimedia monodramas, and arts events at CSUSB focusing on aspects of new frontiers, California, diversity, women and the idea of the West.

Artists will engage with the university’s largely Hispanic populations through workshops, educational activities and music performances of new works. Chronicling the heritage of women in the West, the project supports the creation and production of two full-length works to be premiered at Cal State San Bernardino and Cal State Fullerton in fall 2022: “Why Women Went West: I Mary, Mary by Herself” and “The New Frontier.”

“I am beyond excited that the NEA has chosen our project ‘New Frontiers: Multimedia Monodramas’ for funding in this 2021 cycle of grants,” said Stacey Fraser, CSUSB professor of music, soprano and the project director. “I have been collaborating with composers Jack Van Zandt and Pamela Madsen and librettists Jill Freeman and Quintan Ana Wikswo for some time; they are doing important and thought-provoking work that celebrates the diversity and heritage of our region.”

These monodramas are among the more than 1,100 projects across America totaling nearly $27 million that were selected during a second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2021 funding.

For more information about the music department, visit CSUSB’s Department of Music website.