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School of Music students awarded prestigious Fulbright grants
Monday, May 2, 2011
Frank Latino, a Ph.D. student in musicology, and Elizabeth Hogsten, MM student in Piano Performance, have been awarded Fulbright grants for 2011-2012.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program enables qualified undergraduates, graduate students and recent alumni to design their own study or research plans or to teach English in over 140 countries. It provides unique opportunities for international experience, personal enrichment and an open exchange of ideas with citizens of other nations. Over 8,000 applicants competed for these awards in 2010.
Frank Latino
During his Fulbright year in Berlin, Frank will prepare a monograph on pianist-composer Walter Gieseking's (1895-1956) Lieder output, along with a critical performance edition of the unpublished songs. With musicians from the Hochschule fuer Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover and the Hochschule fuer Musik Saar-the institutions where Gieseking himself studied and taught, respectively-Frank will also lead lecture-recitals on Gieseking as composer. These events will include the German premieres of the Lieder and an assortment of other unpublished works written between 1912 and 1950. He has made arrangements with Schott Music at Mainz to have a series of his editions of Gieseking's compositions published, which will include the Lieder as well as several unknown piano and chamber works.
With an interest in the great pianists of the past, Frank first translated Gieseking's memoirs as a Master's thesis project at Florida State University. After beginning the Ph.D. program in musicology at the University of Maryland, his research then continued when he wrote a paper on Gieseking's career in postwar America. In 2007, he traveled to Germany to interview Gieseking's two daughters and explore their private collection of Gieseking's scrapbooks, manuscripts, and other memorabilia. This prompted him to make Gieseking the topic of his dissertation on Gieseking. Frank believes strongly in the promotion of both contemporary music and overlooked compositions, and hopes that his research will help preserve Gieseking's legacy, making the full extent of his career and output known.
Elizabeth Hogsten
Elizabeth will be studying the piano music of Isang Yun (1917-1995), a classically-trained composer who was born in Korea and lived most of his life in Germany. Elizabeth will examine Yun's blend of Eastern and Western musical styles in his music. In order to understand the context in which Yun composed, Elizabeth will explore traditional and current Korean music. She plans to attend the Isang Yun Festival (an annual event held in Yun's hometown), study Yun's 5 Pieces for Piano, and take Korean language classes to expand her opportunities and fully experience the culture.
Commenting about her research, Elizabeth says, "I am half-Korean, half-Caucasian, a blend of Eastern and Western cultures myself, so I am particularly interested in studying music that combines these cultures. I am fascinated by the way Yun captured Eastern musical ideals in Western notation and the way he brought the sounds of traditional Korean music to life on Western instruments. I am excited to get the chance to not only immerse myself in the Korean culture for a year, but simultaneously study one of Korea's most innovative and interesting composers."
