Matching gift jump starts music diversification effort

Outside the Gorton Music and Dance Library in Murphy Hall, a mix of sounds wash down the corridors, woodwind trills swirling with soaring voices and the rumble of drums. Inside, the library is a cove of quiet concentration dotted with glowing laptops, headphone-clad students, and brimming shelves of books and musical scores, which have been expanded in the last year thanks to investments from KU Libraries and the School of Music to increase the diversity of the library’s collection.

With leadership from Sara Outhier, Performing Arts Librarian, the library has placed special focus on meeting enthusiastic demand for diverse materials beyond what’s historically thought of as the traditional musical canon.

“There’s a lot of acknowledgement that the traditional canon is almost exclusively white and male,” said Outhier, who has been responding to “a lot of energy amongst the faculty and students to have a more representative collection.”

That energy combines with an initial $10,000 investment — half from KU Libraries and half from the School of Music — to purchase scores with a focus on African American, Latin American, Asian and Asian American composers, and to honor student and faculty requests for specific materials by artists from underrepresented groups.

“We know this is just scratching the surface,” Outhier said. She noted there is a strong desire to include representation of as many communities as possible through a planned annual investment in the effort by KU Libraries.

Margaret Marco, Professor of Oboe and Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging for the School of Music, has appreciated the expansion of the library’s collections and its impact on students. Marco teaches Recitals 100, a course for first-year music majors. As part of the course, students research pieces on their instrument written by underrepresented composers and select a piece to perform in class. Outhier supports development of student research skills and access to materials with specialized assistance inside and outside the classroom.

“Students can choose from this large wealth of music that’s out there that they wouldn’t have thought to look at before,” Marco said.

Interacting with new pieces broadens student and faculty points of view and can be inspiring, with some students from underrepresented communities even writing their own pieces to perform in Marco’s class.

“Access to more diverse materials allows students more independence to find music that means something to them,” Marco said.

With the help of KU Libraries, students are empowered to make discoveries, broaden their experience, and shape their own artistic development and education.

This content is an extended version of an article that first appeared in Annual Review, a KU Libraries publication that reviews accomplishments of the past year and a glimpse of priorities moving forward.