The Gifted Music School

Piano: Steinway Model “O” Grand Piano
Donated: January 2012

Founded in 2008 by Eugene Watanabe, the Gifted Music School is a 501(c)(3) non-profit children’s music school located in Salt Lake City.  The school is committed to creating a new standard for music education in the United States. The school features a complete curriculum and world-level faculty.
GMS serves young students of all socio economic backgrounds. As an example of their commitment to serving those in need, the GMS Preparatory currently has 13 students on substantial scholarship, three of which whose incomes are categorized near or below the poverty level. The GMS has served thousands of students through their outreach programs.
The GMS Orchestras perform for Title I schools, serve other charities and received the 2010 Commission on Youth award from the Salt Lake Mayor. Approximately 70 students directly use/or will benefit from the instrument on an annual basis.

East High School/ Youth Enrichment Foundation
Piano: Baldwin Baby Grand
Donated: April 2012

Founded in 2008 through the Youth Enrichment Foundation and SLSD partnership, the East High School piano program offers students the opportunity to study beginning through advanced piano curriculum as part of their high school education.  The piano lab currently has 12 digital pianos and the Baldwin Grand will be used for both individual student performances along with group instruction.
The primary goal of the Youth Enrichment Foundation (a non-profit 501(c)(3) is to bring music and the arts into the lives of children who face serious socioeconomic challenges or have a high risk for drugs, gangs and dropout. At East High, students are placed in the piano program based on expressed interest. If demand for the class exceeds availability (this is usually the case), students from low-income families are given priority along with students who may have particular interest or other need. Over the past 15 years, the Youth Enrichment Foundation has taught piano to students with various physical and learning disabilities including loss of vision, loss of limb, ADHD, Autism, and Aspergers Disease.
The Youth Enrichment Foundation has been in partnership with the Salt Lake City school district for more than 15 years. There are currently two other YEF piano labs at Whittier Elementary and Glendale Middle School, which are both Title I (low-income) schools. Many of the students from Whittier and Glendale feed into the program at East high so students can potentially begin free piano lessons in the 2nd grade and continue through their senior year. Some of the pianos that have been placed by the Piano Bank have gone to students in YEF elementary and junior high programs.

Through the use of PNO Scan technology, audience members and performers experienced piano performance at a different level on March 21 at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center.  The first of several performances, Air~ merges visual art, poetry, and film with captivating performances by nine young pianists from the Wasatch Front.

The concert opened with a light and nimble performance of Etudes de Virtuosite Op. 72 no. 6 by Piano Ambassador Tiffany Xu, and was accompanied by artwork created by West Valley Title-I high school students and colorized by youth from the Computer Club House at the Sorenson Unity Center. The evening progressed with a solitary presentation of Etude Op. 25 No. 7 by Sarah Shipp as film footage of a lonely tree living in a mountain crag morphed into clouds cascading over high and ragged mountain tops.

Colored pencil humming birds took flight as Mary Frances Oldham performed a light and cheerful rendition of “To a Humming Bird” by MacDowell.  This colorful display was directly followed by a haunting and soulful rendition of Nocturne in E minor Op. 72 no. 1 by Olivia Torgersen, which invited the audience to explore past the clouds on a moonlit night into the vastness of space. Special guests, Maggie Ivory and David Horton, from the Gifted Music School delivered a stellar performance of the first movement from Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata Op. 5. Photographs of Utah wildflowers captured by Biology Professor Emeritus William Gray accompanied their musical offering. Chopin’s Prelude Op. 28, no. 14 performed by Rachel Anders wasa complemented by footage of a powerful and ferocious tornado destroying everything in its path. In contrast, Oktobre by Tchaikovsky offered a serene moment among the quivering Aspen trees and mountains of the Wasatch Front. Displays of aurora borealis and Computer Club House artwork were projected as Sarah Shipp and Piano Ambassador Richard Contreras performed works by Alexander Scriabin. Lindsey Vickers performed a flowing rendition of Leaf’s Fantasy in a minor as clouds danced inside a kaleidoscope of colors.

Human inventions and their relationship to air took stage through Mary Frances Oldham’s performance of Invention No. 8 in F Major by Bach, as the display examined musical notation, wind farms and solar arrays. Danzas Argentinas by Ginastera were aptly performed by Contreras and enhanced with time-lapse footage of modern day life.

Eloquent recitations by Evan George interspersed the musical performances with poetry written by West Valley students. Lili Huettlinger performed a haunting rendition of “Ballad of the Sun” by Peskanov while accompanying Glendale Middle School students, who are participating in dance workshops held in collaboration with the Repertory Dance Theatre.

Upcoming Performances of Air

Thursday May 10
7 PM
Glendale Middle School
1430 Andrew Avenue (1700 So.)

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Tuesday May 15
6:30 PM
Rose Park Elementary
1105 West 1000 North

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Renata

a hard-working 8th grader, has been studying piano for two years. Her family did not own a piano so she practiced an hour every day at her school. Her teacher says Renata is naturally very musical and has the ability to transform the most basic pieces into perfected masterpieces. Renata describes herself as “a nice girl with a big heart…and a 4.0 g.p.a. in school.” She loves to care for younger children, a trait that will serve her well when she realizes her ambi-tion to become a piano teacher. About her new piano she says, “It’s great to have gotten a free piano by doing something I love. I never thought that something like this would happen to me. I’m so grateful, and I’ll continue educat-ing in piano. This is a dream come true, because I always wished for it.”

sponsored by the University of Utah Tanner Humanities Center

February 22,  2012 (Wednesday)
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Salt Lake Main Library

The Mundi Project would like to invite Salt Lake area piano students to perform at the opening reception. It is a wonderful opportunity for students preparing for UFMC Solo Festivals and other Spring events to practice performing. Repertoire should be performance ready and may include solo and ensemble.

Teachers/ individual students may reserve blocks of time in increments of 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes.

Availability is on a first come first serve basis.

To reserve a time, interested teachers/ pianists should email:  janatova@mundiproject.org or call 801-487-8594.

We invite pianists interested in performing in the Air~ Inter-disciplinary performance project, to apply. Please download, complete, and submit the following materials by no later than January 20, 2012.

2012 Air Performer app_rev4

MUNDI Project Media Release (under 18)

For more detailed application procedures, please download the

Air~ Pianist Application Guidelines.

Olivia was eight years-old when she began playing the piano.  A friend of the family gave her a year of lessons for Christmas.  Olivia’s mom gave her a used Casio keyboard so she would be able to practice at home.  For two years, Olivia participated in lessons and faithfully practiced on her little keyboard.  She progressed as well as well as she could with what she had.  Then her piano teacher told her about Piano Bank.

“Olivia’s teacher gave us the information about the Mundi Project.  She encouraged Olivia to apply because she had been playing on a keyboard for years and wasn’t able to progress much further” said Erika- Olivia’s mother.  Since the receipt of her piano, Olivia has developed discipline, coordination, patience and the love of performing.  “She may not like to practice, but she enjoys the accomplishments,” said Erika.  “We always have music in the home now- everyday.  It has been an inspiration to see the child of a single mom have that fortune in her life.”

Olivia has plans to give back to the community who has provided her with such an opportunity.  “I have been encouraging her to give lessons to other children in the community.”  She is also planning on being a camp counselor in the upcoming summers.  “I believe this experience will help her influence children that anything is possible, that hard work and practice will pay off.  It has opened up many possibilities for her future.”

Olivia is another example of the power of music, and a piano, in the home.

Changing the World through Piano Performance

The purpose of Mundi Project Piano Ambassador Program is to introduce young and new audiences to classical piano literature, giving developing pianists performance experience in their musical journey, and educating the community on themes through inter-disciplinary concert formats.

Creating Piano Performance Experiences that Harmonize our Community

Piano Ambassador Concerts include a multi-media/disciplinary format to enhance the musical performance for youth and the general public, who have rarely experienced piano recital. The goal is to create an esoteric and holistic concert that engages and educates all participants and audience members on the project’s theme. Concerts will reach over 2,000 youth in the Greater Salt Lake area through performances in West Valley and the Salt Lake School District.

How can your piano performance make a difference?

Advanced Classical Piano Repertoire

is accompanied by visual presentations through stills and film clips. In preparation for this, the Mundi Project uses PNOScan, software, and midi-files to prepare each selection. If desired, we invite pianists to participate in this process, as we strive to make the experience a positive one for performer and audience members alike. Applicants for the PNOScan technology portion may submit up to three choices of current repertoire by the postmark deadline of Wednesday December 21, 2011.

Non-Classical or Pedagogical Repertoire

applicants have the opportunity to be a part of a collaborative effort, where their selection is accompanied by dance choreography designed specifically on their repertoire.  Choreography workshops for middle-school and high school students are being held through the months of February and March under the direction of RDT faculty. Applicants for this discipline must submit an audio recording or arrange a live audition no later than January 20, 2012.

Sharing your musical voice

Musical selections should reflect pianists thought and feelings around the theme of Air~ in the areas of nature, geology, technology, and the environment. For example: topics addressed in the inter-disciplinary art workshops include teaching elementary school students about wind farms, transportation, geological features in nature created by wind erosion, atmospheric sciences (weather: storms, breezes, clouds, snow, rain…), objects and living things that fly through the air (birds, planes, kites…) Duration of repertoire should not exceed 8 minutes.

Air~ Pianist Application Guidelines and Performance Dates
2012 Air Performer Application_rev

Application Postmark Deadline Wednesday December 21, 2011
Applications may be submitted electronically to janatova@mundiproject.org

November 1, 2011

7:30 pm

Vieve Gore Concert Hall
Jewett Center for the Performing Arts
Westminster College

SALT LAKE CITY —2011-2012 Piano Ambassadors Richard Contreras and Tiffany Xu will be performing with several local pianists at 7:30 p.m. on November 1, 2011 at the Vieve Gore Concert Hall.

The program will include works by Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Schubert, Prokofiev, and Franz Liszt.

Selections will be accompanied by digital artwork displays and poetry recitations created by Westminster College students and a community dream-mural created by the youth of Neighborhood House after-school program under the tutelage of artist, Sarah Moyer.

The project supports piano education for underprivileged children through its Piano Bank and Piano Ambassador programs. These programs are designed to increase access to pianos and enhance unique performance opportunities through inter-disciplinary performances.
Tickets are $10 ($5 students) and will be available at the door.

Silent auction

featuring music and visual art items will occur from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM.
All proceeds benefit Mundi Project programs.

For more information, call 801-487-8594
E-mail contact@mundiproject.org

Next Piano Bank application deadline is coming up on October 10, 2011.
Applications are available for individuals and public spaces.

Piano Bank Applications for Individuals

Piano Bank Application (English)

Aplicación española

Public Spaces Application:

Public Spaces Application