GRAMMY Museum Grant Program Awards $200,000 For Music Research And Sound Preservation

The GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program announced today that $200,000 in grants will be awarded to 14 recipients in the United States and Canada to help facilitate a range of research on a variety of subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs. Research projects include a study that will examine how rhythmic cues can improve movement for older adults and people with Parkinson's disease, and a study that will examine how neural integration through music enhances long-term memory, among others. Preservation and archiving initiatives will rescue and organize 400 hours of at-risk reel-to-reel tapes of Native Radio-Bay Area:1973-1978; preserve, digitize, and ensure public access to 316 rare interviews with performers, songwriters, and music executives from the Country Music Hall of Fame; and digitally restore rare kinescopes of the 1950s television series "Stars Of Jazz" (KABC-TV, 1956-58); among others.

"The Recording Academy™ has proudly supported our GRAMMY MUSEUM Grant Program since its inception," said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of the Recording Academy and Chair of the GRAMMY MUSEUM Board. "To date, we have awarded more than $7.3 million to more than 400 grantees. The work we help fund includes an impressive array of projects that are at the forefront of exploring music's beneficial interchange with science, and that maintain our musical legacy for future generations. The initiatives announced today exemplify the Academy's and GRAMMY Museum's pledge to uphold music's value in our lives and shared culture."

Generously funded by the Recording Academy, the GRAMMY MUSEUM Grant Program provides funding annually to organizations and individuals to support efforts that advance the archiving and preservation of the recorded sound heritage of the Americas for future generations, in addition to research projects related to the impact of music on the human condition. In 2008, the Grant Program expanded its categories to include assistance grants for individuals and small to mid-sized organizations to aid collections held by individuals and organizations that may not have access to the expertise needed to create a preservation plan. The assistance planning process, which may include inventorying and stabilizing a collection, articulates the steps to be taken to ultimately archive recorded sound materials for future generations. The deadline each year for submitting letters of inquiry to the Grant Program is Oct. 15. Guidelines and the letter of inquiry form for the 2019 cycle are available atwww.grammymuseum.org.

Scientific Research

New York University-New York
Awarded: $20,000
The Behavioral Tagging hypothesis-mainly tested in animals-suggests that the presentation of novel or rewarding stimuli before or after encoding an event will strengthen the memory for that episode. The researchers will use behavioral online testing and brain imaging to assess whether listening to pleasurable and/or novel music boosts memory for independently memorized information. This discovery will guide new educational and clinical strategies to improve learning.

Tufts University-Medford, Mass.
Awarded: $19,557
Memory loss affects more than a third of Americans over 70 and has been linked to changes in neural dynamics and connectivity. Music is known to synchronize brain rhythms and to enhance communication between distinct brain regions. This project will be the first to identify how music creates a more integrated brain in both musicians and populations with memory loss, and how neural integration through music enhances long-term memory.

McGill University-Montréal
Awarded: $20,000
Is the intense pleasure evoked by music modulated by dopaminergic and/or opioid transmission? The researchers from McGill propose a pharmacological approach able to solve the issue. Following a study on dopaminergic transmission, they will administer opioid agonist (oxycodone) and antagonist (naltrexone) during music listening. This would unravel the underpinning neural mechanisms of musical reward, and open important perspectives for music-based paradigms and interventions.

Washington University-St. Louis
Awarded: $11,514
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a movement disorder that causes difficulty with walking. Rhythmic cues can improve gait disturbance for people with PD, but current research is limited to external cues like listening to music, which are impractical for everyday use. Researchers at Washington University will test a novel technique of using one's own singing voice as a cue to guide movement. This method holds promise to transform gait rehabilitation for older adults as well as people with PD.

Preservation Assistance

Tri-Centric Foundation, Inc.-Brooklyn, N.Y.
Awarded: $5,000
The Tri-Centric Foundation seeks support to inventory, identify, and prioritize 300 scores and 1,025 audio and video recordings of Anthony Braxton. These scores and recordings will play a key role in "Braxton75," a project honoring Braxton's 75th birthday in 2020. "Braxton75" partner ensembles and educators will animate these holdings through study and live performance.

Conseil Québécois du Patrimoine Vivant-Quebec City
Awarded: $5,000
From 1965 to 1975, folklorist Jean Trudel travelled across the province of Quebec recording traditional French-Canadian musicians at festivals, concerts, and dances, as well as in their own homes. His collection contains 266 reel-to-reel tapes and documents from many major figures in traditional French-Canadian music. Conseil Québécois du Patrimoine Vivant is seeking support to assess the contents of this collection in preparation for its digitization, dissemination, and preservation.

Native Media Resource Center-Gualala, Calif.
Awarded: $5,000
Native Media Resource Center seeks support to rescue and organize 400 hours of at-risk reel-to-reel tapes from Native Radio-Bay Area:1973-1978, including the KPFA-FM series, "Living On Indian Time." This project will assess; inventory/catalog; rehouse tapes in archival boxes; seek partner institutions for long-term storage, maintenance, and accessibility; and plan for future preservation. Inventory will be disseminated to public media and archival communities.

Preservation Implementation

Arhoolie Foundation-El Cerrito, Calif.
Awarded: $20,000
The Arhoolie Foundation will digitally preserve and make selectively available online, in streaming audio more than 300 hours of recordings made by folklorist Dr. HARRY Oster between 1957 and 1980 in Louisiana, Iowa, Memphis, England, and Mexico. This one-of-a-kind collection exists only on original tapes in the Arhoolie Foundation vault, and features well-known regional musicians such as Gary Davis, Son House, Robert Pete Williams, Fred McDowell, and many obscure deep tradition artists.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum-Nashville, Tenn.
Awarded: $15,000
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (CMHFM) will preserve, digitize, and ensure public access to 316 rare interviews with performers, songwriters, and music executives from one of the world's most significant country music oral history collections. CMHFM will make these singular recordings searchable and accessible via their online digital archive and via the Museum's onsite Collections' Reading Room.

Columbia University Libraries-New York
Awarded: $20,000
Columbia University Libraries (CUL) will digitize and preserve 400 hours of unique recordings of early electro-acoustic music. The digital copies will meet international standards of capture at 96kHz/24 bit, will be preserved in CUL's long-term archive, and will be made accessible in the Gabe M. Wiener Music & Arts Library.

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology-Berkeley, Calif.
Awarded: $12,280
The Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will transfer 150 hours of sound recordings from Native North American performers spanning the years 1940 to 1980 to digital formats. The recordings' significance lies in their documentation of Native North American languages that are today known by a limited number of speakers. The new versions will be made accessible to researchers, public audiences, and, most importantly, Native American communities.

The Juilliard School-New York
Awarded: $15,112
Throughout its long history, the name Juilliard has been synonymous with the highest standards of excellence in the education of performing artists. "Digitizing Juilliard's History" seeks to preserve 483 reel tapes from its first decade of audio recordings, 1951 to 1959. Access to this archive of notable and rare performances will be of benefit to music, dance, and performance scholars, as well as to the general public.

UCLA Film & Television Archive-Los Angeles
Awarded: $17,073.25
UCLA Film & Television Archive will digitally restore rare kinescopes of the historically important 1950s television series "Stars Of Jazz" (KABC-TV, 1956-58). The innovative program featured top musical artists performing classic and modern jazz live for TV audiences. RESTORED programs will be made available for public access locally at UCLA and nationally via the Archive's extended network of museum and repertory partners.

T. Christopher Aplin-Pasadena, Calif.
Awarded: $14,463.75
The Fort Sill Chiricahua/Warm Springs Apache Tribe's Apache Prisoner of War Audio Collection Digitization and Processing Project will catalogue, process, and establish appropriate access for the recorded sound heritage of the Apache prisoners of war seized with Geronimo in 1886. These recordings are fundamental documents of Apache prisoner of war history and culture that address Chihene Apache experiences on the Warm Springs reservation (circa 1870-1878, in what was later called New Mexico); in the Mexican Sierra Madres with the Nednai Apaches (1881-1883); and after seizure as prisoners of war (1886-1914).

ABOUT THE GRAMMY MUSEUM
Established in 2008 as a partnership between the Recording Academy and AEG, the GRAMMY MUSEUM is a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating a greater understanding of the history and significance of music. Paying tribute to our collective musical heritage, the Museum explores and celebrates all aspects of the art form-from the technology of the recording process to the legends who've made lasting marks on our cultural identity. In 2017, the Museum integrated with its sister organization, the GRAMMY Foundation®, to broaden the reach of its music education and preservation initiatives. As a unified organization, today, the GRAMMY MUSEUM fulfills its mission of making music a valued and indelible part of our society through exhibits, education, grants, and public programming.

To post a comment, you must register and login.