She will study at the University of Potsdam
Danielle Wood, who just achieved a bachelor of music in horn performance, has received
a Fulbright to study at the University of Potsdam in Germany during the 2019–2020
academic year. Her project, a comparative study of the performance of and audience
appreciation for twentieth-century music in Germany and the U.S., will be advised
by Dr. Christian Thorau, editor of the Oxford Handbook of Music Listening.
Established in 1945 by Senator J. William Fulbright to promote bilateral relationships with citizens and governments in other countries, Fulbright Fellowships have become among the most prestigious awards for graduate study abroad. The Open Study/Research Awards, where candidates must display not only language proficiency and develop an affiliation with a host university, are very competitive. Awards to study in Germany in particular are among the most sought-after and are very difficult to get.
“I plan to explore changes in the past 20 years of audience reception of classical music," Wood said. She hypothesizes that numerous factors – including changes in technology, political climates, wealth distribution, foreign policy and demographics – have affected listening cultures over the past two decades in Berlin and Potsdam. "These changes have potentially contributed to the class and ethnic makeup of concert audiences and the evolving listening culture. By extension, audience members may have come to rely on the extra musical literature provided to them such as written programs, pre-concert lectures and visualizations.”
Such visual and digital guides are available through orchestra websites – the Berliner Philharmoniker and the audio guides of the Nikolaisaal and Kammerakademie in Potsdam. Alongside these concert aids, Berlin and Potsdam offer outreach programs such as “Give Something Back to Berlin,” the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Sinfonieorchester Collegium Musicum Potsdam, that each contribute to community interactions like communal events and orchestra programs for a variety of ages. Wood hopes to discover if these efforts are crucial to understanding the recent shifts in the Berlin and Potsdam listening cultures.
In addition to examining contemporary practices in Potsdam and Berlin, she will look at archive materials from the last two decades, building on skills she developed as a student at UofSC. “I was bitten by the Ligeti bug,” she said, referring to Hungarian composer György Ligeti. Wanting to study Ligeti sketches at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, she sought funding from a variety of UofSC entities. “Both Dr. Hubbert and Dr. Jenkins guided me through applications for the Magellan, the Ceny Walker Undergraduate Fellowship, and the School of Music Travel Grant. These awards enabled me to embark upon a three-week journey to Switzerland.”
Students seeking national fellowships are assisted by the Office of Fellowships & Scholar Programs. For more information about the Fulbright US Student Program or other national competitions, contact the Office of Fellowships and Scholar Programs at 803-777-0958 or go to www.sc.edu/ofsp.