Professor brings international music to vocalists

When Mary Goetze wants to share new music with her students, she doesn't go to the books. She goes directly to the source.\nGoetze is a Jacobs School of Music professor who travels the world to bring international music to IU students.\nShe videotapes people performing songs in their native countries and asks them what the world should know about their music. Then she invites them to Bloomington to share with her students how the pieces should be performed.\nGoetze founded the International Vocal Ensemble in 1995 knowing it would be a group committed to a unique purpose -- exposing the West to international music that comes directly from the artists.\nThat purpose, which stemmed from her thinking that the Western world largely ignores 90 percent of music from around the globe, has not changed. The ensemble, which had its fall concert Sunday, sang pieces from countries as diverse as Kyrgyzstan and Jamaica, with dub poet Jean "Binta" Breeze as the guest artist. \nBreeze had the students perform pieces that were sung by slaves, and she said she was impressed with their ability to evoke the spirit of each song. Each piece was sung in its native language and original arrangement. \nFor Goetze, this remains the key to providing both the students and the public with authentic music. When she first explored the music within other countries, she came at it from a Western tradition, she said. But soon she realized this technique wasn't completely true to where the music was coming from.\n"I began to recognize my own Eurocentrism," Goetze said, "and I realized I needed to try and honor other approaches to these pieces of music."\nOne approach was to videotape the performers.\n"Their songs embody their culture, history and lives, and I feel that the students can really learn more about these people from the inside out, whether from watching them on video or seeing them in person," Goetze said.\nThe students in the International Vocal Ensemble often don't use sheet music to learn the pieces, which is one way the ensemble differs from other groups within the vocal department. Goetze, instead, has the students listen to clips of the songs while displaying the words on a projector.\nShe said she thinks students benefit as musicians by learning the pieces by ear because they not only enhance their oral memories, but also get in touch with each piece's emotional core.\n"Many musicians first engage the left side of their brain when learning a piece, which is the intellectual process of music. But most of the emotional information is in the right hemisphere," Goetze said.\nGoetze said her theory is that if students can disengage the left side of their brains when learning music, they will be able to sense the emotional side. \n"The analytical brain is trained to jump in, but that isn't the case for many other cultures," Goetze said. "We're trying to honor that."\nOnce the ensemble is familiar with a piece, she brings in the guest artists, or \n"informants," as she calls them. \nSenior Kristin Kolodziej, who joined the ensemble in fall 2002, said she thinks that working with the informants gives her a new perspective.\n"Because you're working directly with the source of the music, you get a stronger connection to it. These people show real spirit when they're performing, which makes it come alive," she said. \nThat spirit, Kolodziej said, is also true of Goetze, who always takes part in concerts by dancing and singing right alongside the students the whole way through.\n"Mary has this passion for music that is unbelievable," Kolodziej said. "Her energy is contagious."\nAdjunct professor Kat Domingo, who was the associate instructor for the ensemble eight years ago, has continued to sing with the group long after it was required for the graduate program. She credits this to Goetze's passion to her philosophy of viewing no culture as better than the next.\n"This is her effort to bring peace on the planet," Domingo said. "This music is a way for people to understand the world better socially and politically."\nBoth Domingo and Kolodziej agreed that Goetze's work is pioneering and has expanded the boundaries within the choral department. Kolodziej said she doesn't know anyone else who has made these different cultures so accessible. \nAfter her retirement in April 2007, Goetze plans to continue her work. Aside from teaching at the University, she has an ongoing series of DVDs and CD-ROMs she created that feature the translations, pronunciations and cultural information of the music she encounters. They are used by students all over the world, according to the International Vocal Ensemble Web site.\nAnd as for leaving the International Vocal Ensemble behind, she said she won't ever be far.\n"I will become sort of a grandmother figure when I leave the group," Goetze said. "I'll serve the new directors any way that I can. I'll always be a strong supporter"