Giving Spotlight: Seattle’s Raynier Foundation supports mentor-student collaborations

Young up-and-coming musicians learning from their musical elders on the concert stage—it’s a storied tradition running throughout the history of jazz and thriving in the nightclubs and concert venues where the artform lives and breathes. The tradition is also alive and well in the Jazz Studies program at the University of Washington, where collaborations between students, teachers, and guest artists have long been a hallmark of the program.

“The UW Jazz Studies program is always looking for ways to engineer cross-generational mentorship experiences for our students, as we believe it is perhaps the most important component of their education,” says Ted Poor, assistant professor in the program and faculty advisor for the annual student-run Improvised Music Project Festival (IMPFest), which brings touring musicians to campus to work and perform with UW students and faculty. It’s a model the program has built upon successfully since the festival’s inception in the mid-2000s. Now, a generous grant from Seattle’s Raynier Foundation is enabling the program to implement a pilot project over the next several years to greatly expand the variety and number of guest artists it brings to campus for student-mentor collaborations.

“The Foundation’s support will enable us to build on the successful model of our annual Improvised Music Project Festival by hosting a diverse array of world-class guest artists throughout the school year,” Poor says, adding that he estimates that the Foundation’s support will enable the program to host about nine guest artist residencies over a period of several years, including residencies by the featured artists for the 2023 IMPFest, composer/pianist Kris Davis and multi-instrumentalist Michael Libramento.

The guests will spend a week on campus in late April working intensively with the students before presenting public performances with them at the Meany Studio Theater on Friday and Saturday, April 28 and 29. But long before that, the students will already have begun to immerse themselves in the artists’ music.

“With each residency, our students are tasked with approaching the situation as if they themselves have been hired to play in the guest artist’s band,” Poor says. “Prior to the guest artist’s arrival, the students learn that artist’s repertoire to the best of their ability, then spend a week of intensive work with the guest artist, culminating in a live performance. They confront a vast range of approaches, styles, aesthetics, and temperaments, much the same as they will encounter as working professionals. It is demanding work that challenges our students to their core, and the rewards are significant.”

Other planned guests in the 2022-23 academic year include renowned Los Angeles-based recording engineer David Boucher, making a late January return visit to the UW. Boucher worked with students and faculty in 2022 when IMPFest became a week-long recording intensive without in- person performances. Using the School of Music’s new mobile recording system, Boucher worked with a variety of student and faculty ensembles to document new works, experiment with recording techniques, and teach fundamental recording and audio production skills.

In addition to the skills they gained, participating students benefited from opportunities to engage in deep listening. “As much as I love playing, I’ve really enjoyed sitting back here behind the desk with the headphones on and getting to watch and hear how things change,” said one participant, graduate student Beau Wood.

UW music student Jai Lasker called the recording intensive an “eye- opening experience” and said, “I’m feeling like I’m going to take a lot of what I learned and work that into whatever career I can make doing music.”

Whatever the artist, whatever the format, the outcomes of each residency are similar. “I’m certain the work we do strengthens the students’ ability to listen deeply and therefore to be better musicians,” Poor says. “At the conclusion of each residency, we see tremendous growth in our students in the areas of technique, musicianship, and, most importantly, in their individual artistic convictions. The progress gained from these experiences cannot be achieved in the classroom alone.”